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Due to the Brotherhood’s anti-Semitic doctrines and opposition to the founding of the state of Israel, the U.S. could never formally admit to being connected to Ramadan or the Brotherhood. Johnson has tried repeatedly through FOI to learn the nature of these ties, but his requests are always refused on national security grounds. But all the indications are that Dr. Ramadan and the Muslim Brotherhood were paid by the CIA to go to pan-European Muslim conferences where anti-communist stands were taken, says Johnson.
Since the Brotherhood is still a force in the world, it would be “embarrassing or compromising to show early dealings with the Brotherhood. It would be embarrassing to the Brotherhood also,” said Johnson.
As Ramadan withdrew or was eased out, eventually the mosque and the Islamic Center of Munich came under the control of different leaders of the Islamic Brotherhood, less radical theorists and more pragmatic, and tied to Saudi and Libya money and Arab dominance. The Islamic Center of Munich from ca. 1975 to 2000 would “grow into a national organization, send shoots across the Atlantic and lay the cornerstone for European organizations that endure today, ensuring that the Brotherhood’s version of Islam would come to be the most influential one in the West,” writes Johnson.
Johnson argues that the Brotherhood dominates the West’s Muslim communities and converts Muslims to follow the Brotherhood’s narrow vision of Islam. Never a mass movement, it is a group of elite organizers who have set up structures to define Islam for the West. It lobbies for European Muslims and meets with the Vatican and the European Union.
Johnson said that we should not be lulled into believing the Brotherhood is a picture of reason and tolerance. “The problem for me is that the Muslim Brotherhood creates a milieu that leads to terrorism, ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ mentality, a bifurcated world view.” Johnson isn’t saying that anyone who comes into contact with the Brotherhood becomes a terrorist, but it helps facilitate it.
