Professor Moshe Sharon, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said on Thursday that he believes there are good chances that the extremist Muslim Brotherhood will win the parliamentary elections in Egypt next week.
“They (the Muslim Brotherhood) are very strong in the Egyptian street,” Sharon told Arutz Sheva. “There are now two organized bodies in Egypt, the army and the Muslim Brotherhood, but the Brotherhood is better organized.”
The vehemently anti-Israel Muslim Brotherhood, banned from politics under former President Hosni Mubarak’s regime, has been eying the throne in Egypt since the revolution that resulted in Mubarak’s ouster.
The group’s leaders have publicly stated they would implement Muslim Sharia law in Egypt should they take office. The group recently won up to 35 percent support in pre-election polls.
Sharon also said he believes Israel’s peace agreement with Egypt is in jeopardy.
“The group that murdered former Egyptian President Sadat (who signed the peace treaty with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1979) was a small organization that believed that Sadat had betrayed Egypt when he made peace with Israel,” he said. “I never thought that we had a real peace treaty with Egypt, but rather a ‘no-attack contract.’ Many parts of the peace treaty were never implemented. Many people in the Egyptian street are against peace with Israel today, and it is likely that with the rise of Islamic parties to power they will try to cancel, suspend or reconsider the peace agreement.”
Professor Sharon added that he believes that Egypt is on the brink of anarchy.
“There is no democracy in Egypt; the Arab world is run in a tribal way,” he said. “Western concepts do not belong in the Muslim world. No one can tell today where things will go in Egypt. I don’t think even the masses know exactly what they want. In my opinion Egypt is headed towards anarchy and all the talk of an Arab Spring is nonsense.”
He concluded by saying that he is convinced that security officials in Israel are preparing for the worst.
“If Egypt wants to change the treaty and bring troops into the Sinai and Israel agrees, it would mean anarchy here as well,” he said. “This is very dangerous and we should take steps to deal with this threat. I am convinced that our intelligence people are looking at the most radical scenarios.”
Several experts have warned this week that the Muslim Brotherhood, which was behind some of the renewed protests in Egypt this week, is close to taking power.
