The violent struggle for power in Egypt between the Muslim Brotherhood and supporters of Egyptian army chief Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has led to mutual accusations of being Jewish and implementing The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Supporters of the current regime have compared the Brotherhood to Jews and Zionists, even claiming that the group’s founder, Hassan al-Banna, was Jewish, according to a new report by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
In a report in the daily Al-Wafd, writer Magdi Salama said the Brotherhood was carrying out The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
“In their Protocols, the Zionists are mainly concerned with destroying governments in every country, sowing the seeds of strife and quarrel in all countries and changing the [atmosphere] in the countries from one of tolerance to one of political and religious radicalism. This is precisely what the Muslim Brotherhood has currently undertaken to do in Egypt,” MEMRI quoted Salama as writing.
The Protocols, an old forgery meant to demonstrate the Jews’ “evil” plans, is still in use among anti-Semites around the world as “proof” that the Jews are trying to take over the world.
“This is part of what one can call ‘the Jew’ as a metaphor. It’s not a new phenomenon, but it became more popular in the wake of the Arab Spring, and each camp accuses the other of being a descendant of Jews or collaborating with Israel and the Mossad,” said Esther Webman, a senior research fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University.
An article last August in the Egyptian newspaper Roz al-Yousef claimed that Banna was “a Moroccan Jew planted by the Freemasons in order to found the movement.”
On social networks, the Brotherhood is compared to Jews and Zionists, with a Star of David and even Theodor Herzl appearing in the propaganda, said the report. Some images show former Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi – who was deposed in a military coup that Sisi led last July – dressed as a Jew.
On the other side, the Brotherhood website depicted the current Egyptian regime as Jewish and claimed that the coup had been part of the implementation of the Protocols.
The MEMRI report cited an article that was later removed, titled “A Gift of Coup for the Zionists,” as stating: “Making Egypt openly subordinate to [the leaders] of global Zionism, since [the leaders of the coup] visit them, coordinate with them, operate according to their dictates, protect them, spread [their ideas], and make alliances with them against the forces of reform, in both word and action, planning and execution, secretly and openly.”
A website identified with the Brotherhood argued that Sisi’s mother was a Moroccan Jewish woman named Malika Titani and that she had received Egyptian citizenship in 1958, only to give it up in 1973 so that Sisi could go to military school.