The Justice and Development Party (Hizb Al-Adala Wa At-tanmia), which is
identified with the Muslim Brotherhood, has won the elections in Morocco held on
November 26, 2011.
The party won 107 of the 395 parliamentary seats.
According to a constitutional amendment, King Mohammed VI will have to assign
the task of forming the government to the leader of the largest party –
Abdelilah Benkirane, head of the Justice and Development Party.
This
party is the political wing of the Uniqueness and Reform movement which
represents the Muslim Brotherhood in Morocco. Its victory constitutes a further
triumph for the Islamist movement in the context of the “Arab Spring,” so soon
after the victory of the Ennahda movement in the Tunisian elections.
The
Muslim Brotherhood branches around the region are full partners to the worldwide
movement’s ideology. Each one, however, has freedom of action to devise
its own tactics in line with specific political conditions. In Morocco, the
Justice and Development Party chose to downplay the extreme Islamist message and
mainly focus on fighting corruption and improving the economy, issues that took
the lion’s share of its electoral platform.
That platform, in its brief
political section, stated that the party would aim to strengthen dialogue and
cooperation with all of the EU countries and Canada while, in Morocco’s
relations with the United States, pursuing an appropriate diplomacy and
safeguarding national interests.
The formulation in the Israeli context
was restrained, and included a commitment to the “defense of the just issues of
the people and first and foremost the issue of Palestine, and the right of the
Palestinian people to self-determination and the establishment of its
independent state whose capital is Jerusalem, the Palestine problem being a
national problem.”
The ideological platform of the parent party, the
Uniqueness and Reform movement, reveals its true Islamist face. The
section on the movement’s goals states that it seeks to instill the Islamic
religion in the heart of the individual, the family, the society, the state, and
the
ummah (“community,” meaning the Arab world) and to help spread Islam
throughout the world. The movement expressed unequivocal support for the armed
struggle against Israel in the context of the second intifada, and for terror
attacks against US forces in Iraq. It referred to “Zionist and American
aggression” as “the greatest and most dangerous manifestations of terror that
modern history has known.”
In recent years Abdelilah Benkirane, leader of
the Justice and Development Party and the designated prime minister, has made
harshly anti-Israel statements that deny Israel’s right to exist and favor the
armed struggle against it. His quotes include:
“Israel... is waging a war
against the people of Palestine... we regard Israel as a hostile state.”
(
Al-Mashaal weekly in 2011)
“The inhabitants of Arab Morocco do not think there
is only a duty to identify with the Palestinians, but want to wage a jihad
struggle alongside them.... Moroccans see the Islamic resistance movement
Hamas as the mother of resistance and steadfastness. The Moroccans very much
love the Hamas movement... and love to recall at every occasion the acts of
heroism and sacrifice of this great and mighty movement.” (From a 2009
interview to the Hamas website, documented on the Uniqueness and Reform
movement’s website)
Benkirane, along with tens of other Muslim religious
savants, signed two manifestos that openly declare support for jihad as the only
way to liberate Palestine in its entirety and call for a hostile stance toward
the United States. One manifesto in support of Gaza not only refused to condemn
the Palestinian struggle, but also granted legitimacy to it:
“The importance of
seeking to prepare an untrammeled Islamic legal manifesto that will clarify the
Islamic dimension of the Palestine issue and the legitimacy of the jihad and the
struggle against the occupying Jews.”
The document advocated the adoption
of an economic boycott “against Israel and the Zionist entity.... An economic
jihad to help our brethren in Gaza.... Emphasis on support for the path of
struggle and for the legitimate jihad in Palestine as the means of its
liberation.”
Another manifesto called for an end to the siege on the
Palestinian people and stressed that “we the undersigned on this manifesto
emphasize the complete support of the ummah for the legal and noble Islamic
position of the leaders of the Palestinian people, who belong to Hamas and other
jihad organizations, in refusing to recognize the state of ‘Israel’ and its
fraudulent right to exist in Palestine. We regard recognition [of Israel] as a
violation of the tenets of Islamic law and the consensus of the
ummah.”
The second document emphasized the right of the Muslim
Palestinian people to struggle aggressively for its land, and rejected the
legitimacy of agreements or treaties that renounce the right of struggle, or the
right of return of the refugees, or the right of the Islamic identity of al-Quds
in particular and of Palestine in general.
“[They are] an offense to the
ummah, a deviation from its fundamental principles, and a sacrifice of its
interests...We view the jihad-fighting Palestinian resistance, with all
of its organizations, as one of the shining stars in the skies of jihad-fighting
Islam.”
In sum, the media’s accounts of a “moderate” Justice and
Development Party winning the Moroccan elections do not accurately reflect this
party’s ideology. The purported “moderation” is a tactic aimed at gaining
a political foothold, a capacity, as part of the government, to enhance the
public’s readiness for Islamic jurisprudence as the source of the country’s
constitution and laws.
A party that is a wolf in sheep’s clothing has won
the Moroccan elections, and despite its platform’s declarative commitment to
strengthen ties with the West, the party’s outlook, its leaders’ statements, and
the platform of its parent party point clearly to the stance of the Muslim
Brotherhood, which is hostile to the West and its culture and views Israel as a
cardinal enemy.
The victory of the Muslim Brotherhood in Morocco further
energizes the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt for the elections beginning on
November 28, and encourages the Brotherhood’s branches that are fighting the
existing regime in other countries. The domino effect that began with the revolt
in Tunisia is coloring the Middle East green, as the Islamic revolution
gradually alters the regional balance of power and, eventually, could well forge
a new front to challenge the existing world order.
The writer is a senior
researcher of the Middle East and radical Islam at the Jerusalem Center for
Public Affairs (JCPA) and a former advisor to the Policy Planning Division of
the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This article first appeared on the JCPA
website (www.jcpa.org) and is reprinted with permission.