Jonathan Wright explains the fundamental difference between the fundamentalists

Former Reuters Cairo Bureau Chief and long-time Arabist, Jonathan Wright, who has been busy whitewashing the Islamists in Egypt for gullible Western audiences since before the fall of Hosni Mubarak in February, parses for us the critical distinction between the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamists of the Nour party:

Nasser Khodeir, a civil engineer and Brotherhood supporter in the town of Tansa, said Brotherhood members were also Salafi in their beliefs but didn't share the importance Salafis attach to physical appearance, such as clothing and the cut of the beard. Salafis favour robes or trouser cut off above the angle and long beards, usually with the moustache short or shaved off.

Well, now that we know they will be using different barbers and tailors, please note that both the Brotherhood and al-Nour seek the imposition of strict sharia law (as outlined in Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law) and, ultimately, a global caliphate.

Both groups are deeply antisemitic, treat women like chattel, advocate death for homosexuals, despise Western democracy, seek the destruction of Israel, and believe in permanent underclass status for religious minorities in countries where they have power.

Wright won't tell you any of this of course; he's far too lost in translation:

"Reporters of course, they work very fast and they don't think too deeply about what they're doing."

Yes, we've noticed that.

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".

And continuing with the makeover of the Muslim Brotherhood

In preparation for a likely ascension to power of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Reuters continues with its propaganda campaign to makeover the image of the Islamist group as something other than extremist.  Correspondent Jonathan Wright asserts:

Foreign governments could not even argue that the Brotherhood was a "terrorist" organization, because the movement renounced violence in the 1950s. Throughout Mubarak's presidency, it has struggled to take part in electoral politics.

"Renounced" violence but has felt no compunction actually facilitating assassinations or inciting for violent jihad.  In violation of the Reuters Handbook of Journalism, Wright then parrots the Arab euphemism for intended genocide of the Jews:

The Muslim Brotherhood is certainly confrontational toward Israel and hence toward the United States. It has historic institutional links with the Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas and shares its belief in armed struggle against Israel.

And seeks to cloak the Brotherhood's extremism within an aura of "professional" respectability:

But unlike the Shi'ite clerics who rule Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood has an overwhelmingly lay leadership of professionals with modern educations -- engineers, doctors, lawyers, academics and so on. The core membership is middle-class or lower middle-class.

Of course, Hamas too has educated and professionally trained members -- though we're not sure the Hippocratic Oath is part of their creed.

But rights activists fault the Brotherhood for insisting that the head of state must be a Muslim man, not a woman or someone from Egypt's Coptic Christian minority.

We're shocked to the core.

In recent years it has focused on political demands shared by most opposition groups, playing down a conservative social agenda which some Egyptians would find irksome.

"A conservative social agenda which some Egyptians would find irksome":

Having said this, I should stress here that Muslim jurists have held differing opinions concerning the punishment for this abominable practice [homosexuality]. Should it be the same as the punishment for fornication, or should both the active and passive participants be put to death? While such punishments may seem cruel, they have been suggested to maintain the purity of the Islamic society and to keep it clean of perverted elements.

Sounds like the Amish, no?