During an interview with Time Magazine, Egypt’s new Muslim Brotherhood president – Mohamed Morsi – made a somewhat cryptic reference to the 1968 movie version of Planet of the Apes. As a member of the Ikhwan, Morsi is quite familiar with whom the Qur’an considers to be apes – the Jews.

Via ROP:

Verse 5:60 even says that Allah transformed Jews of the past into apes and pigs. This is echoed by verses 7:166 and 2:65.

Christians are considered to be less than human as well:

Even Christians and Jews are not considered fully human in that the penalty for killing one of them is limited to one-third of the compensation due for unintentionally killing a Muslim.

It’s unclear how the Jews represent the apes in this metaphor but we know that’s what the Brotherhood thinks of them and don’t think the irony is not lost on Morsi.

Via TIME:

I remember a movie. Which one? Planet of the Apes. The old version, not the new one. There is new one. Which is different. Not so good. It’s not expressing the reality as it was the first one. But at the end, I still remember, this is the conclusion: When the big monkey, he was head of the supreme court I think — in the movie! — and there was a big scientist working for him, cleaning things, has been chained there. And it was the planet of the apes after the destructive act of a big war, and atomic bombs and whatever in the movie. And the scientists was asking him to do something, this was 30 years ago: “Don’t forget you are a monkey.” He tells him, “Don’t ask me about this dirty work.” What did the big ape, the monkey say? He said, “You’re human, you did it [to] yourself.” That’s the conclusion. Can we do something better for ourselves?

Of course, this is one of the most famous scenes from that film:

Added bonus – the Simpsons’ version of Dr. Zaius (the ape Morsi was referring to in his metaphor), set to the tune of Rock Me Amadeus:

h/t WZ