COMMENT: In the long For The Record series deal­ing with Wik­iLeaks and the Pig­gy-Back Coups in the Mid­dle East, that tor­tu­ous jour­ney began with the coup in Tunisia, believed by some observers to have been trig­gered by the dis­clo­sure of State Depart­ment cables crit­i­cal of the Ben Ali regime.

As not­ed by the vig­i­lant “Ter­rafractyl”, the osten­si­bly “mod­er­ate” Islamist gov­ern­ment that has come to pow­er in  Tunisia may not be as adver­tised. It is inter­est­ing and sig­nif­i­cant that Ghan­nouchi com­pares his Ennah­da par­ty to the rul­ing par­ty of Erdo­gan in Turkey.

As we saw in the “Turk­ish Taffy” broad­casts in the Wik­iLeak­s/Pig­gy-Back Coups series, that par­ty has roots in the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and the Bank Al-Taqwa–entities with a fas­cist her­itage that con­tin­ues to man­i­fest.

“Tunisi­a’s Ghan­nouchi too Lib­er­al  for some Islamists” by Andrew Ham­mond; Reuters; 10/25/2011.

Tunisian Islamist leader Rachid Ghan­nouchi is seen by many sec­u­lar­ists as a dan­ger­ous rad­i­cal, but for some con­ser­v­a­tive cler­ics who see them­selves as the bench­mark of ortho­dox Islam — he is so lib­er­al that they call him an unbe­liev­er.

Ghan­nouch­i’s Ennah­da par­ty won Tunisi­a’s first free elec­tions, 10 months after an upris­ing brought down ruler Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, who had banned the group and impris­oned Ghan­nouchi before he took up home as an exile in Lon­don.

The par­ty said on Tues­day it had won more than 40 per­cent of seats in Sun­day’s elec­tion, pledg­ing to con­tin­ue democ­ra­cy after the first vote that result­ed from the “Arab Spring” revolts sweep­ing the Mid­dle East and North Africa. . . .

. . . Ghan­nouchi com­pares Ennah­da to Turkey’s rul­ing Jus­tice and Devel­op­ment Par­ty of Prime Min­is­ter Tayyip Erdo­gan. Erdo­gan describes his own par­ty as a main­stream cen­ter-right group with roots in reli­gion, not unlike the Chris­t­ian Demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ties found in many Euro­pean coun­tries.

Yet Tunisian com­men­ta­tor Rachid Khechana said many in Ennah­da give dif­fer­ent mes­sages in their own com­mu­ni­ties.

“They use dif­fer­ent rhetoric in the rur­al areas where it’s more con­ser­v­a­tive: rhetoric about stop­ping cul­ture from out­side, cor­rup­tion of youth and defend­ing Islam,” he said.

“In the mosque, they tell their believ­ers they should not fear what they hear them say­ing on TV.”

Salafists — strict Sun­ni Mus­lim adher­ents who oppose elec­tions in prin­ci­ple — have flexed their mus­cles in recent months, attack­ing a cin­e­ma and a TV sta­tion over mate­r­i­al they con­sid­ered blas­phe­mous. Ennah­da has denied any con­nec­tion. Crit­ics don’t believe them. . . .

COMMENT: The crit­ics are right to be alarmed, for Ghan­nouchi is close­ly affil­i­at­ed with the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood. One of the orga­ni­za­tions con­nect­ing him to the Broth­er­hood is the World Assem­bly of Mus­lim Youth, an orga­ni­za­tion with evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries run­ning in the direc­tion of Al Qae­da and the Bin Laden fam­i­ly!

Not sur­pris­ing­ly, this “mod­er­ate” has called for an end to Israel, as well as open­ly espous­ing the notion of an inter­na­tion­al Jew­ish con­spir­a­cy. He has asso­ci­at­ed him­self with mem­bers of Hizb ut-Tahrir, Pales­tin­ian Islam­ic Jihad, Hamas and Hezbol­lah!

Users of this web­site should stay abreast of The Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood Dai­ly Report, which­feeds along the bot­tom of this web­site, along with German-Foreign-Policy.com.

“BREAKING NEWS: Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood Claims Vic­to­ry in Tunisia”; The Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood Dai­ly Report.

. . . . Rachid Ghan­nouchi (many spelling vari­a­tions) is the leader of the Tunisian Islamist move­ment known as Naha­da (aka Ennah­da, Al Nah­da) and can best be described as an inde­pen­dent Islamist pow­er cen­ter who is tied to the glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood though his mem­ber­ship in the Euro­pean Coun­cil for Fat­wa and Research (ECFR) and his impor­tant posi­tion in the Inter­na­tion­al Union of Mus­lim Schol­ars (IUMS), both orga­ni­za­tions led by Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood Youssef Qaradawi. An Egypt­ian news report has iden­ti­fied Ghan­nouchi  as a leader of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood “abroad.” Ghan­nouchi is also one of the found­ing mem­bers of the World Assem­bly of Mus­lim Youth (WAMY), a Sau­di orga­ni­za­tion close­ly linked to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and ded­i­cat­ed to the prop­a­ga­tion of “Wahabist” Islam through­out the world. . . .

. . . Ghan­nouchi main­tains that alto­geth­er the Arab rev­o­lu­tions are pos­i­tive for the Pales­tini­ans, and threat­en to bring Israel to an end. . .

. . . . Mr. Ghannouchi’s views are not sur­pris­ing giv­en that his long his­to­ry of asso­ci­a­tion with extrem­ism and Pales­tin­ian ter­ror­ism. From 1988–92, the Islam­ic Com­mit­tee for Pales­tine orga­nized con­fer­ences and ral­lies in the Unit­ed States that fea­tured the lead­ing lights of Islam­ic extrem­ist move­ments through­out the world. One exam­ple of such a con­fer­ence took place in Chica­go from Decem­ber 22–25, 1989 and fea­tured Mr. Gahan­nouchi as a speak­er.  Its theme was “Pales­tine, Intifa­da, and Hori­zons of Islam­ic Renais­sance” and oth­er speak­ers includ­ed Abd Al-’Aziz Al’Awda, the “spir­i­tu­al leader” of Islam­ic Jihad and Muham­mad ‘Umar of Hizb Al-Tahrir, the Islam­ic Lib­er­a­tion Par­ty. . . .  “The Jews every­where are behind a world­wide cam­paign against Islam. Islam and the West could reach an accom­mo­da­tion, he says, were it not for the world­wide machi­na­tions of the Jews, who fan the fires of mis­trust. Beware the Jews, he admon­ish­es the West: “We Islamists hope that the West is not car­ried away by the Jew­ish strat­e­gy of link­ing the future of its rela­tion­ship with the Islam­ic world with a war against Islam.”

COMMENT: The appar­ent selec­tion for Tunisi­a’s new prime min­is­ter is from the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood. We should not fail to note that Hama­di Jebali is part of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood milieu allied with Grover Norquist and Karl Rove in the U.S., as  well as the afore­men­tioned Bank  Al-Taqwa.

Jamal Barz­in­ji, part of Jebal­i’s milieu, was deeply involved with Norquist and Rove’s Islam­ic Insti­tute.

“BREAKING NEWS: Tunisi­a’s Mus­lim Broth­er­hood Selects New Prime Min­is­ter; Choice Ear­li­er Host­ed by U.S. Mus­lim Broth­er­hood; The Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood Dai­ly Report.

EXCERPT: Glob­al media is report­ing that Ennah­da, the Tunisian polit­i­cal par­ty tied to the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and the appar­ent vic­tor in recent elec­tions, has put for­ward its Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Hama­di Jebali as the next prime min­is­ter. . .

. . . . The rela­tion­ship between Mr. Jebali and Ennah­da with CSID, an orga­ni­za­tion close to parts of the U.S. gov­ern­ment, rais­es ques­tion about the influ­ence of the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood on U.S. pol­i­cy. CSID was found­ed in 1998 large­ly by the efforts of George­town Uni­ver­si­ty aca­d­e­m­ic Dr. Espos­i­to who dur­ing the 1990′s served in the State Depart­ment as a “for­eign affairs ana­lyst” and who has at least a dozen past or present affil­i­a­tions with glob­al Mus­lim Brotherhood/Hamas orga­ni­za­tions. Many mem­bers of the ear­ly CSID board were asso­ci­at­ed with IIIT, the Amer­i­can Mus­lim Coun­cil, and the Mus­lim Pub­lic Affairs Coun­cil (MPAC). For exam­ple, past CSID board mem­bers includ­ed Jamal Barz­in­ji and Taha Al-Alwani, both asso­ci­at­ed with IIIT and both impor­tant lead­ers in the U.S. Mus­lim Broth­er­hood who helped to estab­lish many of the most impor­tant U.S. Broth­er­hood orga­ni­za­tions. . . .

. . .