Trump, Sisi, and the Muslim Brotherhood: Why Strongmen use Straw Men

As Egypts President Al-Sisi and President Trump meet today in the White House, sure to be on their agenda will be the designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Though this is a move long favored by Trump associates, Egypts autocratic ruler may give the President the cover he needs to make it a reality in this country by couching the designation as a part of the fight against ISIS. Long the most effective opposition party in Egypt, the Brotherhood was declared a terrorist group by Al-Sisi, and he has exiled, executed, or jailed many of its most prominent members. For President Al-Sisi, this move served to both quell any hint of dissent as well as creating a bogeyman to constantly campaign against.

Likewise in America, in many far-right circles, mention of the Muslim Brotherhood has long been used to drum up images of a sinister fifth column of shadowy Islamists intent on destroying the American way of life and bringing sharia law to Ketchum, Idaho. For years, Islamophobes, chief among them Frank Gaffney, a conspiracy theorist, founder of the Center for Security Policy and advisor to President Trump , have used the name of the Brotherhood to try and mar the reputations of everyone from Hillary Clinton advisor Huma Abedin to taxpayer-rights activist Grover Norquist, implying tangential connections proved them to be enemy agents.

In fact, the Muslim Brotherhood is less of a single, identifiable entity than a loosely affiliated network of over 1,500 organizations, including political parties and social service providers, throughout 70 countries. Founded in 1928 in Egypt, the Brotherhood originated as a means to fight against British imperialism. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the group officially renounced political violence in the 1970s , and Brotherhood-affiliated candidates have run in local elections in Egypt and other parts of the middle-east starting in 1984. The administrations of both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama found that the Muslim Brotherhood was not a terrorist organization and therefore did not warrant a spot on the FTO list. Now President Trumps State Department will have to make that determination for themselves.

However the State Department eventually comes down on the Muslim Brotherhoods designation, our concern, and what should concern fellow Americans, is the way in which this designation could be used to silence and discriminate against American Muslims and their advocacy organizations here at home that have nothing to do with the Muslim Brotherhood.

An FTO designation grants the government broad authority to freeze assets of any group or person which they believe has provided any support, material or otherwise, to said FTO. Material support can include even academic activities with groups who have only peripheral relations to the named FTO. These broad authorities with a low burden of proof have had real-world consequences in the American Muslim community. Since 2001, of the nine charities that were forced out of existence through the use of these powers and the subsequent freezing of assets, fully seven were Muslim-based charities. Most of these organizations were never actually charged with any crime, but via the asset-blocking powers of the Treasury, they simply could not remain financially viable.

President Trumps order to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a Foreign Terrorist Organization is not an isolated move simply meant to curb a perceived threat. This is a deliberate attempt to silence and perhaps shutter by executive fiat any Muslim American group that voices opposition to the Presidents well-documented Islamophobic views. By using a guilt by association tactic to tarnish the reputations of Muslim American civic groups and freeze their assets, the Trump Administration is giving into the basest fear mongering of his conspiracy-minded advisors, all while infringing on Muslim Americans constitutional rights of due process, equal protection under the law, as well as their fundamental First Amendment rights. It should be remembered that these tactics are not new. These same techniques were used to vilify the Roman Catholic Church in the early 1900s, culminating in John F. Kennedys famous Separation of Church and State speech from 1960.

To protect all Americans -- including Americans who practice Islam -- from the abuse of the vast powers embodied in the FTO designations, amendments to existing national security legislation should increase criminal investigatory standards from reasonable suspicion to probable cause in cases involving FTOs, provide notice to parties under investigation along with public evidence of the governments allegations, and expand judicial review of designation decisions.

American Muslims, like all Americans, care about our national security and want to protect against any group that would try to harm our nation. But we cannot sacrifice our Constitutional rights in order to do that. President Trump is once again treating American Muslims as suspects rather than citizens. Beyond even terrorism, there can be no greater threat to our democracy than that.

Salam Al-Marayati is president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC)