WASHINGTON—The Heritage Foundation welcomes congressional efforts to implement a modernized strategy for designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, citing decades of evidence that the group has not only inspired but directly enabled acts of terrorism, war crimes, and persecution of faith worldwide.
The praise from Heritage comes after U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act of 2025, an important effort to build on the work done during President Donald J. Trump’s first term to rightly define—and combat—the Muslim Brotherhood. Heritage Action for America has endorsed the legislation.
Victoria Coates, vice president of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at Heritage, elaborated on the Muslim Brotherhood’s atrocities:
“The Muslim Brotherhood’s fingerprints are on some of the most brutal terrorist atrocities of the modern era. The Brotherhood financed the brutality of October 7th and cheered for the devastation that followed—this is a movement that rejects peace and sows violent antisemitism. Congress is right to call it what it is—a terrorist organization that endangers the West and the world.”
The Muslim Brotherhood is the ideological engine behind modern Islamist terrorism. Its stated goal is the establishment of a global Islamic caliphate ruled by Sharia law, and it has consistently used both violence and infiltration to advance that aim.
Robert Greenway, director of the Allison Center for National Security at Heritage, added:
“The Muslim Brotherhood has been the ideological fountainhead of contemporary terrorism and has provided support and resources for terrorist groups since their inception. They are a global threat, and the United States should treat them accordingly.”
Hamas was founded as the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch in the Gaza Strip. The Brotherhood has cheered and supported Hamas’s October 7th, 2023, massacre, which included the mass murder, rape, kidnapping and torture of civilians in Israel, including Americans—acts that meet the definition of war crimes under international law.
In Egypt, the Brotherhood’s brief reign was marked by political repression, church burnings, and deadly attacks on their opposition. Brotherhood-linked militias have operated across Libya and Sudan for years, fueling instability and regional conflict. In Syria, Brotherhood-aligned factions contributed to radicalization that further complicated a brutal civil war.
The Heritage Foundation applauds lawmakers who are advancing measures to expose and condemn the Brotherhood’s terror-linked agenda.
