Muslim Brotherhood leader Ibrahim al-Houdaiby's peremptory, if not indignant snub of UCI English teacher Gary Fouse's question concerning a damning government exhibit about the Brotherhood's association with the Holy Land Foundation wasn't surprising, as it represents the seemingly immutable strategy of the archetypal Islamist: lie, cheat, and deny your motives, conveniently retake your oath in the spirit of jihadist pragmatism:

Bukhari 5,59,369 Mohammed asked, "Who will kill Ka'b, the enemy of Allah and Moham-med?"
Bin Maslama rose and responded, "O Mohammed! Would it please you if I killed him?"
Mohammed answered, "Yes."
Bin Maslama then said, "Give me permission to deceive him with lies so that my plot will succeed."
Mohammed replied, "You may speak falsely to him."

Mr. al-Houdaiby wants to call himself a reformer, an advocate for "justice, equality, and peace," and opposes the corruption and oppression that has defined the nearly 30 year reign of Hosni Mubarak. But during his lecture, al-Houdaiby expressed his deference for Hasan al-Bannah, extricating the Muslim Brotherhood founder from the movement's succeeding scholar Sayyid Qtub, the latter taking a supposedly more radical view of Islam. The New Yorker's Lawrence Wright writes about Qtub in his book the Looming Tower:

His revolutionary argument placed nominally Islamic governments in the crosshairs of jihad. "The Muslim community has long ago vanished from existence," Qtub contends. It was "crushed under the weight of those laws and teachings which are not even remotely related to the Islamic teachings." Humanity cannot be saved unless Muslims recapture the glory of their earliest and purest expression. "We need to initiate the movement of Islamic revival in some Muslim country," he writes, in order to fashion an example that will eventually lead Islam to its destiny of world dominion. (p. 30)

Extricable from his predecessor? Wright continues with al-Bannah's thoughts on "world dominion:"

Their founder, Hasan al-Banna, had refused to link of his organization as a mere political party; it was meant to be a challenge to the entire idea of politics. Banna completely rejected the Western model of secular, democratic government, which contradicted his notion of universal Islamic rule. "It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations, and to extend its power to the entire planet, he wrote." (p. 25)

While the regime of Hosni Mubarak is less than favorable, the imposition of Sunni-style theocracy is far less favorable. By generally dismissing a government exhibit that mirrors al-Bannah's goals as forgery, and more ambiguously describing the prospect of an enlightened pluralistic society to mollify the fears of an over arching application of Sharia law, al-Houdaiby is attempting to re-package the Brotherhood's vision as presentable. However nuanced and modern it may seem, it merely constitutes a tactic to exploit the good nature of Western society.  Yet, he still remains far from convincing.

Watch additional footage of the event from here.