Robert Spencer in FrontPage Magazine: The Muslim Brotherhood President

From Jihad Watch:

The State Department announced Wednesday that it was cutting hundreds of millions in military and other aid to Egypt, and make no mistake: this was not a government shutdown move. This was the President of the United States blackmailing a sovereign state to force it to restore the Muslim Brotherhood government he favors. With the Egyptian economy in crisis and Egypt strongly dependent on this aid, Obama has just effectively cast his vote for the Muslim Brotherhood’s return to power – and his vote outweighs that of millions of Egyptians.

This comes as the Brotherhood is becoming increasingly violent in Egypt, belying its “moderate” reputation. The New York Times reported Tuesday that “three brazen attacks across the country included a drive-by shooting near the Suez Canal that killed six soldiers, a car bomb that killed three police officers and wounded dozens near the Red Sea resorts area, and the first rocket-propelled grenade launched in the struggle, exploding near an elite enclave of the capital and damaging a satellite transmitter.”

Obama has said nothing about this. Nor has he said anything about the recent attempt by Muslim Brotherhood supporters to assassinate Bishop Makarios of Upper Egypt’s Minya governorate, where Brotherhood men have burned churches and terrorized Christians, scapegoating them for the toppling of the Muslim Brotherhood regime. Indeed, Christians have been scapegoated and brutalized all over Egypt at the hands of supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood.

This persecution has had a decidedly Islamic cast: Asia News reported on September 13 that “the Muslim Brotherhood have turned an evangelical Protestant church in Monshaat Baddini in the province of Samalout (Minya, Upper Egypt) into a mosque. According to local sources, the Islamists have removed all sacred furnishings, paintings, icons and recited the special prayer to consecrate the building to Allah. On the wall of the church an inscription reads: ‘mosque of martyrs and there is no other God but Allah.’”

And AINA reported on the same day that “two Coptic Christians government employees were shot dead yesterday for refusing to pay Jizya, the Muslim poll tax on Christians. Emad Damian, 50, and his cousin Medhat Damian, 37, from the village of Sahel Selim in Assuit Province, were contacted two days before their murder by the leader of a Muslim gang, who was identified by Watany Coptic Newspaper as Ashraf Ahmed Mohammed Khalajah, a registered criminal from the village.”

The jizya is a tax that non-Muslims must pay as a sign of their subjugation to the Muslims, and it is mandated in the Qur’an: “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” (9:29)

Yet while warning the Burmese government to stop persecuting that nation’s Muslims, Obama has said little about the escalating persecution of Christians in Egypt – a persecution that is being carried out by people who want to see the Muslim Brotherhood in power there.

Obama’s unstinting and uncritical support for the Muslim Brotherhood is nothing new. The Obama administration’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has for years been so glaringly obvious that in July 2012, when then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Egypt and had a cordial meeting with now-ousted Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi, foes of the Brotherhood regime pelted her motorcade with tomatoes and shoes for delivering that country up to the rule of the Brotherhood. Protestors held signs reading “Message to Hillary: Egypt will never be Pakistan”; “To Hillary: Hamas will never rule Egypt” and “If you like the Ikhwan [Brotherhood], take them with you!”

And last summer, when the Brotherhood regime was suddenly and unexpectedly toppled from power, numerous anti-Brotherhood protesters held signs accusing Obama of supporting terrorists. One foe of the Brotherhood made a music videoincluding the lyrics: “Hey Obama, support the terrorism/Traitor like the Brotherhood members/Obama say it’s a coup/That’s not your business dirty man.”

Obama’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood goes back to the beginning of his presidency. Early in 2009, when the group was still outlawed in Egypt, he met with its leaders. He made sure to invite Brotherhood leaders to attend his notorious speech to the Islamic world in Cairo in June 4, 2009.

He even invited Ingrid Mattson, then-president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), to offer a prayer at the National Cathedral on his first Inauguration Day – despite the fact that ISNA has admitted its ties to the Brotherhood. The previous summer, federal prosecutors rejected a request from ISNA to remove its unindicted co-conspirator status.

With Brotherhood operatives so warmly favored in the Obama Administration, it’s no surprise that he would want them in power in Egypt as well. And by cutting off aid, he’s strong-arming the Egyptians until they have no choice but to agree.