Eric Trager Archives - Dr. Rich Swier

The recent firing of pro-Israel staffers at the National Security Council, including Eric Trager and Merav Ceren, comes at a time when President Trump claims that negotiations with Iran are “going well,” even though Iran publicly insists it will never agree to end its program of uranium enrichment, and continues to make threats to “destroy Israel” should the Jewish state try to attack it.

More on the latest firings of pro-Israel staffers can be found here: “Top Middle East, Israel and Iran officials pushed out of NSC,” by Marc Rod and Emily Jacobs, Jewish Insider, May 25, 2025:

The top National Security Council officials overseeing the Middle East and Israel and Iran portfolios — seen as pro-Israel voices in the administration — were among the dozens of officials dismissed in a widespread purge of the NSC on Friday, two sources familiar with the situation told Jewish Insider.

Eric Trager, who was the senior director for the Middle East and North Africa — the lead official on the Middle East — and Merav Ceren, the director for Israel and Iran, were both Trump administration political appointees but were pushed out in what one official called a purge of “the Deep State” inside the NSC.

Their firings come as voices skeptical of the U.S.’ role in the Middle East increasingly establish a foothold in the administration, and as President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also the acting national security advisor, seek to restructure and slim down the key foreign policy-making body.

There are several signs that Trump is turning away from Israel. Without informing Jerusalem, he made a separate peace with the Houthis, promising to leave them alone as long as they did not hit American ships, and confined their attacks to Israel. He entered into direct negotiations with Hamas, using his special envoy Steve Witkoff, without alerting the Israelis. Trump has also expressed impatience with Israel for not “wrapping up” the war in Gaza. He has said he wants the war “to end as quickly as possible,” while the Israeli government says it will need “two more months” to take control of 75% of Gaza. After that is achieved, what then? Will the war stop? Surely that depends not on Israel, but on Hamas, which will have to decide if it has been battered enough by the IDF and needs to return all of the hostages, and further agrees to leave Gaza in order to end the war it is losing badly.

According to Axios, officials cut from the NSC will be moved to other positions in the government. Ceren previously came under fire from the far left and far right after false claims that she had previously worked as an Israeli Ministry of Defense official generated accusations of dual loyalty.

NSC spokesman Brian Hughes defended Ceren at the time and denied the accusations, describing her as “a patriotic American who has served in the United States government for years, including for President Trump, Senator Ted Cruz, and Congressman James Comer. We are thrilled to have her expertise in the NSC, where she carries out the President’s agenda on a range of Middle East issues.” He said she “was never employed by the Israeli Defense Ministry, let alone was she an Israeli official.”…

The false charge made against Merav Ceren, a specialist on Israel and Iran, that she had formerly worked for the Israeli Defense Ministry, was made by those, on both right and left, who were opposed to her pro-Israel views, and were hoping thereby to engineer her firing. She stayed on, but now she has been fired, along with another NSC staffer, Eric Trager, also known for being well-disposed to Israel. These firings are worrisome, coming as they do when the Trump administration sounds as if it is inclined to accept a deal with Iran which would not require it to end all enrichment of uranium. Many Republican senators have expressed their alarm of how these negotiations are going, amid fears that Iran, despite being economically on its knees, will not agree to end its enrichment program. The president, however, has only said that that there has been “real progress” in the talks, and predicts there will soon be “good news” about a deal with Iran. Israel has not been kept informed about the details being discussed, but fears that Trump will accept Iran’s refusal to end its uranium enrichment program, which Tehran, of course, insists is for the “peaceful use of nuclear energy.”

AUTHOR

Hugh Fitzgerald

Waleed Sharaby, is a secretary-general of the Egyptian Revolutionary Council State Department 1-1-27-15

Waleed Sharaby, Secretary General of the Egyptian Revolutionary Council, who flashes the Rabia Muslim Brotherhood resistance sign. U.S. State Department 1-27-15, Source: screenshot.

Tuesday evening in Washington, D.C., we had more evidence of the Administration’s policy of appeasing Muslim Brotherhood opponents of the Al-Sisi government in Cairo, the latter seeking to reform radical Islamic doctrine espousing Salafist Jihad. Adam Kredo of the Washington Free Beacon reported this latest example of outreach to Radical Islamist groups in the Ummah, “Muslim Brotherhood-Aligned Leaders Hosted at State Department:”

One member of the delegation, a Brotherhood-aligned judge in Egypt, posed for a picture while at Foggy Bottom in which he held up the Islamic group’s notorious four-finger Rabia symbol, according to his Facebook page.

That delegation member, Waleed Sharaby, is a secretary-general of the Egyptian Revolutionary Council and a spokesman for Judges for Egypt, a group reported to have close ties to the Brotherhood.

The delegation also includes Gamal Heshmat, a leading member of the Brotherhood, and Abdel Mawgoud al-Dardery, a Brotherhood member who served as a parliamentarian from Luxor.

Sharaby, the Brotherhood-aligned judge, flashed the Islamist group’s popular symbol in his picture at the State Department and wrote in a caption: “Now in the U.S. State Department. Your steadfastness impresses everyone,” according to an independent translation of the Arabic.

Another member of the delegation, Maha Azzam, confirmed during an event hosted Tuesday by the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID)—another group accused of having close ties to the Brotherhood—that the delegation had “fruitful” talks with the State Department.

Note this comment of Eric Trager of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy:

“Maha Azzam confirms that ‘anti-coup’ delegation, which includes 2 top [Muslim Brothers], had ‘fruitful’ conversations at State Dept,” Egypt expert Eric Trager tweeted.

“The State Department continues to speak with Muslim Brothers on the assumption that Egyptian politics are unpredictable, and the Brotherhood still has some support in Egypt,” he said. “But when pro-Brotherhood delegations then post photos of themselves making pro-Brotherhood gestures in front of the State Department logo, it creates an embarrassment for the State Department.”

Sam Tadros, Egypt expert at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom in Washington, DC commented:

“I think the Muslim Brotherhood visit serves two goals,” Tadros said. “First, organizing the pro Muslim Brotherhood movement in the U.S. among the Egyptian and other Arab and Muslim communities.”

“Secondly, reaching out to administration and the policy community in D.C.,” Tadros said. “The delegation’s composition includes several non-official Muslim Brotherhood members to portray an image of a united Islamist and non-Islamist revolutionary camp against the regime.”

Counter terrorism expert, Patrick Poole said:

What this shows is that the widespread rejection of the Muslim Brotherhood across the Middle East, particularly the largest protests in recorded human history in Egypt on June 30, 2013, that led to Morsi’s ouster, is not recognized by the State Department and the Obama administration,” Poole said.

“This is a direct insult to our Egyptian allies, who are in an existential struggle against the Muslim Brotherhood, all in the pursuit of the mythical ‘moderate Islamists’ who the D.C. foreign policy elite still believe will bring democracy to the Middle East,” Poole said.

It is beyond time for the GOP-controlled Congress to investigate why the Administration deigns to provide auspices to invite Egyptian and other foreign Muslim Brotherhood leaders to meet publicly with White House National Security and State Department officials in Washington. This latest example continues the impression that the Obama Administration supports Radical Islamic doctrine. It is a further example of how far the Administration has gone in fostering infiltration of Muslim Brotherhood domestic and foreign groups in the U.S. enabling their “messaging”. All while this Administration persists in deracinating the vestiges of Jihad threat doctrine training for our military, homeland security and national law enforcement agencies.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

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Obama Administration supports Radical Islam: State Department Hosts Pro-Muslim Brotherhood Egyptian Contingent