Egypt's revolution betrayed: Fuel for al-Qaeda fires

(Though I am personally far more critical of Morsi and his gang of losers, I do agree with Eric that Egypt future looks extremely bad - The Saker)

by Eric Walberg

During the past few months, dozens of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (MB) members have been murdered and their offices sacked and burned. The police openly refuse to protect them. Rather than ordering the opposition to drop their demand that Egypt's first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, resign, and negotiate reasonably with his government, the army gave him a Hobson's Choice: resign or be ousted. As General Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi announced the army's coup Wednesday, President Mohammed Morsi released a video on the president’s website denouncing the ouster. “I am the elected president of Egypt. The revolution is being stolen from us.” Minutes later, the website was shut down, the video disappeared, and the president and 300 MB leaders were put under arrest, including the Brotherhood's Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie, a step that not even Mubarak dared to take.

The house cleaning is now in full swing. The Brotherhood’s satellite television network was removed from the air along with two other popular Islamist channels. Their hosts and many coworkers there and at Al-Jazeera considered too pro-Morsi were slapped in jail. State television resumed denouncing the Brotherhood as it once did under Mubarak. Writes Mohamad Elmasry of the American University in Cairo, "Mubarak-era media owners and key members of Egypt’s liberal and secular opposition have teamed up to create arguably one of the most effective propaganda campaigns in recent political history, to demonize Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood."

The new 'president', Supreme Constitutional Court Chairman Adly Mansour, installed by the military, hailed the protests as "an expression of the nation's conscience and an embodiment of its hopes and ambitions". Mansour swore to protect the republic and constitution, though what republic and what constitution are not clear. The notorious Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud, the Mubarak-era top prosecutor who presided over shame trials of corrupt Mubarak-era officials and whom Morsi removed, was reinstated to his post and immediately announced investigations against Brotherhood officials. The revolution is dead. Long live the revolution.

The Islamic awakening

This counterrevolutionary euphoria is floating on deep waters, which are impossible to quell or drain. Even western analysts such as Geneive Abdo admitted in the waning years of Mubarak's western-backed, secular dictatorship that "historical, social and economic conditions had laid the groundwork for society’s return to religion.” This culminated in the 2011 uprisings, soft-pedaled by western media as the 'Arab Spring', but which is in fact overwhelmingly inspired by Islam, and harks directly to Iran's 1979 revolution, Algeria's 1990 revolution, and the Palestinian Intifadas (1987, 2000), where liberals and secularists played no part.

In 1979, on the cusp of the Iranian revolution, a young Egyptian MBer, Essam el-Erian (now Freedom and Justice Party vice-chairman and MP) said, “Young people believe Islam is the solution to the ills in society after the failure of western democracy, socialism and communism to address the political and socio-economic difficulties.” Three decades later, the Muslim Brotherhood is riding a wave of youthful idealism and reaping the rewards of its 84 years of experience both in organization and as the persecuted shadow of Egypt’s march towards modernity, though, as the coup confirmed, it is faced by powerful enemies who reject the new ‘map’ being proposed for society.

Hopes that Egypt would consolidate a new form of Islamic democracy have for the moment been crushed. So far, the only Islamic revolution to succeed is the Iranian one, still going strong, though suffering from western intrigue, including the war with Iraq, economic crisis, subversion and sanctions. Other Islamic revolutions—in Algeria and Afghanistan—were aborted under western pressure. Turkey’s transformation beginning in 2001 with the sweep by Islamists at the polls, but like Egypt's Islamist triumph, has been deeply compromised by a powerful secular military and close integration with empire.

The overthrow of Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt in 2011 recap both Turkey and Iran’s history in the twentieth century—from secular pro-western dictatorship to an independent democracy inspired by Islam. But Egypt is also charting a new course—at least it was, until the July 2013 military coup—re-Islamization of society from below. Sparked by westernized urbanized youth, the 2011 uprising against an oppressive dictator quickly mobilized the overwhelming majority of Egyptians, but as it became clear that the post-revolutionary government would be Islamic, the secular opposition and the Mubarakites teamed up against the government and appealed to the powerful army for support. They were not disappointed.

Replay of Algeria

The military coup in Egypt is a replay of Turkey's many coups from the 1960s to 1980s against democratically elected Islamists. More ominously, it recalls the 1991 coup in Algeria that brought to an end the first democratic elections in its history, and ushered in a vicious civil war, which left the country devastated and continues to haunt Algerians over two decades later.

A million Algerians had died in the liberation struggle against the French after WWII—Algeria's first civil war, the opposition dominated by secular socialists and nationalists. To prevent an Islamist revolution then, the beleaguered French authorities had closed down all reformist religious organizations, effectively handing the (French-educated) secular independence movement the reins of power.

After the revolution, “the Algerian state appeared astonishingly similar to the Pahlavi state, strongly secular … omnipresent in social, cultural, economic spheres, conducting agrarian reform that antagonized Islamic groups,” according to M Moaddel. Just as Iran’s shah tried to chart a secularist capitalist course in the 1960s, Egypt's Nasser tried to chart a secularist socialist course, imitated by Algeria's Ben Bella, though the results were in all three cases disappointing and meant suppressing the Islamist opposition.

At the same time, the Islamists were manipulated by western strategists to keep these neocolonial government in line, a strategy that went into high gear with the 'jihad' against the Soviet Union in 1979 in Afghanistan, where Algerians, Egyptians, and Islamists from across the world were organized and financed by the US, unleashing a new terrorist dynamic with US-Saudi-supported al-Qaeda at the helm.

After riots in 1988 in Algeria, and with a new constitution allowing political parties other than the ruling FLN, the hastily-formed Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) won more than 50% in municipal elections in June 1990 and was poised to take power. The national elections were cancelled and Algeria’s second civil war began.

The army moved in and began a campaign of terror, slaughtering Islamists, provoking retaliation, and even organizing faux Islamist death squads. Some of the most notorious Islamic Armed Groups (IAGs) were in fact creations of the Algerian secret services, as even the French backers of the military were forced to admit. “On the domestic front, their purpose was to commit atrocities in the name of Islam that would discredit the FIS. On the international front, the aim was to convince the West that Islamism needed to be 'eradicated'”, according to Fouzi Slisli. Between 1992–2002, an estimated 200,000 Algerians died. Today’s secular Egyptians supporting the overthrow of their hard-fought-for legitimate elections should remember Algeria—and shudder.

Algeria updated

The Islamists in Algeria are still being held in check, but Algeria’s trauma is far from over. Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb continues to carry out kidnappings and bombings. With the impending death of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the pressure—as in Egypt today—will be to hold credible elections, where, in both cases, the Islamists will again be the winners.

But it may not be so easy to engineer a replay of the horrors of the Algerian civil war in either Algeria or Egypt today. In any case, predictions of the collapse of the MB come up against the reality of Egypt, where there is little hope of rekindling a Mubarak-style accommodation with the empire. If anything, the coup has rather confirmed to Islamists the insidiousness of trying to make deals with the empire. The only way forward for Egypt today is to cut off the Gorgon's head, as Iran did when the Islamic awakening was getting under way three decades ago.

Genuine terrorist threats remain in Egypt and will no doubt increase as a result of the coup. Al-Qaeda’s post-Bin Laden leader, (Egyptian) Ayman Zawahiri, has always been focused on combating local regimes and Arab rulers, these days, Assad in Syria. European jihadists come to Cairo to study Islam or Arabic in Nasr City, but then head for al-Qaeda training camps in Egypt, the Sinai or Libya. If the MB is forced underground again, it is inevitable that this terrorism will increase, as frustrated Islamists are forced to defend themselves and to resist the reimposition of the western model, with al-Qaeda-types hovering in the background.

The MB was unable to make a dysfunctional neoliberal economy work, given the sabotage of the secularists and Mubarakites. In the short chaotic year that ended with the coup, the MB tried. They used their own grassroots network to mobilize tens of thousands to help distribute subsidized bread to the very poor, addressing the most pressing problem for most Egyptians. They mobilized brigades to clean up mountains of rubbish. Their attempts were met with only ridicule, their offices trashed and burned, and their activists killed.

Harnessing Egypt's spiritual legacy and its manpower requires disengaging from the US-dominated world order, transforming Egypt into a more modest, less gaudy, less western society. Perhaps this will fail in the short run, faced with the accumulated imperial rubbish of the past, both physical and spiritual. That is certainly the intention of the imperialists and their acolytes in Egypt and throughout the Arab world.

It is a shame—no, a crime—when nice anti-imperialists like Nasserist Hamdeen Sobahi or Mohamed ElBaradei dismiss the votes of the masses as ill-informed, call for a coup, and blacken the only genuine anti-imperialist opposition. Their Islamophobia is visceral. They are now eagerly awaiting appointments in the junta's government (as if the junta will condone anything that wreaks of socialism or anti-imperialism), and the Islamists are back in jail. The situation now is worse than under Mubarak, and promises to become even grimmer.

Egypt's Morsi: Biting the bullet

by Eric Walberg

At last Egyptian politics is moving. President Mohamed Morsi is slowly building on his summer 'coup', when he stared down Egypt's generals and put his men in the top army and defence positions, following terrorist attacks in Sinai which the army, so old and bumbling, so involved in Egyptian internal politics, failed to prevent.

Now, he has stared down Israel's generals, and dealt as an equal with US President Obama to bring US pressure on Israel to back down in its planned invasion of Gaza. Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Qandil was sent to Gaza 16 November at the height of Israel's current Operation Pillar of Cloud, forcing Israeli President Netanyahu to call a unilateral truce to avoid killing the Egyptian leader. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rushed to Cairo to show Washington's support for Morsi, making it clear that Obama was starting a new leaf, finally understanding who his real ally is in the Middle East, and putting Netanyahu in his place. There will be no repeat of Israel’s humiliation of Obama with the 2008 Operation Cast Lead.

Then, just hours after Morsi, the world's wise peacemaker, waved good-bye to Hillary, but with his old-guard judiciary poised to dissolve the Constitutional Committee and destroy all hope for carrying the revolution forward, the unassuming president stared them down too, issuing a decree putting his decrees above judicial review. And for the second time, he dismissed the procurator general, Abdel Meguid Mahmud, who has presided over the legal stonewalling of prosecutions of counterrevolutionaries -- this time not backing down. The time for dawdling and letting criminals off the hook is over. The new prosecutor general, reformer Talaat Ibrahim Abdallah, has ordered a new trial of Mubarak and police and thugs let off scot-free by the old judiciary.

And watch out, Mubarak-appointed Supreme Constitutional Court, don't you even think about disbanding the Constitutional Committee that is so painstakingly putting together a constitution. (Liberals and Christian secularists resigned from the committee, doing their best to sabotage it, revealing where their sympathies lie.) Or about disbanding the Shura Council on some technicality, as you did the lower house in May, in a conspiracy with the generals to sabotage the revolution.

The secularists should look at the writing on the wall. Egypt is a devout Muslim country, where Christians are protected by Islam and cultural liberals are tolerated. These Western-inspired forces will never prevail, so they should work with Islamists, not against them, if they want to maximize social harmony and their own rights. Sadly, the opposition is increasingly siding with the Mubarak crowd. "President Morsi said we must go out of the bottleneck without breaking the bottle," presidential spokesman Yasser Ali said. The opposition would rather see the bottle break that get Egypt's life blood flowing again.

Islamic civilization has been endangered for centuries now, battered and undermined by the Western secularist onslaught. Finally, Muslims are doing something about it. Now the Egyptian revolution of 2011 -- which is Islamic, as elections since then prove beyond a doubt -- is in danger, and the Muslim Brotherhood is showing it has spine and smarts. In both assertions of presidential power since then -- in August and November 2012 -- Morsi used a brief window of opportunity to maximum effect. His decisive steps caught observers by surprise, but surprise is the essence of revolution. Waffling and compromise lead to paralysis.

Anyone who wants to be part of a new Egypt, to shake off the imperial yoke looking for inspiration in Islam, should be delighted and inspired. Instead, MB offices in Port Said and Ismailia and Suez were fire-bombed, and liberals and judges, reinforced by the Mubarak crowd -- now more and more assertive -- are demonstrating angrily at the high court in Cairo and the judges' union has called a strike. Some talk of impeaching the president as a traitor. The counterrevolutionaries are continuing to expose themselves. "The decisions I took are aimed at achieving political and social stability," Morsi explained, vowing to firmly enforce the law against hooligans hired by loyalists of the former regime to attack security forces, state and party institutions.

Under prosecutor Meguid, it was beginning to look like no one would be held to account for the tens of thousands who were tortured and killed during Mubarak's reign, for the billions that were stolen, and the flagrant rigging of elections. The rich, corrupt old guard continue to pay thugs and unemployed to disrupt civic life, to bring discredit to the revolution. They have been doing this from day one and there is no reason to believe they have stopped.

Revolutions are never tea parties. The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) have a clear vision and, along with the Salafis, represent the overwhelming majority of Egyptians. The fractious secular liberals and socialists plus the Christians represent only a quarter of Egyptians, and are united only against Mubarak and now against the MB.

They include Mohamed ElBaradei, whose long international career, we should remember, was in the service of the imperial world order. He is a nice Arab, a laid-back, secular Muslim, no threat. How else could he have been appointed AIEA chief and crowned Nobel Peace Prize winner? Morsi has “usurped all state powers and appointed himself Egypt’s new pharaoh," ElBaradei pontificated. Other dissidents include the also-rans in the June presidential elections. Morsi’s main rival, Mubarak's last prime minister Ahmed Shafiq, fled Egypt in disgrace after the election, facing arrest on corruption charges, leaving behind Nasserist Hamdeen Sabahi, ex-MBer Aboul Fotouh, and former Mubarak foreign minister Amr Moussa, who have teamed up to form the self-proclaimed “National Salvation Front” to oppose the presidential decree.

ElBaradei should be reminded there were great pharaohs, not just bad ones. Yes, "Morsi is a 'temporary' dictator", screams the headline in al-Masry al-Youm. There are times, especially during a revolution, when it is necessary to act decisively to save the revolution. The kind of paralyzed 'democracy' that the US and the old guard in Egypt want would choke and stall the gains until cynicism reigns and the starving masses cry out for the old order. What is key, is that the firm hand is an honest one, devoted to the people. Morsi's kind are Egypt's only hope now -- selfless and God-fearing, not acting for personal gain or empire, but for the good of the people. He pledged to relinquish his new powers when the constitution is ratified four months from now, and there is no reason to doubt his word.

Prior to the revolution in January 2012, ElBaradei too was a hero, a brave figure, able to shield himself from Mubarak's secret police with his international prestige, the man who openly rallied Egyptians against tyranny. In the lead-up to the revolution, he acted in alliance with the MB, as later did Sabahi in the lead-up to the first post-revolution elections. They both underrated the real MB support and determination -- and their own lack of standing with Egyptians -- thinking that secularists would prevail in open elections, that they could make the MB abandon their program.

After the MB and Salafis chalked up 75% of the vote, the secularists suddenly found it impossible to accept their junior role in Egyptian politics. Rather than recognizing their own lack of credibility, and accepting the broad MB program while trying to salvage something from the secularist project, they have now drifted into alliance with the old guard and by implication their imperial allies abroad.

This is exactly what happened during the Russian revolution of 1917, where the political playing field shifted quickly, leaving key actors flummoxed. Alexander Kerensky too was a liberal 'revolutionary', until he fled to Paris, exposed as a reactionary anxious to appease the British and French and keep Russia in the criminal war which had inspired the revolution.

Speaking at a Cairo mosque, Morsi told worshippers Egypt was moving forward. "I fulfill my duties to please God and the nation. God’s will and elections made me the captain of this ship. I don’t seek to grab legislative power.” It is ridiculous to accuse the mild-mannered Morsi of creating a dictatorial cult around himself. He is a man with a mission, but one which should gladden the hearts of all Egyptians: “We’re moving on a clear path, we are walking in a clear direction. And we have a big, clear goal: the new Egypt.”

The transition to the new Egypt will not be easy. The striking judges and brazen secularists, who flourished in the Mubarak era, will have to learn some self-restraint or go. Traditionally, revolutions lead to a house-cleaning through retirement, emigration, or in the worst case, through violence. When old elites team up with old and new mafias, they play with fire.

The Egyptian generals bowed out when their bluff was called. The prosecutor general and those eager to scuttle the real democratic process and the birth of the new constitution, with holier-than-thou words about the ‘independent’ judiciary, should do the same now and let the popularly-elected leader get on with the hard work of making sure the revolution is not strangled in the cradle.

Is a Fascist coup taking place in Egypt?

Egyptian cops go berserk on demonstrators

Cairo Protests "To Save the Revolution"

Egyptians Protest Against Torture and Murder of Prisoner

Jihan Hafiz reports on mass protest demanding accountability for crimes against prisoners 

Watch full multipart Egyptian Revolution

There Never Was an Egyptian Revolution

by Ahmed Amr for Dissident Voice

The thrill is gone, the euphoria has faded and our mass delusions have been swept away to make room for the reality that there never was an Egyptian revolution. Eight months after deposing the old despot, Egypt is now in the firm grip of a new and improved military dictatorship – the Supreme Counsel of the Armed Forces. Any lingering doubt about the intentions of the generals to retain command and control of the ship of state vanished on Bloody Sunday.

There is no need for additional forensic evidence of what exactly transpired at Maspero, the site of a massacre that can only be called a crime against humanity. What started out as a peaceful march against religious persecution by Salafi vandals with a nasty habit of destroying Coptic churches turned into a blood bath. Two dozen demonstrators were murdered, the youngest of them 12 years old.

The only real question remaining is whether the slaughter was premeditated. From where I sit in Cairo, it sure looks that way. How else can one explain the outright lies and deceptions propagated by state owned media operatives?

The provocative coverage by State TV made it sound like Coptic gangs armed with machine guns had assaulted unarmed military police. And the public ate it up because they ‘saw’ it on their Telly. A call went out for ‘honorable’ citizens to go out and defend the army.

Of course, that story turned out to be a load of state manufactured manure. The online English language Al-Ahram website, also a government media outlet, gave a very different account.

A march of 10,000 Copts began today from Shubra to the State TV building in Maspero turned violent when protesters were attacked by stone throwing mobs from on top of the surrounding walls while they were trying to cross the Shubra tunnel. A 15-minute battle ensued as the Coptic protesters fought back and hurled stones at their assailants. Gun shots were fired in the sky, leaving terrified demonstrators wondering aloud if they were going to be shot.

During the attack, panic ensued as women protesters were told to stand under the bridge for safety as Coptic youth tried to contain the march. After the battle stopped the march, once again regained its peaceful nature and continued towards Maspero.

On their way to Maspero they stopped in the neighboring Galaa Street and were attacked once again. A car sped through the crowd and randomely shot at protesters. The march continued once again to Maspero where the protesters were attacked again with increased vigour and violence.

An Ahram Online correspondent at Maspero reports seeing glass being thrown down at protesters from inside the State Broadcasting building in Maspero while armoured personnel carriers were driven by the army through the crowds, hitting and running protesters over. Eyewitness accounts posted on Twitter detail people being shot by the armed forces and attacked by plain-clothed thugs, with fire consuming vehicles by the Nile.

So far confirmed as being among those killed are Mina Daniel, an activist and blogger; Wael Yunna, a journalist for Coptic TV; and Michael Mosaad, an activist and member of the Maspero Youth Coalition.

The protest was organised by the Maspero Youth Union, a group of young Coptic activists to protest against the recent violations against Copts. The protesters chanted, ‘raise your head high you are a Copt,’ and ‘no to burning of churches.’

The protesters also chanted against the army, shouting “the people want the fall of the Field Marshall Tantawi,” and chanted: “Tantawi, where is your army, our homes and churches are being attacked.”

The very next morning, the Arabic print version of Al-Ahram spared all of 150 words to report the story. The brief account didn’t even mention a clash or report on the casualties. This sanitary version of the events had Muslims and Christians marching peacefully chanting “Muslims and Copts are One Hand.” My best guess is that they didn’t want to squander all their recently acquired post-revolutionary virginity on a single story.

By Tuesday morning, Al-Ahram was back to usual form and reporting an eyewitness account from a wounded soldier who claimed he saw 14 of his comrades burned alive in an armored personnel carrier. The journalist who wrote that story is well-advised to invest a little money in a calculator. The official death toll is 25 killed. Of those, 21 have already been identified as Copts, two bodies are unidentified and it’s not exactly certain who the other two are. They could have been soldiers but then again they could have been Muslim activists who were marching in solidarity with their Coptic brothers. The army initially claimed that three of its soldiers had died and now refuses to confirm the exact count.

Usually, in similar circumstances, the soldiers who die in the line of duty are identified and their families are awarded compensation and press coverage to honor their sacrifice. So it could be that the military suffered no fatalities.

The bottom line is that the state owned press accounts were all over the place even though the reported events happened right under their noses. The site of the massacre was across the street from the State Television building at Maspero. State media, any state media, is always a suspect source of information. But when you get this level of confusion in Egyptian state media outlets, it is a sure sign of a cover-up.

The behavior of these ‘journalists’ – and I use that word very loosely – is very similar to what happened on February 2, 2011. That is exactly the same scenario that transpired during the infamous “Battle of the Camels” when armed thugs on horses and camels attacked demonstrators in Tahrir Square.

At the time, the army had already committed itself to protecting the demonstrators and volunteered to be a “custodian of the revolution.” But a curious thing happened – the army didn’t intervene and never bothered to explain how the hired goons had penetrated their lines or how they had manage to pass unnoticed through dozens of army checkpoints that were set up to enforce a curfew. That remains a taboo subject.

But there are some things we now know about the Battle of the Camel. It was a carefully orchestrated attempt by the Mubarak regime to abort the revolution and the plan included a very well-defined role for state media operatives. Their instructions were to ignore it and concentrate on reporting on ‘spontaneous’ outbreaks of support for the now deposed president. It’s fair to speculate that similar instructions were handed down to state media operatives on Bloody Sunday. For the record, these government salaried scribes are pretty much the same crowd that faithfully supported Mubarak for thirty years.

The massacre at Maspero came straight out Mubarak’s play book. Manufacture chaos, pose as a savior of the nation and extend the emergency laws or maybe go a bit further and declare martial law. Field Marshal Tantawi is already signaling the need to impose harsher measures against unidentified domestic and foreign provocateurs.

The Coptic demonstrators were not hooligans armed with machine guns; their ranks included women, children and sympathetic Muslim activists. And autopsies confirm that many of them were shot, stabbed, crushed by armored personnel carriers or beaten to death.

There is absolutely no need for a massive inquiry here. Just ask the soldiers and officers what their instructions were and who gave the orders. Pull in a few of the journalists on the state payroll and ask them the same thing. Round up a few of the thugs who attacked the demonstrators to determine if they acted ‘spontaneously’ or if they also had instructions. I’ll bet my last dollar that this was a False Flag operation to manufacture chaos and create enough sectarian tension to justify continued military rule.

Which gets me back to my initial thesis which is that there never was an Egyptian revolution. What happened in Egypt was a coup d’état that rode the back of a popular uprising, tamed it and now plans to re-establish six decades of military dictatorship. The generals were more than happy to get rid of Mubarak and his heir, a son who was not only a corrupt investment banker but also a draft dodger who never served a day in the military and was rumored to have a British passport.

The Copts who perished on Bloody Monday will go down as the last martyrs of the first Egyptian uprising or the first martyrs of the second Egyptian uprising. Either way, their blood will remain an indelible stain on Egyptian history. May God have mercy on their souls.

Ahmed Amr is the former editor of NileMedia.com and the author of The Sheep and The Guardians - Diary of a SEC Sanctioned Swindle. He can be reached at: Montraj@aol.com. Read other articles by Ahmed.

Egypt's pro-Israeli establishment strikes back

Al-Jazeera has just announced that the Egyptian military junta is:

a) Re-activating "emergency laws" including

b) Indefinite detention without trial

c) State Security court trials

Well, now the regime is showing its true face.

It remains to be seen if it has the means to crush the people.

Either way, the hatred for the Israel and the USA will only become deeper and more widespread.

The Zionists are really in political quicksands: every move they make only makes their situation more desperate and brings their inevitable end closer.

Lovefest around the "Only Democracy In The Middle-East"

First, it was Erdogan who declared that henceforth the Turkish Navy would escort ships headed for Gaza with humanitarian aid.  It sounds fantastic, of course, but its all hot air.  Turkey is not going to confront the Israelis on the high seas because their US masters will simply not allow that.  Still, it says something about the public opinion in Turkey.

But the really amazing thing is what happened in Cairo: the people stormed the Israeli Embassy (for the 2nd time!) and the Israeli Ambassador, his family and staff had to be evacuated back to "Eretz Yisrael" under a military protection escort.  According to Russian TV reports, the same crowds also attacked the Egyptian Ministry of State Security and, now watch this, the Saudi Embassy!

Both Erdogan's statement and the riots in Cairo were triggered by the exact same feature of the Israeli mentality: the categorical refusal to apologize for unjustifiable violence. In the first case, Israel refused to apologize for the Mavi Marmara massacre, in the second case, Israel refused to apologize for murdering Egyptian border guards.  Both of these events are highly symbolical as they illustrate some key Israeli points of view:

a) We don't care about borders or international law

b) We will kill as many goyim as we want

c) Goyim lives are irrelevant

d) The Chosen People do not apologize to goyim

We could call it "criminal chutzpah" I suppose.  Or "political sociopathy".  Or "national antisocial personality disorder".  Or good old racist hubris.  Different expression, same mindset.

What these guys are getting wrong is this: the land they occupy is not in the Brooklyn or the 4th arrondissement of Paris.  This is the Middle-East, where honor means a lot, and where cop-outs about "anti-Semitism" are met with dismissive smiles or giggles.  Hence the current love-fest all around the "Only Democracy In The Middle-East".

As for the Israelis, they are doing what they do best: they are calling Uncle Sam (Uncle Shmuel?) to the rescue.  To some degree, this will help tone down the Turkish rhetoric, but with the Egyptians - it will only make things "worse" (or better - depending on your point of view).

I am particularly amazed at the Egyptian people.  By attacking the Israeli Embassy, then the offices of the State Security and then the Saudi Embassy villa, they are really "connecting the dots", aren't they? 

The road to al-Quds goes through Riyadh, doesn't it?

Egypt Revolt 2.0? 'People outraged with military in power'

Very interesting interview of Phyllis Bennis by Paul Jay

Many interesting issues are alluded to in this interview. I wonder if you guys could comment on the following topics:

1. The Salafi <-> Muslim Brotherhood relation. Is there a "porous border" between these two groups? Does the MB have a salafist wing?
2. The Foreign Ministry <-> Military relation. Is there a real power struggle taking place between these two ministries?
3. Assuming that the USA will do all it can to sidetrack, disrupt, undermine, subvert and reverse the Egyptian Revolution (a safe assumption, I would submit), what are the chances of Egypt fully getting out of the US influence in a way similar, but not necessarily identical, to the manner in which Iran got rid of its Yankee overlords?

Any comments/insights would be highly appreciated!

Thanks,

The Saker