Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World (45 page)

In Europe in the early years of the cold war, opposition to Communism offered an umbrella under which some former fascist and Nazi sympathizers succeeded in changing political colors by obscuring details of their biographies in order to be born again as Western democrats. In an intriguing conversation with Phillip Ireland, the first secretary of the American Embassy in Cairo on October 21, 1947, Hassan al-Banna thought that the vehement anti-Communism of the Muslim Brotherhood might offer the possibility of a similar alliance of convenience with the United States.42 Al-Banna regretted that the Soviet Union has supported a partition proposal for Palestine. Given that both the United States and the Muslim Brotherhood fought Communism, he thought it would be a good idea for the Brotherhood, which he claimed had a membership of a million persons, to join forces with the Americans. Russian support for the partition plan had confirmed al-Banna's view that Russians were a menace to Arabs, but American support for the Jewish state was a great shock to him.

Ireland turned down the offer.43 In doing so, he drew attention to an article, "America and the Arab World," published the week before in Al Ikhwan Al Muslimin. The writer of the article observed that the Arabs were grateful to the Americans because "their wicked attitude towards Palestine," that is, American support for a Jewish state and the U.N. Partition Plan, demonstrated the need for Arab unity. "The Americans committed a crime against peace when they declared their support for a few million Jews. They chose to plunge the world into another war and they must be held responsible before history, and made to pay a heavy price for this blunder. The East will clash with the West in a bloody battle and we are determined to fight to the last man, woman and child."44 For the Brotherhood, the dispute over Palestine was also a civilizational and religious conflict. Its anti-Zionism drew on opposition to a Jewish state that had long preceded a Palestinian refugee problem. It adamantly opposed compromise available in the two-state solution suggested by the U.N. Partition Plan. The Brotherhood explained Russian support for the plan with an anti-Semitic litany: the Soviets were "pleasing the Jews and rewarding them for supporting the Communist revolution against the Czarist regime and at the same time getting rid of the Russian Jews who will want to immigrate to Palestine."45 The position of the Muslim Brotherhood, no less than that of the Mufti, was rooted in anti-Semitic arguments that emerged well before the establishment of the State of Israel.

The previous month, American intelligence officials in the Central Intelligence Group, successor to the OSS and precursor to the CIA, received a report about the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine from Alba M. Kerr, who was working as a research analyst in Beirut. Kerr's sources reported that in Jerusalem, the Brotherhood met in Husseini's home, where they read from the Koran, at times heard from Hassan al-Banna, prepared for jihad should the U.N. support establishment of a Jewish state, and were "arming by contraband sent by collaborators in Europe." Kerr reported that the movement was young but spreading rapidly in Palestine due to its opposition to both Zionism and Communism. The conclusion is worth quoting at length.

The significance of this new development is two-fold, for this is the first direct evidence of an organized Islamic movement and therefore it constitutes a threat to permanent peace, since no harmony can exist where political differences are based on sectarian differences. Already Maronites are pleading for protection against this absorption, and young progressive Arab nationalists here deplore the rapid growth of the Muslim Brotherhood because they realize the need for Arab unity and want to abolish sectarian bonds; so there is a strong possibility of a Holy War (Jihad). On 12 September 1947, the Muslim Brotherhood broke up a meeting in Dier Eszor. The Communist daily newspaper "Sent Bah Shaab" refers to them as "a fanatic group whose spiritual power is the Sword." This Muslim Brotherhood appears to be as [sic] an offspring of the Mufti and his collaborators. Whatever complexion they now assume, they are anti-Occidental religious fanatics, thus powerful enough to arouse 70,000,000 devout Moslems in this part of the world. The one immediate measure to stem this tide is Palestinian in- dependence.46

Kerr's analysis and conclusions were in tune with those of past American military and civil intelligence reporting. American agents were accurately observing the emergence and importance of Islamist ideology and politics and noting the fears it was arousing among secular Arab forces, yet in contrast to President Truman, they concluded that establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine would only make a bad situation worse. The idea that Arab secular forces might defeat the Islamists and thus make possible compromises over land with the Jews was not one that Kerr's report considered. It was yet another of the early and prescient American observations of the implications of the emergence of Islamist politics in these years.

In February 1948, the Cairo Embassy sent an article to Washington from Al Ikhwan Al Muslimin about "The Jews and Communism." The article claimed that "every Jew" was a Communist but somehow was simultaneously "against Communism." The Jews were without principles. "It suits the Jews to convert the whole world into Communism, although they themselves may not believe in this destructive doctrine." Russia intended to use Jews as a fifth column in the Middle East. Russia had "already invaded the Middle East, dear Americans, but by way of Palestine which is already filled with its Fifth Column. "47 In other words, the Jews in Palestine were a tool of the Soviets. The style and logic of the argument was identical to the merging of Jews and Communism in the Nazi assault on "Jewish Bolshevism."

The Brotherhood's resort to violence and its attacks on the Egyptian government made headlines in Egypt and aroused the continuing interest of American officials in Cairo. Embassy personnel noted and recorded the text of the Brotherhood's program published in its newspaper in September 1948. Showing striking similarities to Europe's twentieth-century totalitarian ideologies, it called for "the dissolution of all parties and the direction of all the population's political efforts towards one single aim." Legislation was to be coordinated with "Islamic laws from all points of view." The army and youth organizations should be organized on a "patriotic basis of Islamic nature." All Islamic countries and especially Arab nations should address "the question of the Khalifate." There should be no distinction between individual and public life. All government actions should be based on Islamic laws and justice. All celebrations, movements, public ceremonies, prisons, and hospitals were to be subjected to the Islamic doctrine. "Azharists, that is, students and faculty of AlAzhar University, should be employed in military and administrative positions. Although its religious ground differed from fascism and Nazism, the Muslim Brotherhood shared their hatred of democracy and liberalism. It celebrated unity over division, was contemptuous of a multiplicity of political parties, sought one standpoint from which all matters should be judged, and favored a cult of youth and militaristic mobilization.48

The Brotherhood's program was one of unbridled authoritarian moralism. It aimed to control culture and fostered nationalist xenophobia toward foreigners. It called for strict "public morality" and "severe punishment for any breach thereof." Women were to be protected "in accordance with the Islamic spirit." Prostitution would be abolished and adultery treated as a crime. Gambling, drinking, and narcotics would be prohibited. Women would not be allowed to use cosmetics. "The display of beauty" was not acceptable among female teachers, students, and doctors. Girls' education would be modified to make it different from that of boys. Coeducation would be banned. "Any unlawful intimacy between a man and a woman" would be "a punishable crime." Marriage and procreation would be encouraged "by all possible means." Yet, like the fascists and National Socialists, the Brotherhood proposed a program of cultural repression and censorship. Cabarets and dance halls would be closed, and plays and films would be censored. The wording of songs would be "improved" and "controlled." Broadcasting would be used to foster "a good, patriotic and moral education." An Islamic government would "confiscate all risque and obscene plays and books and all those papers which encourage libertinism." Cafe opening hours would be limited, and they would be used instead to teach illiterates how to read and write. Those who did not fast on Ramadan would be punished. Schools would be annexed by the mosques. Religion would be taught in all schools, including the universities. Learning the Koran by heart would be encouraged at the private schools. "Degrees having any connection with religion or language courses" would not be given "unless the candidate knows by heart the Koran or, in respect to certain schools, a part of it." Special attention would be given to Islamic and national history, patriotic education, and the history of Islamic civilization. The learning of Arabic would be given priority. Further, such a government would "eliminate the use of foreign languages, foreign habits and fashions in the family and do away with the employment of foreign nurses and governesses and the like, by Egyptianizing them all, especially in the high class families." The state would control the press. Writers would be encouraged to write about Islamic subjects and public health would be improved.49

The economic program promoted by the Brotherhood was no less antimodern and illiberal. Interest would be forbidden. Foreigners working in Egyptian companies would be fired. "Only local elements" would be employed. The public should be protected from "the despotism of monopoly companies." Employees' salaries should be raised and the pay of "High Officials" reduced, yet employment should be expanded, the standard of living raised, and Egypt's natural resources exploited. The program was an attack on capitalism from the right. From the standpoint of market economics, it was economic illiteracy. The program was profoundly and deeply antiliberal in politics, economics, and culture. These programmatic statements of the Muslim Brotherhood demonstrated again what had been obvious from the meeting of hearts and minds in Berlin that produced the broadcasts of Voice of Free Arabism and Berlin in Arabic: during and after World War II, Nazism and fascism found common ground with radical Islam. The collapse of fascist and Nazi ideology taking place in postwar Europe was simply not in evidence in the program of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The discussion about the relation between radical Islam and National Socialism began in Cairo in the immediate postwar years. In their ongoing efforts to understand the Muslim Brotherhood, American diplomats in Cairo translated and sent to Washington "The Brotherhood and the Parties," an article from Ikhwan Al Muslimin that responded to the question: "Is the Moslem Brotherhood an Islamic or a fascist organization?" Other political parties in Egypt had made that accusation in response to the Brotherhood's argument that national "unity could not be realized without the dissolution of the various parties." When it called for unity in the face of "foreign dangers," the Brotherhood insisted it was only applying "the teachings of Islam," which called for unity of followers. "The Koran says: `All the faithful are brothers': God has said in this respect, `The faithful males and females are responsible for each other.' He has also said: `Do not be in disagreement, otherwise, you will fail and be defeated."' It added that the Prophet once said to his followers, `Do you want to know what is better than praying, fasting and alms giving?' They said yes we do, then he said: `It is good harmony as discord is against the whole religion.""'

The Prophet's views about harmony had contemporary political implications. What, the article continued, was "the use of having so many parties in an occupied country?" The "hateful partisanship" between the parties had "done no good for this country" and had "only created corruption and immorality." It claimed that the Koran prohibited partisanship yet "encouraged freedom of thought and opinion and imposes reciprocal advice and counseling." In fact, the Muslim Brotherhood was "a democratic organization respecting and preaching for the respect of others' opinions and freedom of thought, but, on the other hand, following Moslem doctrine, it fights partisanship, disunion and division. This is the reason why the Brotherhood calls for the dissolution of the parties." It was a "Moslem consultative organization" but was "far from being a fascist or Nazi or any other dictatorial organization." The Brotherhood appealed to the king to form a "national body" in which "all the parties forfeit their distinctive names and amalgamate in that `National Body."' The Brotherhood's antiparliamentary attitude in 1948 was the same as it had been in 1938, for "the words of God cannot be changed." Yet in 1948, "more than ever," Egypt needed unity to face its problems and those of Palestine, the Arabs, and Islam. "We must all insist upon requesting the dissolution of all political parties and struggle for the unity of the nation and gather all the useful elements under one flag to lead the nation in this struggle for life or death against imperialism and Zionism." This was a principle that the Brotherhood would adhere to and fight for "until such time as God and right prevail over wrong. "s 1

After World War II, in the Middle East as well, no one, including the Muslim Brotherhood, wanted to be identified with fascism and Nazism. Yet the arguments it presented against partisanship, division, and differentiation were essentially the same as the antidemocratic and antiliberal indictment made in Italy and Germany after World War I. The idea that political parties were a source of national weakness in the face of foreign threats was a central aspect of the arguments made by Italian fascists and German National Socialists in their efforts to destroy democracy in the 1920s. The "reactionary modernists" in Germany argued that the truly modern form of government was a dictatorship that dispensed with political parties.52 Even in the face of the defeat of fascism and Nazism, the Muslim Brotherhood echoed those sentiments.

On December 9, 1948, Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmud Nokrashi suppressed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, saying its existence "constitutes a serious threat to public security and order." The Egyptian government confiscated its funds and seized its archives and property. The Brotherhood, according to Sidky Pasha, was attempting to overthrow "the established order in Egypt" by force "under cover of helping the struggle against Zionism in Palestine." It had turned "schools into battlefields" and introduced "grenades and pistols even into secondary schools." It extorted money from businesses and individuals. "Finally it embarked on a series of terrorist outrages, including the murder of the Vice-president of the Cairo court of appeal, who had convicted some of the brethren, the blowing up of the offices of the Societe Orientale de Publicite, the killing of Selim Zaki Pasha, commandant of the Cairo City Police, and numerous bombings."53 In the course of the suppression of the Brotherhood, the Egyptian police seized "automatic weapons, grenades, gelignite with fuses and detonators packed in bags and crates, cordite, gun cotton, ammunition, bombs as well as forged car numbers."54