The Trump administration’s move toward designating the Islamist group as terrorists is long overdue. But it makes no sense to treat the Brotherhood’s sponsor as an ally.
President Donald Trump finally took the first step on Nov. 24 toward an action that many of his allies and supporters have been calling for since his first term in office. He signed an executive order setting “in motion a process by which certain chapters or other subdivisions of the Muslim Brotherhood shall be considered for designation as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.”
The Brotherhood is a transnational Islamist group that spreads fundamentalist Sunni Muslim ideology around the world, preaching hatred for and war against the West—co-religionists who do not share their extremism, as well as for Israel and Jews. It acts as a support network for terrorists such as Hamas, which was founded as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as for those who are working to undermine or overthrow non-Islamist governments in Arab and Muslim countries, such as those in Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan.
The grandfather of jihadism