The Muslim Brotherhood has long mastered the art of political opportunism, and the war in Gaza has provided it with another opportunity to do so.
Across European capitals and in front of Egyptian embassies abroad, Brotherhood-linked groups and sympathisers have organised demonstrations portraying Egypt as complicit in Palestinian suffering. Through propaganda amplified by social media networks, they have attempted to tarnish Egypt’s international image, presenting the state not as a key mediator striving to alleviate the crisis, but as an obstacle to Palestinian resistance.
This campaign is not born of solidarity with Gaza but of the Brotherhood’s own relentless hostility to the Egyptian state. For decades, the group has instrumentalised regional tragedies to serve its own narrative, and Gaza is simply the latest pretext.
The exploitation of Palestinian pain to score political points is particularly cynical because Egypt has consistently shouldered the heaviest burden in supporting Gaza. Cairo has mediated ceasefires, facilitated humanitarian aid, and carried the costs of instability along its borders.
Yet, the Brotherhood chooses to obscure this reality, casting Egypt as a villain in order to inflame anger and keep alive the sense of persecution that sustains its exiled members abroad. Analysts in European thinktanks have observed how Brotherhood-linked organisations adapt protest slogans not to support Gaza in practical ways, but to delegitimise the Egyptian state, ensuring that their political struggle is rebranded as a humanitarian cause.
This strategy fits into a wider pattern that has unfolded since the Brotherhood’s fall from power in Egypt in 2013. Unable to operate legally at home, it has turned increasingly to the diaspora. Its media organisations, once rooted in Cairo, now broadcast from Istanbul, London, and Doha. Its activists in exile exploit the openness of Western societies to stage protests, lobby politicians, and attempt to shape discourse in Arab and Muslim communities.
The plight of Gaza has become a convenient vehicle for this campaign, because it provides emotional resonance and international sympathy. But the underlying objective remains unchanged: to delegitimise the Egyptian state and present the Brotherhood as the authentic representative of Arab and Muslim opinion.
The danger of this propaganda is that it dovetails with the Brotherhood’s longer history of fuelling instability under the cover of religious legitimacy. When the group briefly held power in Egypt, it squandered the opportunity for consensus and responsible governance by pushing through an exclusionary constitution, polarising society, and eroding national unity.
Its failure was not simply administrative incompetence, but a reflection of its core ideology, one that elevates a partisan Islamist identity over inclusive citizenship. This resulted in mass protests that brought millions of Egyptians out into the streets and led to the group’s removal from power in July 2013. The period remains a national trauma and a stark warning against ever giving the Brotherhood another chance.
However, in moments of regional chaos, the Brotherhood nevertheless attempts to resurrect itself. In Syria, as the state fragmented after the fall of the regime led by former president Bashar Al-Assad, remnants of the Brotherhood presented themselves as political actors.
Western governments, anxious to avoid empowering more radical jihadist groups such as the Islamic State (IS) group or the Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham group in Syria, sometimes consider the Brotherhood to be a “lesser evil.” This is a dangerous illusion. The situation in Syria is unlikely to produce moderation, because the conditions that induce it, among them strong institutions, stable coalitions, and the rule of law, are absent. Giving the Brotherhood space in Syria would replicate Egypt’s disastrous experiment on an even more fragile stage, further dividing communities and inviting violent offshoots to thrive.
The appeal of the Brotherhood in such settings rests on its organisational discipline and its ability to offer an ideological framework when states collapse. But the framework it provides is not one of civic nationalism. Instead, it substitutes a transnational Islamist identity for national identity, pitting communities against one another and weakening the prospects for pluralistic politics.
This is the same dynamic that is visible today in the Brotherhood’s protests over Gaza: the Palestinian cause is transformed from a shared regional responsibility into a narrow partisan narrative aimed at attacking Egypt.
WESTERN ILLUSIONS: Western governments bear the responsibility for indulging the Brotherhood at critical moments in history.
After the Arab uprisings of 2011, the United States and several European states engaged Brotherhood-led governments out of pragmatic necessity. But even limited contact lent the group legitimacy, encouraging it to present itself as an unavoidable partner in the region.
The British government’s own 2015 review concluded that the Brotherhood maintains an “ambiguous relationship with violence” and warned against complacency in dealing with it. More recently, France, Germany, and Austria have tightened their scrutiny of Brotherhood-linked organisations, recognising their potential role in radicalisation. Yet, the lack of a unified transatlantic stance continues to allow Brotherhood networks to operate in Western capitals with relative freedom.
This inconsistency has consequences. The Brotherhood’s use of diaspora platforms to demonise Egypt over Gaza illustrates how the absence of a firm international consensus creates the space for ideological manipulation. When some states ban the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation, while others host its exiles, the movement exploits this contradiction to sustain itself.
To close this loophole, greater coordination is essential, and here the United States plays a central role. Unlike Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, Washington has never designated the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation. This ambiguity enables the group to fundraise, lobby, and maintain influence through affiliates that present themselves as charities or civic groups.
A US designation of the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation would be more than a symbolic gesture. It would cut off financial flows, limit lobbying capacity, and send an unequivocal message that the ideological framework provided by the Brotherhood is unacceptable.
Critics argue that such a designation would alienate non-violent Islamists. Yet, the Brotherhood’s record shows that its non-violence is tactical, not principled. Its discourse often legitimises militancy by framing it as a response to persecution. Its ideological DNA has provided the justification for generations of more radical movements, from Al-Qaeda to Hamas. To deny this link is to ignore a century of history.
The stakes could not be higher. Across the Middle East, the collapse of states has already created fertile soil for extremists. In Syria alone, UN reports registered nearly 700 IS attacks in 2024, a stark reminder that jihadist violence has not been eradicated. Allowing the Brotherhood to re-emerge in such an environment would create what analysts describe as a new extremist ecosystem in the region – a spectrum of Islamist actors ranging from political organisers to outright militants feeding off one another’s presence.
The Brotherhood may not carry out violence directly, but it supplies the ideological ecosystem in which violence is justified.
Egypt’s position is therefore not only defensive but also prescient. By banning the Brotherhood and dismantling its structures, Cairo has sought to insulate the nation from a repeat of the cycle of violence that devastated its politics a decade ago.
The group’s attempt to exploit the situation in Gaza proves that it remains hostile to the state and is willing to manipulate humanitarian tragedies for political gain. Western governments must recognise this reality rather than indulge the illusion of Brotherhood moderation. The path to stability in the Middle East lies in strengthening civic institutions, building inclusive national identities, and rejecting sectarian projects masquerading as democratic alternatives.
Any Brotherhood comeback would not heal the Middle East’s wounds. It would deepen them. It would turn Gaza from a humanitarian tragedy into a political weapon, Syria from a fragile transition into another failed experiment, and Western capitals into safe havens for ideological campaigns against Arab states.
The lesson of the past decade is clear: appeasing the Brotherhood does not bring moderation; it brings fragmentation. To protect the region from a new spiral of Islamist violence, the door to the Brotherhood must remain closed. Egypt has drawn that line firmly, and it is time for others to do the same.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 4 September, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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