Morsy’s message

The bad news is that Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsy has been declared the winner of Egypt’s presidential elections. Already, Morsy, in an interview with Iran’s semi-official Fars news service, is talking of a “review” of the 1979 Camp David Accords, seemingly contradicting statements he made in his victory speech to the effect that Egypt under his leadership would respect international treaties.

This should come as no surprise considering that Morsy, described by a former Muslim Brotherhood insider as “an icon of the extremists,” is committed to gradually transforming Egypt into a state run in accordance with Shari’a (Islamic law) and to spreading Muslim rule throughout the region.

It also explains Morsy’s call during the same Fars interview to expand bilateral ties with Iran, to create a strategic “balance of pressure in the region,” which he said was “part of my program.”

Morsy shares the Muslim Brotherhood’s rabidly antiSemitic and anti-Zionist sentiments. At a presidential campaign rally last month attended by Morsy, a crowd of thousands, led by Muslim Brotherhood cleric Safwat Higazi, shouted that their goal for a future capital of “the United Arab States” was Jerusalem, according to a translation provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

“We say it loud and clear: Yes, Jerusalem is our goal. We shall pray in Jerusalem, or else we shall die as martyrs on its threshold,” screamed the crowd.

The good news is that Morsy’s ability to steer Egypt’s political trajectory toward the theocratic far Right is limited. Just before the first round of the presidential elections, the Supreme Constitutional Court, controlled by judges close to the military junta, declared the parliamentary election law unconstitutional, which led to the dissolution of Egypt’s first freely elected parliament.

This was a blow to the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, which won a plurality of votes over the Salafi parties, the second largest political force. If the military defends this decision against populist opposition – including street demonstrations – a new parliament will probably not be voted in for close to a year.

In another step by the military establishment designed to weaken the Muslim Brotherhood, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces – the official representative of the military junta – unilaterally issued rulings effectively limiting the powers of the president while expanding the military’s role, particularly with regard to the writing of Egypt’s constitution. This happened during the second round of presidential elections.

By granting itself legislative power and near-immunity from civilian oversight, the SCAF has essentially launched a “soft coup d’etat” that leaves Morsy weak. Indeed, it can be argued that those who are pro-Western and pro-Israel should be relieved that Morsy won the elections.

If Ahmed Shafik, the military junta’s candidate, had taken the presidency, Egyptians who supported the ouster of Hosni Mubarak’s authoritarian regime might have fallen into despair after realizing that the revolution had failed to lead to real change. The chances that Egypt would descend into a bloody civil war – still a real possibility – would have increased.

Morsy, who served for years as the Muslim Brotherhood’s liaison to the state security forces, has a longtime relationship with Egyptian security authorities. He is probably best positioned to prevent a violent clash between the Brotherhood and the military junta, which, Morsy knows, the Brotherhood is not equipped to win.

Shackled by a military establishment unwilling to give up power and faced with nearly insurmountable socioeconomic challenges, Morsy will have little time to devote to the Muslim Brotherhood’s ambitious theological goals of imposing Shari’a locally or of creating an Islamic caliphate in the Middle East. Even a downgrade in relations with Israel will likely be beyond his purview for the near future.

But Morsy’s victory, rightly seen by the Hamas leadership in Gaza, and other Islamist enemies of Israel, as a watershed event and a vindication of the Brotherhood’s and the like-minded Hamas’s political vitality, cannot bode well for Israel.