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Fri, Jan 06, 2012 | Rubin Reports | By Barry Rubin

Ismail Haniya (R) makes the victory sign as he holds a joint press conference with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie in Cairo on Dec 26. (AFP photo)

Hamas Chief: “Islamic Spring”; Brotherhood Chief: Caliphate Soon; Western Media: Islamists Moderate, Israel Bad

A 27-year-old American-Israeli law school student decides he’s going to go to Egypt and talk to Egyptians. He gets arrested by the authorities there as a spy, then is released in the prisoner exchange. He then brags that the mere charm of his magical persuasion convinced hardened Muslim Brotherhood cadre not to be anti-Israel any more. So there’s nothing to worry about!

That’s worth a Washington Post op-ed.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s leader calling for an Islamic state and a caliphate that isn’t?

But at least the New York Times reported the statement of Ismail Haniya (who it calls “the Hamas prime minister of Gaza”) on his official state visit to Turkey: “The Arab Spring is turning into an Islamic spring.” (Note: Turkey’s government, President Obama’s favorite Middle East regime and his main regional advisor, is part of that radical Islamist bloc.)

Haniya knows it. We know it. Why don’t Western governments, mass media, and “experts” understand what this means? It doesn’t mean a springtime for “Islam” as a “religion of peace” but a springtime for political Islamism as being in power, imposing a very anti-Western, anti-Christian, anti-American and radically intolerant interpretation of Islam on their countries.

In his official weekly message published on the official Brotherhood website the official leader, Muhammad al-Badi, of the group that is officially by far the biggest political party and parliamentary vote-getter in Egypt said, in an Egyptian newspaper’s summary, that the Brotherhood will now begin the “long-term plan for the reform of all aspects of people’s lives.” (Note: Why didn’t Barack and Michelle think of that phrase first?)

And soon, the Brotherhood’s supreme guide also explains, the caliphate will be restored (I don’t believe him but the fact that he thinks so is significant. Oh yes, now why is the caliphate important? Well, one reason is that the caliph can supposedly declare an international jihad in which every Muslim must fight. (I don’t believe that either and it didn’t work out well when the German-backed Ottoman caliph tried it in World War One. But it does tell something about the Brotherhood’s plans for the future.

To my knowledge that statement by the supreme guide — an actual leaders of hundreds of thousand of people backed by almost half of Egyptians — has not been reported in any Western mass media outlet.

Al-Badi’s own formula is that Egypt will be “a just country” under “just rule,” which means his interpretation of Sharia. This brand of social justice includes death to converts from Islam, and the whole long list of such things. Did I metion that almost half of all Egyptians voted for the Muslim Brotherhood and that almost half of those who didn’t voted for an even more radical Islamist party?

Who is the Western media going to believe and publicize, the Muslim Brotherhood’s supreme guide who disagrees with them about the natue of his organization or a student with no achievements whatsoever who agrees with them? What better proof that we are being fed propaganda and not news.

Want more proof? Here it is. David Gerstman has been monitoring relevant New York Times op-eds for the last six months. His methodology is quite fair and reasonable. And here is his conclusion:

Anti-Israel: 38

Pro-Israel: 7

And this includes four op-eds supporting a Palestinian unilateral declaration of independence, even though that would violate every agreement made in the much-beloved “peace process,” and not a single one opposing it.

We are no longer talking about a “slant” in media coverage. They have fallen over entirely, either onto their knees or flat on their face.