If Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood candidate for president Mohammed Mursi (above) wins, Egypt's capital moves from Cairo to Jerusalem. So stated a leading Islamic leader, Safwat Hagazy, during a recent campaign rally as Mursi and MB head honcho Mohammed Badei looked on.
Outrageous? Fantastic? Not in Muslimworld. As crack Islamic law expert Stephen Coughlin pointed out to me today, the 2008 charter of the Organization of the Islamic conference similarly calls for OIC's "permanent headquarters" to be moved to Jerusalem after the city's "liberation."
Article 21 of the OIC Charter:
The Headquarters of the General Secretariat shall be in the city of Jeddah until the liberation of the city of Al Quds so that it will become the permanent Headquarters of the Organisation.
Al Quds is the Islamic name for Jerusalem.
The OIC is the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (it used to be known as the Organization of the Islamic Conference). With 56 Islamic member states represented by heads of state and foreign ministers, it is the largest voting bloc on the international stage, a unified front to advance Islam and its laws across the world.
If your logic reflexes are telling you that, gosh, that sure sounds like a new caliphate is taking shape with a proposed capital in Jersualem, you're right. Such observations fail to earn space in the MSM but you're still right. The MSM are worse than uninformative, which just might have something to do with shrinking profits.
From Qudsmedia:
“Our capital shall not be Cairo, Mecca or Medina. It shall be Jerusalem with God’s will. Our chants shall be: ‘millions of martyrs will march towards Jerusalem’,” prominent cleric Safwat Hagazy said, according to the video aired by Egypt’s religious Annas TV on Tuesday. The video went viral after being posted on YouTube – accompanied by English subtitles by Memri TV –, with 61,691 views until Thursday night.
“The United States of the Arabs will be restored on the hands of that man [Mursi] and his supporters. The capital of the [Muslim] Caliphate will be Jerusalem with God’s will,” Hegazy said, as the crowds cheered, waving the Egyptian flags along with the flags of the Islamist Hamas group, which rules the Gaza Strip.
“Tomorrow Mursi will liberate Gaza,” the crowds chanted.
“Yes, we will either pray in Jerusalem or we will be martyred there,” Hegazy said.
Hegazy’s speech came during a presidential campaign rally at the Egyptian Delta city of Mahalla, where Mursi attended along with the Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohammed Badei and members of the group and its political wing the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP).
Israel Today Magazine also carried Hagazy's recent comments:
A prominent Egyptian cleric with ties to the Brotherhood added to those fears last week when he told a large rally that should Mursi win the election, Egypt's capital will no longer be Cairo, but rather Jerusalem.
"The United States of the Arabs will be restored on the hands of that man [Mursi] and his supporters. The capital of the [Muslim] Caliphate will be Jerusalem with Allah’s will," said Safwat Hagazy in a speech broadcast on Egypt's Annas TV. "Yes, we will either pray in Jerusalem or we will be martyred there."
Mursi and other Muslim Brotherhood officials were in attendance at the rally.
Last month, Muslim Brotherhood General Guide Mohammed Badie issued a written statement calling Israel's rebirth the "worst catastrophe ever to befall the peoples of the world" and demanding that the "Zionist entity" withdraw from all the "land of Palestine."
Like Hamas and the regime in Iran, elected Muslim Brotherhood officials (even the president) ultimately answer to or are significantly influenced by religious leaders within their movement. While Mursi may become the president of Egypt, Badie will remain in control of the Brotherhood.
Hamas, which is an off-shoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, is eager for a Mursi victory in Saturday's election.
A Muslim Brotherhood victory "will make Israel weaker and more isolated. Israel will have no friends or alliances left in this region," Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad told the Los Angeles Times last week.
Even before the feared Brotherhood takeover, there are already signs Egypt is returning to a position of outright hostility toward Israel.
Earlier this month, Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram reported that Egypt's government censor had halted production on a private film that allegedly promoted normalization of relations with Israel. The movie's writer insisted that the film - which follows the lives of an Egyptian, a Palestinian and an Israeli - was not intended to promote Israel, but rather to encourage peace and cooperation, something in which Egypt's new rulers apparently have no interest.
At the same time, Egypt's censors approved a wildly popular new song titled "I Love Israel," which in fact urges the exact opposite sentiment toward the Jewish state.
"May it [Israel] be destroyed. May it be colonized. May it be wiped off the map. May a wall fall on it. May it disappear from the universe. God, please have it banished," go the lyrics of the new hit by singer Amr El Masry.
Did the Washington Post report on Hagazy's declaration?
Nope.
How about the New York Times?
Nope.
But former Postie-chief Leonard Downie, Jr. did manage to pen a thumbsucker bemoaning the cost-cutting demise of Watergate-inspired "investigative reporting."
Not that it costs anything to read the OIC Charter ....
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