Hamas Chief: “Islamic Spring”; Brotherhood Chief: Caliphate Soon; Western Media: Islamists Moderate, Israel Bad

By Barry Rubin

A 27-year-old American-Israeli law school student decides he's going to go to Egypt and talk to Egyptians. He gets arrested by the authorities there as a spy, then is released in the prisoner exchange. He then brags that the mere charm of his magical persuasion convinced hardened Muslim Brotherhood cadre not to be anti-Israel any more. So there's nothing to worry about!

That’s worth a Washington Post op-ed.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s leader calling for an Islamic state and a caliphate that isn’t?

But at least the New York Times reported the statement of Ismail Haniya (who it calls “the Hamas prime minister of Gaza”) on his official state visit to Turkey: “The Arab Spring is turning into an Islamic spring.”

Haniya knows it. We know it. Why don’t Western governments, mass media, and “experts” understand what this means? It doesn’t mean a springtime for “Islam” as a “religion of peace” but a springtime for political Islamism as being in power, imposing a very anti-Western, anti-Christian, anti-American and radically intolerant interpretation of Islam on their countries.

In his official weekly message published on the official Brotherhood website the official leader, Muhammad al-Badi, of the group  that is officially by far the biggest political party and parliamentary vote-getter in Egypt said, in an Egyptian newspaper’s summary, that the Brotherhood will now begin the “long-term plan for the reform of all aspects of people’s lives.” (Note: Why didn’t Barack and Michelle think of that phrase first?)

And soon, the Brotherhood's supreme guide also explains, the caliphate will be restored (I don't believe him but the fact that he thinks so is significant. Oh yes, now why is the caliphate important? Well, one reason is that the caliph can supposedly declare an international jihad in which every Muslim must fight. (I don't believe that either and it didn't work out well when the German-backed Ottoman caliph tried it in World War One. But it does tell something about the Brotherhood's plans for the future. 

To my knowledge that statement by the supreme guide--an actual leaders of hundreds of thousand of people backed by almost half of Egyptians--has not been reported in any Western mass media outlet.

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