NY Times publishes propaganda piece by the "official spokesman" for the Muslim Brotherhood

Recently the lying, pro-Democrat, anti-Christian, open-border-pushing New York Times published a long piece on the "Opinion" page of its website by Gehad el-Haddad, who it says is "the official spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood."

El-Haddad is clearly a skilled writer, and may well be interested in religious freedom, personal freedom and representative government.  But as I'll show below, the piece is pure propaganda.

TORA, Egypt — I write this from the darkness of solitary confinement in Egypt’s most notorious prison, where I have been held for more than three years.  I am forced to write these words because an inquiry is underway in the United States regarding charges that the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization to which I have devoted years of my life, is a terrorist group.

El-Haddad claims he was "forced to write" because an inquiry was "underway in the United States."  But the claim is nonsense:  he's in prison not due to any "inquiry" in the U.S., but at the order of the government of Egypt, for conspiring to overthrow it.  The government of Barack Hussein Obama saw nothing objectionable about el-Haddad, and in any case the Egyptian government would have no interest in throwing the guy in jail to please a U.S. president.  El-Haddad knows that U.S. liberals love victims--especially when the victim can blame the U.S, no matter how falsely. 

We are not terrorists. The Muslim Brotherhood’s philosophy is inspired by an understanding of Islam that emphasizes the values of social justice, equality and the rule of law. 

Interesting claim.  Is this why official Muslim doctrine calls for non-Muslims to be forced to pay the "jizya"--a tax that shows submission to Islam, and second-class status for non-Muslims?  Does el-Haddad claim this is "equality"?  And about the Brotherhood's alleged dedication to the "rule of law:"  Does this mean the Brotherhood no longer advocates forcing the entire world to adopt sharia law?  How...unprecedented.

Our idea is very simple: We believe that faith must translate into action. That the test of faith is the good you want to do in the lives of others, and that people working together is the only way to develop a nation, meet the aspirations of its youth and engage the world constructively. We believe that our faith is inherently pluralistic and comprehensive and that no one has a divine mandate or the right to impose a single vision on society.

So he claims the idea of establishing the "caliphate" is no longer Muslim doctrine?  Again, a new concept.

Since our inception, we have been engaged politically in the institutions of our country as well as socially to address the direct needs of people. Despite being the most persecuted group under former President Hosni Mubarak’s rule in Egypt, our involvement in the Parliament, either in coalitions with other political groups or as independents, is a testament to our commitment to legal change and reform.  We worked with independent pro-democracy organizations against plans to hand the presidency to Mr. Mubarak’s son. 

During the one year of Egypt’s nascent democracy we were dedicated to reforming state institutions to harbor further democratic rule. We were unaware of the amount of pushback we would receive from hard-liners in these institutions. We were ill-equipped to handle the level of corruption within the state. We pursued reforms through government, ignoring public protest in the streets. We were wrong. By now I am sure many books have been written about what we got wrong, but any fair analysis of the facts will show that we are fundamentally opposed to the use of force. Our flaws are many, but violence is not one.

So does the Brotherhood condemn throwing homosexuals off rooftops?  Hanging 'em from cranes, as has been done in Teheran?  Let's hear from him.

Over the last four years Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has clamped down on the opposition and presided over a campaign of brutal repression. State authorities are responsible for extrajudicial killings, disappearances of hundreds of civilians and the detention of tens of thousands of political prisoners. 

This continued escalation in repressive measures has been described by independent human rights organizations as constituting crimes against humanity. Despite all of that, we hold on to our belief that political disagreements should be settled with deliberation, not fear-mongering and terror. We remain committed to our ideals of community development, social justice and nonviolence.

We have long heard that violent groups were “spawned” by the Muslim Brotherhood or were our “offshoots.” This is wildly misleading. In the cases where people did leave the Muslim Brotherhood to embrace violence, they did so specifically because they found no path in our philosophy, vision of society or movement for such extremism. 

A great many of these extremists — if not all — consider us apostates and politically naïve. This is not an issue as simple as distaste for our political naïveté, but is in fact recognition that our philosophy renders their extremist ideology irrelevant. Not only is our movement based on a deep conviction that morally upright societies prosper, but its peaceful reformist approach has also guaranteed its longevity, as history has demonstrated.

Our movement has outlived intolerant societies, repressive regimes, violent rebel groups and the rapid drive to a clash of civilizations by extremists the world over. To attribute terrorism to us is akin to attributing the violence of Timothy McVeigh, who set off a deadly bomb in Oklahoma City in 1995, to patriotism, or white supremacist ideologies to Christian teachings.

The Muslim Brotherhood has devoted the larger part of its involvement in public life to providing social service programs in poor neighborhoods, including free clinics, food banks and academic and logistic support to poor college students. We fill a void created by corruption, absence of state provision and lack of an adequate civil society.

In hindsight, I regret that political maneuvering created distance between us and the people we have long lived to serve, a hard-learned lesson from the Arab Spring. We recognize our political mishaps, but the leap from public deliberation to detentions and fallacious designations is preposterous, shortsighted and an alarming precedent.

The ideas expressed in the letter published by the Times are soothing, reassuring, admirable.  And gosh, the Times claims el-Haddad is THE official spokesman for the Brotherhood.  How much more proof does one need, eh?  And I'm certainly willing to be convinced that the Brotherhood is as tolerant and supportive of freedom and democracy as the author claims.  It would be absolutely great.

So I propose a way to see if his words are true--to see if the Brotherhood agrees with el-Haddad, or whether the soothing words he wrote are simply lies and propaganda, not believed even by the editors of the Times: 

 Let the editors of the Times openly ask the Muslim Brotherhood to openly declare--on a television broadcast viewable by all Muslim nations--that the Brotherhood 

1. condemns all violence, including violence committed by Muslims against non-Muslims; 
2. does not seek to establish a Muslim caliphate;
3. does not seek to impose Sharia law on non-Muslims;
4. does not insist that non-Muslims be made to pay the jizya;

Very easy, eh? 

If what el-Haddad wrote in the Opinion piece of the Times truly represents the belief of the Brotherhood, let them openly proclaim that.

Of course the editors of the Times won't ask 'em to do that, because they don't believe this is real--and they don't want to put the Brotherhood in the position of having to refuse.

Finally:  Does anyone believe the Times would ever print an op-ed by a Christian pushing Christian beliefs?