Global Muslim Brotherhood Groups Try to Shift Narrative from Ukraine to Palestine (Part I)

Ele­ments of the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood appear to be attempt­ing to shift the nar­ra­tive on the Russ­ian inva­sion of Ukraine to con­flicts in the  Mid­dle East, par­tic­u­lar­ly the Israeli-Pales­tin­ian con­flict. The attempts cen­ter on alleged hypocrisy in the West­ern response to the inva­sion. For exam­ple, Nihad Awad, the nation­al direc­tor of the Coun­cil on Amer­i­can Islam­ic Rela­tions (CAIR), con­demned the Russ­ian action but said the US should “end our own involve­ment in unjust attacks on oth­er peo­ple around the world, includ­ing Yeme­nis and Palestinians:”

Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022 “We join peo­ple around the world in con­demn­ing Russia’s inva­sion of Ukraine. Vladimir Putin is a war crim­i­nal and a mass mur­der­er whose attack on Ukraine is the lat­est in a long list of crimes he has com­mit­ted around the world – from Chech­nya, to Geor­gia, to Syr­ia. As Mus­lims, our faith teach­es us to stand with the oppressed against the oppres­sor. In the face of Russia’s war on Ukraine, we stand with the peo­ple of Ukraine.

“While our nation speaks out against Russia’s unjust attack on the Ukrain­ian peo­ple, we must also end our own involve­ment in unjust attacks on oth­er peo­ple around the world, includ­ing Yeme­nis and Pales­tini­ans, and account for what we have done to Iraqis, Afghans and oth­ers. Only by exer­cis­ing moral and legal con­sis­ten­cy in for­eign affairs will our nation have the moral author­i­ty to hold oth­ers account­able for vio­lat­ing inter­na­tion­al law.”

CAIR describes itself as “a grass­roots civ­il rights and advo­ca­cy group” but was found­ed in 1994 by Awad and two oth­er offi­cers of the Islam­ic Asso­ci­a­tion of Pales­tine, part of the US Hamas infra­struc­ture at that time.

Tariq Ramadan, Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood leader and son-in-law of the Egypt­ian Mus­lim Broth­er­hood founder, accused Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Zelen­sky of keep­ing “silent when inno­cent Pales­tini­ans were killed by the Israeli occupation:”

Febru­yary 26, 2022 #Zelen­sky I salute your courage. I won’t for­get you kept silent when inno­cent Pales­tini­ans were killed by the Israeli occu­pa­tion. Occu­pied Jerusalem is for you the eter­nal cap­i­tal of Israel! Yet, jus­tice is not about trade, but prin­ci­ples. Today I sup­port your right resistance.

The Mid­dle East Mon­i­tor has tak­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty of the inva­sion to claim that Israel is encour­ag­ing Jew­ish migra­tion from Ukraine to Israel in order to bol­ster Israeli settlements:

Feb­ru­ary 28, 2022 Israel is using the Russ­ian war on Ukraine to encour­age Jew­ish migra­tion to Israel, expert in Israeli affairs Iyad Ham­dan said yes­ter­day. Speak­ing to Quds Press, Ham­dan said that the Israeli occu­pa­tion received hun­dreds of sec­u­lar Jews who immi­grat­ed from Ukraine in order to main­tain the bal­ance between the sec­u­lar and reli­gious Jews in Israel. He point­ed out that Israel does not stop work­ing to increase its Jew­ish pop­u­la­tion in order to main­tain the Jew­ish major­i­ty against the Arab pop­u­la­tion. The expert stat­ed that the Israeli occu­pa­tion gov­ern­ment is plan­ning to absorb the new immi­grants in ille­gal set­tle­ments across the occu­pied West Bank.

The Mid­dle East Mon­i­tor (MEMO) is a UK-based Islamist news por­tal close to the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and Hamas.

The Amer­i­can Mus­lims for Pales­tine (AMP) has pinned a tweet depict­ing an Israeli airstrike on Gaza with the head­line, “It hap­pened, but not in Ukraine!” This AMP tweet was retweet­ed by Hatem Baz­ian, the Chair­man of the AMP. The  AMP is a Pales­tin­ian advo­ca­cy group with strong ties to both the US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and Hamas sup­port infra­struc­ture in the US.

The Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood is a transna­tion­al Islamist net­work cov­ered by the GIOR. Sup­port for the Pales­tini­ans in the con­flict with Israel is uni­ver­sal through­out the GMB.