Over the weekend, the “Fortress of Faith” radio show, a program aired on the American Family Association’s radio network, dedicated an episode to discussing an article from an Egyptian newspaper, Al-Wafd, alleging that President Obama is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. According to the show’s hosts, Al-Wafd, which has also depicted Obama as Satan, uncovered a supposed plot by Obama to give the Muslim Brotherhood $8 billion to transfer to Hamas, which would then use the funds to take over the Sinai peninsula.
Host Tom Wallace, who during the program got the name of Egypt’s president wrong, expressed disbelief that the U.S. media didn’t cover Obama’s (non-existent) ties to the group.
The Al-Wafd article has been widely mocked by experts as completely “ludicrous,” but the AFA hosts cited the article throughout the program as an “earth-shattering” report that could lead to Obama’s conviction for “high treason.”
As The Economist explains, the Egyptian media, dominated by allies of President Sisi, believes that the Muslim Brotherhood is a tool of the U.S. (to make matters more complicated, some Muslim Brotherhood supporters allege that Sisi and his supporters are themselves tools of the U.S.).
Not only is America calling the shots of the Muslim Brotherhood, their theory goes, but so is Israel, which several Egyptian media outlets have claimed is using the Muslim Brotherhood to divide and ultimately destroy Egypt. This conspiracy theory about a “Zionist-American-Muslim Brotherhood plot” and its “diabolical plan to divide and weaken Israel’s most powerful Arab neighbours, one by one,” has its roots in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about powerful Jews secretly steering world events.
The newspaper lauded by the “Fortress of Faith” hosts, Al-Wafd, pushed anti-Semitic claims, including the notorious anti-Semitic forgery “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” in its Muslim Brotherhood-Obama exposé:
One manifestation of the current regime’s de-legitimization campaign against the MB is comparing them to Jews and Zionists. The press associated with the regime has claimed that that the global MB resembles global Zionism, and that its schemes are the same as those of the Protocols. It has also claimed that MB founder Hassan Al-Bana was Jewish, as well as several other movement leaders. A number of Facebook pages depict MB members as Jews masquerading as Muslims, and feature images of [MB President Muhammad] Mursi in Jewish garb and MB symbols emblazoned with Stars of David.
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In an “investigative report” in the daily Al-Wafd, Magdi Salama also argued that the MB was implementing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and cited a few examples. He wrote: “Whoever reads the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which were formulated by the priests of global Zionism 116 years ago, and then scrupulously examines what the MB is currently doing in Egypt, discovers something grave: The MB is implementing the Protocols to the letter!
“In their Protocols, the Zionists are mainly concerned with destroying governments in every country, sowing the seeds of strife and quarrel in all countries and changing the [atmosphere] in the countries from one of tolerance to one of political and religious radicalism. This is precisely what the MB has currently undertaken to do in Egypt. The leaders of global Zionism stress the need to control people the way one controls herds of lowly cattle, to use their expression, so they can be moved around like chess pieces. This is precisely what the MB are doing by [invoking their] principle of hearing and obeying the movement’s [General] Guide.
“The Ninth Protocol talks about deceiving the public with mendacious slogans, and this is precisely what the MB does with its sit-down strikes, [like those it held] in Raba’a [Al-‘Adawiya] and Al-Nahda [Square], when it emphasizes that these sit-down strikes are on behalf of Islam and the shari’a and [constitute] sacrificing oneself for the sake of Allah, while in actuality this is political activity that is completely unrelated to religion or self-sacrifice on Allah’s behalf.
“Those who were astounded by Muhammad Mursi’s victory in the Egyptian presidential [elections] should read the Tenth Protocol of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, because it exposes the big secret behind Mursi’s attaining the Egyptian presidency and also exposes the secret behind Israel’s joy at Mursi’s victory. This Protocol says: ‘We will prevent people with common sense from leading, keep them back, and never allow them to make plans of their own. The mob (so the Protocol says) has become accustomed to leaning our way [to the Jews]; we provide it with money in exchange for its obedience. By such means we will create a force so blind that it will never be able to reach any decision without the guidance of our representatives, whom we appointed to lead it’…”
