Websites with credibility issues, have long been accusing US President Barack Obama’s half-brother, Malek Obama, of harbouring Islamist sympathies. Some suggest the 12-time married Kenya-born would-be politician is the executive-secretary of the Islamic Dawa Association based in Sudan, which raises funds for Hamas and its sister organisation, the Muslim Brotherhood. Until very recently, this sensitive issue escaped the mainstream media’s spotlight with discussions limited to the Blogosphere. However, within Egypt, where the Brotherhood has been branded a terrorist outfit in the face of White House objections, the alleged activities of Obama’s brother is a hot topic. Indeed, the vice-president of the country’s Supreme Constitutional Court, Tehani Al Gebali, has referred to Malek as “a major architect” of the Muslim Brotherhood’s investments and has vowed to “open the files”. “It is for this reason that the American administration fights us,” she is quoted as saying on Egyptian television.
Al Gebali’s assertions are liable to be written-off as vindictive. It is no secret that relations between Egypt’s interim government and the Obama administration are tense to put it mildly. The prevailing view amongst pro-government Egyptians is that the US president threw his backing behind the Muslim Brotherhood’s presidential candidate when secret deals were sealed and is currently undermining the current political transition. Conspiracy theories involving US funding of the Brotherhood away from Congressional oversight are rife. For its part, the White House says it was open to giving political Islam a chance to succeed while its stance on the ousting of the country’s first democratically-elected president was in accordance with America’s ‘values’.
Egyptian suspicions have either been ignored or rubbished by foreign channels and newspapers as outlandish in the extreme. The president is not his brother’s keeper and he is believed to have distanced himself from the more colourful members of his Kenyan family, even though Malek was the best man at the president’s wedding and in 2013 he told GQ magazine that the brothers were closer than Americans thought. Whatever the truth about the Obama clan’s filial affinities, a photograph that has emerged of Malek attending a 2010 Orphans Development Conference in Yemen sporting a Hamas scarf embossed with the words “Jerusalem is ours — We are coming” and “From the River to the Sea” (derived from “Palestine is ours from the River to the Sea”) has to be an embarrassment for America’s Commander-in-Chief, especially since Hamas has been designated by the US as ‘a terrorist organisation’.
The controversial photograph was originally published on a blog owned by former Muslim Brotherhood member-turned self-ascribed ‘peace activist’, Walid Shoebat, who has been gunning for Obama’s brother for some time in a series of investigative articles. He was crying to the wind until this story was picked-up by the United Kingdom’s Daily Mail last week. The Mail appears to confirm that Malek, who runs the Barack H. Obama Foundation, is, in fact, the Dawa Organisation’s executive-secretary and quotes him as saying in March 2013 that his half-brother is “always at the end of a phone line if I want to talk ... I last saw him on November 19 last year, shortly after the US election. I went to the White House and offered him my congratulations.”
The Daily Mail was not the only mass media outlet to run the story. ‘Obama’s half-brother photographed wearing Hamas Kaffiyeh’ was a headline in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz. The Washington Times published a piece titled ‘Obama’s brother wears Hamas scarf bearing anti-Israel slogans in photo’, which delves into a scandal involving the Barack H. Obama Foundation. “Aside from its famous name, the Barack H. Obama Foundation garnered national attention in recent months due to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) targeting of conservative and tea party groups. While some tea party groups reported the IRS took up to three years to process their nonprofit permit applications, Malek’s foundation was able to receive its tax-exempt approval in 28 days,” the article reminds us, adding, “The organisation’s final approval was signed by Lois Lerner, the IRS official who was pressured into resigning over the tea party application scandal.”
Unsurprisingly, pro-Israel and right-wing websites like Free Republic are having a field day with this snippet in an attempt to implicate the president as having ties with Hamas or the Brotherhood to suit their own political agendas. Earlier, the Huffington Post quoted former Representative Allen West (Republican — Florida.) as claiming “individuals tied to the Muslim Brotherhood have infiltrated the Obama administration” and Representative Louie Gohmert (Republican — Texas) who thinks “Muslim Brotherhood members” enjoy “influence” over the president’s team. Incriminating documents, in the possession of Egyptian authorities, set to be the corner stone of Mohammad Mursi’s upcoming trial on charges of treason, may turn out to be uncomfortable reading on this score, if disclosed to the public.
As this story gains media traction amid right-wing cheerleading, Obama may be wise to set the record straight before he is seen as guilty by association and risks being targeted by the powerful pro-Israel lobby. The truth remains out of reach, but if Obama is secretly thinking “With a Brother like this, who needs enemies” who can blame him?
Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She can be contacted at lheard@gulfnews.com
