EGYPTIAN PRESIDENT: U.S. MUST RESPECT ARAB HISTORY AND CULTURE, EVEN IF IT CONFLICTS WITH WESTERN VALUES

Newly-elected Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi granted a 90-minute interview to the New York Times ahead of his first presidential visit to the United States this week, laying out the changing face of U.S.-Arab relations.
Egypt’s first democratically-elected president, Morsi has been affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood for decades. In fact, according to the New York Times, Morsi even spent time in jail during Mubarak’s reign for his affiliation with the then-suppressed group.
“I grew up with the Muslim Brotherhood,” Morsi reportedly explained proudly. “I learned my principles in the Muslim Brotherhood. I learned how to love my country with the Muslim Brotherhood. I learned politics with the Brotherhood. I was a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
The New York Times has more on how Morsi says U.S.-Arab relations must change:
He said it was up to Washington to repair relations with the Arab world and to revitalize the alliance with Egypt, long a cornerstone of regional stability.
If Washington is asking Egypt to honor its treaty with Israel, he said, Washington should also live up to its own Camp David commitment to Palestinian self-rule. He said the United States must respect the Arab world’s history and culture, even when that conflicts with Western values.
“If you want to judge the performance of the Egyptian people by the standards of German or Chinese or American culture, then there is no room for judgment,” he said. “When the Egyptians decide something, probably it is not appropriate for the U.S. When the Americans decide something, this, of course, is not appropriate for Egypt.”