Americans are cheering a democracy in Egypt that must lead to the victory of our enemies

In a Feb 10 column at Fox News.com (via Diana West), Douglas Schoen expands on the points made familiar by the frequently cited 2010 Pew poll of Egyptian opinion: that the majority of Egyptians support an Islamic government. They also support Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons and the abrogation of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty. Therefore, in a free and fair election, Schoen concludes, the Muslim Brotherhood will win.

Here are the key points in the article:

• [T]here is at least a 50 percent chance, if not more, that a candidate from the Muslim Brotherhood or a party with a generally similar approach and orientation will win the next presidential election.

• Put simply, Egyptians support Islam, its expanded role in the country’s civic life, as well as Shariah.

• 60 percent of Egyptians have fundamentalist views, while just 20 percent are secular in their orientation.

• [A]lmost two-thirds of Egyptians told Zogby that Egyptian life would improve when clerics play a more central role in the political life of the country

• Egyptians also support the central elements of Shariah Law. For example, 84 percent say that apostates, or those who forsake Islam, should face the death penalty and 77 percent say thieves should have their hands cut off. A majority (54 percent) says men and women should be segregated in the workplace.

• Further, the Egyptian people clearly support a political agenda that can only be described as radical. More than 7 in 10 said they were positive toward Iran getting nuclear weapons in a July 2010 Zogby Poll and close to 80 percent favor abrogating the Camp David accords with Israel.

• A significant number of Egyptians are favorable to terrorist organizations, with close to half favorable to Hamas and one in five favorable to Al Qaeda.

• Given this data it is no shock that the only group in Egyptian society that has any broad based support is the Muslim Brotherhood. Their leader, Muhammed Badi, has not surprisingly said the Koran should be law in Egypt and that jihad was essential. He also said that Israel and Zionism have to be resisted in every way possible with every resource at the disposal of the Egyptian people.

• [T]he Egyptian people are strongly favorable towards the Muslim Brotherhood. A study conducted in 2009 by WorldPublicOpinion.org shows that 64 percent have positive views of the Muslim Brotherhood.

• Secular parties have always done less well in Egypt, and the available evidence has consistently shown that there is little if any support for conventional, secular, democratic parties.

• Almost certainly the next Egyptian government will be hostile to the United States and will pursue policies that are inimical to our interests. In the Zogby poll, 85 percent called themselves unfavorable to the United States and 92 percent described America as one of the two greatest threats to Egyptian interests in the world.

• Given the short period of time between now and the scheduled September election, it is frankly unlikely that any group will be able to organize an alternative force to the Brotherhood and its philosophical allies.

• Moreover, the Brotherhood in their past campaign has been sophisticated and inclusive, and has hidden their overt Islamic tendency. They have campaigned on the mantle of reform, change, and revitalization of Egypt as a means of winning as broad based support as they possibly could. In essence, they have campaigned in the same way that Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has in his campaigns for both Mayor of Istanbul and for Prime Minister. He went on to demonstrate a much more explicitly religious agenda once he reached that nation’s highest office.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 15, 2011 09:47 AM | Send