Lots of people say their charity is just propaganda - but where does the money come from (probably their own pockets) and don't they have a reputation amongst the poor for scrupulous honesty in contrast to government programs that are plagued with corruption? Are the brother's efforts a bad thing in themselves and, in any case, I've never heard they require the recipients of their charity to join them.
The calls for violence don't come from the leadership but from nobody hot heads.
An Independent Egyptian journalists has been interviewed saying that she has actually seen, in the last few days, armed 'thugs' associated with the police on the streets. These thugs seem to be provoking violence similar/identical (?) to that done by thugs in the pay of the military/police over 2 years ago.
The track record of the army and police using thugs and escaped criminals is clear as is their use to provoke violence on the other side. The violence of the past 2 1/2 years has been almost entirely by the state, shadowy thugs or the strange soccer killings.
The vast majority of killings in the past few days have been of brotherhood civilians. Doesn't sound like they are taking up guns at this stage and local reports of heavily armed brothers doesn't seem reflected in killings of army or police. Maybe the brothers are bad shots.
Beards must make recoil small arms hard to fire without facial combustion. The lighting of Molotov cocktails prior to tossing them would be certain death for a fully bearded brother. How a fully veiled sister could help with either is beyond me. If the brothers want this to kick off they will need to make some personal grooming changes as well as getting a fatwa to break Ramadan.
