His name is Rachid Ghannouchi. And, surprise, surprise: he's a hardcore, Muslim Brotherhood-linked, Jew-loathing Islamist. How very undemocratic and un-Arab Spring like of him!
Actually, as I wrote here the other day, Ghannouchi's ascension is perfectly in line with the overall Islamist trajectory of the Arab Spring/Islamist Winter that the Obama administration has so enthusiastically thrown its full support behind.
Now that Ghannouchi's Ennahda party has wonTunisia's first free elections, look for the wily old taqiyya master to expand his influence. To paraphrase an old Reagan campaign slogan, it's "mourning" in Tunisia: for secularists.
My friend Andrew Bostom blogged about one of Ghannouchi's greatest anti-Semitic hits earlier today:
The Ennahda party leader Rachid Ghannouchi gave an interview in May 2011 that elucidated, unabashedly, the essence of his disturbing Weltanschaaung. Not surprisingly his worldview hinges upon the destruction of Israel by jihad (here; translated by the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report):
Ghannouchi maintains that altogether the Arab revolutions are positive for the Palestinians, and threaten to bring Israel to an end. He says that the Palestinian problem lies at the heart of the Nation [umma], and that all the land between the mosque in Mecca and Jerusalem represents the heart of the Islamic Nation, and any [foreign] control over part of this heart is a stamp on the umma's illness.
There is no doubt, he continues, that the revolutions open a new age, in which the regimes which support the West and Israel fall - Egypt, Tunis and soon Libya, Yemen and Syria. The foundations of Western interests in the Arab countries are shaking. Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, he concludes, said that Israel will come to an end prior to 2027; this date looks far, and may be Israel will come to an end sooner.
The piece on Ghannouchi that Andy links to is from the Global Muslim Brotherhood Report. And it's a doozy. Here's an excerpt:
Mr. Ghannouchi’s views are not surprising given that his long history of association with extremism and Palestinian terrorism. From 1988-92, the Islamic Committee for Palestine organized conferences and rallies in the United States that featured the leading lights of Islamic extremist movements throughout the world.
One example of such a conference took place in Chicago from December 22-25, 1989 and featured Mr. Gahannouchi as a speaker. Its theme was “Palestine, Intifada, and Horizons of Islamic Renaissance” and other speakers included Abd Al-’Aziz Al’Awda, the “spiritual leader” of Islamic Jihad and Muhammad ‘Umar of Hizb Al-Tahrir, the Islamic Liberation Party.
In 1994, scholar Martin Kramer had reported on Mr. Ghannouchi’s his extremist background:
Assuming a valid distinction can be made between Islamists who are “extremist” and “reformist,” Ghannouchi clearly belongs to the first category. Since his last visit to the United States, he has openly threatened U.S. interests, supported Iraq against the United States and campaigned against the Arab-Israeli peace process. Indeed, Ghannouchi in exile has personified the rejection of U.S. policies, even as he dispatches missives to the State Department.
Kramer also notes the following statement by Mr. Ghannouchi in which he alleges that Jews are behind a “worldwide campaign against Islam":
The Jews everywhere are behind a worldwide campaign against Islam. Islam and the West could reach an accommodation, he says, were it not for the worldwide machinations of the Jews, who fan the fires of mistrust. Beware the Jews, he admonishes the West: “We Islamists hope that the West is not carried away by the Jewish strategy of linking the future of its relationship with the Islamic world with a war against Islam."
In another article posted that same year on an Islamic website, Mr. Ghannouchi wrote:
Zionism can be seen as hostile to every element rooted in ethical and religious principles (excepting those remnants, which can be exploited as slogans and national myths). It both represents and serves the new existential ethos which transforms the human race into ‘marketing’ and ‘geopolitical’ units which can be deployed, rewarded or punished by the powers that be, who are accountable to no-one save themselves.
Zionism, then, nurtured by and in turn nurturing this global pseudo-civilization, represents a secular onslaught on the heart of our Islamic nation. The Islamic project, by contrast, is its polar opposite, representing the hope that human civilization can be rescued from this new worship of the golden calf. To speak of saving Palestine from the Zionists is to speak simultaneously of one’s hope for a global liberation.
The ‘Palestinian cause’ does not signify the simple reconquest of a patch of territory occupied by aggressors. It is not even about peace and war; Its implications go much further. For to strike at Zionism in Palestine is to strike at the enemy in its new citadel, which it has constructed at the centre of the world, in the very heart of our Muslim nation, in a land which has always been of unlimited strategic and spiritual fecundity.
The West, as a civilization, seems set to extend its influence to the heartland of the Old World, the better to destroy the surviving traces of spiritual resistance which have remained intact there, and finally to obliterate mans remaining hopes for the rebirth of a civilization which is qualitative and humane, rather than quantitative and secular.”
As recently as 2002, Mr. Ghannouchi co-signed a statement that said, “The bodies of the men and women of Palestine are shields against the Zionist agenda, which its greater target is to destroy the entire Islamic Ummah.” The statement was also signed by:
- Mustafa Mashhour, the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood
- Esam Al Atar, leader of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood
- Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary General for Hezbollah
- Ahmed Yassin, the late former spiritual leader of Hamas
On Sunday, President Obama released a statement saying, "The United States reaffirms its commitment to the Tunisian people as they move toward a democratic future that offers dignity, justice, freedom of expression, and greater economic opportunity for all."
He's shown similar sunny optimism for the "democratic" futures of Libya and Egypt (and now, apparently Yemen as well), situations he helped create. If those countries continue their downward slide into chaos and Islamism over the next year, the 2012 election will be mighty interesting on the foreign policy front.