Egyptian President Adly Mansour has 'unappointed' Mohammed ElBaradei as his country's Prime Minister due to protests from Salafists.
But underscoring the sharp divisions facing the untested leader, Adly
Mansour, his office said pro-reform leader Mohamed ElBaradei had been
named as interim prime minister but later backtracked on the decision
saying consultations were continuing. A politician close to ElBaradei
said the reversal was due to objections by an ultraconservative Islamist
party with which the new administration wants to cooperate.
...
Mansour, 67, the former chief justice of the country's Supreme
Constitutional Court who was installed by the military as an interim
leader, is little-known in international circles and the choice of
ElBaradei would have given his administration a prominent global face to
make its case to Washington and other Western allies trying to reassess
policies.
But news of ElBaradei's appointment, which was reported by the state news agency MENA and others, proved divisive.
The 71-year-old Nobel laureate was an inspiring figure to the youth
groups behind the 2011 revolution that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak as
well as the uprising against Morsi. His appointment as prime minister
would cement Mansour's support among the young anti-Morsi protesters.
But a senior opposition official close to ElBaradei, Munir Fakhry
Abdelnur, told The Associated Press that the last minute reversal was
because the ultraconservative Salafi el-Nour party was opposed.
Mansour's spokesman Ahmed el-Musalamani denied that the appointment
of the former U.N. nuclear negotiator was ever certain. However,
reporters gathered at the presidential palace ahead of his news
conference were told earlier that the president would arrive shortly to
announce it.
The dispute over ElBaradei underlines the fragmentation of Egypt's
politics as the country continues to be roiled by bout after bout of
unrest and violence since Mubarak's ouster.
The 2011 uprising opened the way for the political rise of the Muslim
Brotherhood, which was long suppressed by Mubarak's Western-backed
regime, and Morsi was elected last year by a narrow margin. The
fundamentalist movement swiftly rejected ElBaradei's appointment.
What are the odds of Egypt coming out of this as a representative democracy? I'd say slim. Very slim.
Egyptian PM ElBaradei given 48 hours to grow beard, shorten pants
You can't make this stuff up:
Reports: @ElBaradei given 48 hour deadline by Salafist party to grow his beard and shorten his trousers before they accept his nomination.
— Imran Garda (@ImranGarda) July 6, 2013
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.
Millions of anti-Morsi protesters around the
country erupted in celebrations after the televised announcement by the
army chief. Fireworks burst over crowds in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, where
men and women danced, shouting, “God is great” and “Long live Egypt.”
Fearing a violent reaction by Morsi’s Islamist
supporters, troops and armored vehicles deployed in the streets of
Cairo and elsewhere, surrounding Islamist rallies. Clashes erupted in
several provincial cities when Islamists opened fire on police, with at
least nine people killed, security officials said.
Gehad el-Haddad, a spokesman for the Muslim
Brotherhood party, said Morsi was under house arrest at a Presidential
Guard facility where he had been residing, and 12 presidential aides
also were under house arrest.
The army took control of state media and
blacked out TV stations operated by the Muslim Brotherhood. The head of
the Brotherhood’s political wing was arrested.
The ouster of Morsi throws Egypt on an
uncertain course, with a danger of further confrontation. It came after
four days of mass demonstrations even larger than those of the 2011 Arab
Spring that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
Egyptians were angered that Morsi was giving
too much power to his Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists and had
failed to tackle the country’s mounting economic woes.
US President Hussein Obama called on the army to hand back control to civilians as soon as possible, but stopped short of calling it a coup, which would require him to suspend aid.
He said he was “deeply concerned” by the
military’s move to topple Morsi’s government and suspend Egypt’s
constitution. He said he was ordering the U.S. government to assess what
the military’s actions meant for U.S. foreign aid to Egypt — $1.5
billion a year in military and economic assistance.
The U.S. wasn’t taking sides in the conflict, committing itself only to democracy and respect for the rule of law, Obama said.
In a speech immediately before the army's ultimatum expired, Morsy did call it a coup.
Oh my: Morsy under house arrest - LIVE TV FROM EGYPT
Reports indicate that Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy was placed under house arrest by Egypt's powerful military after Wednesday's deadline for him to accept protester demands expired (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi is reportedly
under house arrest after the military ultimatum expired Wednesday,
reports Al Hayat TV.
Morsi's spokesman denied the report, according to ABC News, but word of the house arrest provoked cheers in Tahrir Square.
This comes as Egypt's military moved to tighten its control on key institutions before their afternoon ultimatum expired.
The
military stationed officers in the newsroom of state television on the
banks of the Nile River in central Cairo. Troops were deployed in
news-production areas.
Officers from the army's media department
moved inside the newsroom and were monitoring output, though not yet
interfering, staffers said, speaking on condition of anonymity because
they were not authorized to talk about the arrangements.
This
move shows the military's preparation for an almost certain push to
remove the country's Islamist president when an afternoon ultimatum
expires.
The military has to tread a fine line.
Experts watching the situation feel that Morsi lost the trust of the
people early on when he and the Muslim Brotherhood took power and made
changes to the country's constitution.
"It is not the economy.
It is the quest for freedom and feeling that they have been betrayed and
the resenting to replace a dictatorship of Mubarak by a theocracy
dictatorship, where it will be the dictator is ruling but garbing
himself in religion," said Dr. Maher Hathout with the Muslim Public
Affairs Council.
Meanwhile, President Barack Obama is urging Morsi to address the
people's grievances and the White House is also warning Egypt's military
that a coup could jeopardize relations with the United States.
It will be interesting to see whether other Arab spring countries (Tunisia, Libya, Syria), which have been or are in the process of being taken over by Islamist rulers will have similar reactions to the reaction in Egypt. And while Dr. Hathout is dismissive of the role the economy is playing in this, the Egyptian economy is a complete and total basket case, and there's no way that isn't (and won't in the future) playing a role here.
As to Obama, he is continuing to stand by Morsy and the Muslim Brotherhood, and that could yet have serious backlash against the United States.
Here's live television from Egypt (sorry, Arabic only).
It starts: Egyptian army takes over state television building
The Egyptian army ultimatum to Islamist President Mohammed Morsy was not a bluff. The army has taken over the Egyptian television building.
Egypt’s leading democracy advocate, Mohamed
ElBaradei, and top Muslim and Coptic Christian clerics met Wednesday
with the army chief to discuss a political road map for Egypt only hours
before a military ultimatum to the Islamist president was set to
expire.
The meeting signaled the military was
taking concrete moves toward implementing its plan to replace President
Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected leader who came to office a
year ago.
...
ElBaradei is the leader of the main opposition
grouping, the National Salvation Front. He was accompanied in the
meeting with army chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi by Sheik Ahmed
el-Tayeb, grand imam of Al-Azhar mosque, and Pope Tawadros II, patriarch
of Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority.
Under a plan leaked to state media, the
military would install a new interim leadership, the Islamist-backed
constitution would be suspended and the Islamist-dominated parliament
dissolved.
The military has said it would implement its
plan once its two-day ultimatum to Morsi expires, between 4 p.m. and 5
p.m. Egypt time (5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Israel time).
In one of the first signs that the army was
beginning to implement its ultimatum, forces had taken over the state
television studios in Cairo, al-Arabiya reported early afternoon
Wednesday.
As I noted in a previous post, just one day after winning lavish praise from President Obama for his role in negotiating a truce between Israel and Hamas, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy declared himself a dictator.
That led to strong reactions on Friday from, among others, former IAEA chief Mohammed El-Baradei, and riots across Egypt.
[A]nti-Morsi
demonstrators set fire to Muslim Brotherhood offices in cities across
Egypt on Friday. As enraged demonstrators torched Muslim Brotherhood
offices in several Egyptian cities, a defiant Egyptian President Mohamed
Morsi defended his recent decree granting himself sweeping powers
before a crowd of supporters outside the presidential palace in Cairo
Friday. …
Reacting to the decree, thousands of
demonstrators gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday, responding to
calls by Egyptian opposition leaders for a “million-man march” to
protest against what they called a “coup” by the Islamist president.
You can see Tahrir Square in the picture above. The 'democratically elected' Morsy had his troops respond to the demonstrators with teargas, just like the 'dictator' Hosni Mubarak did a year and nine months ago. You all remember Mubarak, right? Mubarak was the guy who was forced out due to the Obama administration's 'smart diplomacy.' John Hinderaker has some more delicious irony in this situation that's really got him confused (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
But never mind that–I am still really, really
confused! Mubarak was our friend, but a bad guy. So he had to go, and
Obama denounced him and helped force him out. Morsi is our enemy, and
also is a bad guy. So Obama thinks he’s A-OK, and helped Morsi take
power. That’s called “smart diplomacy.” You probably wouldn’t
understand.
Other things are confusing, too. Did Obama know
that Morsi was about to claim dictatorial powers when he made Morsi the
“hero” of the Israel-Gaza cease fire? If so, did he mind? If Obama
didn’t know–which seems more likely–does he now think that Morsi
double-crossed him by capitalizing on his faux
diplomatic mission to proclaim himself a dictator? Or is that one more
thing that is A-OK with Obama? If Obama doesn’t like the fact that Morsi
has cut “Arab Spring” democracy off at the knees, does he intend to do
anything about it? Or, when bad things happen, is it “smart diplomacy”
to do nothing and pretend you don’t mind?
So,
those of us who said Morsi was an Islamist extremist who would quickly
reestablish authoritarianism in Egypt – with a sharia flavor – were
right. Those who said Morsi was a moderate were wrong.
And his Napoleonic self-crowning event changes the calculus for Gaza and Hamas, among other things. The universal interpretation of the ceasefire brokered by Egypt
this week puts the responsibility for preventing attacks by Hamas
against Israel squarely on the Morsi government. (Not all analyses
refer to “frantic” diplomacy on the part of the United States.) Far
from making Egypt anyone’s partner in repressing Hamas, this move effectively hands Hamas over to Morsi – and with Hamas, the Gaza Strip.
Hamas
is a terrorist group whose independence of him is an inconvenience for
Morsi. Hamas is the finger of Iran in the Levantine “pie” situated on
Morsi’s northeastern border. Hamas lies between Morsi and Jerusalem.
Morsi is not going to “work with” Hamas; he is going to give Hamas the
choice to work with him, or be rendered insignificant.
Hamas
can be useful to Morsi, if that’s what its leaders choose to do. There
may or may not be a “break” with Iran; it would probably be better from
Morsi’s perspective to keep Iran on a string with Hamas, and prevent a
divergence of objectives – i.e., between Egypt and Iran – for as long as
possible.
But
do not be deceived. Iran has just taken a big strategic hit from the
terms of the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire. Iran may still have Qods
Force operatives in the area, but Morsi has established a veto over
Iran’s activities there. There may be a few more attempts by Hamas at
independence from Morsi – although frankly, I doubt it – but the die is
cast: what happens from now on will happen on Morsi’s timeline and his
say-so.
That, at least, is what he intends. He has been rather transparent in the last few days. Immediately
upon getting the ceasefire on terms advantageous for his intentions, he
declared himself all-powerful in Egypt. This was not a coincidence.
His pursuit of the ceasefire was part and parcel of his overall
planning. He was happy to accept the vaguest of commitments on Israel’s
side, as long as the understanding was that Egypt would guarantee
Hamas’s behavior. That was the prize Morsi sought.
Dyer goes on to argue that botched US diplomacy has brought all this about, and that Egypt has turned itself into a player as important as Iran and Turkey over the last week. Read the whole thing.
So why did Netanyahu sign onto this situation? Here are his calculations as I see them.
1. Egypt has an interest in controlling Hamas, because as noted above, controlling Hamas makes it a player in the Middle East. Netanyahu has just purchased quiet on the Gaza border which he could not have purchased in any other way short of a Dresden-like bombing.
2. Egypt will never be able to become a nuclear power anyway. Its economy is a bigger basket case than Iran's or Turkey's, and besides, Iran financed most of its nuclear development while selling oil at high prices while the world looked the other way. Egypt has almost no oil to sell and nothing else of value. No one else is going to give it money to finance a nuclear program.
3. Egypt will not abrogate its treaty with Israel. It cannot take the risk that the US will respond by cutting off aid. So between those three items, Netanyahu is free to attack Iran without worrying about Egypt or Gaza.
Of course, there's one small catch. Morsy could lose power as quickly as he gained it - we are seeing rumblings in that direction already - and Israel could find itself with an Islamist anarchy on our southeastern border.
Better neutralize Hezbullah soon and then go after Iran before Syria can get its act together.
In an earlier post, I reported that former IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei (pictured at top left as Egghead, a villain on Batman 40 years ago - courtesy of MR, daughter #3 Child #5) had done more to bring about an Iranian nuclear weapon than anyone this side of AQ Khan. 'Former IAEA officials' confirm that assessment, lamenting new IAEA chief Yukiya Amano's 'pro-western bias.'
However, the British newspaper [Guardian] said, some former IAEA officials are saying that the agency has gone too far. Robert Kelley, a former US weapons scientists who ran the IAEA action team on Iraq at the time of the US-led invasion, told The Guardian there were worrying parallels between the west's mistakes over Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction then and the nuclear watchdog's assessment of Iran now.
"Yukiya Amano is falling into the Cheney trap. What we learned back in 2002 and 2003, when we were in the runup to the war, was that peer review was very important, and that the analysis should not be left to a small group of people," Kelley was quoted as saying.
"So what have we learned since then? Absolutely nothing. Just like (former US vice-president) Dick Cheney, Amano is relying on a very small group of people and those opinions are not being checked."
According to The Guardian, other former officials have also raised concern that the current IAEA is focused on suspicions over Iran's program, without the "vigorous debate" that characterized the era of Amano's predecessor Mohamed ElBaradei.
"They point to Amano's decision, in March last year, to dissolve the agency's office of external relations and policy co-ordination (Expo), which under ElBaradei had second-guessed some of the judgments made by the safeguards department inspectors," the report said.
One former agency official told the British daily, "There has been a concentration of power, with less diversity of viewpoints," adding that Amano has surrounded himself with advisors who have the same approach to Iran.
Amano's critics would have preferred it if his opponent - Abdul Minty, a South African diplomat who championed the interests of developing countries organized in the Non-Aligned Movement - would have become chairman of the IAEA three years ago.
The man who did more than anyone this side of AQ Khan to make Iran a nuclear power, feckless former IAEA Director General EggheadMohamed ElBaradei, warned in Hong Kong on Wednesday that you can bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, but you cannot bomb their knowledge. No kidding. (Photoshop courtesy of MR - daughter number 3, child number 5).
Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the world’s atomic-energy watchdog, said Wednesday an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would only persuade the Islamic republic to build a nuclear arsenal.
“You can bomb their facilities, but you cannot bomb their knowledge,” ElBaradei, former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in Hong Kong. “If you were to bomb Iranian facilities, there will be a lesson for Iran -- to develop nuclear weapons.”
...
“They both need each other,” he said. “Right now each one is waiting for the other side to blink first and that is not going to happen.”
Yes, we know, you cannot bomb knowledge. But as Amos Yadlin pointed out in the New York Times a few weeks ago...
Some experts oppose an attack because they claim that even a successful strike would, at best, delay Iran’s nuclear program for only a short time. But their analysis is faulty. Today, almost any industrialized country can produce a nuclear weapon in four to five years — hence any successful strike would achieve a delay of only a few years.
What matters more is the campaign after the attack. When we were briefed before the Osirak raid, we were told that a successful mission would delay the Iraqi nuclear program for only three to five years. But history told a different story.
After the Osirak attack and the destruction of the Syrian reactor in 2007, the Iraqi and Syrian nuclear programs were never fully resumed. This could be the outcome in Iran, too, if military action is followed by tough sanctions, stricter international inspections and an embargo on the sale of nuclear components to Tehran. Iran, like Iraq and Syria before it, will have to recognize that the precedent for military action has been set, and can be repeated.
ElBaradei is still hoping that he did enough to ensure that his 'Iranian brothers' will have nuclear weapons. We must hope and pray otherwise.
In an exclusive interview with Security Clearance, David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, said commercial satellite imagery shows a building on the sprawling Parchin military complex just south of Tehran that may be the location of a high-explosive test chamber.
Albright, who is a former U.N. weapons inspector, and his colleague Paul Brannan said in an analysis provided to Security Clearance that the building is notable because it "is located on a relatively small and isolated compound within the Parchin military site and has its own perimeter security wall or fencing. A berm can be seen between this building and a neighboring building."
The institute examined satellite imagery of the building dating from 2004 and 2011, pointing out the various features.
A senior U.S. official who would not speak for attribution because of the sensitivity of the information confirmed Albright's assessment. "We know explosive compression was done at this chamber. This is where explosives are," the official said.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly asked Iran for access to the Parchin site, but the nuclear watchdog group has been denied permission by the Iranian government.
In November, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran had constructed a building at its Parchin military facility around 2000 to hold "a large cylindrical object" and that "a large earth berm was subsequently constructed between the building containing the cylinder and a neighbouring building, indicating the probable use of high explosives in the chamber." It added, "The Agency has obtained commercial satellite images that are consistent with this information." But the IAEA never released the images backing up its report.
When questions arose in Februaryabout the facility, The Atlantic Wire wanted to see what it looked like, so we asked our friends at the commercial satellite firm GeoEye if they had any imagery of Parchin and sent their images to analyst Paul Brannan at the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS). Today, ISIS wrapped up its report and has identified the site mentioned in the IAEA report. To this day, Iran has consistently denied that it has engaged in nuclear experiments at the site.
"The building is located on a relatively small and isolated compound within the Parchin military site and has its own perimeter security wall or fencing," reads the report by ISIS founder David Albright and Brannan. IAEA officials have repeatedly requested to visit the site.
...
An interesting aspect of the ISIS report shows how off base the IAEA was during its 2005 visit to Parchin. Iran opened its floodgates to the nuclear watchdog at the time and in September of that year the IAEA said it didn't find anything. It wasn't until November 2011 that the IAEA said it obtained satellite images showing that Iran was conducting high-explosive tests with components necessary for a nuclear bomb. Below, you can see how far apart the area the IAEA visited is from the site that ISIS says shows signs of high-explosive tests.
Challah Hu Akhbar has put together a series of images of Parchin dating back to 2004 here. I can't help but wonder whether the IAEA 'missing' this building in 2005 was somehow connected to its chairman at the time, Mohamed ElBaradei, who probably did more than anyone outside Iran and AQ Khan to advance Iran's nuclear capability.
Italian legislator Fiamma Nirenstein writes that there is a hero and a villain in the current drama over Iran's nuclear weapons, and that the villain is the guy who is holding the Nobel Peace Prize. It's time to change that.
The hero is a Japanese, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano: notwithstanding the pressures from China and Russia – and notwithstanding who knows what steps Iran may take– he was as brave as a lion in presenting to the world what instead had been concealed, downplayed and minimized by his predecessor, Mohammed El Baradei, in the same role, from 1997 to 2009.
El Baradei had a nice group of technicians to study the situation in Iran. And they reported to him who decided what to use and what to select. And he did select a lot, even if everybody already knew the truth. Actually, the intelligence agencies from half of the world (including the Arab ones) gave him information that proved reliable when compared to the facts on the ground. It was well known – as Amano’s report plainly reveals – that up to 2003, the uranium enrichment preparatory work took place in various sites and that they received assistance from very important providers, such as Russia and China. And that, after the Ayatollahs’ regime had tried to cover it up by masking it as a civilian effort, this activity was increasingly pushed underground. But this was no secret to anybody, it was just a pretence to ignore its objectives, not to understand why these plants were being built so secretly and with the help of so many foreign technicians.
This work appears to be more clearly designed for war purposes. Amano says it, El Baradei did not reveal it even if he had all the elements to do so. And yet, surprise, surprise, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 «for his effort in preventing the use of nuclear energy for war purposes». The well-meaning ideological approach of the Nobel Organizations made many mistakes, but now they have committed a blunder. El Baradei has obliged the world to face today a nightmare that could have been avoided if the IAEA had timely certified that a crazy, Islamist, extremist, anti-Western, anti-Semitic Iran was preparing an atomic bomb that can now be built in a very short time (some say it takes one year to build up a whole arsenal, some say two.... but two bombs, a trifle, can already be built today for most experts). And that he was experimenting warheads that are able to hit not only Jerusalem, but also the European capitals. And so, in addition to the categorical imperative to act contained in Amano’s report, (that at least the USA and Europe should act blocking the Iranian bank through sanctions, by ignoring Russia and China) we would like to make a sensible humble proposal to the Nobel Prize Organizers: if you want to save your face before future generations, at least take his Nobel Prize back.
Unfortunately, if they didn't take Arafat's prize back in 2000, they're not going to take ElBaradei's prize back either.
Tell me they don't look like they were separated at birth (Hat Tip for picture: MR, daughter #3, child #5). Now, Israeli officials are accusing former IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, an Egyptian diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize winner, of being an Iranian agent all along.
For years he defended the Iranian nuclear program, claiming that it was peaceful, thus allowing the Iranians to continue their activity with the nuclear watchdog's seal of approval.
According to one of the state officials, the new report published Tuesday proves "just how much he was working for the Iranians.
"He simply rescued Iran and was constantly busy covering up for them, causing serious damage by allowing the Iranians to fool the entire world and play for time. History may judge him as the person who helped Iran obtain a nuclear weapon.
"The things exposed now are not new. These are old things which were hidden and not published," the official added. "Now it turns out that ElBaradei led an active policy of concealment and disregard. This is very serious. He is a despicable person."
"ElBaradei didn't just mess us up, he messed up the entire sane world," added Uzi Eilam, former head of Israel's Atomic Energy Agency. "He was dishonest his entire term. He is the one who stopped the Security Council from imposing serious sanctions, providing the Iranians with precious time."
Barry Rubin writes that Hamas' deliberate attack on an Israeli school bus in the Gaza envelope on Thursday shows that the organization is looking to go to war again with Israel.
Two events show us that an emboldened Hamas in the Gaza Strip is moving toward war with Israel.
First, an Israeli school bus, painted bright yellow, was hit by fire from the Gaza Strip and at least one child was seriously wounded. This is not just another terrorist attack but part of a wider strategy. What is strategically significant here is how the bus was attacked. Usually, attacks from the Gaza Strip — either carried out or sanctioned by the Hamas regime there — are by homemade rockets, mortars, or attempted cross-border ground attacks. Deaths and damage are usually random.
In this case, though, the attack was carried out with an advanced anti-tank rocket. In other words, a terrorist deliberately aimed at the bus and fired, hoping to kill the maximum number of children.
But there’s more. Hamas can fire an advanced anti-tank rocket because the Egyptian revolution has ended a regime that acted in its own interest to block most arms shipments to Hamas. The Egypt-Gaza border is now open. Terrorists and superior weapons are flooding into Gaza.
Another demonstration of this fact was the second major incident in which Hamas fired an Iranian-made Grad missile, far superior to the usual homemade rockets, at Israel. In this case, it was shot down by an Israeli anti-missile, part of the new defense system deployed only a few days earlier. A total of 50 rockets and mortars were fired on that one day, equaling the number shot from the Gaza Strip at Israel during the entire month of March. There were also several attempts at cross-border ground attacks, more in one day than at any time in the past.
It was clear to the Hamas leadership that this escalation — and probably more to follow — brings the situation closer to another war like the one fought in December 2008-January 2009 after Hamas ended the ceasefire and launched a massive rocket and mortar barrage against Israel.
But why - after being so soundly defeated by Israel two years ago - would Hamas want to go to war again. Barry has an interesting theory about that and it's one that merits consideration. Barry believes that Hamas is hoping in a best case scenario to draw Egypt into a war with Israel, and in a less-than-best-case scenario to draw hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood volunteers to Gaza through the now-open borders to fight against Israel.
It should come as no surprise that the man who spent years covering up for nuclear weapons development by 'our Iranian brothers' should now - as a candidate for President of Egypt - threaten Israel with war (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
In an interview with the Al-Watan newspaper he said: "In case of any future Israeli attack on Gaza - as the next president of Egypt – I will open the Rafah border crossing and will consider different ways to implement the joint Arab defense agreement."
He also stated that "Israel controls Palestinian soil" adding that that "there has been no tangible breakthrough in reconciliation process because of the imbalance of power in the region - a situation that creates a kind of one way peace."
The last time I checked, Gaza isn't part of Egypt (in fact, the Egyptians specifically declined to take Gaza as part of the 1979 Camp David accords) and Egypt still has a peace treaty with Israel. And this guy's considered a 'moderate'!
--Despite repeated ridiculing of Israeli concerns, it is increasingly likely that the next Egyptian government will tear up the Egypt-Israel peace treaty.
--Egypt will be an ally of Hamas, a revolutionary Islamist terrorist group that openly calls for genocide against Jews and the wiping out of Israel. (Samantha Powers, alleged anti-genocide champion, where are you?)
--By making such irresponsible and warlike statements, ElBaradei is encouraging Hamas to attack Israel to provoke such a war. As I pointed out, events in Egypt are making such a war inevitable.
...
To make things even worse, such statements cannot be attributed to ElBaradei being a front-man for the Muslim Brotherhood since he is now quarreling with them, though presumably they will still vote for him to be president.
And, of course, it can be honestly said that he is just being demagogic to win votes. The problem is that Arab leaders are often demagogic to win support after they are elected to office or seize power.
Or maybe the Egyptian army will stop such a war? They will be pragmatic and say, "Look, if we fight Israel the United States will cut off our weapons and military aid. We might lose. And what about the waste of resources that we badly need at home?"
But believe it or not a lot of Egyptians think that they could defeat Israel and that only President Husni Mubarak and the Americans are holding them back. A lot of officers probably believe that, being too young to remember the 1967 war. Or they might be swept away by revolutionary, nationalist, and religious enthusiasm. And they might be afraid to seem like Israel's "protectors" and thus traitors to Egypt and the revolution.
Aren't you glad now that the US abandoned Hosni Mubarak? What else could go wrong?
I guess there are some people in Egypt who don't like former IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei. On Saturday, he went to vote in a referendum and watch what happened....
Great news: Iran still 'steadily producing' uranium
The good news is that we finally have a director general of the IAEA who takes stopping nuclear proliferation in the Arab and Muslim world as seriously as he takes it elsewhere. Yukiya Amano seems unlikely to be tolerant of nuclear proliferation by 'our Iranian brothers.' The bad news - as he tells the Washington Post - is that Iran is still 'steadily producing' uranium.
Q. Many believe that Iran carried out nuclear weapons research in the past, including work on weaponization. . . . Do you agree with this?
A. We receive information from various countries and collect information from our own sources that give us concern over the possible use of nuclear materials for military purposes - in the past and perhaps now.
How is Iran complying with the IAEA? Your last report indicated some frustration.
We ask them to declare - we ask about their activities. . . . We don't know if there are other activities outside their declaration. We are not sure if they are hiding something.
What is the next step if they are not forthcoming?
We continue to press them. If they don't [clarify], I have to report it to the [IAEA] Board of Governors. For the time being, I don't see any indication that we can make progress.
Will you say in your February report that Iran was engaged in nuclear weaponization before 2003?
We don't say that. We don't have a smoking gun. We have concerns.
Will the IAEA press for access to further locations in Iran?
Yes, this is an issue that we have been discussing. We want to know more about what they are doing. . . . But Iran does not tell us well in advance about the construction of new facilities.
How badly was Iran's centrifuge program affected by the [Stuxnet cyber] worm from 2009?
Iran is somehow producing uranium enriched to 3.5 percent and 20 percent. They are producing it steadily, constantly.
The amount of enriched uranium has not been affected?
The production is very steady.
Some say that from the moment Ayatollah [Ali] Khamenei gives the order to make the bomb it will take a year.
This is a question where we don't have much expertise. What we are doing is [tracking] how much enriched uranium they have.
President [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad seems very determined to build a nuclear program.
I have the same impression.
He goes on to talk about Syria, Egypt and other threats and then comes back to Iran. Read the whole thing.
This whole thing is going to end militarily - either Iran will attack Israel (God forbid) or Israel or the United States will attack Iran. At this point, we have to hope that Stuxnet has bought us enough time until 2013 and that there is a new regime in the US at that time. It's clear that Obama has no intention of doing anything about this.
West's favorite Egyptian wants to 'rethink' Camp David accord
Ayman Nour, the West's favorite Egyptian, has called for his country to 'rethink' the Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt.
Ayman Nour, a former lawmaker and chairman of the Ghad (Tomorrow) party, told an Egyptian radio station that the 1978 Camp David Accords were no longer relevant, and said the country’s leadership should at least rethink the terms of the framework agreements that led to a peace deal between the erstwhile enemies the following year.
Details of the interview were revealed Sunday evening by Ehud Yaari, Middle Eastern affairs commentator for Channel 2 News.
...
“The Camp David Accords are finished,” Nour said. “Egypt has to at least conduct negotiations over conditions of the agreement.”
However, Egyptian Ambassador to the United States Sameh Shoukry said Sunday that he believed Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel would stand.
“The treaty with Israel... has been beneficial to Egypt over the last 30 years,” Sameh said in an interview with ABC’s Christiane Amanpour. “We have derived a dividend from the treaty. We have been able to establish security and stability in the region, and I believe it is a main element in terms of our foreign policy.”
Nour, 46, was imprisoned in 2005 after running against Mubarak in presidential elections. The opposition leader came in first runner-up with 7 percent of the vote in a ballot widely criticized as rigged – independent observers believe Nour may have actually received twice as many votes. A diabetic, he was released from prison in 2009 on health grounds.
Nour took a leading role in the protests of recent weeks, and on January 28 suffered a head wound when hit by a stone in clashes between pro-Mubarak and antigovernment protesters.
Nour is not an Islamist. This is not the Muslim Brotherhood calling for the treaty to be torn up. But recall that ElBaradei also refused to reaffirm the treaty in an interview on Meet the Press with David Gregory. And Amr Moussa has called for war on Israel, and called on Arab countries not to normalize ties with Israel (which Egypt did - formally at least - as part of the Camp David treaty).
And then there's the Muslim Brotherhood....
And you wonder why Israelis were in no rush to see Mubarak go?
ElBaradei not likely to be next Egyptian President
As recently as two weeks ago, he was seen as a likely successor to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, but now Mohamed ElBaradei isn't even in the ballpark in the polls. ElBaradei may yet become a prominent voice in the post-Mubarak era.
When asked by an Austrian newspaper this month if he would consider leading Egypt, he said: "Naturally I want to play a part in the future, but who stands in the election, that's really not so important at the moment. But if the people want it, of course I would be available."
Right now, despite his eloquent appearances on satellite television, or perhaps because of them, he lacks resonance at home.
"His role as a leader for change in Egypt is over," said Hassan Nafaa, former coordinator for ElBaradei's National Front for Change. "He had the historic opportunity to represent real reforms, but his frequent travels abroad cost him credibility. He didn't seize the moment, and now it's a youth rebellion forcing the change ElBaradei was supposed to bring."
In a presidential straw poll conducted last week by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 3% of Egyptians supported ElBaradei. That's two percentage points better than opposition leader Ayman Nour, but well below the 26% for Amr Moussa, a former Egyptian foreign minister who topped the list. Moussa quit his post as secretary-general of the Arab League on Friday to begin what is widely seen as a campaign for president.
"I don't think ElBaradei was ever convinced deep within himself that he was the man to lead the change," said one opposition leader who spoke on condition of anonymity. "It became a forced marriage between him, the people and the opposition."
Moussa may yet make us long for ElBaradei. His popularity in Egypt is driven by his hostility to the United States and Israel.
Greta van Sustern posts a tweet by putative Egyptian opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei, which she describes as disturbing and ominous.
"Egypt will explode. Army must save the country now."
Disturbing and ominous? Well, yes. But why? Because it shows how little ElBaradei understands of what he considers his own country. ElBaradei is looking for the army to put him in charge. Hell will freeze over before that happens.
What it shows is how weak ElBaradei really is. It provides evidence that putting ElBaradei in charge would in a short time devolve into putting the Muslim Brotherhood in charge.
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
