Erdogan Expresses Support For US Muslim Brotherhood Group In Video Message

An Israeli NGO is report­ing that Turk­ish Pres­i­dent Recep Tayyip Erdo­gan has sent a video mes­sage to the Mus­lim Amer­i­can Soci­ety (MAS) on the occa­sion of its 23^rd annu­al con­fer­ence in which he expressed his sup­port for MAS. Accord­ing to the MEMRI report:

On Novem­ber 27, 2020, the Turk­ish Pres­i­den­cy’s offi­cial YouTube chan­nel uploaded Turk­ish Pres­i­dent Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s video mes­sage to the Mus­lim Amer­i­can Soci­ety’s Rise Up to the Moment Con­ven­tion, held vir­tu­al­ly on Novem­ber 26–29, 2020. Erdoğan said that in addi­tion to COVID-19, the world has been fight­ing the “virus of Islam­o­pho­bia” which he said is spread­ing through­out the world. Among oth­er things, Erdoğan crit­i­cized the French car­toons mock­ing the Prophet Muham­mad, say­ing that this is not jus­ti­fi­able as free­dom of opin­ion or thought. In addi­tion, Erdoğan said that Turkey will defend with its life the Mus­lims’ right to Jerusalem and to Mus­lim con­flict zones through­out the Mid­dle East. Erdoğan also said that the Mus­lim Amer­i­can Soci­ety (MAS) strength­ens these efforts, and that the Turk­ish state is ready to sup­port MAS, Mus­lim orga­ni­za­tions in the Unit­ed States, and any ini­tia­tive or project under­tak­en by the Mus­lim-Amer­i­can community.

Read the rest here.

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) cov­ers the influ­ence oper­a­tions of both Turkey and the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and has report­ed on the grow­ing rela­tion­ship between the two. This report­ing has included:

• In Octo­ber, the GIOR rec­om­mend­ed a study detail­ing Turk­ish influ­ence oper­a­tions among Amer­i­can Muslims.

• In Octo­ber, the GIOR report­ed that sev­er­al rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the US Coun­cil of Mus­lim Orga­ni­za­tions (USCMO), a US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood-dom­i­nat­ed umbrel­la group, were received at the Turk­ish Pres­i­den­tial Com­plex in Ankara.

The Mus­lim Amer­i­can Soci­ety (MAS) was iden­ti­fied in a report authored by the GIOR edi­tor as a part of the US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and close­ly tied to the Egypt­ian orga­ni­za­tion. Accord­ing to an inves­ti­ga­tion by the Chica­go Tri­bune, the MAS chose to con­ceal their Broth­er­hood affil­i­a­tion, espe­cial­ly fear­ing that the US would crack­down on Hamas mem­bers. A meet­ing agen­da of the Broth­er­hood Pales­tine Com­mit­tee on July 30, 1994, called on the  MAS to “edu­cate the broth­ers in all work cen­ters, mosques, and orga­ni­za­tions on the neces­si­ty of stop­ping any con­tacts with Zion­ist orga­ni­za­tions and the rejec­tion of any future contacts.”