Founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, the Muslim Brotherhood cloaked its aims in piety and social reform; however, from its inception, it championed violence as a means of redemption. The Brotherhood formed armed militias in the 1940s, assassinated Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmoud El Nokrashy in 1948, and played a central role in the 1954 plot to kill President Gamal Abdel Nasser.
However, the genius of the Brotherhood lay in strategic deception. It built schools and charities. It won elections. And in doing so, it convinced the West it was “moderate.” Meanwhile, it seeded the ideological soil for every major Islamic terrorist group of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Every jihadi movement of consequence bears the Brotherhood’s fingerprints:
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Hamas is the Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch, explicitly founded as such in its charter.
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Al-Qaeda is ideologically grounded in the writings of Sayyid Qutb, a Brotherhood ideologue whose books became jihadi scripture.
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ISIS’s apocalyptic vision stems from Qutb’s ideas and al-Banna’s structure—one is a splinter, the other a blueprint.
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The Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which merged with al-Qaeda, was founded by veterans of the Muslim Brotherhood.
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The Muslim American Society, active in U.S. cities, was founded as the Brotherhood’s American arm, according to federal court findings.
And while the Brotherhood claims to renounce violence, it has never stopped justifying it, glorifying it or enabling it. It is the ideological firewall that sanitizes jihad for the West while fueling jihad for the East.
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In the U.S., the Brotherhood-linked Holy Land Foundation was the largest Islamic charity in America—until it was shut down for funneling $12 million to Hamas. Multiple Brotherhood operatives were convicted.
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Brotherhood front groups continue to influence American civil society, universities and even political campaigns through interfaith façades and “civil rights” rhetoric.
Wherever Islamist terror has bloomed, the Muslim Brotherhood has been the gardener.
CAIR, which federal prosecutors in the Holy Land Foundation trial identified as part of the Brotherhood’s U.S. network, has been invited to speak on campuses, shape diversity programming and influence student governments. Their rhetoric sanitizes Hamas, demonizes Israel and primes impressionable students to embrace the Brotherhood’s worldview of endless struggle, rejection of peace and hatred for the West. But the influence goes even deeper.
Over the past 20 years, the ideology of Brotherhood—rooted in Sayyid Qutb’s rejection of Western civilization—has seeped into academic discourse in social science, Middle East studies and postcolonial theory. Islamist frameworks merged with Marxist ones, turning classrooms into echo chambers where Israel is the villain, Zionism is colonialism and terrorism becomes “resistance.” This isn’t fringe anymore. These ideas are now mainstream on campus.
This is no longer just about foreign policy—it’s about the psychological protection of future generations of Americans. The Muslim Brotherhood’s greatest weapon isn’t a gun or a bomb—it’s slow encroachment, the kind that seeps into culture through slogans, academic theory and digital propaganda. They mutate language. They reframe good as evil, and evil as “liberation.”
Their goal is nothing short of the reprogramming of the American psyche, particularly among the young. They aim to emasculate the Western man—stripping him of resolve, strength, identity and moral clarity—by promoting ideological self-flagellation while glorifying a hyper-masculine, theocratic alternative.
This isn’t accidental. This is ideological warfare. And it is incremental by design. The Brotherhood infiltrates. It waits. It reframes debates. It recruits under the guise of rights and revolution, while undermining the very civilization that protects those freedoms. If we don’t act, we won’t just lose Israel. We’ll lose America.
The Brotherhood’s reach isn’t just ideological—it’s personal. When Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David Accords in 1978 and made peace with Israel, it was a moment of historic possibility. But to the Brotherhood and its ideological offspring, it was unforgivable. In 1981, Sadat was assassinated by members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a terror group founded by Brotherhood veterans and steeped in Sayyid Qutb’s doctrine.
These men, radicalized by the Brotherhood’s belief that Muslim leaders who make peace with Jews are apostates, turned that belief into bullets. Sadat’s death was not just a tragedy—it was the ultimate proof that the Brotherhood’s ideology kills not just Jews and Christians, but also Arab leaders who dare imagine a peaceful future.
We designated Al-Qaeda in 1999. We went after ISIS in 2014. But the Brotherhood, the ideological fountainhead of both, has remained untouched, mainly due to political cowardice, false distinctions between “political Islam” and violent jihad and Western self-delusion. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have already labeled them terrorists. Are we seriously lagging behind regimes we claim to lead in moral clarity?
Senator Ted Cruz’s push to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization is not some political stunt—it’s a long-overdue step grounded in national security, clarity and moral courage. The bill, formally titled the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act, directs the secretary of state to determine whether the Brotherhood meets the criteria for designation under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
This process requires evidence of foreign terrorist activity or support for such activity that poses a threat to U.S. nationals or national security. Spoiler: it does. Cruz has repeatedly argued that this move would empower law enforcement to disrupt the Brotherhood’s fundraising and recruitment networks, block its operatives from entering the United States, and finally treat its affiliates—like Hamas—with the legal scrutiny they deserve.
In an age of soft-pedaled terrorism and blurred ideological lines, this legislation is a demand for moral clarity. It’s a message that we’re done pretending the world’s most prolific exporter of jihadist ideology is a “civil society actor.” It’s a declaration that America will no longer be complicit in its infiltration.
Millions of Muslims reject the Brotherhood. Many have died fighting it. To conflate this designation with an attack on Islam is to conflate Nazism with Germans or the KKK with Christians. The Brotherhood does not represent Islam—it represents weaponized religion, totalitarian control and a death cult wrapped in holy scripture.
If the Abraham Accords represent a new Middle East—one built on peace, prosperity and cross-cultural cooperation—then the Muslim Brotherhood is its sworn enemy. The Brotherhood thrives on grievance, chaos and war. It exists to sabotage any normalization with Israel, to undermine moderate Arab leaders and to prevent Muslims and Jews from ever coexisting peacefully. The vision of the Abraham Accords is a Middle East of integration. The Brotherhood’s vision is a Middle East of perpetual war.
The Muslim Brotherhood is not in disagreement. It is not a political movement. It is a cancer. If we are to usher in a New Middle East, truly, we must do what one does with cancer: radiation, chemotherapy and surgery.
Expose it. Burn it. Cut it out. Because only by removing the ideological tumors of the past can we give the region—Jews, Muslims, Christians and everyone in between—a chance to heal, rebuild and thrive. Label it. Defund it. Dismantle its networks. Do what should have been done a generation ago. Because every day we don’t is another day its ideology recruits, radicalizes and kills.
