US to recognize Muslim Brotherhood (Updated)

Well, the Muslim Brotherhood is just another secular force in Egyptian politics, right?

The U.S. has decided to formally resume contact with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood group – which does not recognize Israel – in a move that could further alienate some Jewish voters already skeptical of President Barack Obama, it was reported.

One senior U.S. official said the Brotherhood’s rise in political prominence after the forced departure of former President Hosni Mubarak earlier this year makes the American contact necessary.

“The political landscape in Egypt has changed, and is changing… It is in our interests to engage with all of the parties that are competing for parliament or the presidency,” said the official, who confirmed the news to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The Muslim Brotherhood is the fountainhead of Islamic terrorism, from Hamas to the PLO to to al Qaeda. The Obama administration has been signalling this move for months, with the “mostly secular” line and with its overall support for the Egyptian uprising even after it became apparent that the Brotherhood was among the powerful forces driving it.

The Brotherhood doesn’t recognize Israel, but the US is poised to recognize the Brotherhood. Its potential victory in Egypt’s upcoming elections has started a bit of a panic there among the actual secularists who thought they were gaining freedom with Mubarak’s ouster. The Obama administration’s decision to recognize the Brotherhood ahead of Egypt’s elections will impact that election, and possibly his own re-election next year as Jewish Democrats may be forced to reconsider their support for him.

Update: Andrew McCarthy weighs in.

This day has been coming since President Obama’s first day in office. In 2007-08, the Brotherhood was proved by the Justice Department to be engaged in what the Brotherhood itself describes as a “grand jihad” aimed at the “elimination and destruction of Western civilization from within” by “sabotage.” The title of my book was not my words but theirs — taken from their internal memoranda, seized by the FBI from the home of a Brotherhood official. The Brotherhood’s anti-U.S. strategy was not news to anyone who follows Islamist movements, but the proof for all to see came during the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial, during which several defendants were convicted of funneling millions of dollars to Hamas. Supporting Hamas’s terrorist war against Israel has been the Brotherhood’s highest priority in the U.S. since Hamas was formed, and trial evidence showed unmistakably that the leading Islamist organizations in the U.S. — almost all either formed by or having ties to the Brotherhood — were complicit.