US President Donald Trump’s designation as Foreign Terrorist Organizations of certain chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon closes a chapter that western capitals had avoided for years. The designation is nothing more than a delayed recognition of what our region already knows and has repeatedly told the world: The Muslim Brotherhood is not a reformist movement, but a cross-border organization that uses chaos to survive and threaten Arab and Muslim countries.
The designation took place on the two-year anniversary of the war on Gaza and the ensuing repercussions the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation has had on the entire region, especially in weakening opportunities for comprehensive peace that the American administration is trying to revive from its deathbed.
Researchers and historians will differ about whether the October 7, 2023, attack is part of the Palestinian resistance narrative aimed at stopping efforts to achieve regional peace that would effectively eliminate the need for the so-called “Resistance Axis”. They may argue that the attack was a strategic error that destroyed the opportunity for the establishment of a Palestinian state and striking comprehensive peace with it.
What is certain, however, is that the climate before the October 2023 attack was paving the way for peace projects in the region, coupled with strategies for economic normalization and infrastructure integration with Israel, Arab countries, Europe and India.
Saudi Arabia was not aiming for a bilateral agreement, but seeking a political and economic turning point that would reshape the entire Middle East based on economy, development and interests, as well as reining in ideologies. This would have accorded the Palestinian cause a diplomatic path towards its end goal and cease the exploitation of the cause by various parties as fuel for constant mobilization.
At the moment, the Al-Aqsa operation has dashed all of these hopes indefinitely. Riyadh’s position towards peace with Israel has not changed. It will not go ahead with it without the establishment of a Palestinian state. The position was reiterated by Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister, in Washington, saying that he prioritizes the stance of the Saudi people on this file.
What has changed is that the normalization was just a short distance away. Now, the leaders are no longer working towards peace, but in preventing the Brotherhood and other armed groups backed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps from sowing chaos in the region and from taking the Palestinian file back to square one.
Let us recall that Hamas is not an independent Palestinian faction, but a branch of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood and its agenda aligns with that of the regime in Iran. This is a well-known fact that is, however, rarely used in reading developments in the region.
Whether the perpetrators of the Al-Aqsa Flood wanted it or not, the operation did not target Israel alone, but it dealt heavy blows to regional efforts that would have put an end to political Islam.
Under the slogan of reviving the Palestinian cause, the architects of the Al-Aqsa Flood revived the atmosphere of the Muslim Brotherhood – that of oppression and despair and investing in anger and amplifying feelings of helplessness that are employed in political vengeance against their traditional rival: the Arab national state. For them, the Palestinian cause is not an end in itself, but a means to destroy relations between the citizen and his state and transform every government into a suspect accused of treason.
Perhaps what took place in Jordan offers the clearest example of the danger of this approach. Protests in support of Gaza rapidly turned into calls by the Islamic Action Front into rallies against the regime in a blunt demonstration of the Brotherhood’s strategy in using every foreign crisis as a means to destroy internal stability.
In early 2025, Jordan uncovered Brotherhood cells that had received training and financing in Lebanon. They were busted as they were making rockets and drones, and storing explosives that were going to be used in hitting targets inside Jordan - not Israel - allegedly in support of Gaza.
Other Arab countries were not spared. Despite their humanitarian support for Gaza, they were victims of incitement by the Brotherhood. Those feeding Gaza were accused of betraying its people and those who starve it are described as defending it.
This may seem like a paradox, but this is how the Brotherhood thinks. It does not want to save the Palestinians as much as it wants to benefit from keeping them as fuel for their projects.
Trump’s executive order, therefore, is not an isolated American action, but recognition that the Brotherhood is an obstacle in any reshaping of the region. It becomes a greater obstacle given the close alignment between the Brotherhood and the Resistance Axis, who despite their clashing ideology, are waging a battle against one enemy: the stable Arab national state.
