US Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has reintroduced the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act, a bill that urges the US State Department to use its statutory authority to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).
This measure requires the State Department to report to Congress about whether the Muslim Brotherhood meets the legal criteria for designation.
US Senators Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), and Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) cosponsored the bill.
Cruz said stated that he is “proud to reintroduce this bill and to advance America’s fight against radical Islamic terrorism.”
He commended the Trump administration’s work “calling terrorism by its name and combatting the spread of this potent threat.”
“Many of our closest allies in the Arab world have long ago concluded that the Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist group that seeks to sow chaos across the Middle East, and I will continue working with my colleagues to take action against groups that finance terrorism,” he added.
Inhofe added that “since the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Brotherhood affiliated groups have consistently preached and incited hatred against Christians, Jews, and other Muslims while supporting designated radical terrorists. We must continue to condemn Foreign Terrorist Organizations and hold them accountable for the evil they perpetrate.”
Cruz has long called to designate the Muslim Brotherhood. He first introduced the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act in 2015 and previously reintroduced the bill in 2017.
The Muslim Brotherhood, a transnational Sunni Islamist organization, was founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar Hassan al-Banna in 1928.
Operating in several countries, its most famous slogan worldwide is “Islam is the solution.”
It has an active chapter in the US.
It is considered a terrorist organization by Bahrain, Egypt, Russia, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Saudi Arabia’s Council of Senior Scholars last month declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group “that does not represent the conception of Islam.”
The Saudi clerics stated in a proclamation that “the Muslim Brotherhood is a group that has deviated from the path of Islam” and that provokes controversy in the Arab and Muslim world and uses methods of violence and terrorism.
It is primarily supported by Turkey and Qatar.
The Muslim Brotherhood does not recognize Israel and supported the Hezbollah terror organization in its war against Israel in the summer of 2006.
The Hamas terrorist organization is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.