Egypt: Global Terror Is Result of U.S., European Support for Muslim Brotherhood

TEL AVIV – In the aftermath of the attacks in Brussels, the Egyptian press claimed that European support for the Muslim Brotherhood is the reason terror has struck the continent.

The editorial in the official Egyptian daily Al-Ahram asserted that Europe has maintained ties with extremist religious groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the ideological sister of the Islamic State, and did not heed Egypt’s warning that terrorism would spread to the heart of Europe. Instead, Europe allowed terrorists to roam free.

Below is an excerpt from the March 23 editorial, translated by MEMRI:

These countries thought that they could use these organizations for [their own] political interests in the Middle East, and [believed] in their delusion that these organizations would defend the West from the evil of even more extremist groups.

However, time has shown that the religious organizations embraced by the West, chiefly the [Muslim] Brotherhood organization, are the ideological hotbed for all extremist takfiri organizations… and that the presence of such elements on European soil has enabled them to attract young people to their radical ideology and to recruit them to carry out acts of terrorism.

Egyptian journalist Mu’ataz Bellah Abd Al-Fattah penned an article titled “Brussels Pays the Price” in the competing Egyptian daily Al-Watan, in which he claimed that Europe’s acceptance of refugees and its policies of free speech allowed terrorism to take over.

Western countries, he said, “allow extremism to blossom in their midst, on the pretext of freedom of opinion, freedom of speech, and the right to political asylum. Then they are burned by the fires of those who carry out extremist actions on their soil.”

“The problem is that the West fails to realize that it is sheltering extremists, and it is then burned by the fire of terrorism, and does not hold itself accountable for that,” he added.

Egypt was not alone in blaming Europe for the attacks. Almost without exception, every Arab and Muslim country assigned blame to the West.

The Syrian regime of President Bashar Al-Assad and Hezbollah in Lebanon both stated that the spread of terrorism was due to the U.S. and European support for state sponsors of terror including Turkey, Qatar, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.

“This terrorism would not have spread had its organizations and its supporting entities not received an American green light,” wrote Ali Nasrallah, a columnist for the official Syrian daily Al-Thawra.

Meanwhile, Saudi media accused the West of turning a blind eye to terrorism in the Middle East.

The Palestinian press said that the Brussels attacks were the result of the West’s “double standards.” The U.S.’s “blind pro-Israel bias” despite the Jewish state’s “destructive policy” was encouraging ongoing global terrorism.