Egypt's Brotherhood slams Israel over Gaza strikes

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s pow­er­ful Mus­lim Broth­er­hood sharply crit­i­cized Israeli lead­ers on Tues­day over airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, accus­ing them of heat­ing up the con­flict to score polit­i­cal points ahead of elections.

The lat­est round of vio­lence began Sat­ur­day, with rocket attacks from Gaza mil­i­tants and Israeli airstrikes that killed seven Pales­tini­ans. More than 100 rock­ets have exploded in Israel since the week­end. The exchanges appeared to die down on Tuesday.

Also, Israeli tanks struck a Syr­ian artillery launcher Mon­day after a mor­tar shell flew into Israel-held ter­ri­tory, fuel­ing con­cerns that Israel could be dragged into the Syr­ian civil war.

In its state­ment, the Brotherhood’s Free­dom and Jus­tice Party referred to Israel as a “Zion­ist occu­pier” and a “racist state,” plac­ing Israeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Netanyahu and For­eign Min­is­ter Avig­dor Lieber­man on the “fringes” of the “far right.”

“In the frame­work of elec­tions that Israel is wit­ness­ing is a recent mil­i­tary esca­la­tion against occu­pied Gaza and the occu­pied Golan Heights,” the state­ment said. Israel has set par­lia­men­tary elec­tions for Jan. 22.

The Brotherhood’s party called on Arab and Mus­lim gov­ern­ments “to stop the Zion­ist war that is oper­at­ing under elec­toral cal­cu­la­tions for per­sonal gain far from human­i­tar­ian cal­cu­la­tions for peace, secu­rity and stability.”

The Mus­lim Broth­er­hood itself released a sep­a­rate state­ment shortly after its party’s, sharp­en­ing the crit­i­cism and accus­ing Israel of fol­low­ing a pol­icy that tries to appear oppo­site itself “and God knows they are liars.”

“The killing of tens of our inno­cent Pales­tin­ian broth­ers is part of a link in a chain of oppres­sion and Judaiza­tion that seeks to impose itself on the ground, and that will never mate­ri­al­ize with God’s will,” it said.

The harsh pro­nounce­ments fol­lowed a small demon­stra­tion in Cairo Mon­day and open let­ter signed by sev­eral lib­eral par­ties and rev­o­lu­tion­ary groups denounc­ing the Israeli strikes on Gaza.

The state­ments by both the Broth­er­hood and its polit­i­cal party high­light decades of ten­sions between neigh­bors Israel and Egypt, despite a 1979 peace treaty. The Islamists, repressed in Egypt under the regime that was ousted last year, have emerged as the most pow­er­ful group since last year’s pop­u­lar upris­ing. They won par­lia­men­tary elec­tions and the presidency.

Last month, the group’s supreme leader, Mohammed Badie, released a fiery tirade against Jews, accus­ing them of spread­ing cor­rup­tion, slaugh­ter­ing Mus­lims and des­e­crat­ing holy sites. The com­ments were denounced by Israeli offi­cials and a lead­ing anti-Semitic watch­dog group.

Unlike his pre­de­ces­sor, the ousted Hosni Mubarak, Pres­i­dent Mohammed Morsi has not met Israeli offi­cials since his elec­tion in June. He has also not men­tioned Israel by name in offi­cial state­ments, in line with long­stand­ing Broth­er­hood policy.

But to secure invest­ments and bol­ster the econ­omy, Morsi recently met with U.S. busi­ness exec­u­tives from top Amer­i­can com­pa­nies and vowed to respect his country’s peace accord with Israel.

Since his elec­tion, Israel and Egypt have qui­etly coop­er­ated over a mil­i­tary buildup in the Sinai Penin­sula, where Islamist mil­i­tants have been attack­ing Egypt­ian forces and launch­ing attacks into Israel. The secu­rity coor­di­na­tion sig­nals there is no sig­nif­i­cant shift in Cairo’s poli­cies toward Israel, despite the heated Broth­er­hood rhetoric.

Morsi has also indi­cated there will not be rad­i­cal changes in pol­icy any­time soon, even with Hamas, an off­shoot of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood move­ment, which rules the Gaza Strip,.

Morsi’s gov­ern­ment still tightly con­trols Pales­tin­ian move­ment through the Rafah bor­der cross­ing with Gaza. Egypt’s role in a block­ade of Gaza, imposed by Israel after Hamas won elec­tions and later over­ran the ter­ri­tory in 2007, is highly unpopular.

Israel with­drew from Gaza in 2005 but con­trols its air­space, sea­coast and most land crossings.

In a meet­ing in Cairo Tues­day with Western-backed Pales­tin­ian Pres­i­dent Mah­moud Abbas, Morsi expressed his “full sup­port” for Pales­tin­ian plans to seek non­mem­ber state sta­tus at the United Nations.

Israel and the U.S. oppose the move.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Nov 13 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.