Muslim Brotherhood agrees to talks with Egypt’s Suleiman

[sufrommich]

Source: The Globe and Mail

The Muslim Brotherhood said on Saturday would be enter into dialogue with Vice President Omar Suleiman to pull Egypt out of its worst crisis in 30 years.

A spokesman for the Brotherhood, the most influential and organized opposition group, said the talks will take place at the cabinet at 11:00 a.m local time on Sunday to discuss the process of Mr. Mubarak leaving office, the right to protest in public places and guarantees for their safety.

The Brotherhood said it has the right to abandon the talks if they are going nowhere. The talks will focus on the future of the state and the transitional government.

“We have decided to engage in a round of dialogue to ascertain the seriousness of officials towards the demands of the people and their willingness to respond to them,” a Brotherhood spokesman told Reuters.



Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/crisis-in-egypt/latest-news/muslim-brotherhood-agrees-to-talks-with-egypts-suleiman/article1896230/

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Wow..how do the people in Tahrir feel about that, I wonder?

[sufrommich]

2. Probably optimistic. nt

[nyy1998]

3. They should be, it's a good sign of progress. Hopefully these talks go somewhere nt

[sufrommich]

4. Yep. nt

[jberryhill]

10. There needs to be a whole lot of talking

And the bottom line is that "where do we all go from here" is a more productive line than "who are we going to hang".

[Matilda]

5. I don't see how the Muslim Brotherhood can be left out of talks.

They don't appear to be as extreme as the west might fear, and the big problem in negotiating with Sulieman alone is that he's Mubarak's choice.He wasn't elected by the people; he was appointed. We don't know his real agenda, and how much he is under Mubarak's sway.

[4saken]

7. That would certainly depend on how you define extreme.

"Pew found that 82% of Egyptians support stoning as a punishment for adultery, 84% favor the death penalty for Muslims who leave the religion"

And that is regarding the total population, not just those identified with the Muslim Brotherhood.

"The Brotherhood's stated goal is to instill the Qur'an and Sunnah as the "sole reference point for ... ordering the life of the Muslim family, individual, community ... and state"

Informing not only their own action's, but the state's ... not only directly, but strictly, with mythology and tradition. The utter rejection of reason when developing their convictions is scary indeed. Similarly seen by Christians in the US who want their Biblical law in the government. And should be kept as far from it as possible.

[DLnyc]

9. Some good information on the Muslim Brotherhood

(Speaking of the political party in Egypt; there are apparently other groups in the Arab world with the same name but very different compositions and agendas)

http://comops.org/journal/2011/02/04/should-we-fear-muslim-brotherhood-influence-in-egypt/

some excerpts:

. . .
Analysts warning about the threat the MB poses typically condense time, eighty years of history, to formulate attitudes about the contemporary Muslim Brothers. This is a serious error. To help explain the historical evolution (or variations) of the MB, I think it is helpful to think of the MB in terms of five main periods. I have broken down those five periods below, along with woefully abbreviated summaries relating the MB’s orientation and some important events in each period:
. . .
Critics of the MB seem to isolate negative or inflammatory comments by the organization’s current membership in order to collectively indict the Muslim Brothers. However, I find this no more persuasive than taking sound bites or statements from certain members of the Democratic and Republican parties and attributing a controversial view to all Democrats or Republicans. As NY Times columnist Scott Shane recently noted: “As the Roman Catholic Church encompasses leftist liberation theology and conservative anti-abortion advocacy, so the Brotherhood includes both practical reformers and firebrand ideologues.” In other cases, a text or statement dating from another period is cited as something reflective of the “true nature” of the MB, such as one of their traditional slogans (e.g. “The Qur’an is our constitution”). But this is equally unpersuasive, and has little relevance to the contemporary Muslim Brothers.
. . .
I do not see a MB government going to war with a nuclear-armed Israel anymore than I do Saudi Arabia, which has never signed a peace treaty with Israel. However, Israel would most certainly find itself without the same negotiating and strategic partner it has enjoyed under Mubarak. That period is simply over. As an example of the sort of relationship that might emerge with increased MB participation in Egypt’s government, I suggest one look to Turkish-Israeli relations under “Islamist” Erdogan and the AK Parti; however, the Arab nationalist context will act as a significant modifier absent from the Turkish context. Indeed, the MB has always had a strong Arab nationalist element – which again is indicative of its history and its anti-colonial origins.
. . .

Also, some info about the source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consortium_for_Strategic_Communication

[underpants]

19. I don't either. This NYT lead article mentions them every other word it seems

http://www.nytimes.com/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/world/middleeast/07egypt.html?hp

*sigh* the New York Times seems to feeding the fire set by the Glenn Beck's of the not-real-world

[defendandprotect]

6. Wait ... didn't they attack the offices of the Muslim Brotherhood the other day?

[defendandprotect]

8. This is a great tactic to separate groups and create suspicions ... notice how

united the Egyptian protesters have been -- one of their biggest strengths!

[dixiegrrrrl]

20. Bingo.

I thought I remembered that the people were not in favor of supporting Muslim Brotherhood.
god knows the perception of just the name in this country would lend support to a lot of
fear mongering.

Unfortunately, it is one thing to steadfastly demand Mubarak leave, and another thing to have a plan of what to do when he goes.
so I agree the protesters are leaving a vacuum which can be filled by nefarious plotters.

[decidedlyso]

11. And so it begins. If the Muslim Brotherhood can somehow move

into a partial power stance, the Right-Wingers will say Obama allowed Egypt, a once powerful friend, to be sold out to the Muslims. I am now wondering if the ducks were in a row ahead of the revolution and were put that way by the Neocons.

[peacetalksforall]

12. I hesitate to praise or fear for their role. The Arab World Muslim Brotherhood

could be more restrictive than the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Whichever is right - get ready because they are going to become the Egyptian al Queda or Taliban in the eyes of the US if they don't go along with the ruling elite and if they want to do anything against Israel, especially if they don't want to bomb Iran which Israel wants. Their world is centered on a quite restrictive interpretation of the Quran. Brotherhood doesn't necessarily imply benevolence, nor does it imply democracy. The quiver point is whether anyone is going to keep the peace with Israel?

Does anyone know who the torturers and rendition workers were. Who worked those prisons? Who flew the rendition flights if not the CIA type intel group or Blackwater. Private pilots. Who pays the torturers?

Supposedly, the 'Palace' has met or is in meetings with the 'wise men' - those speaking for the protesters?

Sharia Law - will it be lite, medium, or heavy - who is who?

I saw members of the Muslim Brotherhood on tv once since the 25th.

What is their attitude to the protesters?

[decidedlyso]

13. I saw them once also. Why is Soleiman talking them? Is it because

he thinks it is simply a group to speak with as they appears to not be another among the protesters? Or is it because of some outside pressure? If this meet bears fruit for the Brotherhood, what does that mean for the future politics of Egypt and its relationship with the US, Israel and, most importantly, Iran?

[elleng]

14. They should be included, imo.

'Cherif Bassiouni, president of the Egyptian American Society and a former UN human rights expert, said the Muslim Brotherhood has already proved itself to be a responsible participant in Egypt's legislative process.

"They participated in the 2005 legislative elections. They elected 88 members to the parliament. So they've had a role in the secular parliament."'

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x586720

fyi, I studied International Law (among other courses) under Professor Bassiouni, who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999.

[decidedlyso]

16. Then maybe the US has been engaged in the big lie for too long.

[Alamuti Lotus]

15. opportunistic cowards; this man should be hanged, not legitimized

[DCBob]

17. Well, they had to be part of these talks or they would have been meaningless...

We will see how this goes. If ElBaradei also joins in then there might real reforms coming.

Seems progress already..

Egypt's vice president met a wide representation of major opposition groups for the first time Sunday and agreed to allow freedom of the press, to release those detained since anti-government protests began nearly two weeks and ago and to lift the country's hated emergency laws when security permits.

Vice President Omar Suleiman endorsed a plan with the opposition to set up a committee of judiciary and political figures to study proposed constitutional amendments that would allow more candidates to run for president and impose term limits on the presidency, the state news agency reported. The committee was given until the first week of March to finish the tasks.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41445147/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/

Hope this is real.

[jakeXT]

18. Mubarak's enemies unite

¶1. (C) Summary: In a recent meeting with poloff, XXXXXXXXXXXX
parliamentarian XXXXXXXXXXXX discussed presidential son Gamal Mubarak's
possible succession of his father, and opined that Gamal
increasingly views Minister of Defense Mohamed Hussein
Tantawi and EGIS head Omar Suleiman as a threat to his
presidential ambitions. XXXXXXXXXXXX alleged that Tantawi recently
told him, in confidence, of his deepening frustration with
Gamal. End summary.

...

Opining that "Gamal and his clique"
are becoming more confident in the inevitability of Gamal's
succession, and are now angling to remove potential
"stumbling blocks," XXXXXXXXXXXX said that speculation among Cairo's
elite is that there could be a cabinet reshuffle as soon as
May or June, in which Minister of Defense Tantawi and/or EGIS
head Omar Suleiman would be replaced.


CURRENT GOSSIP IN PARLIAMENT
----------------------------

¶4. (C) XXXXXXXXXXXX said that parliamentarians are abuzz over rumors
that, under newly amended constitutional Article 136 (which
now gives the president the ability to dissolve the People's
Assembly by executive decree alone, without a national
referendum), the People,s Assembly will be dissolved in
roughly a year, so as to rid it of the "troublesome" 88
Muslim Brotherhood MP's. New elections would then be held,
but "as under the new constitutional amendments, there will
be no direct judicial supervision of elections to help to
guard against fraud, the government can be expected to
engineer the results" so that there are far fewer MB MP,s in
the new parliament. "The government is happy to deal with
fairly tame and non-threatening oppositionists such as
XXXXXXXXXXXX, Wafd, and Taggamu. But they do not want such a
powerful bloc of MB MP,s to remain, particularly when they
would make the most noise in the event of a Gamal succession."

http://www.wikileaks.ch/cable/2007/04/07CAIRO974.html