The whitewash continues

In our post yesterday, we noted the efforts of former Reuters Cairo Bureau Chief, Jonathan Wright, to sanitize the image, membership, and doctrine of the extremist Muslim Brotherhood in expectation of the group's rise to power in Egypt.

Wright continues in that vein today, suggesting that Lieutenant General Sami Enan, the Egyptian armed forces chief-of-staff, is seen as a possible successor to Mubarak due to respect for him in the West and praise from the "conservative" Muslim Brotherhood.

Wright quotes Brotherhood member and Islamist cleric Kamel el-Helbawy:

 "He can be the future man of Egypt," Helbawy told Reuters on Tuesday. "I think he will be acceptable ... because he has enjoyed some good reputation. He is not involved in corruption. The people do not know him (as corrupt)."

Wright doesn't disclose this but Helbawy was an official spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood and founded the Muslim Association of Britain in 1997.  In 2009, he was interviewed on the BBCs Arabic television channel where he justified the targeting of Israeli children in terrorist attacks:

Dr Kamal El-Helbawy, the founder of the Muslim Association of Britain, told a discussion program that, while he condemned the killing of civilians, he believed all Israeli children were "future soldiers".

He said: "A child born in Israel is raised on the belief that the Arabs are like contemptible sheep.

"In elementary school they pose the following math problem - 'In your village, there are 100 Arabs. If you killed 40, how many Arabs would be left for you to kill?'. This is taught in the Israeli curriculum."

Quite an endorsement for the "future man of Egypt".