Posted on 04/07/2007 3:53:36 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
CAIRO, Egypt - A top U.S. Democratic congressman met a leading member of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, an outlawed opposition group, during a recent visit to the country, the Islamic fundamentalist group and U.S. officials said Saturday.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (news, bio, voting record) met with the Muslim Brotherhood's parliament leader, Mohammed Saad el-Katatni, twice on Thursday — once at the parliament building and then at the home of the U.S. ambassador to Egypt, said Brotherhood spokesman Hamdi Hassan.
U.S. Embassy spokesman John Berry would only confirm that Hoyer, who represents Maryland, met with el-Katatni at U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone's home at a reception with other politicians and parliament members.
Though officially banned since 1954, the Brotherhood is tolerated by the government and has become Egypt's largest opposition group and President Hosni Mubarak's most powerful rival.
Its members, who run as independents, make up the largest opposition bloc in parliament, holding about one-fifth of its 454 seats.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has refused in the past to meet with the Muslim Brotherhood.
But Berry said U.S. government policy does not bar meetings with Brotherhood members of parliament and Hoyer's talks with el-Katatni were not a change in U.S. policy toward the group.
"It's our diplomatic practice around the world to meet with parliamentarians, be they members of political parties or independents," Berry said. "We haven't changed our policy with regard to the Muslim Brotherhood as an organization."
The State Department had no comment Saturday on Hoyer's meetings with the group.
Berry stressed that Hoyer met with el-Katatni in his capacity as an independent member of Egyptian parliament. He would not say what the two discussed.
Hassan said the two lawmakers discussed developments in the Middle East, the "Brotherhood's vision" and opposition movements in Egypt. He said the two met privately at the ambassador's home and with other members of Hoyer's bipartisan delegation and Egyptian lawmakers at the parliament building.
Hoyer's meeting came just a day after Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) drew sharp criticism from the Bush administration for meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus.
Pelosi and other Democrats argue the administration needs to engage Syria to resolve some of the most intractable problems in the Middle East, such as Iraq and the Israeli-Arab conflict. But the Bush administration rejects that approach, accusing Syria of exacerbating the troubles in neighboring Iraq and Lebanon.
Jon Alterman, a Mideast specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said Bush administration officials may have avoided meeting Muslim Brotherhood members because that could strain relations with the secular Egyptian government, one of the closest U.S. allies in the Middle East.
"The difficulty when it gets to Egypt is that the Brotherhood is not a legal group within Egypt and the U.S. government is wary of violating laws in countries in which it operates," he told The Associated Press on Saturday.
"The larger constraint on our willingness to meet the Brotherhood is the Egyptian government's unease with our government's meeting with the Brotherhood."
Hoyer, who also met with Mubarak during his visit, left Egypt on Friday. A telephone message left with his spokeswoman Saturday was not immediately returned. Calls to el-Katatni also went unanswered Saturday.
The Muslim Brotherhood's parliament bloc Web site said the meetings were not part of an effort to engage the United States.
"The Brotherhood not only has reservations on dialogue with the Americans but rejects the unfair American policy in the region," the Web site said.
Washington has been pressing Mubarak for years to enact reforms as part of a Bush administration campaign to spread democracy in the Mideast. And Rice expressed concern in March that "all voices" were not being heard in deliberations over amending the constitution as part of those reforms.
"There's been a growing sense in Washington over 20 years that Islamic politics are here to stay, and the U.S. interest in promoting democracy around the world means we should be engaging with a growing number of actors," Alterman said.
___
Associated Press writers Anna Johnson in Cairo and John Heilprin in Washington contributed to this report.
Amazing, isn’t it??
Looks like the makings of some sort of alliance between
the DemonRAT Party and totalitarian Islamic crazies.
I agree.
I have had Fox News on all day...I haven’t heard anything about this..
The Pali’s and the Serb/Croat Muslims both aligned themselves with Hitler in WWII sending warriors to be in the Waffen SS as special Kommandos to clean out the Undesirables (Jews) on the Eastern Front.
Steaming yet over twho the DemonRATS?Lefties care to meet with, associate with and care so deeply for???
Nope! They are populated by the America Hating ‘60s hippies.
This is a pretty nasty group the dems met with.
A brief history of the Muslim Brotherhood
Here's how the story began. In the 1920s there was a young Egyptian named [Hassan] Al-Banna. And Al-Banna formed this nationalist group called the Muslim Brotherhood. Al-Banna was a devout admirer of Adolf Hitler and wrote to him frequently. So persistent was he in his admiration of the new Nazi Party that in the 1930s Al-Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood became a secret arm of Nazi Intelligence.
The Arab Nazis had much in common with the new Nazi doctrines: they hated Jews; they hated democracy; and they hated the Western culture. It became the official policy of the Third Reich to secretly develop the Muslim Brotherhood as the "fifth parliament", an army inside Egypt.
The Muslim Brotherhood began to expand in scope and influence during World War II. They even had a Palestinian section headed by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, one of the great bigots of all time. Here, too, was a man...the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was the Muslim Brotherhood representative for Palestine. These were undoubtedly Arab Nazis. The Grand Mufti, for example, went to Germany during the war and helped recruit an international SS division of Arab Nazis. They based it in Croatia and called it the Handzar Muslim Division, but it was to become the core of Hitler's new army of Arab fascists that would conquer the Arabian Peninsula and, from there, on to Africa—grand dreams.
At the end of World War II, the Muslim Brotherhood was wanted for war crimes. Their German Intelligence handlers were captured in Cairo. The whole net was rolled up by the British Secret Service.
This page is extremely informative re MB’s designs on Germany and Europe:
The Muslim Brotherhood’s Conquest of Europe
http://www.meforum.org/article/687
MB was born of being sore losers after WWI, and the breakup of the Turk/Ottoman empire, which gave us roughly the borders in the ME that we know today......a bit like the Klan after the Civil War, actually....
Funny they fail to mention the fact that this group also included Bin Laden as a teenager in the 70's in Jeddha, Saudia Arabia. Al Quaeda stemmed from this group.
They really are that ignorant.
hmmmmmm I guess a call to my Congressional representatives..and the White House is in order.
Might as well meet with bin Laden. What the hell’s the difference? The Bush Administration won’t do sh*t to these traitors.
There is no doubt in my mind that if either of these two House Leaders. {Traitors} had the opportunity they woulod gladly meet with Bin laden.
Democrtas = selling us out on the cheap.
Okaaaay....
I have had Fox News on all day...I haven’t heard anything about this..
If the true and full story of the MB became widely known, all this ROP crap would fall quickly.....they say “al qaeda” stands for “the base”.........truth is, the base is the MB, their philosophy, goals, tactics, and all of its affiliates wearing a multitude of hats.....
we have bugs there.
probably did too at the other meeting place. :-)
Paging AG Gonzales .. White Courtesy Phone..
OOPS!!!! I forgot, that couldn't be, the Colleges are controlled by the loonie left, self anointed and faux enlightened, progressives (Socialists) so it never got taught.
You just know that given the scolding the dems got from USA Today and the Washington Post, for meeting with syria, this one is going to hurt bigtime.
The wellspring of almost all worldwide terrorism we face today
Our congressman meeting with them is beyond disgrace
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