How reliable is Yossi Beilin as a source? Beilin, a far-Left Israeli former politician claims that deposed Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy and his Muslim Brotherhood party didn't really win the June 2012 elections, but that the army feared the consequences of announcing what truly happened.
According
to my source, who asked to remain anonymous, Ahmed Shafik, the former
air force commander and former president Hosni Mubarak's last prime
minister, actually won the race by a narrow margin. But the army
generals -- wanting to ensure that law and order would be upheld
following the elections -- feared that if Morsi was defeated, the Muslim
Brotherhood would refuse to recognize the results and would end up
conducting themselves just as they are now.
The official results,
51.73 percent for Morsi and 48.27% for Shafik, were almost the exact
reversal of what actually happened at the polls. After the results were
published, we barely heard any calls for protest or opposition among the
secular-liberals, while on the religious side -- loyal either to the
Muslim Brotherhood or the Salafi parties -- voters were happy with their
achievement.
Officials thought that
the inexperienced Morsi would accept help from the army and would avoid
crossing any red lines -- regarding Israel, for example. In reality,
what happened was a combination of a pathetic lack of management skills
and a string of efforts to rule by the same ideological orientation
espoused by a quarter of Egypt's population. Morsi tried running the
operation with the help of several associates who were completely
incapable of managing anything.
Many of Col. Gen.
Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi's fellow generals tried to convince him to spring
to action several months ago already, but Sissi wanted to give Morsi,
who favored Sissi over other generals as defense minister and commander
in chief of the armed forces, the opportunity to prove that what had
happened stemmed from the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood president was
an amateur.
This actually sounds plausible. The problems are that it's too convenient a narrative in light of what has happened, and I don't consider Beilin a particularly reliable source.
Muslim Brotherhood claims Egypt's interim President is Jewish
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood's web site is reporting that Egyptian President Adly Mansour is Jewish.
The Muslim Brotherhood's
official website claimed that one of the senior most media figures in
the Arab world said the interim president of Egypt,
Adly Mansour, is considered to be a Seventh Day Adventist and is therefore of Jewish
descent.
The website said Ahmed
Mansour, an Egyptian television presenter and interviewer who hosts a
live television talk show which airs on Al Jazeera, further claimed on
his Facebook
page that Adly Mansour, who was sworn in as interim president on Thursday following the ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, wanted
to move closer to Christianity, but the Coptic pope refused to baptize him.
According to the
Brotherhood's website, in his Facebook post Ahmed Mansour also mentioned
that senior Egyptian opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei, the former
head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has refused to take part
in the Shura Council as long as it denies the Holocaust.
The Islamist-led Shura Council served as Egypt's legislative branch for the past few months.
The Brotherhood's
website claimed that Ahmed Mansour wrote: "This is a token gesture
offered to the Jews by ElBaradei so that he can become President of the
Republic in the fake elections that the military will guard and whose
results they will falsify in their interests…All with the approval of
America, Israel and the Arabs, of course.
Most Jews aren't too crazy about ElBaradei either. But the amount of hatred from the Brotherhood is simply appalling.
Are you concerned about the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsy winning Egypt's elections? Should you be? Well, if you're an Israeli, most of us think the answer is "yes." And if you're not an Israeli? Cal Thomas believes that you should be concerned too.
Morsi, who was educated in America, mouths the words the West wants to hear. He speaks of being president of "all Egyptians," promising to honor all international agreements made by the Hosni Mubarak regime.
A cleric, Safwat Higazi, introduced Morsi at a May 1 campaign rally and stated the Brotherhood's objective: "Our capital shall be Jerusalem, Allah willing." That seems to signal the real direction in which Morsi could take his country. It is certainly in line with Muslim Brotherhood thinking.
After more than three years of pandering and apologizing to the Islamic world, the Obama administration has produced a tree bearing rotten fruit. The White House congratulated Morsi on his victory. What else could it do? It won't admit error or acknowledge that the Arab Spring is starting to resemble a Siberian winter.
Iran continues its nuclear weapons program and threatens to wipe the "Zionist entity" off the map. Russian President Vladimir Putin visits Israel and urges Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to attack Iran, to which Russia has been providing nuclear technology. Should Egypt again become hostile to the Jewish state (the recent terror attacks from the Sinai border area are a sign that 32 years of stability there could unravel), Israel may be in greater peril than at any time in its modern history.
...
The Egyptian parliamentary election confirmed polling that indicates 60 percent of Egyptians favor complete adoption of Shariah law. Shariah does not require that future elections be held. Those polls also show an overwhelming majority of Egyptians want a religious government, stoning as a form of punishment, and limits on women and Christians in office.
...
The Muslim Brotherhood knows how Westerners think. It is playing us for fools. If we believe what has happened in Egypt and the upheavals in the rest of the Mideast will lead to democracy, human rights, equal rights for women and religious minorities, and freedom of speech and press, then we are fools.
The Egyptian perspective was aired recently by Morsi in a television interview during the presidential campaign. Israel, he said, had not kept its commitment under the Camp David accords to reach a broader Middle East peace, particularly with the Palestinians. Reflecting the views of his movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as wider popular sentiment, Morsi accused the Israelis of acting in bad faith since they signed the peace agreements. “Where is the mutual respect?” he said. “Where is what the agreement says about a just and comprehensive peace among all peoples of the region? Where’s the mutual non-belligerence? . . . Where are the good neighborly relations mentioned in the agreement?”
Afterwards he presents the Israeli view:
In Israel, the treaty raised hopes of developing trade and cultural links, tourism, and cooperation in business and agriculture. But ideological resistance among parts of the Egyptian elite to ties with Israel, along with the strains of the continuing conflict with the Palestinians, had a chilling effect on the relationship. The sense in Israel was that Egypt was not interested in genuine normalization that would go beyond a state of non-belligerence. Egyptian tourists and businessmen did not come to Israel, the Egyptian press carried virulently anti-Israeli cartoons and articles, and trade ties were limited. The reservation emanated from the top; President Hosni Mubarak avoided travel to Israel, coming only once, for the funeral of the assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. “Since the early 1980s, Israeli leaders decided that peace with Egypt is too important to argue over every dot and comma, so in many cases they turned a blind eye to large and small Egyptian violations,” said Eli Shaked, a former Israeli ambassador to Egypt.
The Egyptian view was presented emphatically and as "wide popular sentiment." Even the Israeli side is presented with the stipulation that the lack of progress in peace with the Palestinians (if you ignore Oslo, the withdrawals from most of the West Bank and Gaza) as a contributory reason for chilled relations with Egypt. Greenberg doesn't even suggest the likely explanation that the concern for the Palestinians was a pretext for preexisting Egyptian resistance to peace with Israel.
Two other things are worth mentioning.
One as Greenberg reports:
Still, remaining links with Israel could be weakened. A 2005 deal to supply Israel with natural gas, seen as a symbol of Mubarak’s ties with Israel, was canceled in April after criticism that it was tainted by corruption and that the gas was sold at below-market prices, costing Egypt millions of dollars in lost revenue.
But was this criticism accurate? Not having a deal also cost Egypt millions. But Barry Rubin observed:
Oh, by the way, the Egyptians have now said they will not sell natural gas any more to Israel. The pipeline that had been providing 40-50 percent of Israel’s natural gas and has been attacked numerous times by Islamist attackers in Sinai will be closed permanently. The $460 million invested in the pipeline project, mostly by Israeli, is gone forever, plus Israel will have to find a substitute source until its own offshore wells come online .
In other words, Egypt got a good deal from Israel, yet Greenberg only focused on the criticism that cast Israel as benefiting from the old regime.
Also, Greenberg quoted a statement of Mohammed Morsi that sounded perfectly reasonable. No doubt the statement was geared for Western consumption. But it doesn't take much to discover that Morsi hasn't always been so circumspect. Here's how he described Israel two years ago:
In a statement to "Ikhwanweb" Morsy maintained that it appears that the United States is pressuring the Palestinian Authority to engage in fabricated long hauled peace talks, indicating US bias towards the Israel Occupation Authorities at the expense of the Palestinians' wellbeing. He continued "The Arabs disappointing response was clearly evident as they welcomed Israel 's criminal leaders into their countries with the conducting of the Arab Peace Initiative Committee at the Arab League's headquarters. The strong U.S. and Israeli pressure to resume direct talks raises many questions regarding the feasibility of conducting such negotiations amid the continuing Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip, the progressive steps towards Judaizing East Jerusalem, the seizing of parts of Al-Aqsa Mosque, the imprisonment of Sheikh Raed Salah and the destruction of houses in the Palestinian cities in the West Bank. Morsy called on the Palestinian Authority to view the inter-Palestinian reconciliation agenda as sincerely as discussions with the Israeli Occupation, stressing that it would have been more suitable if the PA and the Arab League had discussed ending the Palestinian division as opposed to discussing the illusional peace initiative.
Later on Morsi praised "resistance" to Israel, which is a code word for terrorism.
Greenberg had a chance to give further background, but instead fell too easily into the blame Israel narrative.
2) Some more views on Egypt
In his analysis of the election of Morsi as president of Egypt, Worst case scenario in Egypt, Martin Kramer speculates:
If you think this is pie in the sky, then it isn’t difficult to imagine the “Plan B” of the Muslim Brotherhood. It is to find ways to raise the rent Egypt collects from the West and rich Arabs for its geopolitical position. Call it a shakedown, call it a bailout, it doesn’t matter. The message Egypt is sending is that it’s too big to fail, and that the world, and especially the United States, owes it. The deputy guide, Khayrat ash-Shater, put it directly: “We strongly advise the Americans and the Europeans to support Egypt during this critical period as compensation for the many years they supported a brutal dictatorship.” Egypt, which is one of the largest recipients of U.S. foreign aid, is thus owed compensation. A key part of this narrative is that Mubarak sold peace with Israel on the cheap. In Egypt it is believed that the $1.3 billion that Egypt receives a year in military aid, and hundreds of millions more in economic aid, are just a portion of what Egypt’s adherence to peace is worth. To get more, the plan of the Muslim Brotherhood is to persuade Washington that it can’t take Egypt for granted. The strategy will be to stimulate crises that will be amenable to resolution by the transfer of resources. No one can predict what those crises will look like. It’s hard to imagine that some of them won’t involve Israel.
Consider the similarity in sentiment between ash-Shater and Thomas Friedman, in End of Mideast Wholesale:
Let’s start with Israel. For the last 30 years, Israel enjoyed peace with Egypt wholesale — by having peace with just one man, Hosni Mubarak. That sale is over. Today, post-Mubarak, to sustain the peace treaty with Egypt in any kind of stable manner, Israel is going to have to pay retail. It is going to have to make peace with 85 million Egyptians. The days in which one phone call by Israel to Mubarak could shut down any crisis in relations are over.
Both argue that peace with Egypt needs to be bought. But shouldn't peace be of value to Egypt on its own?
Thankfully, none of this anticipated violence came to fruition. But it should not go unnoticed that, in the first presidential election following Egypt’s pro-democratic election, it was the new ruling party—the Muslim Brotherhood—that was preparing for months to reject an electoral outcome against it. By contrast, members of the old, autocratic ruling party, who overwhelmingly endorsed Shafik, swallowed Morsi’s victory without incident. Egypt may have ousted a dictator, but its new rulers will only play by democratic rules so long as they enhance their own power.
Fouad Ajami, though, argues that it's too early to judge the Muslim Brotherhood: Many are eager to rebuke this Egyptian interlude. Those who had given the reign of Hosni Mubarak three decades of indulgence are unwilling to see in the last 18 months the birth pangs of a democratic possibility. They forget or ignore even recent history, how the Egyptian people had abandoned politics and all but given up on their country. A new hope has arisen in that weary country. Are Egyptians not entitled to a decent interval before we consign them, yet again, to a despotic fate?
And here's some surprisingly good sense from Thomas Friedman in The Fear Factor:
The U.S. has some leverage in terms of foreign aid, military aid and foreign investment — and we should use it by making clear that we respect the vote of the Egyptian people, and we want to continue to help Egypt thrive, but our support will be conditioned on certain principles. What principles? Our principles? No. The principles identified by the 2002 U.N. Arab Human Development Report, which was written by and for Arabs. It said that for the Arab world to thrive it needs to overcome its deficit of freedom, its deficit of knowledge and its deficit of women’s empowerment. And, I would add, its deficit of religious and political pluralism. We should help any country whose government is working on that agenda — including an Egypt led by a Muslim Brotherhood president — and we should withhold our support from any that is not.
Once you get past his tropes about the Arab Human Development Report and the deficits it reports, this isn't unreasonable. (One deficit I'd add is a deficit of tolerance for Jews and Israel, specifically.) Of course, given his record, I would assume that if Morsi doesn't abide by those principles, Friedman would be making excuses for ignoring Morsi's record and supporting him regardless.
3) Back
The past few days we've had an internet outage at home. Verizon seems to have fixed the problem.
Muslim Brotherhood calls for destruction of Israel after election
The Muslim Brotherhood has called for the destruction of Israel (Hat Tip: Memeorandum) after the (Egyptian - although it could well be American if God forbid Obama wins) elections, mirroring rhetoric used by Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy. This is from the first link.
"Every Muslim will be asked about the Zionists' usurpation of al-Aqsa Mosque. Why did he not seek to recover it, and wage Jihad in His way? Did he not care about the fatwa of the ulema [scholars] of the Muslims, 'Jihad of self and money to recover al Aqsa is a duty on every Muslim?'" asked Mohamed Badie, General Guide of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, in a June 14th speech translated exclusively by the Investigative Project on Terrorism.
The speech from the Brotherhood's Ikhwan Online website is evidence that the group has not moderated its position even an iota, despite assurances to Western audiences.
"How happy would be the Muslims if all Muslim rulers made the Palestinian cause a pivotal issue, around which Muslims, rulers and the ruled, would line up," he stated. According to Badie, they would ally to make "the sole goal for all of them the recovery of al Aqsa Mosque, freeing it from the filth of the Zionists, and imposing Muslim rule throughout beloved Palestine."
"The Lord of Glory has threatened these murdering Zionists criminals with a penalty of a kind which operates in this world before the Hereafter, he said, before referencing a Quranic quote calling Jews "apes, despised."
"We say to our people and our brothers in Palestine (all of Palestine): Unity, unity, persistence, persistence, reconciliation, reconciliation, and patience, patience. Make your motto and your starting point be in confronting the Zionists," he added.
Badie also made reference to the role of Hamas-tied convoys, in aiding in the effort to eliminate the Jewish state.
"Know that there stands by you every sincere Muslim mujahid from all over the world, and all the honorable nationalists. Do not presume that you are alone in the field, but there stands at your side and with you every free honorable noble man who rejects injustice, murder and bloodshed," he said, before stating, "Not far off are the Freedom flotillas which will come to you from various States, and Miles of Smiles which touched you from all over the world."
The most recent convoy by Miles of Smiles, which is linked to the U.S. terrorist designated, British organization Interpal, was led by Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood head Hammam Saeed. Hamas' Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh called that convoy "the declaration of victory over the siege and the declaration of the enemy's strategic failure in Gaza."
Read the whole thing. The video of Morsy's campaign speech to which they refer is here. It sounds to me like Morsi is doing a great job of taqiyya.
Compare: Mohammed Morsy during the election campaign
I want to compare the previous video post to this one of Mohammed Morsy speaking during the campaign. The campaign video, as you will see below, is a much more traditional jihadi type speech. Which one is real? Is the campaign speech real and the victory speech toned down to mollify Western donors who would pound Egypt's economy if it's going to become a jihadi state? Or is the victory speech real and the campaign speech just saying what he had to say to get elected?
There's an argument for the campaign speech being what he needed to be elected in the first round (where there were other Islamist opponents), but which was not needed in the second round. The campaign speech is from May 13, and the first round was May 23-24.
Video: New Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy's victory speech
Here's Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy's victory speech translated by MEMRI. It's quite moderate. Will it continue? Suffice it to say that I find it hard to believe that there can be an Islamic state that is not hostile to Israel, and I find it hard to believe that the Muslim Brotherhood will long tolerate a President who is not hostile to Israel.
Not that the Obama-Clinton administration needs another excuse to back the Muslim Brotherhood, but try this on for size. The mother of Huma Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the wife of former Congressman Anthony Weiner, is close friends with the wife of newly elected Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy.
One year ago, when Walid discovered the names of 63 leaders who make up the Muslim Sisterhood – which is essentially nothing more than the female version of the Brotherhood – we learned that Huma’s mother, Saleha, was one of those leaders. Little attention has been paid to the other 62 leaders, however. One of them is Najla Ali Mahmoud, the wife of Mursi. Both are members of the Guidance Bureau, which proves fallacious, the claim that Najla is just an innocent and naïve spouse.
This would make Huma’s mother a close, personal colleague of the wife of a virulently anti-Semitic racist who has officially been declared the first president-elect of post-Mubarak Egypt. Mursi also sat behind a Muslim cleric at a presidential campaign rally before the first round of elections, nodding in approval as the cleric enthusiastically informed the crowd that under Mursi, Jerusalem would become the new capital of the next Caliphate.
Video: Member of Muslim Brotherhood's foreign policy committee won't talk to Israeli on television
Here's a video showing a panel discussion on the subject of Egypt's election of the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate for the country's next president. One of the panelists was Gil Mihaely. a columnist for Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth. Following his response to a question, the moderator turns to Nader Amram, from the Foreign Relations Committee of Egypt's Freedom & Justice Party, which is the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood.
See what Amram had to say about sitting together with an Israeli journalist, starting at 15 minutes and 10 seconds into the video.
An interview with newly elected Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy that claimed that Egypt would draw closer to Iran and reevaluate the Camp David treaty may have been fabricated by Iran's FARS news.
[A] spokesman for Morsy told Egypt's official MENA news agency Monday that "Morsy did not give any interview to Fars and everything this agency has published is baseless."
The remarks Fars quoted in the interview contrasted sharply with promises Morsy made during his presidential campaign and in other interviews, in which he pledged to honor Egypt's international treaties, including its peace treaty with Israel.
...
Notably, while Fars reported that the Egyptian president-elect said he planned to review the Camp David agreement, in a June 16 interview with Kuwaiti newspaper al-Kuwaitiah, later published in Persian on Iran's ASRIran news website, Morsy promised to "adhere to the agreement with Israel".
In the same al-Kuwaitiah interview, Morsy denied as "pure imagination and slander" that the Muslim Brotherhood has links with Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah.
"We respect the right of the Palestinian people in their resistance against the Israeli occupier, and we do not see anything wrong with that," Morsy told al-Kuwaitiah. "However, we will never stand with any forces that threaten the Persian Gulf countries."
Taken together, these disparate comments actually add up to a coherent critique. Obama’s biggest failing in the Arab Spring is not that he chose the wrong side; it is that he has waffled back and forth. He has been consistently indecisive, irresolute and reluctant to act. As a result he has alienated both regimes and revolutionaries, and squandered U.S. leverage. Before pushing Mubarak out, Obama embraced him; now his aides are criticizing — but so far tolerating — the military’s attempts to hang on to power. Obama insists Assad must give up power and facilitates military aid for the rebels at the same time that he endorses a U.N.-brokered settlement between the regime and opposition. He demands change in Bahrain while continuing to back the regime even when it refuses to reform. In short, Obama has made a difference during the Arab Spring mostly by not making a difference. By failing to decisively use U.S. aid, diplomatic influence and military power to support the removal of dictators and the beginning of democratic transformation, he has helped tip the balance toward the old regimes — or chaos. No, the mess is not his fault. But he deserves a share of the blame.
There is an element of consistency to the Obama administration's approach that Diehl doesn't explore.
This is in tandem with the continued Obama Administration support for the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Syrian National Congress (SNC)? Despite the fig leaf of putting a Kurd as the head of the group, the Brotherhood’s control continues. Since U.S. policy is being coordinated with the SNC, despite the opposition of other Syrian rebels, one can assume that the Brotherhood will be the big winner from this arms’ supply. Now there are those in the West who favor the survival of Bashar al-Asad’s regime because they say that a revolution will bring something worse, that is, a radical Sunni Islamist regime. And there are also those in the West—like myself—who favor the overthrow of that regime because we believe that there is a chance for a better regime (better for Syria’s people and U.S. interests). Still others, believing no good solution is possible, think it best that the fighting continue, keeping Syria weak and reducing Iran’s strategic power. Yet nobody should want to see U.S. help that makes the creation of a radical Sunni Islamist government, determined to wage jihad on America and on Israel, more likely. None should want to see a revolutionary and repressive Salafist state installed in Syria that would link up with other radical Sunnis (in Tunisia, limited by a coalition; in Egypt, if it beats the army challenge; in the Gaza Strip and the main opposition in Jordan) to form a bloc that would further destabilize the Middle East.
Instead, the visit this week looks like it’s turning into a political fiasco. Included in the delegation of Egyptian lawmakers was Hani Nour Eldin, who, in addition to being a newly elected member of parliament, is a member of the Gamaa Islamiya, or the Egyptian Islamic Group—a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. The group was banned under former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, and is now a recognized Islamist political party. Its spiritual leader, Omar Abdel Rahman—also known as the “blind sheik”—was convicted in 1995 of plotting attacks on New York City landmarks and transportation centers, and is serving a life sentence in a North Carolina federal prison. Eldin, according to his Facebook page, was born in 1968 and resides in Suez, near the canal that unites the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea. He was arrested in 1993 on terrorism charges after members of Gamaa Islamiya got into a shoot out with Egyptian security officials at a mosque. He has proclaimed his innocence in the shooting and says he was arrested because of his political activism against Mubarak. In an interview, Eldin confirmed he is a member of Gamaa Islamiya. By U.S. law, that means he would be denied a visa to enter the country. Nonetheless, he says, he got a visa from the State Department. A State Department spokesman said, “We have no information suggesting that he or anyone else in the delegation is a member of the Egyptian Islamic Group.”
The common element is that the administration hasn't been too careful to avoid boosting Islamists. This could the consistent failure that Diehl was looking for.
Nevertheless, according to the Los Angeles Times, U.S. officials said on Monday that they were "deeply concerned by an Egyptian military decree giving the generals sweeping powers to pass laws and decide whether to go to war." This was a stunning statement, considering that the Muslim Brotherhood might still emerge as the winner. Right now, given the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and its ties to its Palestinian branch, Hamas, leaving Egypt's war-making powers with the Egyptian military is far safer for the world than transferring them to a Muslim Brotherhood government. The British even went a step further than the Americans. The spokeswoman for the Foreign Office, Rosemary Davis, was interviewed this week by the Palestinian Maan news agency and reportedly declared that Britain was more concerned with the Egyptian military than with the Muslim Brotherhood. This is a self-defeating approach. For if the West continues down this course and uncritically embraces the Muslim Brotherhood, then it will be extremely unlikely that it will temper its confrontational political program in the future and become a more moderate movement as many in the West presently hope.
Even after the two-month presidential campaign, Mr. Morsi remains an unfamiliar figure to most Egyptians. He was living and working in Los Angeles during the tumultuous period after Islamic militants assassinated Anwar Sadat and his successor, Mr. Mubarak, cracked down on the Brotherhood. Those who knew him in America say Mr. Morsi never appeared notably political or religious. But he became a leader in the Brotherhood after his return to Egypt, and he won election in 2000 to the Mubarak-dominated Parliament, and was chosen to lead the Muslim Brotherhood’s small bloc of 18 members, playing a key role in the group’s experiments in multiparty democracy and coalition-building. But as he rose in the leadership, he gained a reputation as a conservative enforcer, known for discouraging dissent. Five years ago, when the Brotherhood adopted a draft party platform that called for barring women and non-Muslims from the presidency, Mr. Morsi was a chief defender of the controversial planks, inside and outside the group. He argued that Islam required the president to be a male Muslim, in part because the head of state should promote the faith. Since Mr. Mubarak’s ouster, the Brotherhood has jettisoned those proposed restrictions from its platform, but during the campaign Mr. Morsi said that he personally still thought that only a male Muslim should hold the office.
Kirkpatrick goes on to report that some number of secular voters also welcomed Morsi's election as they viewed his victory as a victory against the military rulers. (Given the narrowness of Morsi's victory, doesn't it suggest that more than a few secularlists feel like Tarek Heggy?)
First, for the final four years of Hosni Mubarak’s reign, Morsi was the primary point-of-contact for State Security within the Muslim Brotherhood. State Security was the repressive domestic security apparatus through which the Mubarak regime monitored and infiltrated opposition groups, and Morsi negotiated with State Security to ensure the Brotherhood’s participation in various political endeavors, such as parliamentary elections. “Mohamed Morsi has very good security relations,” former deputy supreme guide Mohamed Habib told me during a March 2011 interview. “State Security likes a connection point who has the confidence of various Brothers, and [top Brotherhood leaders] pushed for him.” Indeed, Brotherhood leaders trusted Morsi because they viewed him as ideologically rigid, and therefore unlikely to concede too much to the regime during negotiations. Brotherhood leaders also believed that Morsi’s longtime political experience, including his membership in the Brotherhood’s political division since 1992 and leadership of the Brotherhood’s parliamentary bloc from 2000 to 2005, made him an effective negotiator. Interestingly, Morsi inherited this role from Khairat al-Shater, the man whom he recently replaced as the Brotherhood’s presidential candidate. Prior to the 2005 parliamentary elections, Morsi assisted al-Shater in negotiating with the regime over the number of candidates that the Brotherhood would run. When the Brotherhood won 88 of 454 total seats in parliament—including a majority of the seats that they contested—the regime was infuriated, and it is believed that its subsequent prosecution of al-Shater was, in part, a punishment for his failure to reduce sufficiently the number of Brotherhood candidacies. Following al-Shater’s conviction, Morsi became the Brotherhood’s sole liaison to State Security. Morsi’s willingness, in the years afterwards, to negotiate with a Mubarak regime that brutally repressed the Brotherhood for decades is a testament to the organization’s political gradualism during that time. “Our program is a long-term one, not a short-term one,” Morsi told me during an August 2010 interview. “If we are rushing things, then I don’t think that this leads to a real stable position.” Indeed, under Mubarak, the organization’s primary aim was survival—which is why it frequently coordinated its activities with the regime, and typically refused to join the various protest movements that emerged during the waning years of Mubarak’s rule. “We never participate in some randomness movements before,” Morsi told me in his stilted English. The Brotherhood thus initially refused to participate in the January 2011 mass demonstrations that ultimately toppled Mubarak. And despite having been arrested as the revolt reached its climax, Morsi participated in early February negotiations with then-vice-president Omar Suleiman that, unsuccessfully, aimed to end the protests.
This casts Morsi's candidacy and victory in a somewhat different light than the New York Times did. The Brotherhood (and Morsi) were willing to work with the Mubarak regime to the degree that it benefited their ambitions. Morsi wasn't exactly a shunned outsider who suddenly won an uplifting victory. He was willing to work with the now reviled old establishment to achieve his organization's political goals.
3) Whoops!
The source for yesterday's item about Nathan Thrall came from an e-mail sent by Challah Hu Akbar.
Memorable quotes: a nostalgic medley. • Marc Lynch (Muslim Brotherhood putting forward a presidential candidate “will reveal itself to be a strategic blunder”) http://on.fb.me/MOlklz • Tom Friedman (“The popular trend is not with the Muslim Brotherhood”) http://on.fb.me/MOkBRk • Juan Cole (“that almost certainly hurt the chances of the Muslim Brotherhood in the upcoming elections“) http://on.fb.me/LJKrDi
As usual, Congressman Allen West (R-Fl) has it right. This time, it's on Egypt (Hat Tip: Memorandum).
A year ago there were those of us who warned the Obama Administration of a Muslim Brotherhood takeover in Egypt. We were castigated as alarmists and loose cannons. Today our predictions have come to reality and the ominous specter reminding us of the Iranian revolution is evident. The Muslim Brotherhood claimed they would not run a presidential candidate. Clearly the Arab Spring is nothing more than a radical Islamic nightmare. Now we need to unequivocally reiterate our support to the Coptic Christians and Israel. What an incredible foreign policy faux pas by the second coming of President Jimmy Carter, the Obama Administration. I call upon President Barack Obama to cut off American foreign aid to Egypt, denounce the results of this election, repudiate the Muslim Brotherhood, and all radical Islamist political entities.
But Obama will do nothing like that. Instead, he has called the Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsy to congratulate him, and he has had his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, threaten Egypt with the loss of its annual aid money if the Army does not install the Muslim Brotherhood in power.
Newly elected Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy gave his first speech since the announcement of his victory over Ahmed Shafik on Sunday evening, vowing to "preserve international accords and obligations," in what appeared to be a reference to the peace treaty with Israel.
Morsy attempted to allay fears that he would immediately act to Islamize Egypt, promising to be a president to all Egyptians, "Muslims, Christians, the elderly, children, women, men, farmers, teachers, workers, those who work in the private and public sectors, and the merchants."
The new Egyptian president thanked the "martyrs" that had lost their lives during the uprising that led to the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak, saying the he would not have become president without their sacrifice.
Morsy did not call out a challenge to Egypt's military leaders for their recent attempts to limit presidential powers, instead praising the army and police as "brothers."
Sandmonkey on CNN: Obama backing Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in hope of Sunni alliance against Iran
Here's Mahmoud Salem, whom most of you know as the Sandmonkey, an Egyptian blogger, talking about the Egyptian Presidential election. The Sandmonkey believes that the Obama administration may be backing the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Mohamed Morsi, in the hope of creating a Sunni Muslim alliance against Iran. The last 30 seconds are key.
Q. I have seen reports of virulent anti-Semitism and anti-Israel hate speech at rallies of presidential candidates. Could you please let us know about these activities which appear to be highly disturbing. A. A concerned citizen in New York asks about campaign rally rhetoric about Israel and possible anti-Semitism. I have not seen or heard any slurs against Jews on the campaign trail, and I do not think that has figured in the campaign in any way. Israel is a more complicated issue. All the leading candidates have pledged to respect Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel. But Egyptians — secular and liberal or Islamist — are deeply hostile to Israel. The overwhelming feeling here is that Israel has failed to live up to its end of the Camp David accords leading to the peace treaty because it has not recognized a Palestinian state and instead allows settlements to continue on territory envisioned as part of that state. An episode last summer fired up the hard feelings anew because Israeli war planes killed a handful of Egyptian security officers inside the border when Israel was pursuing some suspected terrorists; Israeli officials initially refused to apologize and Egyptians stormed the Israeli embassy. But eventually Israel apologized, pledged an investigation and the situation calmed down. So most candidates have sought to balance their commitments to the peace (which is popular) and some criticism of Israel (which most here consider an enemy.) It may be interesting to note which candidates are most hostile to Israel. Not the Islamists. Mohamed Morsi and Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh are relatively positive about the importance of the peace. By far the most hostile to Israel and even the treaty is Hamdeen Sabahi, a Nasserite socialist with support from Egypt’s secular-liberal and cultural elite.
Ceremony leader : Banish the sleep from the eyes of all Jews. Come on, you lovers of martyrdom, you are all Hamas. From the eyes of all Jews... Come on, you lovers of martyrdom, you are all Hamas. Banish the sleep from the eyes of all Jews. Come on, you lovers of martyrdom, you are all Hamas. Forget about the whole world, forget about all the conferences. Brandish your weapons... Say your prayers... Brandish your weapons... Say your prayers... And pray to the Lord. From the eyes of all Jews... Come on, you lovers of martyrdom... Banish the sleep from the eyes of all Jews. Come on, you lovers of martyrdom, you are all Hamas.
Kirkpatrick denies the presence of antisemitism, and even answers that, if it does exist, it's not an important part of the campaign. And to deflect any blame from the Muslim Brotherhood he mentions Hamdeen Sahabi, who is even more anti-Israel than they are. Then he inserts his own judgments that it isn't Jews that are hated in Egypt, but Israel, and Kirkpatrick seemingly supports the objections to Israel. ("overwhelming feeling here is that Israel has failed to live up to its end of the Camp David accords") He doesn't mention that Egypt got the entire Sinai back from Israel. And he effectively blames Israel for chasing ("suspected"!) terrorists who had infiltrated Israel last year.
But the remarks were almost as significant for where they were made: in Cairo, at Al Azhar Mosque. During the years in which Syria supported Hamas, Egypt’s leaders were hostile to the group, treating it as a despised relative of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was also tagged an outlaw and banned. So Mr. Haniya’s remarks in Egypt served as another measure of how much has changed since popular uprisings began to sweep the region, removing President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and now trying to topple Mr. Assad. Mr. Haniya’s comments confirmed a distance between Hamas and Damascus that emerged several weeks ago when the group’s leadership abandoned its longtime base in Syria as the environment there became more violent. The remarks, which were seen as the group’s official position because of Mr. Haniya’s role, reflected a progressively deeper split with Mr. Assad. Hamas also recently allowed residents of Gaza to stage protests against Mr. Assad and in support of the uprising.
Haniyeh's statements are presented as a sign that Hamas was abandoning its extreme positions; that it was rejecting Iran. (This has less to do with an moderating than with a Sunni rejection of its former Shi'ite patron. That was enabled by support from Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.)
Haniyeh continued, saying,"Our hope is not only the independence of Palestine, but the independence of the Islamic nation [where we will] put an end to the current situation of political wilderness, cultural and foreign interference and encroachment of the Zionists." He said that there was a Zionist plot for the Judaization of Jerusalem which wrested it from the Arab and Muslim world it belongs to, calling on Muslims to support Al-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem. Hundreds of congregants chanted in response, saying, 'Khaybar Khaybar oh Jews, the army of Mohammed will return," and "We, sons of Hassan al-Banna .. Islam! Islam!" (Hassan al-Banna was the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.)
The language of Haniyeh does not differ significantly from that of the Muslim Brotherhood.
This speech took place several weeks after an earlier visit by Haniyeh to Egypt in which he made common cause the Muslim Brotherhood. Barry Rubin wrote at the time:
Haniyeh described Hamas as the Palestinian branch of the Brotherhood. Referring to their alliance Haniyeh said, “Our presence with the Brotherhood threatens the Israeli entity.” It certainly does since Hamas will enjoy the Brotherhood’s full support in its anti-Israel activities including the use of violence and, probably, in the event of any future war with Israel.
The intervention in the Palestinian issue is the clearest indication yet that as it moves into a position of authority, the Brotherhood, the largest vote getter in Egypt’s parliamentary elections, intends to both moderate its positions on foreign policy and reconfigure Egypt’s. Brotherhood officials say that they are pulling back from their previous embrace of Hamas and its commitment to armed struggle against Israel in order to open new channels of communications with Fatah, which the Brotherhood had previously denounced for collaborating with Israel and accused of selling out the Palestinian cause. Brotherhood leaders argue that if they persuade the Palestinians to work together with a newly assertive Egypt, they will have far more success forcing Israel to bargain in earnest over the terms of statehood. “Now we have to deal with the Palestinian parties as an umbrella for both of them, and we have to stand at an equal distance from each,” said Reda Fahmy, a Brotherhood leader who oversees its Palestinian relations and is now chairman of the Arab affairs committee in Egypt’s upper house of Parliament. “Any movement of the size of the Muslim Brotherhood, when it is in the opposition it is one thing and then when it comes to power it is something completely different.”
The Muslim Brotherhood's outreach to Fatah isn't a sign of moderation. It is trying to get Fatah to reconcile with Hamas and (presumably) to have Hamas be the senior partner. This isn't about getting Israel to negotiations but to legitimize Hamas. Kirkpatrick apparently feels this is a sign of moderation and a good thing.
3) The trend of terrorism
In January, Ehud Ya'ari observed that the Sinai was now a "new front" that Israel had to consider from a military standpoint. The tribes there were sympathetic to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
At first, last August's terror attack from Egypt appeared to be an isolated incident. The events of the past few days suggest that more is to come.
Israel experts have warned that cross-border attacks by militant groups operating there could drag Israel and Egypt into confrontation and seriously undermine the decades-old peace treaty between those countries. Early on Saturday, two rockets landed in open areas in southern Israel that were presumed by Israel to have been fired from the Sinai Peninsula. "We see here a disturbing deterioration in Egyptian control in the Sinai,” Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, said on Monday. “We are waiting for the results of the election. Whoever wins, we expect them to take responsibility for all of Egypt's international commitments, including the peace treaty with Israel and the security arrangements in the Sinai, swiftly putting an end to these attacks." In the past, Israel has blamed Palestinian militant groups in Gaza for having orchestrated attacks from across the Egyptian border and such incidents have spiraled into fighting across the Israel-Gaza border with rounds of Israeli airstrikes and Palestinian rocket fire against southern Israel.
The careful language here is incredible. "[C]ould drag," "Israel has blamed," and "have spiraled into fighting," (if the terror attacks were not responded to, that wouldn't be "fighting?") obfuscate a sustained campaign against Israel.
More details of today's attack (and less obfuscation) are available at the IDF Spokesperson's blog.
Throughout the morning, Israeli civilians living in the area were on high alert. There was speculation that a third terrorist had infiltrated into Israel and was planning further attacks. Residents of the area were told to stay in their homes and not send their children to school. Roads in the area, including Route 12, were closed to civilian traffic. Once IDF forces in the area determined that there was not a third suspect, the roads were reopened and local residents were permitted to leave their homes. It is possible that part of the terrorist squad remained on the Egyptian side of the border. In addition to the terrorist attack on the Israel-Egypt border, a rocket landed in southern Israel overnight — and two more struck the morning before. More than one million Israelis live under the daily threat of rocket attacks in southern Israel.
At any rate, we are now at the beginning of Egypt’s involvement, directly or indirectly, in a new wave of terrorist assault on Israel. If the Muslim Brotherhood takes over Egypt, a likelihood made less probable perhaps by the military’s dissolution of parliament, this offensive will enjoy official support. Even if the army remains in control, the Brotherhood and Salafists will use their considerable assets to back this new insurgency war. The ultimate scenario would be if Hamas decided to renew a large-scale offensive against Israel from the Gaza Strip using rockets, mortars, and attempted cross-border attacks. Egyptian Islamists would send volunteers and money. The Egyptian army would not be scrupulous in stopping the smuggling of weapons, terrorists, and money across the border. As Egyptian fighters are killed in the Gaza Strip the hysteria in Egypt would escalate. In such a scenario, the army would also allow Hamas to have military bases and headquarters on Egyptian territory, where Israel could not attack them. Indeed, this is already happening. And the Egypt-Israel border would not be protected from cross-border attacks.
Now that terrorist actions are matching the rhetoric of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, maybe the New York Times will start paying attention. Maybe, but not likely.
There's an op-ed in YNet entitled Obama doesn't get it, but it's really about how Tom Friedman - the world's most important journalist - doesn't get the 'Arab spring' and how Obama and the West are following him.
In February 2011, a few weeks after Egypt’s uprising erupted, when the Arab Spring was supposedly just around the corner and meant to bring us a new Middle East in the undying spirit of Shimon Peres, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times stood at Tahrir Square and delivered his own, no less immortal vision.
Friedman, whose name is mentioned by Israel’s finest colleagues without forgetting to note that he is “the world’s most important journalist,” examined the Cairo square with his sharp eyes, and found no hint of Islamic inspiration or influence, and certainly no Islamic forces behind the scenes patiently waiting for the reward that Tahrir’s “Facebook kids” will hand over to them.
What he did see using his incredibly developed journalist prowess was genuine de-colonization of Egypt, the rise of progressive democratic forces that will forever change Egypt’s dictatorial face, an Egyptian Pharaoh (Mubarak) removed from power with the vigorous encouragement of President Obama, and an Israeli Pharaoh (Netanyahu) who, being a lowly man, cannot grasp the significance of the regional change. So much for Thomas Friedman’s interpretation.
As we know, much water, and mostly blood, has flowed through the Middle East ever since then. In Tunisia, which was meant to pave the way for positive change, we saw the establishment of an Islamic Brotherhood-led government after the victory of the Ennahda party, which has made the sources of its authority clear to all.
Meanwhile, Libya of the post-Gaddafi lynch mostly makes sure that Gaza’s arms warehouses are well stocked. In Syria, they make sure to meet the daily massacre quota. In Egypt, the Islamic Brotherhood and the Salafis are taking over parliament. The Brotherhood’s Mohammad Morsi is about to succeed the terrible Mubarak who slipped into a coma, while the Tahrir kids bemoan their “stolen revolution.”
Yet in New York, the “world’s most important journalist” still does nothing but write about the march of folly of those who, unlike him, have yet to recognize this great Mideastern era.
Muslim Brotherhood behind rocket attacks on Israel
There were two Grad rocket attacks on Israel from the Sinai Peninsula on Friday night. The remnants of the first one were found near the Ovda army base, south of Mizpe Ramon, while the remnants of the second one were found near Mizpe Ramon.
No one was hurt in either attack. Ynet's military analyst Ron Ben-Yishai noted that the first rocket was apparently fired from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, adding that the security establishment has ruled out the possibility that it was launched from Jordan.
A senior Egyptian military official denied that the rocket was fired from Sinai, adding that Israel's claims were meant to destabilize Egypt and influence the elections currently being held there.
Israeli security officials say that the rockets that landed on Friday in the area near Ovda and Mitzpeh Ramon, were launched after a request by senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. According to these officials, the rockets were launched from the Sinai Peninsula by a Bedouin unit, according to Hamas orders, even though Hamas itself wasn't the initiator of the launching, but responded to the request of the Brotherhood, who wanted to such an event on the eve of the second round of presidential elections in Egypt. It is yet unclear why the Brotherhood requested such an unusual action, a first military strike against Israel, or whether the strike was aimed at specific sites in the area.
Haaretz goes on to delude itself that the Brotherhood is 'moderate' while presenting abundant evidence otherwise.
So far, the Muslim Brotherhood leaders have presented a moderate stance towards Israel in their talks with the international community, stressing that they had to intention of annulling the peace accords, a position reiterated by presidential candidate, Mohamed Morsi. Still, in the buildup to the elections, Brotherhood speakers have been known to speak fiercely against Israel. In one gathering, in the beginning of May at El-Mahalla El-Kubra, Brotherhood leaders promised, in the presence of Morsi, that the object of the Brotherhood is to liberate Jerusalem. The main speaker at that gathering, Sifwat Hijazi, said that Morsi would liberate Jerusalem and that the Brotherhood's dream was the creation of the "united Arab nations," with Jerusalem as its capital. "Our capital won't be Mecca or Medina, but Jerusalem, millions of shahids will march on the city" shouted Hijazi, "the whole world should know - and we say it clearly - our goal is Jerusalem, we shall pray in Jerusalem, and if not - we shall die as martyrs on its ruins." Another speaker that day said that "tomorrow Morsi will liberate Gaza." A singer sang: "The Jews will not be able to sleep, come, lovers of martyrs, you're all Hamas. Take on arms, and prepare for prayer."
But I guess that the IDF won't be retaliating. We'll wait for the Brotherhood to kill a few Jews first.
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Friday, June 15.
1) The 33% dissolution?
According to a number of news sources, Egypt's constitutional court disqualified approximately one third of the members of the Muslim Brotherhood dominated parliament. David Schenker and Eric Trager write:
Today, Egypt's Constitutional Court made two key rulings, confirming that former prime minister and air force chief Ahmed Shafiq is allowed to run in this weekend's presidential runoff and invalidating one-third of the seats in the Islamist-controlled legislature. The surprise move throws the country's political transition into further upheaval. There may have been some legal basis for the decision to nullify election results for 166 legislators -- party-affiliated candidates won seats that should have been allocated to "independents." In the wake of the ruling, the military has announced that it is dissolving the legislature and assuming law-making powers in its place. Indeed, the timing of the court's decision -- just two days before the final round of the presidential election -- has many observers casting it as a soft coup that will allow the military to remain the key power center. In short, the rulings undermine the credibility of this weekend's balloting, further jeopardize the reputation of Egypt's traditionally respected judiciary, and raise the specter of a new round of mass demonstrations. The biggest loser in these decisions is the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), which controlled 47 percent of the parliament. Its presidential candidate, Muhammad Morsi, will face off against Shafiq, a retired general who is widely seen to be aligned with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. Since March, when it first nominated Morsi, the MB has warned that the SCAF would engineer electoral fraud in favor of a former regime official. Today's court decisions seemingly validate these concerns.
Yes, it is under legal cover, but nobody is going to see it as a group of judges — appointed by former President Hosni Mubarak, remember — looking deep into the law books and coming up with a carefully reasoned decision based on precedent. In theory, this will be seen by every Islamist — whether Salafi or Muslim Brotherhood — and by most of the liberals — who feel closer to the Islamists than to the government — as if the 2011 revolution has just been reversed. In preparation, the army prepared a new regulation allowing itself arrest anyone. Advertisement Prediction: massive violence. Still, there’s something strange going on. So far, the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists have not reacted so strongly. Is it that they were caught unawares, or want to keep quiet because they think they’ll win the presidential election, or maybe there will be some kind of deal in which the Muslim Brotherhood backs down, most of the parliamentary members will be allowed to stay on, and the military will retain a lot of political power? Everything is up in the air? So far the Brotherhood doesn’t seem so upset by the decision. Why is that?
Some lawmakers said they welcomed the dissolution of Parliament even though it cost them their seats. They were afraid of the power of the Islamists, said Emad Gad, a leader of the secular Social Democratic Party’s parliamentary bloc. He has endorsed Mr. Shafik. “Definitely it is good,” Mr. Gad said, arguing that the ruling was a blow to the Islamists’ power and prestige, bolstering Mr. Shafik’s chances to win the presidential election. He was less afraid that Mr. Shafik might become a Mubarak-like strongman than he was of the Islamists monopolizing power through their victories at the polls. “We can demonstrate against Shafik, but we cannot demonstrate against the Islamists,” Mr. Gad said.
Egypt's High Constitutional Court on Thursday ruled that the Political Disenfranchisement Law, which had been referred to it by the Presidential Elections Commission, was unconstitutional. In the same session, the court found the election of one third of parliamentary seats, reserved for individual candidates, unconstitutional. On the other hand, Deputy Speaker of Parliament and Salafist Al-Nour party figure Ashraf Thabet said that parliament will hold its Tuesday plenary as normal, denying that parliament will hold an emergency session upon the ruling. He further said that parliament will be discussing its legal options following the ruling since it only concerns one third of its members.
Fifty international aid groups and United Nations agencies urged Israel on Thursday to open Gaza’s borders, saying its border blockade violates international law and indiscriminately harms Gaza’s 1.6 million people. The appeal was issued on the fifth anniversary of the imposition of the blockade, a response to the takeover of Gaza by the Islamic militant group Hamas in 2007.
“For over five years in Gaza, more than 1.6 million people have been under blockade in violation of international law. More than half of these people are children. We, the undersigned, say with one voice: ‘end the blockade now,’” the 50 organizations and agencies said in a joint statement. “The government of Israel is facing mounting international criticism for the Gaza blockade and this unanimous statement from some of the most world’s most respected international organizations is likely to increase pressure for the blockade to be lifted,” they added.
"[M]ounting international criticism?" This is the first I've heard of it in some time. Still there's a phrase here that doesn't quite fit. "...in violation of international law." Following the Mavi Marmara incident, the UN commissioned the Palmer report. Here's the second finding of the panel. (I've bolded the relevant sentence.)
The fundamental principle of the freedom of navigation on the high seas is subject to only certain limited exceptions under international law. Israel faces a real threat to its security from militant groups in Gaza. The naval blockade was imposed as a legitimate security measure in order to prevent weapons from entering Gaza by sea and its implementation complied with the requirements of international law.
In other words a panel appointed by the UN found Israel's blockade to be legal, but UN related officials apparently aren't bound by that.
While researching the Palmer report, I found a blog entry at Amnesty International's website:
The media has gone crazy these past couple of days announcing that the UN-appointed panel of inquiry into the flotilla raid last summer, known as the Palmer Commission, found that the Israeli imposed blockade on Gaza is legal and that Israel used excessive force during the raid. From the Jerusalem Post to the BBC, headlines scream that Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip is legal. This is not only completely false, it distracts from the main point of the inquiry which was to determine if excessive use of force was used by Israeli forces during the raid on the flotilla in international waters and how to avoid a similar incident like this from happening again. ... The Palmer report’s finding that the naval blockade is lawful should NOT be interpreted to mean that the entire closure regime imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip is legal.
This is ludicrous. The blockade was part of the closure. The whole point of the closure is to prevent weapons and materiel from reaching Gaza to limit the threats coming from the terrorists running Gaza. If there were only a naval blockade, the closure would be extremely porous. (As it is Hamas runs smuggling tunnels bringing in not only weapons, but luxury items too.) The blockade is legal as part of the closure, not exclusive of it.
This is the problem with the UN and related NGO's. They have one standard for Israel and none for its enemies.
In a recent article about the merger of CyberDissidents with Advancing Human Rights, Groups to aid online activists in Authoritarian countries, the New York Times describes Robert Bernstein's disillusionment with the current state of so-called human rights organizations.
In 2009, Mr. Bernstein broke publicly with Human Rights Watch, where he was chairman for 20 years, over what he had come to believe was its excessive attention to the misdeeds of Israel. More broadly, he said, he thought the group devoted too much energy on “open societies” like Israel and the United States, rather than on dictatorships.
The qualification "he had come to believe" is ridiculous. Anyone with a minimal amount of objectivity knows that this is true.
Aside from the false characterization of the blockade as illegal, the UN and its accomplices also ignore that Israel remains under attack from Gaza. Avital Leibovich tweeted earlier this week:
... over 7850 rockets that were fired from #Gaza into populated areas in #Israel from Jan07-Mar12.
Even before Egypt’s highest court dissolved Parliament on Thursday, and its military rulers reimposed martial law, the once close-knit team of young professionals who guided last year’s uprising had been pushed to the sidelines of a presidential runoff between two conservatives: Ahmed Shafik, Mr. Mubarak’s last prime minister, and Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group that was Mr. Mubarak’s main opposition. Some said they had become too taken with their own fame, distracted by the news media’s attention, and willing to defer to their elders in the Mubarak-era political opposition. They failed to build a movement that could stand against either the Muslim Brotherhood or the old elite. “We are the spark that ignites the world; we know how to inflame things,” said Ahmed Maher, 31, a leader of the April 6 Youth Movement and one of the early organizers. “But when we have a strong entity that can stand on its own feet — when we can form a government tomorrow — then we become an alternative.” He said his group was embarking on a five-year plan to start building such a movement.
The Muslim Brotherhood was underground but organized and the military is in place. It probably will take a lot more than five years for true reformers in Egypt to be able to match those two institutions.
Let’s be fair. The Tahrir youths were up against two well-entrenched patronage networks. They had little time to build grass-roots networks in a country as big as Egypt. That said, though, they could learn about leadership and the importance of getting things done by studying Turkey’s Islamist Justice and Development Party, known as A.K.P. It has been ruling here since 2002, winning three consecutive elections.
Yes, indeed the reformers should follow in the footsteps of Erdogan. Michael Rubin wrote a few days later:
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s transformation of Turkey into a police state grew a little more complete earlier this week with the arrest of the mayor and two other officials in Van, a predominantly Kurdish city in southeastern Turkey. Turkish authorities charged the three with being members of a terrorist organization, the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK). Let’s put aside the fact that Erdoğan argues that Hamas isn’t really a terrorist group because its members are elected. The root of the case to unseat and arrest the mayor should send chills down the spine of anyone who believed Erdoğan’s reforms were about making Turkey more democratic. The detainees’ crime? They “liked” articles on Facebook.
Wait a second. Thomas Friedman recommended that the "Facebook" revolutionaries should follow a party that arrests people for expressing themselves on Facbook. I'm pretty certain that paradoxes like that can cause a disruption in space-time continuum.
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
