CAIRO: As the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) is expected to win big in parliamentary elections that began on Monday, associating oneself to the struggle for Palestine has again been a vote-gainer. Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was forced to suspend plans of demolishing an ancient wooden bridge construction leading to Moughrabi Gate of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. The Mosque has enormous religious meaning for Muslims worldwide, and both Egyptian and Jordanian state leaders warned Netanyahu that the Muslim world might react in anger, should he touch the ancient bridge. “… the reaction of the Egyptian people regarding any violation against the Palestinians will be different than that of Mubarak's era,” Mohamed Morsy, media spokesman and member of the MB Executive Bureau, stated on the Brotherhood's official website, commenting on the planned demolition of the bridge. The bridge is indeed of great religious meaning, and the re-ocurring attempts from the Israeli State of dismantling certain Muslim holy sites does indeed present a great problem. It has often been dubbed “cultural cleansing” by scholars and human rights activists alike. But the controversy of its eventual removal and hence re-construction stems more from the fact that it serves a perfect example of the Judaization of Jerusalem, against which a firm discourse is currently campaigning against. Now as always, the Muslim Brotherhood has claimed the position as a main bearer of the struggle to free Jerusalem and al-Aqsa mosque. Those two serving as clear iconic symbols of the global Muslim community, referring to the battle for al-Aqsa gives very clear connotations to the struggle to empower and liberate Muslim peoples in general. The center fight of that struggle has always been the case for Palestine. As an Arab, Muslim and oppressed people, robbed of their land by a perceived Western force and deemed to a life exiled from their holy sites, they perfectly impersonate the idea of a struggle to free the Arab world from Western cultural and economic imperialism. Sharing the discourse of other Islamist parties such as Hamas, the Brotherhood skillfully elaborated on this discourse in the run-up to the current elections. In March this year, students from the Muslim Brotherhood asked fellow Muslims all over the world to fast and pray for the protection of Al-Aqsa, which the Brotherhood said was threatened. Jews seemingly wanted to demolish and replace it with a Jewish temple. News agencies reported that 15 students affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood were arrested at Cairo University during the protest. In spite of opposite calls from the blog The Voice of Palestine Youth in favor of taking the opposite stand, the Muslim Brotherhood last Friday chose to not participate in protests in Tahrir. Instead it vowed to march with a million-strong demonstration in support of “saving Al-Aqsa Mosque from hard-line Israelis.” The Voice of Palestine Youth Blog argued that Palestine will be stronger if Egypt is freed, whereas the Brotherhood insisted that the time was not right for marching on Tahrir, since it might result in “persecution” of its Freedom and Justice Party (FJP). On Friday November 25, an event dubbed “Friday of Al-Aqsa Support,” saw Azhar scholars and mainly members of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups gathered to protest the Judaisation of Jerusalem. Abdel Rahman Al-Mor, member of the Muslim Brotherhood's advisory bureau, said at the event that the most important step to a free Palestine is to prepare the young generation for “the upcoming battle.” But the choice to not participate in the protests in Tahrir earned the Brotherhood some fierce critique. “The people think it is way too easy to refer to Al-Aqsa and the savior of the Muslim Umma when wanting to gain votes,” one young man from Cairo commented to BikyaMasr.com. Ahmad, citizen of the Ramallah and political activist, was neither impressed. “Now listen,” he told Bikyamasr.com, “they try to use Palestine for any excuse.” Referring to the “Friday of Al-Aqsa support” event, he noticed the following. “In Egypt, the Brotherhood use it (the case of Palestine), like on the Aqsa-Friday, because they are playing up to people's emotions to make them support.” Denouncing that this highly rhetorical fight for Al-Aqsa is an expression of a shared Muslim struggle for the liberation of Palestine, Ahmad continued. “Here, we think that this is not a Palestinian struggle, it's about the importance of Al-Aqsa for Muslims in general. They take use of the subject of Jihad for the Muslim Umma, because it serves them well in this case,” he concluded. However, the Brotherhood is likely to make significant gains. For years they have garnered support from the largely rural and poverty-stricken parts of the country where, much like Hamas has done in Gaza, they have launched many social welfare projects including healthcare and educational services. The Brotherhood announced on Wednesday that preliminary results of the first phase of parliamentary elections would be in favor of its Freedom and Justice Party, followed by the Salafi Nour Party and the liberal Egyptian Bloc Coalition. The FJP communicated they are hoping to form a government based on the new parliamentary majority of the party. BM
