The Problems with Designating the Muslim Brotherhood a Terrorist Organization

The Trump administration is currently considering adding the Muslim Brotherhood—an Islamist, anti-Semitic, and anti-Christian group dedicated to creating a “global Islamic state”—to the State Department’s official list of terrorist organizations. Although the Brotherhood’s motto concludes with the words “jihad is our way; death for the sake of Allah is our highest aspiration,” and although it has a history of terrorist sympathies, Eric Trager argues that the case for giving it the terrorist designation is not clear-cut:

First, the Muslim Brotherhood isn’t a single organization but an international movement composed of dozens of national Brotherhood organizations; . . . at times, Brotherhood organizations have worked at cross-purposes. . . . The second hurdle for designating the Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization relates to the narrow question of whether the Brotherhood’s activities meet the legal standard of engaging in “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.” To be sure, Hamas, [the Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch, which is already on the State Department list], meets this standard, because it targets civilians for murder. But in most other cases, Brotherhood organizations are quite careful to avoid crossing the line between expressing their ideological affinity for terrorist attacks—which they do quite prolifically—and directing their members to commit actual terrorist attacks. . . .

Moreover, given the historic influence of the Egyptian Brotherhood on the broader movement, the failure of [its leader, ousted Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi, to maintain power] and the subsequent collapse of the Egyptian Brotherhood has discredited the international movement considerably, and many Brotherhood chapters are significantly weaker than they were prior to the 2011 “Arab Spring” uprisings. In this sense, most Brotherhood organizations are exactly where the Trump administration should want them: marginalized and more capable of spewing hatred than acting on it. And there is plenty that the administration could do to keep the Brotherhood cornered, such as enhancing its cooperation with Middle Eastern partners that oppose the Brotherhood and speaking publicly about the Brotherhood’s hateful and violent ideology.

Alternatively, if the Trump administration tries and fails to designate the Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization, it could backfire: Brotherhood organizations would likely hail this as a victory and use a failed designation as evidence to claim—falsely—that they are nonviolent. And given the polarized political climate in Washington, a failed Brotherhood designation might ultimately afford the Brotherhood a more generous hearing in certain political and policy circles.

Read more at Cipher Brief

More about: Donald Trump, Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood, Politics & Current Affairs, Terrorism, U.S. Foreign policy

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF