Ikhwanweb :: The Muslim Brotherhood Official English Website

The Release of Gilad Shalit

A soldier in exchange for humane and civilized behavior – a pity such a deal even has to be offered...

Swiss Ban on Minarets a Giant Step Backward

The vote was surprising to many as it is diametrically opposed to the democratic values and the enlightenment spirit that are the source of a great pride to Swiss society, and to the very image of Switzerland as an open and tolerant society that cherished diversity, notes Louay Safi...

Settling the 'Infidels' Question in Islam

Both Muslims and non-Muslims must learn to differentiate verses in the Qur'an that are specific to a particular context from those that are universal by also reading those verses that frame the contentious ones...

America's Failing Sexual Health

The increase in the rates of STDs, HIV-AIDS and pregnancy among young women indicates that America has yet to overcome the tyranny of rightwing..

Afghanistan: 'Roach Motel' for Empires

What Afghanistan has in common with both Vietnam and Iraq is its long history of resistance to foreign occupation..

Obama's Weak Report Card on the CIA

While he has been successful in addressing the CIA's renditions, detentions and interrogations programs,..

US 'No Fly' List Keeps Growing

The FBI’s terrorism watch list, from which the smaller no fly-list is derived, has 1,000,000 people listed, but according to officials, only a mere 400,000 of them are real people — the rest are aliases...

Explaining the Drop in Iraqi War Dead

Bush’s 'surge' increased the Iraqi violence in late spring 2007, including a spike in US casualties, and that only a political-military decision to pull back from offensive operations that summer began the gradual reduction in the killing. That drop has grown dramatic since mid-2009 when US forces withdrew to bases on the edge of the cities, notes Robert Parry...

Obama with Blood on His Hands

US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have operated under standing orders to 'call for fire' (an air-strike) whenever resistance fighters take cover in a house or apartment building, even when large numbers of civilians may also be inside the building, notes Nicolas J S Davies...

Are Swiss Alps Threatened by Minarets?

In both Europe and America right-wing politicians, political commentators, media personalities, and religious leaders continue to feed a growing suspicion of mainstream Muslims by fueling a fear that Islam, not just Muslim extremism, is a threat. Islamophobia, which is becoming a social cancer, must be recognized and be as unacceptable as anti-Semitism, a threat to the very fabric of our democratic pluralistic way of life, notes John L. Esposito...

Victory at Last!

The Iraq War has yet to begin to go away, the Afghan War is being escalated in a major way, the Middle East is in some turmoil, Guantanamo remains open, black sites are still operating in Afghanistan, the Pentagon’s budget has grown yet larger, and supplemental demands on Congress for yet more money to pay for George W. Bush’s wars will, despite promises otherwise, soon enough be made, notes Tom Engelhardt...

A Strait of Impasse or Opportunity?

Can the nations bordering the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz learn from the mistakes of past civilizations? Will the West de-monopolize its interests in the region and pursue a road-map to de-imperialize their holdings in the Persian Gulf? Asks Dallas Darling...

The Twin Frauds of Obama

In a failed state, the government’s priorities are totally separate from those of the people. The US can’t afford health care or a bailout for jobless homeowners, but it can afford a pointless war and multi-million dollar bonuses for banksters who wrecked the economy. Millions of laid-off workers lost their health insurance subsidies on December 1, the day President Obama announced a $30 billion 'surge' in Afghanistan, notes Paul Craig Roberts...

No rush for new Jordan parliament

Jordan plans to delay parliamentary election, hold regional poll as part of decentralization process...

The Palestinians Should Negotiate

No objective observer can claim that Netanyahu’s partial freeze is anything but a cynical manoeuvre...

Obama Pleases the Neocons

Because of the Iraq calamity, other elements of the neocon vision of remaking the Middle East were put on hold...

Lebanon: an End to Sectarian Politics?

We must remember that the discrepancy found in parliamentary seats and power, whereby Christians were overrepresented in relation to Muslims and were the politically privileged class, was a significant factor that led to a long and painful civil war...

The Politics of Minaret

Europe is in the throes of an Islamophobic trend and gathering pace. The Swiss referendum coincides with the rise of far-right parties across Europe...

The Height of Kitsch

Anti-Semitism has moved from one Semitic people to another. In post-Holocaust Europe it is difficult to be anti-Jewish, so the anti-Semites have become anti-Muslims...

Abu Mazen's Final Battle

Fatah had not yet fully recovered from the aftershocks of the Goldstone Report when Hamas surprised them by extending a hand of friendship to the US president. By deciding not to run for office, Abbas has effectively saved himself the trouble of putting up with Obama's restraints, Sami Moubayed...