“While the U.S. and its allies are fighting Islamist ideology and terror,” Michael Meunier observes, “Egypt, a supposed Western ally, is drastically undermining their efforts. In an alleged attempt at ‘historic reconciliation,’ President Mubarak has recently released Egypt’s most notorious and dangerous Islamist leaders, along with over 1,000 of their cohorts.”
This is bad news for the nation’s Christians: “Among the chief leaders of the Gammaa el Islamiya, Karam Zohdi, Fou’ad El-Dawalibi and Assem Abdel-Maged were released last month on the supposition that for the past several years they had taken an active role in the spread of a pacifist ideology within the characteristically violent group. The violent Gamma el Islamiya revitalized their campaign of terror in the 1990s, seeking to overthrow the government and killing hundreds of people, including police, tourists, and their easiest targets – the Christians.”
The group’s dislike of Christians stems from its distaste for the nominally secular society of Egypt, and its desire to replace it with a Sharia state: “During the nineties, the group’s attacks on the country’s Christians increased in both their brutal and indiscriminate nature. Copts, the Christians of Egypt, whose very existence was viewed by the group as a threat to aspirations for a fundamentalist Islamic state, were assaulted, terrorized and murdered. During this decade, Copts, Jews, and Westerners were systematically targeted as infidels, whose wealth was declared by the group’s leaders as forfeit and available for the plundering of the Islamic faithful. Coptic men, women, and children were killed; Coptic businesses ravaged and looted; and Coptic churches bombed and set on fire. This onslaught of violence on Copts in their homes, businesses, and places of worship paralyzed the Coptic community.”
Nor has the group shown any sign of repentance. “The government’s decision to release the Islamist prisoners allegedly comes on the heels of the government’s promise of reform towards democratic dialogue and as a consequence of the group’s alleged ideological revision. Leaders of the Gamma el Islamiya have issued statements of repentance, however curiously omitting remorse concerning the Copts, Jews, and Western victims of their campaign of violence. In fact, shortly following Zohdi’s release, the group published a book, dedicating it to the ‘blood of all innocent Muslims who were killed in the [Riyadh] bombing and other similar attacks.’ The group has even gone so far as to label President Sadat, assassinated at their hands, as a martyr. Yet, the discriminatory Islamist ideology that propelled the group’s members to violence against the Copts appears to remain ingrained within its new, revised philosophy. We hear no remorse for the brutality demonstrated against the infidels (Christians and Jews) – they are once again sidelined as acceptable victims of violence.”