Sisi to Fox News: revolutionizing religious discourse is a must

CAIRO – 20 September 2017: On the sidelines of President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi’s participation in the United Nations General assembly 72nd session, President Sisi went on an interview with U.S. television channel FOX news on Tuesday.

Prior to the interview, Sisi addressed the United Nations General Assembly, where he confirmed Egypt’s sincere commitment to the values of the UN, and its continuous war against terrorism and radicalism.

FOX news anchor, Shawn Hannity began his interview with Sisi by praising his “courage” in raising that the idea that Islam needs a “religious revolution.”

More than once, Sisi was cited saying, “It doesn’t need common sense to understand that 1.6 billon people want to wipe out the rest of the world and think that they would make it alive on their own! Impossible.”

Asked for further elaboration, Sisi said that he was talking about the misconceptions and ideas adopted by some people that led to wide scale extremism, and that “I reiterated the significance of revolutionizing the religious speech and consecutively filtering the misconceptions and misinterpretations [in Islam].”

In the same context, Hannity went off against what he called “modern-day evil” that devastated his hometown of New York killing 3,000 of its own people in the 9/11 terrorist attacks which led to a broader war on terrorism, asking what does the world need to stand against extremism?

Extremist ideas are not the only evil; organizations that follow radical ideologies are also evil. We all need to confront this in the Arab Islamic world and on the international front as well, Sisi said in response, adding that we need to adopt a comprehensive strategy that is not only confined to military solutions and incorporates fighting terrorism on the economic, cultural and educational fronts.

Sisi also emphasized that “we don’t have to paint all Muslims around the globe with the same brush,” contending that the malpractices of some groups cannot represent the whole community, and “we ourselves are the ones who paid pay the highest prices for this terrorism.”

Hannity went on summoning back the Egyptian military response to ISIS in 2015, in response to the beheading of 21 Egyptian Copts, wandering whether the world needs to recognize terrorism and confront it.

It’s the first time we deployed troops outside Egypt to attack ISIS elements, Sisi said “we couldn’t have slept peacefully at night until we vindicated ourselves.”
In response to a question on whether or not the United States should designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group, Sisi replied that the U.S. is a great country that has its own respected perspective, and that it may take some time for them to recognize terrorist groups, and their impact on the whole world.