(Image source: Fox News)

BY HARUMENDHAH HELMY
ANCHOR MEGAN MURPHY
 

A once-outlawed Islamist party is now the most powerful political force in Egypt. After three rounds of elections, the Muslim Brotherhood is poised to gain an outright majority in the country’s new parliament.
 

The Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party secured 40 percent of the vote in the first two rounds of elections. The final round closed on Wednesday, and though results won’t be revealed until Jan. 13, the party is expected to maintain their dominance. (Video: Al Jazeera)
 

And with that — the New York Times reported the U.S. has now begun to engage the Brotherhood in diplomatic dialogue. The move reverses decades of, quote, ‘mistrust and hostility’ toward the group.
 

“The administration’s overtures — including high-level meetings in recent weeks — constitute a historic shift in a foreign policy held by successive American administrations that steadfastly supported the autocratic government of President Hosni Mubarak in part out of concern for the Brotherhood’s Islamist ideology and historic ties to militants.”
 

And Fox News says the move is significant to the Brotherhood’s rise to political power... it also sends a not-so-friendly message to Egypt’s ruling military council.
 

“Any engagement by the U.S. government with the Brotherhood is likely to give this organization, one which critics describe as a terrorist group, more legitimacy. And any move to establish closer ties to the Brotherhood may signal the administration’s frustration with the Egyptian military who are attempting to carve out permanent positions in the post-Mubarak era.”

In the blog- Now Lebanon, a foreign policy expert questions the Brotherhood’s vows that it will avoid religious extremism. He suggests by building ties with the group, the U.S. risks sleeping with the enemy... only to possibly regret it later.

“That depends on whether the Muslim Brotherhood … has sincerely moderated its views (as its supporters argue) or whether it remains dangerously fundamentalist (as I suspect). ... Optimistic Western experts point to the Brotherhood’s participation in recent Egyptian parliamentary elections as a sign that it … renounces violence and wants to work for change[.] The question, however, is what the Brotherhood will do if it ever assumes legitimate political power.”
 

And there’s another player in this political game — Israel.

A high-ranking Muslim Brotherhood official made headlines in Israeli media after New Year’s weekend -- when he suggests that Egypt may want to revise the 1979 peace treaty it has with the Jewish state. He also says the Brotherhood will never recognize Israel’s sovereignty. (Ha'aretz/Jerusalem Post/Jewish News One)

A blogger for TIME says -- denouncing Israel isn’t exactly a unique political position in the Arab world. Saudi Arabia is one example of a U.S. ally who has never recognized Israel. But still -- cozying up with a group that’s loudly anti-Israel can’t bode too well for President Obama.

“In an election season in which the President is routinely accused by GOP rivals of being insufficiently supportive of Israel, that country’s calls for the Administration to support the Israeli hard line on political Islam will certainly raise the domestic political price of any U.S. outreach effort.”

Egypt’s new parliament is set to convene on January 23. Following the Muslim Brotherhood in expected number of seats is the more hard line Islamist group, the Nour party.