Vital Perspective

Egyptian Police Arrest Eight Members of Muslim Brotherhood in Midnight Raid

Egyptian police have arrested eight members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Nile Delta governorate of Menufiya, the group's website reported. The eight reportedly had their houses searched and some of their belongings damaged.

The arrests were the latest steps targeting the Islamist group whose members, elected as independents, hold 88 seats in the 454-seat parliament. "Their houses were searched at half past midnight and their current location is so far unknown," the Brotherhood said.

Jordan Continues Efforts Against Extremists, Government to Control Fatwas

Lawmakers in the Jordanian Parliament have approved a measure that would only allow a state-appointed council to issue fatwas, a move aimed at denying Islamic hard-liners a forum for disseminating extremist ideology. The proposal on fatwas follows a pledge by King Abdullah II in the wake of terror recent attacks to tighten legislation to prevent radical viewpoints from taking root.

Currently, the powerful Muslim Brotherhood movement and other smaller hard-line Islamic groups issue fatwas, but that would have to end under this new law. The legislation also makes it illegal to criticize fatwas issued by a government-appointed council, whose members have yet to be named but will likely include top Muslim clerics and scholars.

In the last month, Jordanian legislators gave the state the authority to approve mosque preachers, enabling it to keep Muslim extremists from using pulpits to spread extremist ideas. They also approved anti-terrorism legislation that imposes severe penalties for involvement in terror acts.

Mubarak Softens Position on Hezbollah; Police Arrest 17 from Brotherhood

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak appears to have softened his stance on Hezbollah, calling the group "part of the Lebanese national fabric," according to a published report in the semiofficial weekly Akhbar el-Yom newspaper. "Resisting the occupier is a legitimate right under the condition that it springs from free will and in accordance to the supreme national interest," Mubarak said.

Mubarak was among some Arab leaders who initially blamed Hezbollah for carrying out an "uncalculated adventures" when the group kidnapped two IDF soldiers on July 12.

Also out of Egypt today, police arrested 17 members of the Muslim Brotherhood in a dawn swoop north of Cairo, the group announced on its website. The detainees, which included engineers, a lawyer and a dentist, were visiting a member of the Brotherhood in the northern province of Menufiya.

Last week, the Egyptian judiciary granted the release of Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Essam el-Erian after three months of detention but reversed the decision two days later and said he would be held for a further 15 days.

Examining Seven Fronts in the Global War on Terror, Repricussions on Israel

Youssef Ibrahim has laid out the seven fronts of the Global War on Terror in an articulate New York Sun article, summarized below:

• Lebanon and Iraq are full-blown crises, both driven by Shiite and Sunni jihadists. In Iraq, the Shiites and Sunnis are fighting each other, but they occasionally join hands in an effort to defeat the American project. In Lebanon, the Shiite Hezbollah terror group has dragged the country into a war with Israel, but in the process is returning Lebanon to the combined influence zone of Iran and Syria while destroying its Western-friendly government.
• In Gaza, a jihadist Palestinian Arab terror group, Hamas, is engaged in a second-front war with Israel.
• In Egypt and Jordan, two countries that have signed a peace treaty with Israel, the jihadist Muslim Brotherhood is ramping up the pressure, organizing demonstrations and a huge press campaign in support of the ongoing Hezbollah and Hamas wars.
• From his hideout in Afghanistan, Ayman al-Zawahiri has announced a union of al-Qaeda with Gamaa Islamiya of Egypt, the terror group that assassinated President Sadat. Gamaa Islamiya is urging all jihadists to support their Shiite Hezbollah brethren in Lebanon, and pushing for all jihadists in Iraq to fight Americans.
• In Baghdad last week, the Iraqi Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr organized the largest anti-American, anti-Israel demonstration in the world, in the very heart of the Iraqi capital.
• Yesterday, the world was reminded once again how far the jihadist tentacles extend, as Britain announced the arrest of 24 Muslims on the verge of launching the biggest attack on airplanes and passengers since the September 11, 2001, assault on America.

To be sure, there is no evidence these jihadists have coordinated their actions, but they are waving at each other under what will surely be a unity banner. How could they not?

Israel can no longer count on a peaceful future. The real aim of the jihadist Hezbollah and its masters in Iran and Syria was to revive the notion that Israel can be militarily engaged - and that it can be made to bleed. That much has already been accomplished, as evidenced in Saudi, Kuwaiti, and Arab Gulf newspapers, which are now filled with editorials and letters to the editor calling for a "united front" against Israel and open borders in states neighboring it, so that the jihadists can "cross to the fight," even though the governments of those oil-rich countries are far more concerned with Iran and Syria than they are with Israel.

Blair Speaks on "Reactionary Islam"; GWOT is a War About Global Values

British PM Tony Blair delivered a very interesting speech yesterday to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council on the UK foreign policy on the Middle East and the need to combat "reactionary Islam." Blair touches on every conflict in the region from top to bottom in his argument that the war on terror is a war about global values. Full text continues below the fold:

TONY BLAIR: Overnight, the news came through that as well as continuing conflict in the Lebanon, Britain's Armed Forces suffered losses in Iraq and Afghanistan. It brings home yet again the extraordinary courage and commitment of our armed forces who risk their lives and in some cases tragically lose them, defending our country's security and that of the wider world. These are people of whom we should be very proud.

I know the U.S. has suffered heavy losses too in Iraq and in Afghanistan. We should never forget how much we owe these people, how great their bravery, and their sacrifice.

I planned the basis of this speech several weeks ago. The crisis in the Lebanon has not changed its thesis. It has brought it into sharp relief.

The purpose of the provocation that began the conflict was clear. It was to create chaos, division and bloodshed, to provoke retaliation by Israel that would lead to Arab and Muslim opinion being inflamed, not against those who started the aggression but against those who responded to it.

It is still possible even now to come out of this crisis with a better long-term prospect for the cause of moderation in the Middle East succeeding. But it would be absurd not to face up to the immediate damage to that cause which has been done.

We will continue to do all we can to halt the hostilities. But once that has happened, we must commit ourselves to a complete renaissance of our strategy to defeat those that threaten us. There is an arc of extremism now stretching across the Middle East and touching, with increasing definition, countries far outside that region. To defeat it will need an alliance of moderation, that paints a different future in which Muslim, Jew and Christian; Arab and Western; wealthy and developing nations can make progress in peace and harmony with each other. My argument to you today is this: we will not win the battle against this global extremism unless we win it at the level of values as much as force, unless we show we are even-handed, fair and just in our application of those values to the world.

The point is this. This is war, but of a completely unconventional kind.

Saudi Wahhabi Sheik Issues Fatwa Against Hezbollah; Rally Planned in Cairo

Eli Lake, reporter for the New York Sun in Cairo, reports that one of Saudi Arabia's leading Wahhabi sheiks, Abdullah bin Jabreen has issued a strongly worded fatwa declaring it unlawful to support, join or pray for Hezbollah.

The day after Hezbollah kidnapped two IDF soldiers, Sheik Hamid al-Ali issued an informal statement titled "The Sharia position on what is going on." In it, the Kuwaiti based cleric condemned the imperial ambitions of Iran regarding Hezbollah's cross border raid.

Lake writes that "the surprising move demonstrates that Sunni Muslim fundamentalists in the Middle East are deeply divided over whether they should support Hezbollah. While the Gulf's ascetic Wahhabi sects, who are closer to the ethnic fighting between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, have opposed Hezbollah in its stand against Israel's forces, other Sunni fundamentalist groups, such as the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, have pledged their solidarity. On Friday, the brothers will host a rally in support of Hezbollah at Cairo's most influential mosque, Al-Azhar."

Supporters of Terror Back Hezbollah, Ahmadinejad Tells Zionists "Wrap it Up"

Syrian Vice President Faruq al-Shara has said Israel's occupation of Arab land lay at the root of a new crisis that saw Israeli troops enter Lebanon for the first time in six years. Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani voiced strong support for the kidnappings, saying that "resistance is necessary at a time when the Zionist entity is launching attacks and carrying out massacres against the Palestinian people." Syria and Iran are well documented to be the primary funding entities of Hezbollah.

Hamas and Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood both congratulated Hezbollah on the kidnapping in statements released Wednesday. In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on supporters of Zionism to "wrap it up before its too late" before warning that "the pent-up anger of inhabitants of the the region could erupt anytime and bring disaster to the Zionists as well as its supporters."

On the opposite side of the fence, the U.S., Britain, Japan, UN and EU condemned the kidnappings and the rocket attacks by Hezbollah, saying they had dangerously escalated Middle East tensions.

Jordanian Authorities Break Up Brotherhood's Pro-Palestinian Rally

The India Daily reports that Jordanian authorities broke up a Muslim Brotherhood-organized pro-Palestinian rally in Amman on July 7. Riot police dispersed the crowd inside a mosque at Jordan University during a speech by the head of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan accusing Israel of "atrocities" in Gaza. The Brotherhood's political arm, the Islamic Action Front, said "tens of activists" were arrested during the raid.

Muslim Brotherhood: Mubarak to Relay Power to Son 'Within a Year'

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is predicting that President Hosni Mubarak, 78, will relay power to his son Gamal within a year. "The matter will not go on for more than a year," Muslim Brotherhood deputy secretary-general Mohammed Habib said. "Perhaps less than a year."

Habib said he expected an increase in restrictions on democracy, free speech as well as thousands of arrests of opponents of the regime.

In the meantime, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is working on a film about the life of Hassan al-Banna, who founded the Brotherhood in 1928 and was killed in 1949. Al-Banna based his ideas that Islam was not only a religious observance, but a comprehensive way of life, on the tenets of Wahhabism, better known today as "Islamism", and he supplemented the traditional Islamic education for male students with jihadia training.

The Brotherhood hopes the film will be shown across the globe and that the West will better understand them. "We want the U.S. and Europe to see the film so they can know the truth about Hassan Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood," al-Banna's son said.

Muslim Brotherhood Organizes 3,000 in Egypt to Call for Holy War on Israel

More than 3,000 protesters at the Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo called for holy war against Israel on Friday. The mosque is the most prominent instituation in the Sunni Arab World. The event was organized by the Muslim Brotherhood.

"Rulers of Arab countries, start holy war!" men shouted.

Some participants -- who were not even Egyptian -- said they had little hope their governments would listen. "We have a chronic problem in the Arab world; policies don’t reflect what the people want," said Mohammed al-Zaeem, 36, a visiting Syrian.