Voices from the Arab press: Trump's Muslim Brotherhood designation

Informed diplomatic sources say that the Egyptian initiative amounts to one of the last serious efforts to defuse tensions along the southern border [of Lebanon] before events tip into a new and more volatile phase.

According to these sources, Cairo is working along two parallel tracks: trying to restrain Israel’s momentum toward a full-scale confrontation and urging Lebanese factions to adopt a more pragmatic stance that could open a narrow window for interim arrangements.

These sources note that Tel Aviv now believes the Lebanese state – paralyzed by dysfunctional institutions and a collapsing reality – is incapable of taking even a single step toward asserting authority over security matters.

As a result, any hope for an internal Lebanese consensus capable of implementing practical solutions has become, from Israel’s perspective, entirely implausible. These assessments go further still, suggesting that Israel sees the current regional climate as ripe for securing meaningful military and political gains.

This moment, they argue, is shaped by Iran’s weakened posture following a series of setbacks inflicted on Tehran’s proxies across several arenas, and by Washington’s desire to recalibrate the regional balance of power without entangling itself in an outright war. Under such conditions, even the smallest development on the ground could escalate into a broader confrontation.

By contrast, the Iranian position, as articulated by Iranian politician Ali Akbar Velayati, stands firm: Iran remains determined not to relinquish Hezbollah’s weapons, viewing them as a core component of its regional deterrence architecture – even if that means exposing the group and its support base to deeper disaster.

According to the same sources, this stance emphasizes Tehran’s approach to the Lebanese file as a contest for regional influence rather than a calculation rooted in Lebanon’s internal circumstances or the risks faced by its people.

The order has triggered widespread reactions and raised questions about its implications for the global structure of the organization and its affiliated branches across several Arab countries. Trump’s move marks a significant shift in Washington’s approach toward the Muslim Brotherhood, transitioning from years of legal and political debate over the group’s nature to concrete executive action targeting specific branches found to be involved in violent activity or providing support to armed factions.

There is no doubt that the Muslim Brotherhood’s presence in the US remains one of the most complex issues in the nation’s political and security landscape, particularly as controversy resurfaces whenever statements are issued by senior officials – most recently by President Trump and the governor of Texas – calling for the group’s designation as a terrorist organization.

Although the Brotherhood never established an official branch in the US, its intellectual and organizational influence began to surface in the 1960s with the arrival of Arab and Muslim students, some of whom carried ideas rooted in the group’s literature and ideology. These students played formative roles in establishing student unions and Islamic associations that later became foundational to major Islamic institutions.

During the 1970s, Arab immigration to America expanded, fostering new social and intellectual networks that adopted elements of the Brotherhood’s thought, even if not through explicit organizational affiliation. American research reports note that the Muslim Students Association was one of the most prominent spaces where this influence appeared, and several founders exposed to Brotherhood ideology contributed to shaping its early principles across US universities.

Over time, the association evolved into a broader platform for Islamic activism. Some of its initiatives later grew into major institutions such as the Islamic Society of North America, now one of the country’s largest Islamic organizations.

Despite the ongoing controversy surrounding these institutions, the White House has never issued an official finding confirming the presence of a unified Muslim Brotherhood entity operating within the US.

However, the September 11, 2001, attacks sharply reshaped American perceptions of Islamic organizations. Several institutions came under investigation for alleged terrorism financing, and while individual members faced legal proceedings, no evidence emerged that would legally justify classifying the group as a terrorist organization.

The issue remained a recurring feature in American political discourse until Trump entered the White House in 2017. The debate over designating the group resurfaced with renewed intensity, and Trump pledged during his campaign to consider such a designation. His administration continued to review the matter but ultimately issued no decision.

At the time, media outlets citing security officials reported that the hesitation stemmed from concerns that the move could strain relations with countries that engage politically with Brotherhood-affiliated parties, combined with the challenge of establishing the existence of a unified global structure that could be prosecuted.

US institutions were also cautious about the possibility that such a designation might inadvertently sweep up dozens of American civil society organizations for which there was no evidence of wrongdoing. More recently, Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s decision to classify the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR as terrorist entities drew widespread attention on social media, becoming one of the most discussed posts on his official accounts.

The reaction highlights the level of public support within the state and the breadth of the debate it ignited. Yet despite these developments, the US has so far limited its terrorist designations to armed factions it believes maintain ties to Brotherhood members – such as the Revolutionary Brigade Movement and the Hasm Movement – without extending that designation to the Brotherhood itself.

Fundamentalist terrorism has never existed apart from the ideas, structure, and ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood; it is, rather, the direct outgrowth of that destructive doctrine. The group has embedded itself across fundamentalist literature, wielding a capacity for manipulation, concealment, and an unrestrained drive for power – even through violence.

Ayman al-Zawahiri [one of the main orchestrators of the September 11 attacks] noted that Osama bin Laden was intellectually shaped within the Brotherhood, and thus al-Qaeda’s ideological foundation draws heavily from the group’s thinking.

During his landmark visit to the US, Prince Mohammed bin Salman stated that “Osama bin Laden exploited Saudi individuals in the September 11 attack for the primary purpose of destroying Saudi-American relations, and whoever adopts this position is helping to achieve bin Laden’s goal.”

President Trump’s determination to classify the group’s branches as terrorist entities comes at a moment when the region and the world have endured catastrophic events over the past two years, and when the US itself has suffered attacks driven by the Brotherhood’s activist, ideological, and violent doctrines.

For years, America and Europe failed to accelerate this classification. Organizations such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) were nourished, cultivated, and developed on the Brotherhood’s ideas, according to written testimonies. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi [founder and first leader of the Islamic State] frequently adorned banners with the words of Hassan al-Banna [founder of the Muslim Brotherhood], and Sayyid Qutb [a leading member of the Brotherhood], and al-Baghdadi’s fighters scrawled their sayings on the walls of Mosul and posted lists of their quotes on school doors.

The relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood and the West is deeply complex and layered, requiring careful and rigorous analysis.

One of the most important works to address this dynamic is The New Muslim Brotherhood in the West, by researcher Lorenzo Vidino, a fellow at the Initiative on Religion in International Affairs within Harvard University’s Belfer Center, translated by Al-Mesbar Studies and Research Center in August 2011.

He explains that the difficulty in prosecuting Hamas-linked activity stems from the fact that such work typically involves fundraising and political organizing, not direct attacks. Allocating immense resources to dismantle networks that do not present an immediate security threat – while also risking accusations of Islamophobia or serving Israel’s interests – is a proposition few European security bodies are willing to embrace.

The current American stance on classification is partial rather than comprehensive, and therein lies the problem: Designating the source as a terrorist organization carries far greater legal and strategic weight than merely designating its branches.

An investigative report by journalist Ghandi Mouhtar in An-Nahar newspaper summarized findings from the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), which concluded that the Brotherhood’s activity should not be understood as a routine religious or civic endeavor, but as a form of “jihad” targeting the foundations of Western civilization – something that must be countered by all means.

ISGAP identifies the Brotherhood’s institutional expansion as a form of “non-violent extremism,” describing it as a sophisticated threat that exploits democratic freedoms, legal frameworks, and cultural norms to advance extremist agendas while avoiding actions that would trigger traditional security responses. Democratic openness is, in effect, used to undermine democratic principles.

The many terrorist operations carried out over the decades were ideologically born from the Brotherhood’s core teachings, and the primary obstacle to criminalizing the organization remains the left-leaning groups that align with or defend it.