Trump’s Plan To Designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a Terrorist Organization
Asharq Al-Awsat, London, November 29
Fundamentalist terrorism has never existed apart from the ideas, structure, and ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood; it is, rather, the direct outgrowth of that destructive doctrine. The group has embedded itself across fundamentalist literature, wielding a capacity for manipulation, concealment, and an unrestrained drive for power—even through violence.
Moderate nations that moved early to criminalize the Brotherhood and its affiliates have long warned of the dangers that would emerge from its ranks, and they have done so for decades. Every major terrorist operation has ultimately been tied to the Muslim Brotherhood or to organizations shaped by its ideology, including the September 11, 2001 attacks. Ayman al-Zawahiri noted that Osama bin Laden was intellectually shaped within the Brotherhood, and thus al-Qaida’s ideological foundation draws heavily from the group’s thinking.
During his landmark visit to the United States, Prince Mohammed bin Salman stated that “Osama bin Laden exploited Saudi individuals in the September 11 attack for the primary purpose of destroying Saudi-American relations, and whoever adopts this position is helping to achieve bin Laden’s goal.” President Trump’s determination to classify the group’s branches as terrorist entities comes at a moment when the region and the world have endured catastrophic events over the past two years, and when the United States itself has suffered attacks driven by the Brotherhood’s activist, ideological, and violent doctrines.
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For years, America and Europe failed to accelerate this classification. Organizations such as al-Qaida and the Islamic State (IS) were nourished, cultivated, and developed on the Brotherhood’s ideas, according to written testimonies. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi frequently adorned banners with the words of Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb, and his fighters scrawled their sayings on the walls of Mosul and posted lists of their quotes on school doors. The relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood and the West is deeply complex and layered, requiring careful and rigorous analysis.
One of the most important works to address this dynamic is The New Muslim Brotherhood in the West, by researcher Lorenzo Vidino, a fellow at the Initiative on Religion in International Affairs within Harvard University’s Belfer Center, translated by Al-Mesbar Studies and Research Center in August 2011. Vidino argues that the networks of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas in Europe show that while most European politicians and security agencies do not sympathize with Hamas, they also do not view it as a direct threat to Europe. As a result, they divert their resources and attention to other urgent threats such as IS, al-Qaida, and neo-Nazi groups.
He explains that the difficulty in prosecuting Hamas-linked activity stems from the fact that such work typically involves fundraising and political organizing, not direct attacks. Allocating immense resources to dismantle networks that do not present an immediate security threat—while also risking accusations of Islamophobia or serving Israel’s interests—is a proposition few European security bodies are willing to embrace.
The current American stance on classification is partial rather than comprehensive, and therein lies the problem: Designating the source as a terrorist organization carries far greater legal and strategic weight than merely designating its branches. An investigative report by journalist Ghandi Mouhtar in An-Nahar newspaper summarized findings from the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), which concluded that the Brotherhood’s activity should not be understood as a routine religious or civic endeavor, but as a form of “jihad” targeting the foundations of Western civilization—something that must be countered by all means. ISGAP identifies the Brotherhood’s institutional expansion as a form of “non-violent extremism,” describing it as a sophisticated threat that exploits democratic freedoms, legal frameworks, and cultural norms to advance extremist agendas while avoiding actions that would trigger traditional security responses. Democratic openness is, in effect, used to undermine democratic principles.
In the end, Trump’s position is both crucial and overdue. The Muslim Brotherhood must be designated a terrorist organization across the West. Britain’s early support for the group, the social unrest it has fueled in France, the attacks in Belgium, and its growing influence in the United States through charitable networks—all represent clear threats to national stability. The many terrorist operations carried out over the decades were ideologically born from the Brotherhood’s core teachings, and the primary obstacle to criminalizing the organization remains the left-leaning groups that align with or defend it. Most importantly, Trump’s resolve on this issue is serious and consequential; it may finally rouse Europeans from their long slumber regarding this rogue and dangerous organization.
Fahad Suleiman Shoqiran (translated by Asaf Zilberfarb)
