WASHINGTON — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the US Secretary for Health and Human Services, singled out Monday the Muslim Brotherhood as the reason why “500 million Arabs… don't produce science” and “don't win the Nobel Prize.” His statements drew backlash and accusations of bigotry.
“There's 500 million Arabs in the world, and yet they don't produce science. They don't win the Nobel Prize, they don't win the Fields Prize, they don't win the Wolf Prize. They don't produce literature,” Kennedy falsely stated in Grand Rapids.
After citing the Islamic “golden age” of the 9th through the 14th centuries, during which Arab and Persian scholars widely translated and advanced ancient Greek works of mathematics, medicine and philosophy, Kennedy’s speech then took an ahistorical turn.
“All of that tradition has been destroyed by the Muslim Brotherhood,” Kennedy asserted, referring to the Islamist political movement founded in Egypt in 1928.
“They've created stagnant societies that do one or two things: hatred and war and victimization,” he added.
The comments by the Trump cabinet member added to a growing chorus of criticism over what critics have described as xenophobic and Islamophobic commentary by allies of US President Donald Trump ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections....
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