Sarah Palin and the Muslim Brotherhood

Sarah Palin and the Muslim Brotherhood



So I”ve been reading with great interest the rather amusing stories of Republican post-election infighting. “Factions” strikes me as an appropriate word here. I was watching FNC”s Carl Cameron dishing the juicy gossip, and I kept on thinking to myself: where have I heard this before?


It sounds a lot like the the Muslim Brotherhood after it lost big in the 2007 Jordanian elections (mostly due to pretty blatant vote rigging). The MB won only 6 seats out of 110 – it”s worst result in history. The movement was in disarray, with the conservative base (“hawks”) calling for the heads of the relatively moderate leadership (“doves”). Conservatives accused moderates of not staying true to the movement”s principles and capitulating to the ruling elite. You wanna talk about “going rogue”? Palin”s got nothing on Zaki Bani Irsheid, the secretary-general of the Islamic Action Front, the MB”s political arm. The group had called a press conference to announce their list of candidates for parliament. Irsheid calls up the Brotherhood head, Salem Falahat, and tells him he”s not going to show up, even though he”s the leader of the party. He was for boycotting the election, but didn”t get his way, so he proceeded to sabotage the party”s electoral prospects from within. 


After the election, the factions organized against each other. Eventually, the group”s highest policymaking body, the Shura Council, dissolved itself and new internal elections were called. The conservatives won 23-22, and were able to elect, for the first time, a leader of Palestinian origin, who also happened to be a fiery hardliner. The story continues. The two factions have reached a temporary rapprochement, but the underlying disagreements have not been resolved. I suspect that, at some point, they will have to be. This does not mean there will be an internal civil war, but it does mean that one side will have to assert dominance over the other. I only bring this up to point out the difficulties that previously ascendant parties find themselves in after a crushing electoral defeat.