How Is El-Sayed So in Sync with the Muslim Brotherhood?

Key Takeaways

El-Sayed’s foreign-policy positions raise questions about whether his ideological sympathies will shape his Senate agenda.

In the week prior to Election Day, I opined that is the Gerry Adams of the . Just as Adams — laughably at times — denied connections to the Irish Republican Army, El-Sayed, a hard-left Democrat who was dismayingly elected earlier this month to represent Michigan in the U.S. Senate, implausibly denies ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

In the piece linked above, I laid out some of his extensive connections (including his leadership posts in the University of Michigan chapter of the Muslim Students Association — the MSA having been established in the mid-Sixties as the Brotherhood’s building-block organization in North America. I also noted that, in America, the Brotherhood operates as an ideological movement and through front groups — not as a regimented organization with membership cards — precisely to enable its activists to disavow membership. That’s expedient because (a) the Brotherhood has been banned as a terrorist organization in several countries, (b) the Brotherhood’s branches in Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan have been designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the U.S. government, and (c) the Brotherhood’s highest priority in America since the 1980s has been support for (the Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch), which has been a designated foreign terrorist organization in our country for nearly 30 years.

About the Author

Andrew C. McCarthy

Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at National Review Institute, an NR contributing editor, and author of Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency.

Featured Tags

Key Takeaways

El-Sayed’s foreign-policy positions raise questions about whether his ideological sympathies will shape his Senate agenda.
His hostility toward Muslim Brotherhood opponents — and his softer stance toward Iran — deserve scrutiny.

In the week prior to Election Day, I opined that is the Gerry Adams of the . Just as Adams — laughably at times — denied connections to the Irish Republican Army, El-Sayed, a hard-left Democrat who was dismayingly elected earlier this month to represent Michigan in the U.S. Senate, implausibly denies ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

In the piece linked above, I laid out some of his extensive connections (including his leadership posts in the University of Michigan chapter of the Muslim Students Association — the MSA having been established in the mid-Sixties as the Brotherhood’s building-block organization in North America. I also noted that, in America, the Brotherhood operates as an ideological movement and through front groups — not as a regimented organization with membership cards — precisely to enable its activists to disavow membership. That’s expedient because (a) the Brotherhood has been banned as a terrorist organization in several countries, (b) the Brotherhood’s branches in Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan have been designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the U.S. government, and (c) the Brotherhood’s highest priority in America since the 1980s has been support for (the Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch), which has been a designated foreign terrorist organization in our country for nearly 30 years.

About the Author

Andrew C. McCarthy

Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at National Review Institute, an NR contributing editor, and author of Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency.