By Daoud Kuttab

Eighty-five years after its establishment and only one year after one of its followers was elected the president of Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood is experiencing an unprecedented nakba (catastrophe), whose effects are being felt throughout the region.

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded as a Sunni Islamist religious, political and social movement in Ismailia, Egypt, by Hassan al-Banna in March 1928. It has survived government crackdowns and imprisonment, and it succeeded in gaining power in Egypt in large due to the splintering of the votes between various secular leaders vying for the post-January 25 revolution presidency.

The Brotherhood’s credo was and is, “Allah is our objective; the Quran is our law, the Prophet is our leader; Jihad is our way; and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations.” Before gaining power in Egypt, its most prominent success was in Palestine with the electoral victory of the pro-Muslim Brotherhood Hamas movement in 2006. Although the Brotherhood’s history does not reflect using military and violent means to reach power, its Hamas affiliate did. And even though religious Muslims usually consider suicide to be haram (forbidden), the Brotherhood’s leading religious advocate Yusuf al-Qaradawi did sanction Palestinian suicide acts against Israelis. Qaradawi based his support on the premise that Israelis were not civilians but rather combatants in a war of occupation waged against the Palestinians.  Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Hamas stands to be the major loser in the latest popular revolt in Egypt, which pits millions of Egyptians against now deposed President Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Islamic Resistance Movement, known for its Arabic acronym Hamas, a year ago welcomed Morsi’s election. Both Hamas and Morsi ideologically belong to the same Islamist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, although there is no organizational link between the two groups. In fact, contrary to conventional thinking, Hamas and the Morsi administration have had a rocky relationship despite their ideological closeness. Many Egyptians accuse Hamas of responsibility for the killing of 16 of its soldiers in August 2012 near the Gaza-Egypt border. Egypt’s government-controlled al-Ahramobserved as late as April that Egyptian support for Hamas was declining.

Reports that some 7,000 Hamas militants were in Egypt to support the Brotherhood circulated in the media despite persistent denials by Egyptian as well as Hamas spokesmen. Like Hezbollah, Hamas is accused in Egyptian courts of engineering the jailbreak of several senior Muslim Brotherhood leaders, including Morsi, in 2011. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

I thought I would use my column, which appears on US Independence Day, to celebrate one of America’s most valued contribution to the world: the First Amendment.

Here is the exact text of the amendment adopted in 1791 as part of 10 amendments that make up the US Bill of Rights: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

At a time when religion is clearly the biggest obstacle to progress in the Arab world, it would be great to have a First Amendment-like clause in all Arab constitutions.

The failed first year of Muslim Brotherhood presidency in Egypt, the failure of Hamas Islamists in Gaza and the sectarianism rocking Syria, Iraq and Bahrain, to name a few Arab countries, are enough to make one dream of a governance structure in the Arab world that is not based on or involves religion or takes sides in a religious sectarian conflict.

The First Amendment of the US Constitution is also a great source of inspiration and support for freedom of expression, freedom of the press and the right of people to hold peaceful protests.

Denying the legislature the chance to pass media-restrictive laws would go a long way in planting permanently the seeds of the right to freedom guaranteed in the 19th article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; the right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers”. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

US Secretary of State John Kerry is clocking more hours than most US diplomats in trying to bring the Palestinian and Israeli leaders back to the negotiating table. All sides confirm that progress is being made and gaps are being tightened, but little information on the details of these talks is known. For a rare change, the term “secret negotiations” is not necessarily a bad phrase.

Recent Middle East history has shown that whenever negotiations have kept a tight lip, they were serious about finding a way forward. Conventional wisdom in this part of the world is that whenever the parties are rushing to the media, you can be sure, they are not serious.

But despite this silence, some statements were made and reactions to daily events were avoided, and both are also reflective of the seriousness of the parties.

Israeli leaders including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres have been stressing that Israel doesn’t want to become a bi-national country. Such statements are a clear indication of support for the two-state solution, and it aims at preparing the Israeli public for that eventuality. Continue Reading »