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Jeffrey Goldberg

Jeffrey Goldberg - Jeffrey Goldberg is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and a recipient of the National Magazine Award for Reporting. Author of the book Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror, Goldberg also writes the magazine's advice column.
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Before joining The Atlantic in 2007, Goldberg was a Middle East correspondent, and the Washington correspondent, for The New Yorker. Previously, he served as a correspondent for The New York Times Magazine and New York magazine. He has also written for the Jewish Daily Forward, and was a columnist for The Jerusalem Post.

His book Prisoners was hailed as one of the best books of 2006 by the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, The Progressive, Washingtonian magazine, and Playboy. Goldberg rthe recipient of the 2003 National Magazine Award for Reporting for his coverage of Islamic terrorism. He is also the winner of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists prize for best international investigative journalist; the Overseas Press Club award for best human-rights reporting; and the Abraham Cahan Prize in Journalism. He is also the recipient of 2005's Anti-Defamation League Daniel Pearl Prize.

In 2001, Goldberg was appointed the Syrkin Fellow in Letters of the Jerusalem Foundation, and in 2002 he became a public-policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.

Should We Fear the Muslim Brotherhood?

By Jeffrey Goldberg
Jan 28 2011, 12:04 PM ET Comment

Bruce Riedel says we shouldn't worry overly much about the possibility of the Muslim Brotherhood joining a post-Mubarak government. I reserve the right to worry, but Riedel makes an interesting argument:
The Egyptian Brotherhood renounced violence years ago, but its relative moderation has made it the target of extreme vilification by more radical Islamists. Al Qaeda's leaders, Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri, started their political lives affiliated with the Brotherhood but both have denounced it for decades as too soft and a cat's paw of Mubarak and America.
Egypt's new opposition leader, former International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei, has formed a loose alliance with the Brotherhood because he knows it is the only opposition group that can mobilize masses of Egyptians, especially the poor. He says he can work with it to change Egypt. Many scholars of political Islam also judge the Brotherhood is the most reasonable face of Islamic politics in the Arab world today. Skeptics fear ElBaradei will be swept along by more radical forces.
Israel, of course, isn't looked on favorably by the Brotherhood:
The most problematic issue between the Ikhwan and America will be Israel. The Brotherhood raised an army to fight Israel in its war of independence in 1948. Its Palestinian branch was the nucleus for Hamas, and the Brotherhood retains links to the rulers of Gaza. The Ikhwan's leaders understand the peace treaty with Israel is the cornerstone of modern Egyptian foreign policy and underwrites America's $2 billion annual aid as well as the lucrative tourist trade, but they are very critical of Israel, its leader, and policies. Their base is fundamentally opposed to any Egyptian cooperation with Israel.



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