Muslim Brotherhood Meetings

Journalists reveal, nearly everyday, reported meetings between officials in Western embassies to Cairo and Muslim Brotherhood (MB) leaders.
 
The press confirms… And the group denies and sometimes justifies and issues shy statements and comments.
 
The meetings have crossed the condition that the Muslim Brotherhood put to accept sitting with Western parties on a table of talks over Egyptian domestic affairs: that they take place under supervision of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry.
 
The parliament is the solution: this has become the group”s slogan to maintain its ambitious propaganda across most influential embassies to formulate international policies.
 
The regime besieges the Muslim Brotherhood activities: Student and parliamentary activities, an ordinary Muslim Brotherhood dinner, or even a traditional Ramadan Iftar party. The government banned the latter in Cairo and allowed it in other Egyptian governorates may be to prevent the group from politically using the Iftar and airing it in Cairo which is full of many satellite channels!.
 
What raises eyebrows is that the regime becomes silent if the Muslim Brotherhood activity includes western parties, letting it held peacefully while people know nothing about it except through press leaks or through gossips in private meetings of the movement leaders!
 
Some misjudge the official silence towards such meetings, exaggeratedly attributing them to a weakness in front of capitals which are still- according to Egyptian collective mind- enjoy the image of a real decision-maker in Egypt !.
 
It is true that the view that these capitals have their presence in Egyptian domestic calculations, but this remains confined to a non binding view that may gain shares of escalations and tensions. However, it remains confined to limits of the simple proverb ” You scratch my back and I”ll scratch yours” despite complications of the political work, a logic that the Egyptian regime can intelligently and proficiently play, making it survive many ordeals and change crises threatening its legitimacy to cards that enable it to survive.
 
Thus, giving a blind eye to the MB meetings with western diplomats is not attributed to the weakness of regime. These meetings are actually allowed by the regime due to a very simple calculation: The regime wants on the one hand to show itself as prestigious and self-confident in front of the western public opinion and it wants on the other hand to exploit these meetings to distort the group”s image on the domestic level, through showing it as a movement that accepts to seek foreign intervention to solve its domestic crises with the regime, in a society which is still considering seeking such a foreign intervention as a crime whose perpetrators mustn”t be tolerated.
 
This may lead to a grave loss for the Muslim Brotherhood. The group”s aspirations for an international sympathy are still far-fetched. As the domestic public opinion is still confused over the movement”s views towards some big files, the west is still also confused over its views towards these files. Add to this problems of the Islamophobia that did not give the dialogue the chance to be founded on good intentions between both parties.

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