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Steven Emerson,
Executive Director
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November 9, 2017
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Egyptian
Islamist Uses New Jersey Base to Stoke Christian Hatred
by Hany Ghoraba
Special to IPT News
November 9, 2017
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Inciting sectarian
strife against Egypt's Coptic Christians is not a novelty. Islamist
propaganda targeting the Coptic Church, businesses and doctrine thrived for
decades and often led to violence and prosecution. Earlier this month, a
young Islamist killed a Coptic priest in the streets of Cairo.
A new incitement campaign was launched against Copts last year, but what
is surprising is that it originates from a cozy home in a peaceful New
Jersey suburb.
Ayat Oraby is an Egyptian Muslim immigrant, wife, and mother of two
children. Her YouTube channel and blog are dedicated to attacking the Egyptian government
and other Arab leaders who do not support Islamists. She uses precious free
speech rights that she sought in a country like the USA to spew hatred and
violence towards others. Generally, Islamists such as Oraby do not believe
in freedom of speech except as a tool in western countries to provoke
hatred, propagate Jihadist rhetoric, and fantasize about their Islamist
utopia i.e. Sharia ruled caliphate.
"The idea of the
Islamic caliphate," she wrote in a September Facebook post, "is not a
political rhetoric but a future that we believe in and a revelation by
Allah to his Prophet."
Before the January 2011 Egyptian revolution that ousted former President
Hosni Mubarak, Oraby was unknown in Egypt and the United States. She
introduced herself as a purported freedom activist who opposed Mubarak and
allegedly carried liberal views. She promoted many Egyptian youth demands
for freedom and democracy through her Vlog and other social media outlets.
Oraby kept her support for the Muslim Brotherhood hidden and worked as a
news anchor for Egyptian television before 2011. She moved to the United
States in 1993 and married Ahmed Ibrahim El-Naggar, an
Egyptian-American biochemist who is reportedly affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood,
according to her brother Abdel-Qader Oraby, who also denounced
her actions on an Egyptian TV network in 2014. "I don't watch her
videos and I don't follow her news because I am very sad from what she
says," he said. "The entire family severed ties with her because
of her views."
She has become one of the most outspoken Brotherhood activists in the
United States, with a growing social media following. She also started wearing
a hijab to appease Islamists who previously condemned her for posting
videos without the Islamic attire.
She incites violence and discrimination against Egypt's Christians and
calls for denying them equal rights to Muslims, including a limit on church
construction. She publicly insulted Coptic Pope Tawadoros II by calling him
a "puppy"
of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
"The problem of the Christians in Egypt is that they follow the
church gang," she wrote. "They believe that (Coptic Pope)
Tawadoros the criminal, or any other criminal who will replace him, was
selected by the Lord and speaks on His behalf. The church gang deceives its
followers in this despicable way, just like a thief or a swindler from the
Middle Ages."
She revels in labeling them as "Nazarenes,"
the Quranic term for addressing Christians. It is considered offensive
because it refers to an old Christian sect and it is unrelated to modern
Christianity. She believes that Christians wield too much power in Egypt.
In one of her YouTube videos,
she urges
her followers to boycott Egyptian Christian businesses and events. She
created the "Campaign to Boycott the Nazarenes" with a
slogan: "Buy from Houda (A Muslim Nickname) and snub Shenouda (A
Coptic Christian name)."
"You (Christians) supported the criminals of the Church and their
efforts in killing Muslims. You came to revolt against the elected Muslim
president (Mohammed Morsi) and you stood in the face of the will of the
Muslims," her introduction to the boycott campaign said.
"O Muslims, boycott them (Copts) and do not buy their products
force them to understand the consequences of their actions. To understand
that their Cross will not prevail over Egypt and that Islam
is above all, whether they like it or not."
She also frequently promotes a conspiracy
theory about dividing Egypt and creating a Coptic state with al-Sisi's
help. She claims the Egyptian president is an Israeli Mossad agent, and she
calls upon every Muslim end to this "Zionist-Nazarene" plan. The
Coptic Church, she claims, illegally annexed lands next to its monasteries
in Western Egypt to build a Coptic compound which will be the cornerstone
of a Coptic only city.
"This church constitutes a gang," she said, "striving to
establish a Coptic mini-state. It has shared common interests with the
military for a long time."
Oraby quotes modern Islamic imams to condemn Christians and Jews. For
example, she posted a quote on her Facebook page from the popular late
Egyptian Sheikh Mohamed Al-Shaarawi: "We have to seek refuge in Allah
from appeasing of the Jews and the Christians, and anyone the Jews and the
Christians are content with him must know that he betrayed his religion. We
need to differentiate between contentment and coexistence (with
them)."
She also frequently quotes Islamic scholar Mohammed Al-Ghazali: "The
demise of Israel must be preceded by the demise of Arab regimes that have
thrived on mocking their people, and the destruction of Arab societies that
have adopted illusion and weakness (instead of Islam)."
In Oraby's eyes, anyone who opposes the Muslim Brotherhood is labeled an
apostate or an infidel. She calls the late Egyptian President Gamal
Abdel-Nasser a kafir [unbeliever] for executing Sayyid Qutb, the jihadist scholar and Brotherhood
ideologue, and for refusing to upheld Sharia laws in Egypt. She also called
Nasser's successor Anwar Sadat a traitor who worked for the CIA and a kafir for signing a peace treaty with Israel.
Most jihadists in the world regard Qutb as the ultimate scholar to
follow. Qutb's writings on Islamic Fiqh (jurisprudence) became the
handbook of every jihadist from al-Qaida's Osama bin Laden to ISIS's Abu
Bakr Al-Baghdadi. Qutb denounced the United States after living there for a
few years as a decadent and immoral society. Yet Oraby refers to Qutb as
the "martyr" and a great scholar whose teachings
supersede any other. She advises
her audience to teach their children Qutb's books and biography.
Known for her abusive and foul language, she gloats over the deaths of
Egyptian officers fighting terrorism in Egypt and she celebrates them with
her followers. "Forty Egyptian police officer got hammered, may God
increase it and bless it," she wrote.
Even dead Egyptian actors and artists get smeared, such as beloved
Egyptian actor Mamdouh Abdel Aleem. Aleem opposed former Egyptian President
and Muslim Brotherhood member Mohamed Morsi. "It is not gloating, but
we should all be happy that the "licentious slave" actor is dead,"
she wrote in a January 2016 Facebook post.
She also celebrated the death of a former Egyptian television
colleague who also had criticized Morsi. "The demise of the mercenary
Fatma Al-Najdi who condemned Rabaa protests and saluted the Misraeli
Army," she wrote. "Misr" is Arabic for Egypt. Oraby calls
the Egyptian Army "Misraeli" for holding peace with Israel.
In May, she joined a Muslim Brotherhood delegation that visited the U.S. Congress to lobby against designating the
Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. The delegation included members of
Egyptian Americans for Freedom and Justice (EAFJ), which has sponsored
events featuring
calls for Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's beheading by Egyptian
mujahideen.
The delegation included senior officials from New Jersey's Islamic
Center of Passaic County. Center Imam Mohammed Qatanani remains subject to deportation proceedings due to his
connections to Hamas.
Oraby joined other U.S. based Islamists in mourning former Muslim
Brotherhood General Guide Mahdi Akef's death last month.
"To hell with Egypt, its flag, its army and their institutions, to
hell with Egypt a million times," she wrote
in a Twitter post.
As with most Islamists, the national borders of their home countries
don't matter in the grand scheme for establishing a global Islamic state,
or caliph. They do not believe in political borders, but in borders based
on the faith. Oraby is a staunch advocate for the return of Islamic
caliphate and mentions it repeatedly in her articles. She even wrote a poem
about it with a map of Iberian Peninsula, showing Islamic Spain
factions while lamenting its demise.
Ayat Oraby's radical rants and conspiracy theories are nothing new, but
her style and reach attract many young Islamist followers. With more than
600,000 Facebook followers, she should not be taken lightly by any security
apparatus.
Hany
Ghoraba is an Egyptian writer, political and counter-terrorism
analyst at Al Ahram Weekly, author of Egypt's
Arab Spring: The Long and Winding Road to Democracy and a
regular contributor to the BBC.
Related Topics: Hany
Ghoraba, Ayat
Oraby, sectarian
tension, incitement,
Muslim
Brotherhood, Coptic
Christians, caliphate,
Pope
Tawadoros II, Abdel
Fattah al-Sisi, conspiracy
theories, Sayyid
Qutb, lobbying,
Egyptian
Americans for Freedom and Justice
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