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Reporter Samy Magdy correctly notes that the recently deceased Muslim Brotherhood leader, Mohammed Morsi, was an “Islamist” who, during his brief tenure as Egypt’s president, monopolized power and tried to “entrench Islamist rule.” But little is said about Morsi and the Brotherhood’s illiberal views.
In a 2010 speech before coming to power, Morsi encouraged Egyptians to “nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred” for Zionists and Jews—and compared the latter to “apes and pigs” in a TV interview that same year. In a Jan. 2013 meeting with seven U.S. Senators, then-President Morsi was asked about these comments and responded by asserting that Jews control American media.
Morsi’s comments are indicative of the worldview of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is steeped in conspiratorial thinking and hatred of Jews, Christians and the many Muslims who don’t share their goal of the establishment of a theocratic, totalitarian state. Regrettably, although Morsi was deposed, his views still find a wide audience and derivatives of the Brotherhood continue to seek power—often while obfuscating on their twisted ideology.
Sean Durns
Washington D.C.
The writer is a Senior Research Analyst for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America
(Note: A version of this letter to the editor appeared in the print edition of The Baltimore Sun on June 20, 2019)