[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD'S GLOBAL THREAT
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JULY 11, 2018
__________
Serial No. 115-90
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
http://oversight.house.gov
_________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
31-367 PDF WASHINGTON : 2018
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Trey Gowdy, South Carolina, Chairman
John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland,
Darrell E. Issa, California Ranking Minority Member
Jim Jordan, Ohio Carolyn B. Maloney, New York
Mark Sanford, South Carolina Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Justin Amash, Michigan Columbia
Paul A. Gosar, Arizona Wm. Lacy Clay, Missouri
Scott DesJarlais, Tennessee Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Jim Cooper, Tennessee
Thomas Massie, Kentucky Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Mark Meadows, North Carolina Robin L. Kelly, Illinois
Ron DeSantis, Florida Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan
Dennis A. Ross, Florida Bonnie Watson Coleman, New Jersey
Mark Walker, North Carolina Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Rod Blum, Iowa Jamie Raskin, Maryland
Jody B. Hice, Georgia Jimmy Gomez, Maryland
Steve Russell, Oklahoma Peter Welch, Vermont
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Matt Cartwright, Pennsylvania
Will Hurd, Texas Mark DeSaulnier, California
Gary J. Palmer, Alabama Stacey E. Plaskett, Virgin Islands
James Comer, Kentucky John P. Sarbanes, Maryland
Paul Mitchell, Michigan
Greg Gianforte, Montana
Vacancy
Sheria Clarke, Staff Director
William McKenna, General Counsel
Samuel Wisch, Professional Staff Member
Sharon Eshelman, National Security Subcommittee Staff Director
Sharon Casey, Deputy Chief Clerk
David Rapallo, Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on National Security
Ron DeSantis, Florida, Chairman
Steve Russell, Oklahoma, Vice Chair Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts,
John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee Ranking Minority Member
Justin Amash, Michigan Peter Welch, Vermont
Paul A. Gosar, Arizona Mark DeSaulnier, California
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Jimmy Gomez, California
Jody B. Hice, Georgia Vacancy
James Comer, Kentucky Vacancy
Vacancy
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on July 11, 2018.................................... 1
WITNESSES
Hillel Fradkin, Ph.D., Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
Oral Statement............................................... 5
Written Statement............................................ 8
Jonathan Schanzer, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Foundation for
Defense of Democracies
Oral Statement............................................... 16
Written Statement............................................ 18
M. Zuhdi Jasser, M.D., President & Founder, American Islamic
Forum for Democracy
Oral Statement............................................... 40
Written Statement............................................ 43
The Honorable Daniel Benjamin, Norman E. McCulloch Jr. Director,
John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding,
Dartmouth College
Oral Statement............................................... 66
Written Statement............................................ 69
APPENDIX
Statement by Ambassador Ryan Crocker, Diplomat in Residence,
Princeton University, submitted by Mr. Lynch................... 88
THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD'S GLOBAL THREAT
----------
Wednesday, July 11, 2018
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on National Security,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:06 a.m., in
Room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ron DeSantis
[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives DeSantis, Duncan, Gosar, Hice,
Comer, Lynch, and DeSaulnier.
Also Present: Representative Grothman.
Mr. DeSantis. The Subcommittee on National Security will
come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to
declare a recess at any time.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a militant Islamist organization
with affiliates in over 70 countries, including groups
designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S.
Whether the Muslim Brotherhood writ large should be
designated as a foreign terrorist organization has been the
topic of debate here in Congress in recent years and has been
under consideration by the Trump administration.
Thankfully, the Trump administration has discarded the
Obama era policy of treating the Brotherhood as a potential
ally. Now the questions are focused on how expansive to make
the terror designation and whether it should be done through
the State Department or Treasury Department.
The Muslim Brotherhood has been militant from its very
beginning. Its founder, Hassan al-Banna, who started the group
in 1928, said that, quote: ``Jihad is an obligation from Allah
and every Muslim and cannot be ignored nor evaded.''
And in a book titled ``The Way of Jihad'' he wrote: ``Jihad
means the fighting of the unbelievers and involves all possible
efforts that are necessary to dismantle the power of the
enemies of Islam, including beating them, plundering their
wealth, destroying their places of worship, and smashing their
idols,'' end quote.
This belief was put into action in the decades that
followed as the Muslim Brotherhood's members committed numerous
acts of terrorism, including the assassination of Egypt's Prime
Minister in 1948.
This jihadist ideology continues to fuel the Muslim
Brotherhood today. The Brotherhood mourned the death of Osama
bin Laden and its leaders developed teachings justifying
revolutionary violence under sharia law. The Brotherhood has
preached hatred towards Jews, denied the Holocaust, and called
for Israel's destruction. The Brotherhood has incited violence
against Coptic Christians in Egypt amidst a wave of church
bombings and other attacks by terrorist groups, including ISIS.
Yusuf al-Qaradawi, perhaps the Brotherhood's preeminent
cleric, issued a fatwa legitimizing terrorist attacks against
American troops in Iraq. And he's also deemed the Holocaust to
be a, quote, ``punishment for Jews,'' and expressed hope that
another Holocaust would someday be carried out by his fellow
Islamists.
The Muslim Brotherhood's Supreme Guide, Mohammed Badie, has
said that the organization's goal is to establish a new
Islamist caliphate, including the imposition of sharia law,
which is the totalitarian Islamic legal code. We saw what
happens when the Brotherhood takes control of a country in
Egypt from 2012 to 2013, and the results were chilling, that
then-President Mohamed Morsi defied the rule of law and granted
himself near absolute power. As Egyptian leader Mohamed El
Baradi put it, Morsi usurped all state powers and appointed
himself Egypt's new pharaoh.
The Brotherhood's legislators enshrined the principles of
sharia as the main source of law in Egypt's Constitution, while
the Morsi government used state institutions to promote Islamic
radicalism, roll back freedom of the press, and launched a wave
of blasphemy prosecutions.
The Morsi Muslim Brotherhood government is no more, but the
Brotherhood and its affiliates continue to advance their agenda
across the Middle East and throughout the world.
There's no question that the Muslim Brotherhood affiliates
are involved in terrorism. Former FBI Director Robert Mueller
confirmed as much in testimony before Congress when he said
that elements of the Brotherhood, both here and overseas, have
supported terrorism.
A number of these Brotherhood affiliates have been
designated as terrorist organizations by the United States
Government. The Muslim Brotherhood's Palestinian branch Hamas
has been a designated foreign terrorist organization since
1997. Hamas has taken control of the Gaza Strip, launched
thousands of rockets against Israeli civilians, and committed
suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks that have murdered
numerous Israeli and American civilians.
Muslim Brotherhood networks raise money here in the U.S. to
support Hamas' terrorist activities in the Middle East.
According to the Department of Justice, in the early 1990s,
Hamas' parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, planned to
establish a network of organizations in the U.S. to spread a
militant Islamist message and raise money for Hamas.
And the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation became the chief
fundraising arm for the Palestine Committee in the U.S.,
created by the Brotherhood to support Hamas. In 2008, the Holy
Land Foundation leaders were convicted of crimes, including
providing material support for Hamas.
Most recently the State Department designated two offshoots
of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, HASM and Liwa al-Thawra, as
terrorist organizations under Executive Order 13224. The State
Department noted that these groups are responsible for bombings
and assassinations of senior Egyptian officials.
This hearing is an opportunity to discuss what the United
States' next step should be in combating the Muslim
Brotherhood's threat. Countries including Egypt, Saudi Arabia,
and the United Arab Emirates have all designated the
Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.
I know there's disagreement among experts on how best to
use terrorist designations to address the threat posed by the
Brotherhood and its affiliates, and we have different
perspectives on this issue represented within our panel today,
and I look forward to hearing the witnesses' recommendations.
Between the radicalism of it hateful ideology, the danger
of its theocratic rule, as seen in Egypt, its networks,
including Hamas and HASM, and its powerful state sponsors, it
is clear that the Brotherhood constitutes a real threat for the
national security interests of the United States. We can debate
the best way to counter this threat, but simply ignoring the
threat is not an acceptable answer.
We do have a distinguished panel of witnesses here to
discuss these issues. I want to thank all of them for taking
their time to come and provide testimony.
And it is my pleasure to now recognize the ranking member,
Mr. Lynch, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd also like to thank
you for holding this hearing to examine the multinational,
religious, political, and social movement known as the Muslim
Brotherhood. I'd also like to thank our witnesses for their
willingness to help this subcommittee with its work.
The Independent Program on Extremism at George Washington
University describes the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928 in
Egypt, as, quote, ``the world's oldest and arguably most
influential contemporary Islamist movement,'' close quote.
While the Muslim Brotherhood spans the Middle East and
Africa and has spread into Southeast Asia and the West, it has
manifested itself globally in very varied forms, ranging from
nonviolent political actors to groups that have resorted to
terrorism.
According to the Program on Extremism, some affiliated
groups, chapters, and radical offshoots inspired by the
Brotherhood's Islamic ideology are marked by their adaptability
to the local politics in a given country, their pursuit of
individual organizational goals and their complete operational
independence.
While at one point the central Brotherhood body in Egypt
officially renounced terrorism and violence under the Sadat
regime in the 1970s, there is no doubt that certain affiliated
organizations and spawn groups continue to espouse and engage
in violent terrorist activity.
Chief among them is Hamas, which has been designated as a
foreign terrorist organization by the United States State
Department since 1997. The original charter issued to establish
Hamas in 1988 identified the terrorist group as the Palestinian
branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Muslim Brotherhood splinter groups such as Liwa al-Thawra
and HASM also continue to engage in violence in Egypt. These
organizations have perpetrated assassination attempts against
Egyptian defense and security officials and bombings against
government sites, including attacks against the police training
center in the city of Tanta and the Myanmar Embassy in Cairo in
2017.
Meanwhile, democratically elected political parties that
also fall within the Muslim Brotherhood umbrella represent a
significant voting bloc in the parliaments and governing
coalitions of some of our key counterterrorism allies in the
Middle East and North Africa.
In Jordan, which has served as the most critical regional
ally in our coalition efforts to degrade and destroy the
Islamist State, Brotherhood-affiliated opposition parties, such
as the Islamic Action Front, hold several seats in the national
assembly.
In Morocco, which remains a reliable regional partner in
U.S. efforts to counter extremism and combat the Islamic State,
the Islamist Justice and Development Party leads the coalition
government.
Ennahda, the main Islamic party in Tunisia, similarly leads
the coalition government and has overseen the country's
democratic transition since 2011.
The State Department lists Tunisia, along with Jordan and
Morocco, as our committed partners in the coalition to defeat
the Islamic State.
In light of the multifaceted composition of the Muslim
Brotherhood, our national security strategy under Republican
and Democratic administrations alike has focused on identifying
the terrorist threats posed by individual affiliates and
leaders.
Most recently, the State Department listed the president of
Hamas' political bureau as a, quote, ``specially designated
global terrorist,'' close quote, in January of 2018, stemming
from his ties with Hamas' military wing. The two Brotherhood
branches involved in the 2017 terrorist attack in Egypt also
received this designation.
It's my understanding that some of my colleagues in
Congress have called for the Trump administration to go further
and to designate the entire Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign
terrorist organization, just as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria,
Russia, and the United Arab Emirates have done.
The effectiveness of our counterterrorism and force
protection operations in the Middle East and North Africa
demand that we approach this issue with caution. A wholesale
designation would severely complicate our relationship with the
regional security partners, including Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco,
Turkey, and Kuwait, where the Muslim Brotherhood functions
within mainstream government and society.
Former Secretary of State Tillerson underscored this
challenge during his congressional testimony last year. His
statement was, and I quote: ``I think you can appreciate the
complexities this enters into our relations with governments
where the Muslim Brotherhood has matriculated to become
participants, and in those elements they have done so by
renouncing violence and terrorism,'' close quote.
It could also further escalate the tension in the Middle
East, which is already operating in a heightened state of
conflict, where we still have 2,000 U.S. troops on the ground
in Syria, an estimated 6,000 troops deployed in Iraq.
Just last month, Mr. Issa of California and I led a
bipartisan congressional delegation to the Middle East to
assess regional security and stability amidst the 8-year civil
war in Syria and the fourth year of civil war in Yemen. As we
discussed during bilateral meeting Sing Abdullah of Jordan,
President el-Sisi of Egypt, Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel,
and other allied leaders and military officials, national
security currently demands that we deconflict the chaos coming
from these multilayered conflicts.
The Muslim Brotherhood is experiencing significant decline
in many countries in the Middle East. It is social conservatism
that is being rejected by a younger generation that is leading
to that and accelerating that decline.
It would be counterintuitive if we lumped political actors,
nonviolent, nonterrorist, in with the groups that we wish to
designate for their violent and terrorist activities.
I would hope that our witnesses would give us direction on
how best to isolate those who engage in unacceptable terrorist
activity and not inadvertently give support to those very same
individuals.
I yield back.
Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman yields back.
I'm pleased to introduce our witnesses. We have
Dr. Hillel Fradkin, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute;
Dr. Jonathan Schanzer, senior Vice President for the Foundation
for Defense of Democracies; Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president and
founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy; and
Ambassador Daniel Benjamin, director of the John Sloan Dickey
Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College.
Welcome to you all.
Pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses will be sworn in
before they testify. So if you could please stand and raise
your right hand.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm the testimony you're about
to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth, so help you God?
Please be seated.
All witnesses answered in the affirmative.
In order to allow time for discussion, please limit your
testimony to 5 minutes. Your entire written statement will be
made part of the record.
As a reminder, the clock in front of you shows the
remaining time during your opening statement. The light will
turn yellow when you have 30 seconds left and red when your
time is up. Please also remember to press the button to turn on
your microphone before speaking.
And with that, Dr. Fradkin, you're up for 5 minutes.
WITNESS STATEMENTS
STATEMENT OF HILLEL FRADKIN
Mr. Fradkin. First, I'd like to begin by thanking Chairman
DeSantis and Ranking Member Lynch and their colleagues for the
invitation to address this hearing. It's a privilege to
participate in this hearing and its discussion of a most
important subject, the Muslim Brotherhood's global threat.
After listening to the opening statements, it's a
particular privilege because I can see from the statements that
both the chairman and the ranking member are extremely well
informed about the subject. But that leads to a problem: I'm
not sure what I may reasonably add to what has already been
said. I will give it a go and probably go over some of the same
points that you enunciated and maybe flesh out a few things
along the way.
Generally speaking, this subject entails three general
questions. First, is the Muslim Brotherhood a global threat?
Second, if it is a global threat, how successful has it been or
might be? Third, what can be do address this threat? And I do
understand that's one of the principal objectives here.
I'm going to principally address the first two questions in
the prepared remarks and then I expect we'll discuss the third
question more generally during the discussion period.
Is the Muslim Brotherhood a global threat? Part of the
answer is clear. The Brotherhood certainly means to be global
and it means to be a threat.
More specifically, the Muslim Brotherhood is devoted to a
political and religious project that in principle, in its
essential character and goals, is hostile to other forms of
politics, including our own. And it means for this project to
be global in extent. And both of these things have been true
for a long time, since the founding of the Brotherhood some 90
years ago by Hassan al-Banna.
This had to do with the nature of the project itself. What
was that project? In response to this question, Banna offered a
simple fivefold formulation that has remained the model slogan
of the Brotherhood ever since. Quote: ``Allah is our objective,
the Prophet is our leader, the Koran is our constitution, jihad
is our way, dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.''
Banna proposed this political-religious goal as the
alternative to the new nation-state politics of his native
Egypt. More emphatically, he proposed this as the only
legitimate form of Muslim politics. Simply, its virtue was to
renew and embody the authentic Muslim way of life, the way of
life constituted, as he put it, by the Koran and the example
the Prophet.
As such, it applies to all Muslims everywhere. Hence, his
project was necessarily global in principle. To use a term that
has recently become familiar, it was to be--wind up
establishing the Islamic State.
In accord with this, Banna sought to establish branches of
the Brotherhood in other countries and over time partially
succeeded. Banna was murdered in 1948, but the essential tenets
he prescribed for the Brotherhood have never been repudiated.
And this, I believe, is not controversial nor should it be,
that there has been no real change in the essential principles.
And this, I may add, this was enunciated very, very clearly
by a man named Khairat al Shater, who was the deputy guide of
the Egyptian Brotherhood, in the spring of 2011 after the
revolt had started, in a very, very interesting speech, which I
might reference again later, in which he insisted that nothing
that they were doing was inconsistent with or in violation of
what the original vision was.
What has been controversial is what the Brotherhood project
practically means and where it falls within the universe of
other radical Islamic organizations. The controversy is--put it
this way--there was the suggestion, especially beginning after
9/11, that by comparison with al-Qaida and other similar
organizations the Brotherhood was moderate and could be a force
for moderation. It was argued that it no longer seriously
embraced the radical vision Banna had enunciated. Rather it was
ready to participate in ordinary politics and through that
participation would further moderate.
As Chairman DeSantis mentioned, we have now had one
important test of those hopes and they have proven to be false.
The form of this test was the Brotherhood's sudden if brief
rise to power in Egypt after the revolt of 2011. While in power
it attempted to establish a new regime in Egypt that would more
or less conform to its founding radical vision. And I want to
stress that this was by intention. Well, Shater thought that
the time of the final stage of the Muslim Brotherhood project
had arrived. He was wrong and the project failed.
Where does that leave the Brotherhood today? I know my time
is up, but I will conclude with a couple of sentences.
Mr. DeSantis. Just wrap it up if you can.
Mr. Fradkin. Certainly within Egypt the Brotherhood is for
the present a broken organization. But it has sustained defeats
before, partially by finding bases elsewhere. In the 1960s this
meant Saudi Arabia; today it means Turkey and Qatar. What it
will attempt to do from these bases remains to be seen.
I also want to add one final thing. It is often thought
that al-Qaida is hostile to the Brotherhood and that's been
certainly true. Very recently, I think within the last month or
so, the present head of al-Qaida, Ayman al-Zawahiri, made a
speech in which he referenced the old ties, the old roots
between the Brotherhood and al-Qaida with great nostalgia and
welcomed the Brotherhood members to his own project or to a
reconciliation of sorts.
Thank you for your attention, and thank you for your
permission to go over.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Fradkin follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. DeSantis. Appreciate it.
Dr. Schanzer, 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF JONATHAN SCHANZER
Mr. Schanzer. Chairman DeSantis, Ranking Member Lynch, and
members of the subcommittee, on behalf of FDD, thank you for
the opportunity testify this morning.
In 2011, President Barack Obama's Director of National
Intelligence, James Clapper, famously sparked an outcry when he
said that the Muslim Brotherhood was a, quote, ``heterogeneous
group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has
decried al-Qaida as a perversion of Islam,'' end quote.
Clapper was way off the mark. For one, the Muslim
Brotherhood is a gateway to jihadism, as we have already noted
this morning. It's also a hate group. Its ideology is
xenophobic, bigoted, and totalitarian.
And the Brotherhood is not exactly heterogeneous either.
Many branches subject their members to rigid indoctrination and
demand unwaivering commitment to the Brothers' deeply
intolerant interpretation of Islam.
Still, the Brotherhood's branches do differ tactically. In
Tunisia and Morocco it is part of the ruling elite. In Jordan
and Malaysia it's the loyal opposition. In Egypt, Saudi Arabia
and UAE it is banned outright, forcing the group to work
underground. And the fact that the various factions do not all
engage in violence makes it difficult to designate the movement
in its entirety.
But that does not mean that Washington is without recourse.
The Treasury and State Department designated two suspected
Egyptian Brotherhood offshoots, HASM and Liwa al-Thawra,
earlier this year. Both groups carried out deadly attacks
against the army, the judiciary, and the police since 2016.
In making the case for the designations, the Brotherhood
links to these groups were actually inconsequential. What
mattered was the legal criteria, their track records of
violence and support for terrorism.
The goal now is to find others that meet this criteria, and
to that end I have two suggestions. One is the Libyan Hizb al-
Watan, led by Abdelhakim Belhaj, who previously led the Libyan
Islamic Fighting Group, a designated terrorist group here in
the U.S. Belhaj was also believed to be training members of
Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia, another U.S.-designated terrorist
group.
Another is al-Islah, which is Yemen's affiliate. One
cofounder of Islah is Abdul Majid al-Zindani, who allegedly
helped to coordinate the 2000 attack on the USS Cole. In 2013
the Treasury noted that Zindani issued religious guidance in
support of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Islah figures
also reportedly harbored archterrorist Anwar al-Awlaki prior to
2011 death by a U.S. drone strike.
Do these groups meet criteria? I don't know. Ask the
intelligence community.
In the meantime, we must also look at the Brotherhood's
state sponsors, namely Turkey and Qatar. Turkey's ruling AKP
party is effectively the Turkish arm of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan famously dispatched a
Turkish campaign strategist to Egypt to help Mohamed Morsi win
the election, then sent billions of dollars to keep his regime
afloat.
After Morsi's ouster in July 2013, Turkey became a home for
exiled Brotherhood. Hamas operatives have also made their home
there, including Saleh Arouri, the head of the West Bank
military wing, who ordered a triple murder in 2014 that sparked
a massive rocket war with Israel.
Turkish support for the Brotherhood-linked military
activity also appears to extend to Libya. Press reports suggest
that Turkey has been shipping arms to Libyan Brotherhood
factions. And Turkey now hosts several Brotherhood affiliate TV
channels as well.
And speaking of TV channels, we can't forget Qatar. Qatar
is owner of the pro-Brotherhood TV channel Al Jazeera, but its
support extends far beyond that.
After Morsi was elected, Doha gave the Egyptian regime
billions in aid. Qatar today provides safe haven for many
exiled Brotherhood figures. Other factions that enjoy Qatari
support include Tunisia's Ennahda movement, Yemen's Islah,
Libya's Hizb al-Watan, and of course Hamas.
Chairman DeSantis, Ranking Member Lynch, I offer four
recommendations today:
One, do not waste valuable Federal resources trying to
designate the entire Brotherhood. Focus on the factions that
have a record of violence and terrorism finance.
Number two, use Treasury's tools to reinforce existing
designations. For example, Hamas, HASM, Liwa al-Thawra are
already designated. Treasury should sanction the support
networks. These derivative designations are bureaucratically
easier to achieve, while designations of new entities can often
get caught up in the red tape of the interagency process.
Number three, confront Turkey and Qatar. Their support to
the Brotherhood is undermining our efforts in that crucial
battle of ideas.
And four, support the House NDAA provision calling for a
report on the Muslim Brotherhood. It is important that we here
in the U.S. conduct our own assessment of this organization and
formulate a strategy to address this important challenge.
On behalf of FDD, thank you again for the opportunity to
testify, and I look forward to your questions.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Schanzer follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. DeSantis. Thank you.
Dr. Jasser, you're up for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF M. ZUHDI JASSER
Dr. Jasser. Thank you, Chairman DeSantis and Ranking Member
Lynch and other members of the House Subcommittee on National
Security, for holding a very important hearing on the Muslim
Brotherhood's global threat.
Our American Islamic Forum for Democracy is a counter-
Islamist American Muslim think tank and activist based in
Phoenix, Arizona.
I ask that my full written testimony be placed into the
record.
Mr. DeSantis. Without objection.
Dr. Jasser. I am here today because as an American Muslim I
have dedicated my life to American security and freedom, not
only with 11 years in the U.S. Navy, but since 9/11 formally
countering the oppressive and radicalizing influence of
Islamist groups in the West upon our communities.
No group embodies the threat of the radical Islamists more
than Muslim Brotherhood, or in Arabic, Ikhwan al-Muslimin. The
Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization. Help us modern-
minded, secular, liberal Muslims marginalize their influence by
declaring what they are: a terrorist organization.
Unfortunately, much of the conversation about the Brotherhood
has been obstructed, muted, marginalized, deferred, minimized
by the Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers or their allies here in
the West.
I have to tell you, in my heart of hearts, I think those
who give the Ikhwan excuses--either say they are not
monolithic, they are democratic, they are nonviolent, they have
branches--must really believe that our entire faith of Islam,
my faith, is just shades of oppressiveness of theocracy, so we
have to tolerate the nonviolent theocrats.
Somehow, we Muslims are since terminally having to accept
the leadership and control of the global network of the
terrorists of the Muslim Brotherhood.
In point of fact, nothing would be more pro-Muslim than the
marginalization of the Muslim Brotherhood and its direct
affiliates. Making the Muslim Brotherhood radioactive would
allow the light to shine upon the most potent antagonists in
Muslim communities: those who reject political Islamist groups
and believe in liberty and the separation of mosque and state.
In my short time I wanted to quick paint two pictures for
you. First, this diagram. It may be hard to read. But bottom
line, just so we understand what we are talking about, the
Muslim Brotherhood, if you look at the top there, 1.6 billion
Muslims, I think you can divide them politically into
Islamists, who believe in Islamic states, and secularists.
Under the Islamists, you've got Sunni and Shia strains. All
Muslims have two major sects, if not more. There are other
heterogeneous sects. But 90 percent are Sunni, 10 percent are
Shia. Within the Sunni stream of Islam are political Islamist
groups, like the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafis, and Jamaat e-
Islami in Pakistan.
The Brotherhood has offshoots of terror groups, and the
nonviolent group, I believe, gives cover to the Muslim
Brotherhood terror groups, if you will.
So that just sort of lays it out as being a strain of Sunni
Islam. I think that's important because if we start this
project by labeling the Muslim Brotherhood factions in various
countries terror groups, I think it also then should not give a
pass to the Khomeinists in Iran, to other strains, the Salafi
jihadis, ISIS, et cetera. So just so you understand where they
fit.
The next slide looks at the logo. And I think it's
important to understand what they are. They have not changed
their logo. And at the bottom, under those swords, which are
not peaceful, that are not violent symbol, it says wei du(ph).
And wei du (ph) is from chapter 8, verse 16 of the Koran,
and it says ``make ready.'' And it's not the Boy Scouts' ``be
prepared, make ready.'' This is a passage in the Koran that
refers specifically to battle and preparing for militancy.
This, despite them coming to power in Tunisia and Egypt and
elsewhere, they never change the symbol and what they are.
Thank you for those slides.
al-Banna and Qutb, as you've heard before me, put forth the
notion that Islam is all-encompassing for society. And if you
look at the motto it says, as has been pointed out, that death
for the sake of God is their highest aspiration.
So let's define a terror group. Terror group means that the
actors use any possible targeting of noncombatants or even
combatants outside the rules of war in order to advance their
supremacist hegemonic aspirations.
The Muslim Brotherhood has never condemned theologically or
ideologically the use of terrorism. And if they have it's been
a cover, since they've reverted to that repeatedly.
Now, Muslims are not monolithic. But the Brotherhood,
whether it's 1.0 or 9.0, in the last 90 years is monolithic,
and trying to say it's not monolithic is dancing on the head of
an pin.
Like the Cold War, communism was a cancer, but the war was
against Soviet communism. Here, Islamism is the cancer within
our faith communities, but the war is against the Ikhwan.
We need to be on the offense, and for too long we've been
on the defense worried about what the reactions will be. And
ultimately I see that concern, that defensiveness on the
American posture about naming the Brotherhood a terrorist
organization, as at best a form of bigotry of low expectations
when it comes to Muslims.
The common enemy theory, saying that, well, the Brotherhood
has a common enemy with us against ISIS and al-Qaida, is
offensive to me, not only as an American, but as a Muslim. I
hear the same thing in saying that we should support genocidal
tyrants like Assad because they have common enemies with us
against ISIS.
Many people try to separate the central elements of these
parties from the militant terrorist progeny. Recep Erdogan, the
head of the Muslim Brotherhood group in Turkey, also known as
the AKP, said: Democracy is like a train; we ride it until we
get where we want to go and then we get off.
It is time that we made them radioactive. And I detail in
my testimony all of the connections, the revolving door between
various al-Qaida groups, humanitarian organizations in the West
and in the Middle East.
The Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood said just in
2010, long after the 1970s in which they supposedly condemned
violence, he said: Resistance is the solution against Zio-
American arrogance and tyranny. The resistance can come from
fighting and understanding--this is from Mohammed Badie, the
head of the Brotherhood in Egypt, this is 2010, basically
reiterating the declaration of war that Osama bin Laden said in
the 1990s. There is no coincidence that there is a revolving
door between leaders of al-Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood.
I think, as has been said before, we begin pegging off
various groups, terrorist groups from Syria, to Libya, to
Yemen, to Kuwait, and on, and then ultimately that will begin
to cut the funneling of money, funneling of ideas into other
Muslim Brotherhood groups in the West.
So my final recommendations, Chairman, is to, one,
designate the MB a foreign terrorist organizations beginning in
Egypt, and then on a country-country basis in Libya, Syria,
Kuwait, Jordan, and Yemen.
Call on American Muslim leaders to take a position on the
Muslim Brotherhood and its overarching theo-political ideology.
I ask my fellow Muslims: Will they be the side of freedom,
liberty, and modernity, or will they be on the side of tyranny
of the Muslim Brotherhood, Turkey's AKP, the Iranian
Khomeinists, or Pakistan's Jamaat e-Islami?
Develop foreign policy mechanisms to disincentivize Qatari
and Turkish Government facilitation of the Brotherhood and
ultimately think about suspending Turkey from NATO.
Use the MB designation as a template to transition
immediately from the currently useless ideological center of
CVE, countering violent extremism, to the more practical one of
countering Islamism.
And please stop engaging Muslim Brotherhood legacy groups
in government, media, and NGOs, and recognize their Islamist
terrorist sympathies.
Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Dr. Jasser follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. DeSantis. Thank you.
Ambassador Benjamin, you're up for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF DANIEL BENJAMIN
Mr. Benjamin. Chairman DeSantis, Ranking Member Lynch,
distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for
inviting me here today to discuss this important subject.
The title of this hearing, ``The Muslim Brotherhood's
Global Threat,'' invites comment on two questions. The first is
whether there is a singular entity entitled the Muslim
Brotherhood. The second is whether that entity or some group of
Muslim Brotherhood branches or affiliates represent a genuine
global threat.
On the first question the answer is straightforward. As
scholars, intelligence analysts, and policymakers over many
years have come to agree, there is today no singular monolithic
Muslim Brotherhood. Decades after the genesis of the Egyptian
Ikhwan, there is no central administration linking these many
different groups which are often said to have Brotherhood
links, or of ideology or origins. In character and matters of
doctrine they vary greatly.
The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is an outlawed
organization, many of whose members are incarcerated. In
Jordan, the Brotherhood plays a legitimate political role in
the form of the Islamic Front, which has played an important
role in Jordan's Parliament. The Kuwaiti Brotherhood's party is
a legitimate member of that country's parliament. In Morocco,
the Justice and Development Party has held the prime minister's
position and is also said to be linked to the Muslim
Brotherhood.
Tunisia's Ennahda is frequently characterized as having
ties to the Brotherhood, though the party has probably
confounded the expectation of Brotherhood members elsewhere by
saying that it is separating politics from religion. It's
notable that just a week ago an Ennahda member, a woman, was
elected mayor of Tunis and that she does not wear a veil.
Again, no serious researcher has demonstrated durable links
between these groups that could be described as ones of command
and control.
Does the Muslim Brotherhood constitute a global threat?
Hereto I would answer that it does not. Most of the groups that
are said to be Brotherhood affiliates or franchises support the
democratic process and have abjured violence, if they ever
embraced it.
The Egyptian Brotherhood forswore violence in the 1970s.
There is no compelling evidence that it has reversed course.
It is noteworthy that two Egyptian Brotherhood splinter
groups, Liwa al-Thawra and HASM, were designated earlier this
year under Executive Order 13224 as terrorist organizations and
both do indeed have a record of violence. It is, however,
fallacious to suggest that this is a sign of the Brotherhood's
return to violence. These groups appear to have split off
because their members wanted to commit violence while the
Brotherhood as a whole did not.
I want to be clear, I have no sympathy for the Muslim
Brotherhood. The Egyptian group, for example, often delivers
hate-filled anti-American and anti-Western pronouncements that
are truly repellant. But if there's a threat emanating from the
various organizations that can be grouped as part of the
Brotherhood family, it is that repression against them may
cause them to decide that violence is their only option.
Anyone looking for the place where the next great jihadist
wave will break would have to consider Egypt a strong
possibility. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has hundreds of
thousands of members and, despite the poor governance of
Mohamed Morsi, millions of sympathizers.
The widespread use of extrajudicial killing, indiscriminate
incarceration, and torture has created a situation in which
modern Islamists, people who want their society to be more
Islamic but do not support violence, have no good options. They
may come to see themselves as cornered and having no
alternative but to take up arms.
And it is important to remember that jihadism emerged in
Egypt, and specifically from the notorious Tora Prison, amid
the persecutions of the Nasser period. It will be a tragedy and
indeed a strategic blunder if that lesson has been forgotten.
A few other quick observations.
First, the Trump administration evaluated the Brotherhood
immediately after coming into office and determined that there
was no legal basis to designate the group.
Although there has been much speculative writing in the
press about the orientation of the Brotherhood, the State
Department's decision not to designate is telling. Department
decisions are not based on open-source information of uncertain
quality. Instead, designation decisions are based on all-source
information, including classified intelligence.
The fact that such a review took place and that the wishes
of senior policymakers to designate the group were well-known
tells a clear story. No basis was found for designating at the
time. I am unaware of any indication that there is more of a
basis now. I'm also unaware that this issue is being reviewed
again within the government.
A final point. Policymakers and legislators, like
physicians, must keep in mind the injunction to do no harm. A
hardline approach to the Muslim Brotherhood groups and their
members could do significant harm.
The United States may be enjoying improved relations with
some Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE,
countries, it should be noted, whose opposition to the Muslim
Brotherhood is at least in part rooted in their opposition to
democracy.
But its reputation globally among Muslims--that is the
United States' reputation--is at a low point due to President
Trump's travel ban, his talked about a national registry of
Muslims, and other negative comments about Muslims.
The U.S. faces a real and continuing threat from jihadist
terrorist violence. Unwise actions to target the Muslim
Brotherhood groups will only deepen the animus against America,
and we should not do anything that helps our enemies attract
more recruits. That, too, would be a blunder.
It would also be a blunder to further alienate already
discomforted members of the domestic American Muslim community.
The last thing the U.S. needs to do is to encourage
radicalization at home.
I want to thank you for your time, and I look forward to
your questions.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Benjamin follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. DeSantis. I thank the gentlemen.
The gentleman notices the presence of the gentleman from
Wisconsin, Mr. Grothman, a member of the full committee.
We thank you for your interest in this topic.
Without objection, I'd like to welcome Mr. Grothman to
participate fully in today's hearing. And without objection, so
ordered.
The chair now recognizes himself for 5 minutes.
Dr. Jasser, the argument I think somewhat sketched out by
Ambassador Benjamin is that if you take a strong stand against
the Brotherhood like you articulated, that you're alienating
so-called moderate Islamists and that that ends up leading to
more terrorism. So how do you respond to that?
Dr. Jasser. Well, again, I'd use the Cold War analogy. Were
we worried when we took on the militant Soviets that we would
alienate the moderate non-Soviet communists.
It is beyond bigoted to say that the Muslim community is
represented only by our establishment Islamists who dominate
oppressively our community.
So what better way than the country founded on defeating
theocracy, the United States, to take a position against the
militant arm of the theocratic branches of the Islamic faith?
And I think that it would send a message around the world that
we recognize that the Brotherhood is a militant organization
and we that way build a platform for what I believe is a
majority of the non-Islamist voices.
There were 10 million people that went to the streets in
Egypt to protest in Revolution 2.0 against the Brotherhood; 90
percent of those folks were Muslims. And yet, it seems that
from the arguments of the ambassador and others that the only
people that we care about are the wings of this oppressive
party that are nonviolent and somehow want to use democracy as
a tool to get the power and then oppress the rest of the folks.
If you look--I was on the U.S. Commission on Religious
Freedom, met with the Brotherhood in 2013 in Cairo. And I can
tell you that in speaking to them they have no interest in
changing their mission, what they are, what their goal is. They
see the world through the lens of theocracy, not through
egalitarian rights.
To say you can moderate the Brotherhood is like saying you
can moderate the Communist Party into capitalists. It's
impossible.
Mr. DeSantis. So, I mean, just to sketch out the ideology,
I mean, what does that mean for Christians and Jews or other
religions?
Dr. Jasser. Well, there's barely any, if any, Jews left in
Egypt because of the Islamists and what they've done in that
country and also dictatorship. The Islamists, when they get
into power, are not only anti-Semitic, listen to their imams
and clerics and what they preach out of Al Jazeera, from
Qaradawi on down.
Women's rights, the ambassador may have cited that they had
one not hijabed woman, but the bottom line, that's window
dressing for a central authority that is misogynistic and
interprets the Koran and other sharia interpretations that say
that women get a half a vote of a man, a quarter of the
inheritance, et cetera.
So they, as you saw in the way they put forth the
constitution in Egypt, have no interest in an egalitarian,
liberal, secular constitution. Their interest is the Islamic
state and giving people rights not under God, but under Islam
and their interpretation of Islam, where minorities, Coptic
Christians, apostates--they call moderate Muslims who are anti-
Islamist apostates. They put people in jail, as Morsi did
hundreds and thousands, for criticizing him as criticizing
Islam. That's theocracy.
Mr. DeSantis. This notion of a moderate Islamist, I mean,
Islamism is inherently not moderate, because, I mean, if you
want Islamism to be the governing faith, that is a totalitarian
system, not democratic. And so to say that that's moderate, I
mean, maybe it means you're not launching terrorist attacks,
but you still want an end that is very illiberal, I think.
The chart you put up, and I want to see if you had--you had
the Islamist wing, then you had the Brotherhood, and then kind
of the terrorism growing out of that. And people say, well, the
Brotherhood, they are not necessarily directing every terrorist
attack, and I think that's true, but is it safe to say that the
Brotherhood's ideology has served as kind of the intellectual
foundation that has sprung a lot of the terrorist groups that
we've seen, from al-Qaida to ISIS to everything in between?
Dr. Jasser. Absolutely. I'm a doctor. In the daytime I
treat patients and disease. We don't treat symptoms. One of the
primary global cancer cells for the development of al-Qaida,
Islamic Jihad, all of these offshoots, the primary source of
training ground is Muslim Brotherhood. Some of them train to be
part of the secret committee to ultimately be violent, and some
of them come to the West to make sure our policy remains
defensive and not offensive.
So ultimately the goals of their ideology is to create
Islamic states and a caliphate, and that has never changed.
Mr. Benjamin. Mr. DeSantis?
Mr. DeSantis. Dr. Fradkin, Sisi gave a speech probably a
couple of years ago now where he challenged a lot of the
Islamist clerics and said: Look, we cannot--and he's a devote
Muslim, but he was making the point that you can't have a faith
that is at war with everybody who disagrees, that's billions of
people. And I think he has made the decision that you really
have to marginalize the Brotherhood.
What do you think? Is Dr. Jasser right or is a more
targeted approach as enunciated by Dr. Schanzer? What are your
views? How would you comment on those?
Mr. Fradkin. Thank you very much for the question. It's an
excellent one.
I'm not myself clear yet about just how one goes about
tackling the Brotherhood in terms of the designation as a
terrorist group. What I am clear about is that it does--it
creates the conditions for terrorist groups, the way in which
Dr. Jasser said, in the sense that it is the original version
of the ideology which underlies the undertaking.
Another thing I think should be observed is this: We have
tried to engage with the Brotherhood. And let's put it this
way: Egypt has been an experiment in several ways.
First, we had an experiment of how the Brotherhood would
behave in power. And it had been proposed before that that when
they come to power they would be, through the exercise of
power, they would learn to be moderate.
That we saw was false, and there are reasons why it was
false, because when they saw the opportunity to exercise total
power they were keen to.
We also had an experiment of trying to understand them as a
vehicle for moderate politics, of engaging with them in that
direction. That experiment began--well, it began actually in
the Bush administration, in a variety of ways, but its most
visible expression was President Obama's speech in Cairo,
which, among other things, went out of its way to welcome the
Brotherhood. They were welcomed to the speech itself, somewhat
against the wishes of Mubarak.
Mr. DeSantis. My time's up, so you all will have a chance.
But I want to give Mr. Lynch, get him in here. So I will
recognize Mr. Lynch.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would ask unanimous
consent, I have a letter here, a statement by Ryan Crocker, an
eminent diplomat in the service of our country. And I'd ask
that it be entered into the record.
Mr. DeSantis. Without objection.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, sir.
I do want to make a distinction here about what the
designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist
organization.
So there are a lot of conservative, we would even say
repressive regimes around the world. There are many militant or
extremist groups around. But the terrorist, terrorist
designation is targeted toward activity, conduct, war on the
civilian population.
And so that's a different terminology and a different
meaning than simply targeting regimes or organizations because
they are conservative in their ideology. So it's an important
distinction to make.
The other challenge we have here, and I heard it from each
of you, is our ability to target specific organizations for
that unacceptable behavior, that waging of war on the civilian
population and terrorist activity.
So, Mr. Fradkin, you've said as much.
Dr. Schanzer, you were saying in your testimony, which was
very helpful, I think, and thoughtful, that rather than do this
blanket label of terrorism on the whole Muslim Brotherhood,
then go after the individual groups that are actually
undertaking this unacceptable activity, and I completely agree.
Dr. Jasser, you as well, country by country, let's target
these people and call them out, call them out and isolate them
in a way that doesn't make them stronger, but isolates them and
weakens them.
Ambassador Benjamin, I know you didn't speak directly to
this issue, but in the past our success in isolating some of
these groups has been our ability to differentiate the bad
actors from the surrounding population and severing their local
support.
That seems to be what's happening in many cases in the
Middle East where the younger population, as I mentioned in my
opening remarks, the younger population is rejecting some of
the more extreme edicts of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Is that something, is that an approach that you think would
be successful given your experience on the ground as an
ambassador?
Mr. Benjamin. Mr. Lynch, the United States has had great
success in isolating terrorist groups and cutting off their
wellsprings of support, if you will, and diminishing their
appeal to the broader population.
The United States has a much more mixed record when it
comes to intervening in the politics of other countries and
telling foreign populations who we approve of and who we don't.
And our ambassadors, our envoys should by all means speak
out against hatred, speak out against anything that promotes
division and promotes antipathy towards the West, but our
ability to take on the Muslim Brotherhood in the various
countries when it is not a group engaged in terrorist
activities is going to be challenging.
If anything, given the fact that most of these countries
the Muslim Brotherhood now has a political party, it's in the
parliament, requires I think that we engage with them more and
suggests that the benefits of moderation are available to all
of those who pursue truly democratic policies and the
pluralistic vision that the United States has stood for.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you.
I do want to take a minute here. I thought the statement by
Ryan Crocker was instructive and important.
He says here--and obviously Ryan Crocker served in Beirut
during the bombings of the Marine barracks there, served for
many years in Iraq. I've had many, many dealings with him. I
think I've got over 20 trips to Iraq while he was our
ambassador there.
But he writes that, after 38 years of his service as a
Foreign Service officer, the Muslim Brotherhood is not a
monolithic organization.
He adds that it's not an organization at all in the
conventional sense of the term. It has no international
headquarters, nor an identifiable global leadership. Individual
country franchises vary dramatically in their ideology and
politics, and especially in their attitudes towards political
violence.
At one extreme, he acknowledges, would be the Syrian Muslim
Brothers who carried out a number of lethal bombings throughout
the country in the 1970s. The other would be the Muslim
Brothers in Egypt, Jordan, and North Africa.
In Iraq post-2003 the only organized Sunni political party
was the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Islamic Party in Iraq.
And during his time in Iraq, 2007 to 2009, he worked closely
with the Islamic Party and its leader, Iraqi Vice President
Tariq al-Hashimi.
So I think what he's pointing to is the wisdom of
discerning which of these affiliates and groups is engaging in
terrorism and which are engaging in political activity, the
distinction I made before about whether someone is labeled a
radical or an extremist and one who is labeled as a terrorist.
And so I hope we are precise in our language here and precise
in our goal.
The other challenge with terrorism is their ability to
adapt. And I think that just putting out a blanket designation
on the Muslim Brotherhood, they will sidestep that in a
heartbeat, and those organizations will reconfigure and
reassemble in a way that will do nothing to reduce their
lethality.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman yields back.
The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Arizona for 5
minutes.
Mr. Gosar. Dr. Jasser, good seeing you again.
This conversation is headed just in the right direction
here. So one of the biggest problems in making policy decisions
with regard to the Muslim Brotherhood is the fact that the
Muslim Brotherhood frequently creates front groups that while
ostensibly are separate, but in reality have close ties to the
mother ship in Egypt.
This can include respectable institutions such as civil
rights organizations, community groups, and charities. A recent
report by the Middle East Forum concerning Islamic Relief, an
international aid charity, documented extensive ties between
Islamic Relief and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.
One of the numerous examples given was the fact that Essam
El-Haddad, cofounder of Islamic Relief Worldwide, became a
foreign policy adviser to Mohamed Morsi, and according to
Egyptian prosecutors used Islamic Relief moneys to fund Muslim
Brotherhood terrorism in Egypt.
Question: Does this tendency of the Muslim Brotherhood to
form ostensibly separate spinoff groups under more respectable
sources concern you? And secondly, what should our policy
towards those organizations be?
Dr. Jasser. Thank you, Congressman Gosar. And it is good to
be here. Thank you.
I can't tell you enough how important this issue is. And
while I believe that the--the first thing I'd respond is tell
you that the best way to marginalize groups that are front
groups in the West--so I call them Muslim Brotherhood legacy
groups, because they don't go by the name Muslim Brotherhood.
In the United States we've not had religious parties, so
they've not operated openly. In London they operate openly. The
Muslim Brotherhood has an office. The Ikhwan website is
operated out of London.
But if you want to decrease their influence, the to and fro
passage of money, Islamic Relief, for example, it's a great
example. They have donated to Islamic Relief Worldwide.
The Middle East Forum has an excellent report that was put
out a week or 2 ago that looks at all of the revolving doors
between radical Islamist terror groups around the world and
Islamic Relief. I mean, Bangladesh, a Muslim country, does not
allow Islamic Relief to do humanitarian work with Rohingya
refugees because they're worried about radicalization.
So the problem with front groups in the West, I think, will
be diminished not by designating group that operate in the West
here under other names. I think it's too hard to do that. But
once you designate the mother ship in Egypt, the Brotherhood, a
terrorist organization, you designate the Yemeni, the Kuwaiti
Brotherhood as terror organizations, it is going to be much
more radioactive, their platform of dominating our community.
And this is why, if you look at the Muslim Sunni
Association, I'd ask you all to look at the explanatory
memorandum. The FBI put it into the documentation of the Holy
Land Foundation trial that laid out the network of Muslim
Brotherhood organizations and what their plan is in the West.
That's stood the test of time in the court system and has not
been refuted effectively because it is the truth, that that was
their operation.
So they are a threat. I think they oppress our own
community here through their money, through their work with
Qatar and other; Turkey. I mean, in Turkey just 2 weeks ago an
organization called USCM, or the U.S. Consortium of Muslim
Organizations, which is basically the Muslim Brotherhood
leadership in America, went to congratulate Erdogan on his win
in Turkey, supposedly as a democratic win. Forget the fact that
he imprisons journalists, tortures professors, all these things
it didn't matter to them because he's one of Brothers.
So if I'm going to have a voice and our Muslim reform
movement is going to have a voice in the United States, the
best way to weaken our main antagonists, which are the
Islamists, is to begin to diagnose their foreign terror
organizations that they sympathize with as terrorist
organizations, the Brotherhood.
Mr. Gosar. So my next question should be right along the
line. In the case of the Islamic Relief USA, a chapter of the
Islamic Relief International that pays 20 percent of its income
to Islamic Relief International, it has received at least
$700,000 in Federal funds, and when accounting for various
umbrella groups possibly much more. Should U.S. tax dollars be
barred from going to such organizations?
Dr. Jasser. I believe once you designate the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt and many of the offshoots I talked about,
name Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, then you
can do the same thing to Islamic Relief that you did to the
Holy Land Foundation because Hamas is a terrorist organization.
But because they are funneling money through third parties that
are not designated as terrorist organizations, they get away
with.
So the short answer to your question is, yes, we should
stop giving them money. But you can't do that until you
designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.
Mr. Gosar. I thank the gentleman. I yield back.
Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman yields back.
The chair now recognizes Mr. Comer for 5 minutes.
Mr. Comer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My questions will be asked to the first three gentlemen on
the panel.
Ambassador Benjamin testified that most Muslim Brotherhood
affiliates support democracy and renounce violence. Is that
true?
Mr. Fradkin. No. I don't think so. What has been true is
the issue of violence as far as the Brotherhood is concerned,
going back to the beginning, was a tactical question. Was it
useful at any particular stage to use violence to advance their
goals? And al-Qaida has no doubt that violence is good, but the
Brotherhood sees it otherwise, but as such, there is no
repudiation of violence, and that is is just--there is no such
statement in the historical record.
Ambassador Benjamin. Of course there is. The Egyptian
Brotherhood has formally adjured violence in the 1990s.
Mr. Fradkin. No, no. You said in your testimony they
adjured it in the 1960s and 1970s when they----
Ambassador Benjamin. No, I didn't say that.
Mr. Fradkin. And they did--it says that--what the past was.
In the 1960s and 1970s, they were in prison, so they had no
option to exercise violence.
I am not saying that they are for it, you know, in a big
way, but it's just not true that, A--and this is the flip side
of the assertion--the flip side of the assertion is that they
are interested in entry into a normal, moderate politics, and
that also is not true.
And in the case of the Egyptians, they thought--they took
what they could get under Mubarak, under Sadat. And then when
they thought they had bigger opportunities, they went in a
different direction.
I want to, if I may, this brings up to the question--or an
observation that Congressman Lynch made earlier that the
question before us has always to do with action, terrorist
action and violence. And it's important to focus on that,
because that's the way in which we conceive of the threat and
also the way in which our laws are written. And that's terribly
important, but to some degree, and I agree with you,
Congressman Lynch, that's the way in which we first have to
approach the issue.
The problem is, it does skew the discussion insofar as it
suggests that those who are not immediately active in violence,
or even if they've, you know, eschewed violence, as Ambassador
Benjamin asserts, are the parties to be worked with, the
parties that are useful for interaction. And this is a
continuous tendency. Once you've sort of made the distinction
between the Brotherhood and al-Qaida, you say, okay, these are
the guys we can work with. And it was worthwhile having the
experiment, perhaps, but we have had such experiments, and they
haven't worked.
Mr. Comer. Thank you.
Mr. Schanzer. Congressman Comer, thank you for the
question. What I would say is that in each of the cases that we
look at around the Middle East, these groups have been shaped
by their environments. So if they operate under a repressive
regime, they are often left with no recourse but to recognize
the regime and to renounce violence. They are more than willing
to engage in the democratic process, but there's really nothing
in their creed, all right, which is ultimately the dogma that
they all adhere to at their core, that suggests that they have
given up violence as an approach or that they've embraced
democracy.
So I think we just need to remember that they have been
forced into making a lot of these decisions over time. Whether
they are organically going to remain there, I think, is another
question entirely.
Dr. Jasser. And if I can add, I think to take what one or
two Muslim leaders that happen to be sitting with Americans at
the time and telling ambassadors what they think they want to
hear is one thing, versus what they're actually telling their
own people.
And when the supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood in
2010, decades after the so-called change of approach towards
violence, tells his leaders that he is telling them that the
best goal is to attain death and sacrifice through a jihadi
generation against the U.S. and against the Zional-American
conspiracy, that is a jihadi call to arms. And that was in 2010
at the same time of, you know, with al-Qaida and other groups,
so it sounded very similar.
And I think basically we're hearing from some leaders that
we should just continue a whack-a-mole approach to the Muslim
Brotherhood program rather than actually treating the primary
central organization as being a terrorist organization based on
its ideology.
And, by the way, if the antiviolence approach to them is
true, we would be able to find rifes of theological, you know,
disagreements with the Brotherhood's approach, their logo would
have changed, all these things would have changed. None of that
has happened. They're just telling a few ambassadors when they
meet with them what they want to hear so that we don't
interfere in their business in taking over various countries.
Ambassador Benjamin. If I may, sir, my points are largely
being distorted here.
First of all, there's no legal basis whatsoever for
designating the Brotherhood on the basis of ideology. Terrorist
designations are done on the basis of violent act.
Mr. Fradkin. Right.
Ambassador Benjamin. That's it. So for Dr. Jasser to talk
about designating the Muslim Brotherhood is absurd.
Dr. Jasser. Well, what percent of them should be violent
suicide? And answer is 10, 20, 80 percent? What percent?
Ambassador Benjamin. You have to identify individuals and
you have to identify groups that are carrying out these acts,
and that's how the law works and that's how the State
Department works and that's how we have worked throughout.
And if we get into the business of deciding that a group
should be designated because we don't like its ideology, first
of all, we're contravening our own values in terms of freedom
of speech and of discourse and we're undermining our own
interests.
The United States Government has espoused the belief for
many, many decades that anyone who participates in the
democratic process honestly, and so far as we can tell, and
this is based on both intelligence and on the basis of their
statements, that we ought to talk to them. That is what
engaging with them means. It's doesn't mean that we are giving
them money, it doesn't mean that we're giving them any
benefits. We are talking to them, and that is it.
And socialization through those processes typically, but
not always, has positive effects. And we might have actually
had a worse experience with Mr. Morrissey if we had not known
the Muslim Brotherhood at all before, and we might have had a
better experience had we had a more robust dialogue with the
Muslim Brotherhood before.
And it's important to note that the reason that we did not
have a more robust dialogue was because autocratic leaders
prohibited us from doing so in their country, and the cycle of
repression and rebellion will go on as long as we are always
beholden to those autocrats.
Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman's time has expired.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr.
Duncan, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I'm sorry I had to be over on the floor, so I didn't get to
hear your testimony. And I really know very little about this
particular issue, and I read that the Muslim Brotherhood has
affiliates in 70 countries.
How many members are there? How many people are there in
the Muslim Brotherhood all together? Does anybody know?
Mr. Fradkin. I don't know. No.
Mr. Duncan. Yes. Ambassador?
Ambassador Benjamin. We don't know. No one has a global
figure, but it's in the millions.
Dr. Jasser. Well, they won an election in Egypt. So they
did that by having initially 20 to 30 percent of the vote and
then they won a runoff against the former intelligence
operation for Mubarak.
So, you know, in various countries, they can swing 20, 30
percent of the active Islamists, which are 30 percent of the
population. So politically they're a large group.
Mr. Duncan. Well, I understand that at least the first
three witnesses here think we should designate. Is that not
correct?
Mr. Schanzer. Not correct.
Mr. Duncan. Oh, okay. So of the people who are in the
Muslim Brotherhood, what percentage do you think are violent or
advocate violent activities? Does anybody have an opinion about
that?
Mr. Schanzer. Congressman Duncan, in my testimony, I did
note that there are a number of organizations that have already
been designated: Hasm, Liwa al-Thawra, Hamas. I suggested two
others, one in Libya, another one in Yemen, where I think we
would probably see evidence that would meet the criteria, which
is a fairly simple criteria when you look at the Treasury
designation process in particular. The State Department's a
little bit more fuzzy.
And then I think, you know, from there, we need to think
about targeting violent individuals within the factions that
are officially nonviolent or are taking part in the process,
because we know that there are more hard line members within
each of these factions, those that support violence, those that
don't. So this needs to be a targeted process across the board
according to our criteria of designation.
Mr. Duncan. Okay. But do we have an opinion as to--I mean,
is it a very small number or percentage of the people who are
in the Muslim Brotherhood that would be considered violent or
prone to violence?
Ambassador Benjamin. Very, very small.
Mr. Duncan. Very small.
Dr. Jasser. Congressman Duncan----
Ambassador Benjamin. Very small. Certainly those who have
actually been involved in violent activities, it would be
significantly less than 1 percent. Those who have joined
splinter groups, that's another matter, but those splinter
groups tend to be small.
You know, one of the things that is somewhat problematic
about this panel is that, you know, the vast scholarly
literature on the Muslim Brotherhood emphasizes that the
overwhelming amount of energy in the last 2 decades has gone
into the creation of political parties, which are by definition
opposed to carrying out violence. Okay?
It is true that the Muslim Brotherhood historically has
been a group from which splinters or sparks have been thrown
off, and those people have become more violent. Al-Qaida, the
original al-Jihad group, those people were originally
influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood and then became more
radical.
But the Brotherhood itself, as far as we know, and
certainly this was the state of the intelligence when I left
the government, there are no major entities of the Muslim
Brotherhood, setting aside Hamas, which is a special case and
may not even be considered by some people to be Brotherhood,
that are committed to violence.
Dr. Jasser. Congressman, there's a very----
Mr. Duncan. Let me just say this. You know, I've been here
a long time. This is my 30th year. I was here for the first
Gulf War, which I voted for, because I heard all of our top
leaders say that Saddam Hussein was the greatest threat since
Hitler and they talked about his elite troops, and then I saw
those same elite troops surrendering to CNN camera crews and
empty tanks, and so I became kind of skeptical about some of
these things. And so when the second Gulf War rolled around, I
ended up voting against it because I thought too many of our
leaders were too eager to go to war to prove they were the new
Winston Churchills or prove they were great leaders.
And so I've felt for a long time that it's been a very sad
thing that we have sent so many young Americans to fight what I
thought were very unnecessary wars. And I also noticed that
many of the people or groups that we are talking about how
great these threats were were people or groups that were going
to get money, and that these threats seemed to be more about
money and power than they were about any great threats.
But I see, Dr. Schanzer, you wanted to respond to the
ambassador, so go ahead and respond.
Mr. Schanzer. Yes. Look, what I would say is that I don't
know where that number comes from that it's 1 percent or 5
percent or 10 percent. It's not like, you know, we're looking
at poll numbers coming out of the Muslim Brotherhood where
people are calling their homes and saying, ``How many of you
are radical?,'' and they're openly admitting to it, right? I
mean, we don't know exactly what the numbers look like within--
--
Ambassador Benjamin. I said this was the number of people
involved in violence.
Mr. Schanzer. What we can say, though, is that when we look
at radicalization, we have to look at those that go to the
battle fronts, that's number one. And we do see a good number
of people who were former Brothers that have gone on to join
groups like al-Qaida and the Islamic State.
But also, when you look at the criteria, the Treasury
criteria, I'm a former Treasury terror finance analyst, we look
at basically four criteria. One is, are organizations owned or
controlled by a terrorist organization, are the individuals
members. That's number one. That's obvious.
Number two is financial support. That is the same, in the
view of law, as engaging in violence itself.
Another is technical support and then another one is
material support.
These are the criteria that we need to look at what when we
assess Brotherhood groups and individuals. And I think we'll
find that it's not 1 percent, but it's also not 50 percent.
There is some fuzzy math in there. I don't know how we'll ever
get to it, but there is a problem within the Brotherhood. We
know that for a fact.
Dr. Jasser. And if I could add just one thing, Congressman.
Mr. Duncan. Sure.
Dr. Jasser. These mental gymnastics and confusions that
you're having is exactly what the Brotherhood wants to happen,
by dividing themselves into secret committees that push forth
violent arms and other committees that use political processes
to come to power. They use liberation theology to basically
advance, no different than a Nazi party would or other Fascist
arm would, and they use militant arms and then claim denial
when they are pushed by more moderate democracies like
ourselves.
So at the end of the day, that wing, if it truly has--they
might eschew violence on the one hand; on the other hand, they
have never condemned openly those arms of their organizations
or ever taken ownership of having sprouted those ideas and
legitimized those factions of terrorist organizations.
Mr. Duncan. All right. Thank you very much.
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman's timed has expired.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr.
Hice, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Hice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Listen, whether the number is 1 percent, 5 percent or, as
you mentioned, up to 50 percent, the question and the issue, as
we all know, it doesn't take but a small number of radical
terrorists to create an enormous problem around the world
wherever they may strike.
So with that in mind, Mr. Jasser, let me begin with you.
How important a role does violent jihad play in the Muslim
Brotherhood ideology?
Dr. Jasser. Well, I think it's central. And they might
condemn certain tactics here or there, but at the end of the
day, their model has remained advocating for violent jihad,
their ``be prepared'' passage from the Koran is simply a battle
that they use as their rallying cry. So at the end of the day,
they are a jihadist organization that believes in the technique
of violence as one of the avenues to be used.
Mr. Hice. Okay. So let's look at an example of that. How
did the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood treat religious minorities,
say, Coptic Christians?
Dr. Jasser. I was there in 2013, and they committed, and
their leaders and imams, called for acts of violence upon
Christian communities, upon the Coptic community. And while
there may have been some debate here or there, there was
impunity given to various Islamist leaders that called for
those acts of violence. And especially after they lost power in
2013, it became no holds barred, and it's been that way since.
Mr. Hice. All right. So let's bring it closer to home. What
kinds of activities does the Muslim Brotherhood engage in here
in the United States? Do we know what's happening here or what
kind of plans? What can you tell me about that?
Mr. Schanzer. Look, I have to say, I'm not an expert on the
Muslim Brotherhood here in the United States. I've been more
focused on the splinter groups and affiliate groups abroad, but
what we can say is certain groups have been involved in terror
finance cases. We have seen examples of this. The Holy Land
Foundation, for example, is sort of a famous one. That was an
organization that was providing $12 million to Hamas over the
course of about a decade, and the Muslim Brotherhood group CAIR
was an unindicted coconspirator in that case. It had an
unspecified role in that case.
So we have seen examples of this in recent history, but
again, I think the important thing to note here is that, you
know, we need to see a certain criteria in order to designate
them. In some cases we just might see examples of troubling
behavior. And this is where I think we need to--you know, with
all respect to all of my panelists--we need to be looking
simply at the criteria, not how troubled we are about a certain
ideology. We need to be--look, there is a criteria in the U.S.
Government for designation. We go after those groups in the
U.S. that are in violation of our law and we continue to watch
those that may be exhibiting some troubling behaviors.
Mr. Hice. Okay. Thank you. But by your own admission,
you're not an expert of this in the United States.
Dr. Jasser, let me go back to you. What other radical
Islamic movements outside of the Muslim Brotherhood should we
be concerned about here in the United States?
Dr. Jasser. Well, it's interesting, actually. If you look,
for example, at the Khomeinists, Hezbollah, Hezbollah was
designated a terror organization. We had sanctions against Iran
for decades. That's one of the reasons there haven't been as
many acts of Shia-inspired radical--it's not because the
Hezbollah or the Khomeinists in Iran love America, they chant
``Death to America'' all the time, but the sanctions and the
inability to fund and build mosques like the AKP now is
building in Maryland and elsewhere, like the funneling of money
from Saudi Arabia--I mean, up until just a few months ago,
Saudi Arabia was actually intimately involved in this threat of
the Brotherhood into Europe and in the West.
So if you look at our own national security incidents, San
Bernardino, the Boston bombing, Al Awlaki. Al Awlaki came
through the Muslim Student Association, which was part of the
mother ships of the Muslim Brotherhood history progeny here in
the United States that then evolved. Now, Al Awlaki then left
the Brotherhood ideology to become a Salafi Jihadist and join
al-Qaida and go to Yemen, but that revolving door of ideology,
if you look at the radicalization of a lot of Islamists in the
United States that go from the conveyor belt of nonviolent sort
of political antiAmerican, antiSemitic political Islam that go
towards radicalization, it often starts with Brotherhood legacy
groups in America.
And I'll tell you, the Syrian American, the Syrian American
Council is one of the central parts of that. Its own leadership
has said its affiliation with the Brotherhood in Syria is one
of the reasons the United States ended up funding a lot of
radical Islamist groups, including Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-
Sham, and other radical groups in Syria, because of Muslim
Brotherhood sympathizers in the United States that told them,
``Oh, they're okay,'' and you can find it by doing research, by
looking at their Facebook, social media posts that sympathize
with those groups in Syria.
Mr. Hice. Thank you. Could you provide this committee with
a list of all those?
Dr. Jasser. Absolutely. It's in my written testimony that
was submitted, sir.
Mr. Hice. Okay. All of them?
Dr. Jasser. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hice. Okay. Thank you.
Ambassador Benjamin. If I may, Mr. Hice, I believe just to
expand on Dr. Schanzer's testimony, there hasn't been a
prosecution in the United States of a Hamas affiliate since the
Holy Land Foundation.
Is that correct, Jonathan?
Mr. Schanzer. No, I don't believe there has been.
Ambassador Benjamin. And that that was in the late 1990s?
Mr. Schanzer. That was early 2000s, 2008.
Ambassador Benjamin. Okay. Early 2000s.
My point being simply that the Department of Justice and
the Treasury Department are watching potential terrorist
activity, and the FBI, of course, very, very vigorously. And I
think that the paucity of prosecutions tells a very important
story about the lack of activity going on in the United States
at this time.
Mr. Schanzer. I'd like to respond to that for just a
moment, because I don't think that that actually captures the
full picture.
There has not been a designation of a U.S. charity here in
the United States since 2009. Okay? What it means is, is that
we have a problem with the system, that we are not looking at
charities, we're not looking at the nonprofits that could be in
violation of our laws.
I actually believe that during the Obama administration,
not to make this political, but during those years, the fact
that we did not have a designation to me is very troubling,
because I don't believe that there was no terror finance
activity coming out of the U.S.
So that does not exonerate the Muslim Brotherhood. To me it
seems as if the system was not working for the last decade, and
I'm hoping that we get to see a reinvigoration of that system
now.
Mr. Hice. Thank you for that answer and I agree. I yield
back.
Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman's timed has expired.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin for 5
minutes.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you. I'd like to thank you all for
being here today.
Ambassador Benjamin, I'll start with you. You're affiliated
with the Brookings Institution. Is that correct?
Ambassador Benjamin. I'm a nonresident senior fellow there.
Mr. Grothman. Okay. I'm not sure how familiar you are with
the inner workings of the Brookings Institution, but are you
aware they've taken almost $15 million from the Qatari
Government?
Ambassador Benjamin. I am aware that Brookings has a center
in Doha and that it has, like many other institutions in the
United States, accepted funds from foreign governments,
including Qatar.
Mr. Grothman. Okay. Do you know why Qatar would be funding
the Brookings Institution or why they would find it of interest
to give them $15 million?
Ambassador Benjamin. So I don't want to speak for the
institution. I know, because I have participated in it, that
Brookings hosts, or cohosts, an annual Islamic World Forum,
which is held, I think, half the time in the United States,
half the time in Qatar, and brings distinguished speakers from
all over the world to talk about issues of common interest.
And as I said before, Brookings has a center in Doha where
it carries on scholarly activities much like those that it
carries on here.
Mr. Grothman. Okay. A fellow at the Doha center, this is
what I'm trying to come around, someone named Saleem Ali, was
quoted as saying, in The New York Times, if you can believe The
New York Times, there was a no go zone when it came to
criticizing the Qatari Government, and the Members of Congress
using Brookings reports on Qatar should be aware they're not
getting the full story.
Do you feel that by accepting $15 million, it colors at all
the view of the Brookings Institution when it comes to talking
about Qatar and therefore the Muslim Brotherhood?
Ambassador Benjamin. I worked at Brookings before going
into the Obama administration. I was the director for the
center on the U.S. and Europe. We accepted grants from the
European Union, among others. And I have the highest regard for
my fellow scholars at Brookings and believe strongly that their
views are not influenced by the sources of their funding, in
much the same way that their views are not influenced by the
corporate funding, which is another frequent source of funding
at Brookings and throughout the think tank world, or from
foundations, whose leadership may have particular views, but
those views are not imposed upon the scholars. And the think
tanks generally in Washington work very hard to avoid having
the views of their donors appear in their reports.
Mr. Grothman. I don't know how big Brookings is, $15
million just hits me as kind of a large sum of money.
And I just wondered, can you speculate on what motive the
Qatar government, which is sponsoring the Muslim Brotherhood as
well, what motivation they would have in giving such a large
contribution to Brookings?
Ambassador Benjamin. In my dealings with the Qataris, which
has been quite extensive, I know that they are interested in
building dialogue between the United States and their country
and the Muslim world more broadly. And, you know, we see this
in many other contexts as well. You know, probably the biggest
contributor to the think tank world is Norway.
I see no reason to impute any ill intentions to the Qataris
here, nor would I to the many think tanks that are receiving
money from the UAE or from the Saudis, whose, you know,
opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood is very well known right
now, even if in, particularly the Saudi case, it's been
anything but consistent.
Mr. Grothman. Okay. I'll ask either one of the other of
you, it's been implied by Mr. Benjamin that the Muslim
Brotherhood is just kind of an umbrella name and there's not a
lot of coordination between the Muslim Brotherhood in one
country to another. I'd ask you to comment on that in general,
whichever one of the other three wants to comment.
Mr. Fradkin. I can say a little bit about that. I think
that originally there was a good deal of coordination and
there's a desire for there to be such. Over time, it's been a
mixed picture. For a very long time, the other Brotherhood
chapters looked to the Egyptian chapter as the founding
chapter. They still cooperate. In the context of the 2011 Arab
revolts, people went from Egypt to Tunisia to consult with
their Brotherhood chapter. Actually, the Tunisians recommended
that the Egyptian Brotherhood be a little bit more restrained.
It was good advice, which they didn't take. And there is that
kind of thing.
Because of the situation that was referred to before by
Jonathan Schanzer, it's harder for them to coordinate, but they
will be looking to coordinate. And one of the issues, one of
the relevant considerations, is where they will coordinate
from.
Qatar is one place, because they do support the Brotherhood
and they provide, in particular, support for Al Jazeera, which
is a platform for the most significant Brotherhood cleric, al-
Qaradawi, but I think actually more important in the near
future is going to be Turkey, because Turkey is a much bigger
country, it's a more powerful country, and it has the wind in
its sails now, or its president does. And I think it's pretty
clear he's acting as if he is going to be the godfather to the
Brotherhood. He's provided a safe haven for many of the
Egyptians who had to flee, Brotherhood and others.
And what exactly he will do or what they will do under his
auspices, I don't know, but because of the character of Turkey
and the fact that the government is so completely under the
control of its president, there is much greater opportunity in
the future for coordinating action, I would say.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you. I believe my time is up.
Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman yields back.
I want to again thank our witnesses for appearing before us
today. The hearing record will remain open for 2 weeks for any
member to submit a written opening statement or questions for
the record.
And if there's no further business, without objection, the
subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:35 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
APPENDIX
----------
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]