Religious Tensions in Egypt

Paul Marshall at the Hudson Institute reacts to the newly nominated American ambassador to Cairo, Margaret Scobey‘s lack of mention of religious tension in Egypt. Arguing that Hosni Mubarak‘s regime is not appropriately dealing with the state’s conflicts with religious minorities, reflecting Mubarak’s “push for, or acquiescence in, an increasingly Islamist state as his regime seeks to avoid being outflanked in its Islamic credentials by its main opposition, the Muslim Brotherhood,” Marshall urges that it is in the U.S.’s best interest to assist Egypt in ending its religious identity politics.

Meanwhile, POMED’s Shadi Hamid remarks on the arrest of an influential member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Khaled Hamza. Hamid states, “It provides further proof that the Egyptian regime is terrified of the possibility that there might one day be a rapprochement between the West and groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamza, and other Brotherhood reformers who have been arrested of late, represent that very possibility, and, for that reason, they are seen as too dangerous.”