Israel Matzav

Egyptians support army crackdown

Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.

Even the New York Times admits that most Egyptians support their army's crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood.

“It was necessary,” Akmal William, standing in his auto-detailing shop on Talaat Harb Street, said of the raid by soldiers and police officers. “They had to be strict.”

Witnesses described a disproportionate, ruthless attack. Condemnations came from human rights advocates, a few Egyptian political figures, and from abroad.  But many Egyptians viewed things differently, focusing on what they said were continuing threats from Mr. Morsi’s supporters, who were frequently referred to as terrorists. In their view, the army was the only force standing in the Islamists’ way.

Between the parallel realities, others were torn between the claims of the security forces of violent demonstrators who threatened the country — a view parroted by the state news media — and what they heard from Islamist friends about how the battle on the streets had unfolded on Wednesday morning.

In Imbaba, a neighborhood that seems to catch all the nation’s political currents in its congested alleyways, many people regretted the bloodshed. But they asserted that the alternative was worse. The Muslim Brotherhood, Mr. Morsi’s political party, was holding back the country with endless sit-ins and protests, many said. And the longer the army waited to act, the weaker Egypt seemed to them.

That conviction only grew stronger amid reports about Islamist violence, including the storming of a government building in Giza early Thursday. Mr. William, a Coptic Christian, was preoccupied by a spate of attacks on churches and Christian homes across the country, a spasm of collective scapegoating by some of Mr. Morsi’s supporters.

“They won’t go easily,” he said, adding that churches “are still being burned.”

Egyptians were fooled by the Muslim Brotherhood. They may not get another chance, and for now at least, many of them don't seem to care.

Labels: Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egyptian army, Egyptian democracy, Egyptian Revolution, Mohammed Morsy, Muslim Brotherhood

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:15 PM