Alliances formed for the sake of finishing off the Brotherhood

Last month, US President Donald Trump signed a decision that will initiate the process of designating the Egyptian, Jordanian and Lebanese branches of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations. Although this decision differs from the decision of Texas Governor Greg Abbott on 18 November designating the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, it shows that a policy toward the Brotherhood that has long continued in the US in a certain tension has reached an important decision stage.

The difference of Trump's decision is that it amounts merely to an instruction to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to submit a report on whether Muslim Brotherhood branches such as those in Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan will, for now, be designated as terrorist organizations. According to the White House fact sheet, the order instructs these secretaries to proceed with the designation procedures within 45 days after the report.

The grounds cited for this decision accuse the Muslim Brotherhood in these countries of supporting or encouraging acts of violence against Israel and the US's partners in the region, or of providing material support to Hamas.

Meanwhile, the tension in question that US policy on the Brotherhood is experiencing is taking place between the US administration's own objective criteria and the pressures to which it is subjected in international relations. The objective criteria say that the Muslim Brotherhood movement has no armed activity anywhere in the world. But some countries with which the US has relations at one level or another are asking the US to recognize the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.

In fact in these countries too the Brotherhood has no armed activity. That is, in most of them the real problem is the absence of democracy and the attempt to silence opposition movements entirely by oppressive methods. Even so, the Brotherhood is still seen in all these countries as the largest potential opposition movement. That these regimes, wholly unaccustomed to opposition, who have made the Brotherhood unable to breathe in their own countries, are also seeking such an international alliance against it means nothing other than the paranoia of these regimes. To see that such paranoia in fact eventually invites their own end, it is enough to leaf through a little history.

It is impossible not to see that the US, by responding positively to these demands, would be reduced to being a tool of mere paranoia. In fact one of the matters that has made the US hesitant on this issue so far, or rather has made these demands a tension for itself, is that the Brotherhood's presence is not limited to two or three countries. The Brotherhood today is a large international civil and political force active, even if under different names, in many countries. In some countries it is a potential opposition movement, while in others it is a partner in power.

Describing the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization could directly cause the perception of Islam's identification with terror to take deeper root, because the Brotherhood represents the most moderate, peaceful and democratic face of Islam. There is no example in Islamic countries of the Brotherhood coming to power through coups or armed revolutions. On the contrary, when given a chance in democratic processes, it is the candidate closest to power in all Islamic countries. In the Arab Spring process this picture was seen very clearly. In the first elections of the transition period that followed the popular uprisings, it was parties affiliated with the Brotherhood that won the elections in all these countries.

In fact, this was precisely the reason why the Arab Spring processes were interrupted here and there by bloody coups and even civil wars. In this situation the Brotherhood is a movement that, wherever it is, has been not the perpetrator but the victim of terrorist activities, military coups and human rights violations. In any case, the US and Europe, who have demolished their own criteria by never withdrawing their support for genocidal Israel, will be thoroughly discredited among Muslim peoples because of this attitude they display toward the Brotherhood.

There were heavy pressures from the Gulf countries and from Israel for the US to classify the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Israel, which suffered a great loss of prestige all over the world after 7 October, and which until now has always accused others of being terrorist, genocidal and anti-Semitic, this time began to be seen as a genocidal, primitive, murderous and bigoted community. Any accusation Israel can make against any country or movement from now on has lost all force and credibility. That the Brotherhood is the greatest enemy for Israel, an extremely dangerous terrorist organization that sets up terrorist organizations with an Islamist appearance for its own purposes and unleashes them on Muslims, is no secret. But at this stage it is also not right to think that Trump signed this decision acting only under Israel's pressure. On the contrary, Trump's new alliance order concerning the Middle East and the demands coming from Egypt and the Gulf countries appear to have pushed him to take this hesitant step.

Meanwhile, this step must also constitute a separate warning for those who say the Brotherhood movement is finished. The Brotherhood is still seen as the greatest threat in all the countries where it is said to be finished. In the security perceptions of these countries the Brotherhood continues to be the source of all paranoias. They even build their international relations on these arrangements.

Truly, this shows how great the pressures and human rights violations to which Brotherhood members can be subjected inside the country. Members of the Brotherhood are virtually not allowed to breathe, but despite this, do all these measures show that the movement is finished or that it is still a significant force? After all, if it were finished, why so many measures?