Once again, there are pitched battles between supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and Mohammed Morsy, on the one hand, and the Egyptian army, on the other hand. These images are from today (Friday).
And here are twoimages of Egyptians jumping off bridges in Cairo (and there's nothing underneath the but roadway) to escape gunfire.
Here's a video report from CBS News from before the riots started.
Let's go to the videotape.
Hot Air points out that the lines between the Egyptian Army and the Muslim Brotherhood are not as clear-cut as was the case in
Tiananmen Square in China in 1989.
You have to ask: How would the world be reacting if the victims in Cairo were secularists or anti-communists?
Well, they’re not, and as Bloomberg notes, the indications
from the first year of Muslim Brotherhood control wasn’t that the
country was headed for a pluralistic, tolerant self-government. In the
wake of the massacre, the Brotherhood and its Islamist allies are
torching Christian churches all over Egypt, part of a campaign against
the Copts that had been simmering ever since Mohamed Morsi took power.
That doesn’t mean that the Egyptian military should be slaughtering them
in the streets, or that they’re much better in practice than Morsi’s
coalition was. The lines are nowhere near as clear as they were in
Tiananmen Square.
Of course, we also didn’t fund the Chinese military back in 1989,
either. Like it or not, this week has American fingerprints on it, and
even with the murkier battle lines, that’s an embarrassment for the US.
Yes, it has been. Obama and Kerry have no clue what to do. The only thing they really care about in this region is the 'Palestinians.'
Israel has returned its ambassador to Egypt, Yitzchak Levanon, to his post in Cairo. Levanon had been on a personal vacation. But Israel is taking precautions.
Earlier this week, a private contractor began to build a security wall around the embassy that is intended to prevent protesters from reaching the embassy.
The contractor, Khaled Mahmud, claimed the security fence is expected to be a 100 meters (328 feet) long and 3 meters (9 feet) tall. According to the website, there are currently 30 construction workers on site.
On Friday, Egypt will get its Khomeni - the charismatic Islamic thinker with the chance to push its revolution from secular to Islamist. 84-year old Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who has lived in exile in the Gulf for years, will deliver a Friday sermon at Tahrir Square in Cairo, where hundreds of thousands of people are likely to come see him. Among other things, Qaradawi is a supporter of Islamists moving to the West, where they can prevent Jews from being influential, and a supporter of Islamists participating in elections, because they will always win them.
Barry Rubin, who refers to Qaradawi as a living legend, has lots more about him.
Uh oh... Egyptian army fires warning shots at Tahrir protesters
There's a report that the army has fired warning shots at protesters gathering in Cairo's Tahrir Square.
Witnesses said that Egyptian Army forces have begun firing warning shots into the air in order to ward off protestors from Tahrir Square. Throughout the night, large crowds of Egyptians celebrated the departure of Hosni Mubarak from Cairo, and on Sunday the army began to disperse the crowds. However, many refused to leave, and during the morning hours large numbers of people joined those already in the square. Press reports quoted protest organizers as saying that they would remain until the army, which is now in charge, published a specific timetable on when elections would be held and how a transfer of power to civilian rulers would take place.
Witnesses said that there has been tension between groups of soldiers and protestors, with soldiers pushing protestors and trying to herd them out of the square, and protestors pushing back and attempting to remain in place.
Hmmm.
Israel Radio reports at 1:00 our time (a few moments ago) that the shots were fired in warning at a police demonstration at the Interior Ministry and not at Tahrir where the army continues to try to move the protesters out. Earlier today, Israel Radio reported that the people left in Tahrir were Egyptians from outside Cairo who were looking for the government to pay their way home.
Here are some thoughts about the limitations of Twitter ad Facebook-based revolutions.
So far, the brunt of the bloodshed has been suffered by the anti-government protesters, but the violence and brutality cuts both ways. While it is true that they were set upon while trapped in the square, the anti- Mubarak crowds were quick to use violence when the time came, beating and lynching men suspected of being undercover police or paid provocateurs. These men were carried off on several occasions by the mobs, to God-knows-where.
While the protesters were acting largely in self-defense as the square came under siege, and the evidence against some of the men they dragged away was sound, in some cases, the breaking of their bones was audible even over the din of the crowds.
And will any of us in the press ask ourselves what our responsibility is when the inevitable purges begin? Will we ask what role we played in adding fuel to the protest, encouraging those courageous souls to stay in the square no matter the cost that they, not we, will pay? We all had a responsibility to cover the story, one of the biggest in decades, but sober analysis of the stakes at hand seemed few and far between. We talked about how it would affect Israel, America, even Iran, but few seemed to ask what would happen to the Egyptian Army officer paraded on the shoulders of protesters in images sent around the world, or the countless demonstrators who, in their incredible bravery, spoke to the cameras, to the world, and in the end, to the very people who will now be coming to find them.
Will we follow their interrogation and detention on Twitter? Will Facebook find a way to ensure they get proper legal representation? While social networking sites did galvanize the protest movement, as the world saw in Iran’s “Green Revolution,” when the hammer finally does drop, it doesn’t seem to matter if the world is watching, tweeting, blogging or hash-tagging.
As in Teheran, we are seeing in Cairo that while it’s great to have history and the media on your side, it’s better to have bullets.
The Jerusalem Post talks to Egyptian demonstrators about Israel and discovers that more than thirty years after Camp David, they still hate us.
"After Camp David, all the Arab world sees that we are no longer a leader. Camp David made us a slave”
Like many at Tahir square on Tuesday night, 26-year-old Mohammed Salama of Cairo spoke of an eagerness for Egypt to shelve its nearly three decade old peace agreement with Israel, but insisted he does not want the country to go to war with Israel. In his hands he held a sign reading in Arabic “Netanyahu is worried about Mubarak”, which he said he wrote because “this is my country and my leader, I don’t want him to care about Israel, only about my country.”
Salama spoke moments after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak gave a nationwide speech vowing to hold new elections in six months in which he would not run. Like all of those spoken to by The Jerusalem Post after the speech, Salama said he didn’t feel the speech represented a victory for the movement, only a new ploy by Mubarak to stall and stay in power. Salama and all others spoken to by the Post vowed that they would stay in the square as long as it takes until Mubarak leaves and that the revolution is far from over.
Salama’s friend, Hazan Ahmed, 29, said the years of peace with Israel are tinged with the sting of humiliation, and that Egyptians still feel they’re country is not completely free of the Israeli occupation of the Sinai which ended under Camp David.
“The Egyptian army can’t enter Sinai, we feel that it is still Israel. There are Israeli people there all the time, but when we go, we have to stop at checkpoints and we get turned back. We don’t feel that Sinai is Egyptian.”
Ahmed said he didn’t want Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel completely demolished, but for it to undergo a serious change.
“It should be remodeled. With Mubarak leaving, we know that whoever comes next will remodel the agreement.”
When asked about the fact that Israel and Egypt have not gone to war since the agreement was signed, Ahmed, an unemployed medical school graduate said “yes, we have peace, but we have no dignity.”
Cairene Mohammed Gadi, a 33-year-old sales manager, walked around Tahrir square Tuesday holding a placard of Mubarak with a star of David drawn on his forehead. When asked about the sign, he said he wrote it because “we don’t want to take our orders from Israel anymore. We will keep the peace, but we won’t let Israel or any other country tell us what to do anymore. We don’t need to take orders from the world.”
Abdel Aziz, 27, from Mubarak’s hometown of Kfar El-Meselha, held a sign Tuesday saying “Bollocks to you Mubarak, it’s all over”. When asked about Israel, Aziz said “this is not about Israel, this is about our country first, we don’t care about other countries. This is not why we are doing this.”
Ahmad Ragab, 42, spoke more vehemently towards Israel saying “look, all Egyptian people hate Israel, only Sadat wanted Camp David. We know that Israel will be mad about what is happening here, and we know that Netanyahu can’t sleep now. We know that with the change here, there won’t be peace with Israel. There won’t be a war, but I don’t think there will be an Israeli embassy in Egypt any more, we will have only the most minimal relations.”
Ragab, who studied Chinese and works in Egypt-China business relations, said “we know the revolution will change this and that’s that, we see every day what Israel is doing with the Palestinians.”
At the same time, like all others asked by the Jerusalem Post after Mubarak’s speech about the revolution’s meaning for Israel-Egypt relations, Ragab said the issue was not at all at the heart of the January 25th upheaval.
After more than 30 years, we want peace, and they want 'honor.' What could go wrong?
But of course: Egyptian protesters begin blaming US and Israel
Egyptian protesters have begun to blame the US and Israel for propping up the Mubarak government.
Egyptians understand that the world is waiting to see if President Hosni Mubarak falls to popular pressure before major leaders decide which side to support. But this is infuriating the demonstrators, who realize that six days of unrest have not accomplished their goal and that they need united international pressure in order to topple the almost-30-year incumbent.
The protests have lacked a clear leader to unite them and provide an alternative to Mubarak, and demonstrators are beginning to focus their wrath not just on Mubarak and the country’s widespread corruption, but also on the United States and, to a lesser extent, Israel. They blame Israel and the US for supporting a government because it is convenient for them, not because it is good for the Egyptian people.
“The USA does not support democracy; they’re supporting Israel, which is like their baby,” said Ahmed, a 26-year-old Cairo resident. “They think Egypt is functional because it’s in favor of their considerations.”
“I don’t care if we have peace [with Israel] or not,” Ahmed continued, echoing the indifference of many demonstrators who don’t have a clear agenda for what they want a future Egypt to look like, as long as it does not include Mubarak. “But will Israel allow us to have a real president? For example, Turkey elected an Islamic government, but it was their choice. Will Israel give us the freedom to make the same choice?” he asked.
Demonstrators are relying on the foreign press to get their message to Obama.
“Isn’t this democracy?” they asked me over and over when I said I was a journalist from America, incredulous that the country held as the pinnacle of world democracy could ignore such widespread popular sentiment.
“Obama has to be on our side. Where is your democracy?” asked Osam L, who works at a foreign bank in Cairo.
“You say Arabs are just donkeys, but the USA is supporting the system, not the people.”
The Jewish community in Cairo and Alexandria both declined to speak with the media, but told The Jerusalem Post that all of its members were safe and going about their daily routine as normally as possible.
I think that's what's called realpolitik, and no, it doesn't always lead to the most moral outcome. But if they're going to make war with us, I won't support them either.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
