I warned you all that if you didn't feed enough money into my kitty, I would have to find work.... I found work... And that's why the posting was so sparse on Tuesday.
Wednesday is going to be a huge day in Egypt. The ultimatum issued by the Egyptian army expires in the afternoon, and so far, Egypt's Islamist President, Mohamed Morsy, has shown no signs of giving any ground. So the army went ahead and released the road map that they plan to present to Morsy if he cannot solve the crisis by Wednesday afternoon.
In essence the military’s plan is for Morsi to
accept the opposition’s demands in their entirety: the dissolving of
parliament, freezing the passage of the new constitution, establishing
an interim government to be headed by Supreme Constitutional Court
chairman Adly Mansour (Morsi’s rival), and calling presidential
elections.
The leak may have been partly a test balloon,
meant to push Morsi and the brotherhood deeper into the corner, but it’s
safe to assume that the “Road Map” the army will present on Wednesday
will not be much different.
The army’s ultimatum expires on Wednesday
afternoon. Al-Sisi and his men hope Morsi will agree to early elections
before then. Even if the president refuses to do so, the chances that
the army will order its forces to take over government installations are
very low, at least for now.
The army is, however, expected to give a
“green light” for protesters to take action against Morsi and the Muslim
Brotherhood. And it is doubtful that the security forces watching over
Morsi in his safehouse will continue to do so loyally if he refuses to
do what the military expects of him — essentially, to obey orders. If
such a scenario unfolds, the protests we have seen so far, which have
already led to the death of seven people and the injuring of 144 others,
may become more violent.
Someone in the comments on this blog suggested that this is like the situation in Syria, where we're left with an unpalatable choice between Islamists and anti-Israel secularists. I'm not sure that analysis is correct.
Syria is a choice between a dictator and an Islamist government. I don't believe that if Egypt's liberal opposition attains power that they will be a dictatorship. Moreover, I don't believe that they necessarily will look for a war with Israel. One of the more prominent Egyptian liberals - at least in the blogosphere - is a blogger known as Sandmonkey. Consider this from his blog (the link to his blog no longer works), written a number of years ago.
But
then I rememebrd that we- the majority of us anyway- don't want peace
with Israel, and are not interested in any real dialogue with them. We
weren't then and we are not now. The Entire peace process has always
been about getting the land back, not establishing better relations.
Even when we do get the land back, it's not enough. People in Egypt
lament daily the Camp David treaty that prevents us from fighting.
In
Gaza they never stopped trying to attack Israel. In Lebanon Hezbollah
continued attacking even after the Israeli withdrawel. And the people-
the majority of the arab population- support it. Very few of us are
really interested in having any lasting Peace or co-existance. I mean,
if our left is asking for war, what do you think the rest of the
population is thinking?
I think that the Israeli want peace with
us because they don't want their lives disrupted. They don't want to
have the IDF soldiers fighting in Gaza, rockets coming into their towns
from Hamas or having to go to wars against Hezbollah to get their
soldiers back. I think they want peace because they want their peace of
mind. They view us as if we were a headache. We view them as if they
are a cancer.
I don't think that much of Egypt's Left has the appetite for going to war with us, nor do I believe that the Egyptian army wants to be handed their heads in defeat again. They don't love us, but people like Sandmonkey are not obsessed with us either. In fact, he seems to be lamenting the fact that so much of the Arab world is obsessed with destroying Israel.
The Muslim Brotherhood is obsessed with us, and the only thing that's held them back is the knowledge that they will lose all that American cash every year if they fight us. And the fact that they know that they would get their butts kicked.
Sure, there are Egyptians who consider themselves liberals who hate us (think Mona Eltahaway). But I don't think they're willing to go to war over it.
In sum, I think we might be better off with a liberal government in Egypt. I'm not suggesting that we interfere, and for that matter I'm not suggesting that the Americans interfere either (although they interfered in 2011 on Morsy's behalf and they are clearly still backing Morsy now). But the weaker the Islamists are, the better off Israel is.
For those who have forgotten just what Eltahaway did, please go to that last link. It's quite entertaining.
Eltahaway has already admitted her guilt - at least outside the court room.
After all this agitation, Eltahawy has now decided that it was
finally time to do what one could have expected from a prominent writer
long ago, and she has taken to the pages of the Guardian’s Comment is Free (CiF) website to make her case in writing.
It is quite obviously a weak case. The headline of her post announces “If anti-Muslim ads are protected, so must be my free speech right to protest”
– but the text reveals that even Eltahawy is aware that her act of
vandalism wasn’t really an exercise of free speech, because she admits:
“I broke the law, yes.”
But Eltahawy adds defiantly: “So what? I broke it to make a point of
principle. Eleven years after the 9/11 attacks, American Muslims are
still being bullied and vilified.”
Indeed, Eltahawy tries hard to make the case that there is at least
some “coincidental correlation” between the ads that denounce violent
jihad as savage and various incidents of anti-Muslim violence and
bigotry.
MTA changes their advertising rules, the Dersh calls new rules unconstitutional
Just one day after Mona Eltahaway was arrested in New York for vandalizing Pamela Geller's subway advertisements (see above), New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority changed its rules regarding ads like the ones in question.
The New York Times reports the MTA will prohibit any
advertisements that it “reasonably foresees would imminently incite or
provoke violence or other immediate breach of the peace.” Those
“viewpoint” ads that do not meet this criteria will be allowed, so long
as a disclaimer is included saying the MTA does not endorse them. The
MTA met on Thursday to discuss the rules, which were approved
unanimously 8-0.
Self-proclaimed “proud-liberal Muslim” activist Mona Eltahawy served
as the impetus of the ruling after she spray painted a pro-Israel
advertisement placed in the New York City subway.
Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz says that the new rules are plain dumb and unconstitutional.
“A. it’s clearly unconstitutional” he said, and “b. it incentivizes
people to engage in violence. What it says to people, is that if they
don’t like ads, just engage in violence and then we’ll take the ads
down.”
“It’s very bad policy,” he continued, “and it’s just plain dumb, because it is going to encourage violence.”
Responding to the charge in an interview with The Algemeiner, M.T.A. spokesperson Aaron Donovan declined to comment.
...
The Law Professor also made clear that he is certain the decision
will face legal challenges. “It will be challenged, there is no question
about that,” he confirmed, “if the ACLU (American Civil Liberties
Union) doesn’t get into this case immediately, they are going to have to
write to me several times for my contribution this year. This is a
perfect case for the ACLU, the ACLU should be in there, opposed to the
MTA.”
“I would hope the ACLU would get behind the organization that put up
the ads even though I’m sure they disagree with the content of the ads,
as do I,” he concluded.
When asked by The Algemeiner if they had considered the
constitutionality of their decision, M.T.A. spokesperson Aaron Donovan
said that he wasn’t concerned. “All of the changes that were made to the
guidelines, were made within the framework of our understanding of
First Amendment law, we feel the guidelines as they have been amended
are firmly planted in the bedrock of the constitution, specifically the
First Amendment,” he said.
I wonder whether the ACLU will get behind Pam and her group. Hmmm.
Mona Eltahaway arrested for defacing one of Pam Geller's signs
She should be thankful that at least the New York police didn't break her arms. Egyptian-American 'activist' Mona Eltahaway was arrested in New York on Tuesday for spray painting over one of Pam Geller's subway signs.
You would think that three days after American-Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy was lucky to escape with two broken arms after being blindfolded for two hours while Egyptian police put their hands down her pants that Egypt would at least appear on a list of countries that harass female journalists. You would think that nine months after American television journalist Lara Logan was gang raped by an Egyptian mob in Cairo's Tahrir Square - barely escaping with her life - that Egypt would at least appear on a list of countries that harass female journalists. But you'd be wrong. Guess who's on the list instead.
Israel has been pinpointed by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) as one of six countries where female journalists face “extreme levels of violence” while carrying out their professional duties.
In a letter sent to United Nations General-Secretary Ban Ki-moon to mark the International Day on the Elimination of Violence against Women, which took place Friday, the IFJ highlights Mexico, the Philippines, Somalia, Russia, Nepal and Israel as countries where women journalists face “threats, political pressure, violence, rape and abuse… either due to their gender or simply for doing their job.”
Yes, really. But get a load of the difference between Israel and the other countries mentioned.
While there have been several reports in Israel of female journalists being harassed and arrests of Palestinian female journalists, in all of the other five countries mentioned in the letter women journalists have been actually killed or shot during the course of their work.
So why did Israel make the list? Because the security forces had the audacity to insist that female officers ensure that female journalists whose hostility to Israel is far from secret weren't carrying anything untoward in their underwear.
Earlier this year, in an episode that the media dubbed “bra-gate,” a female journalist from the Al- Jazeera television network was denied entry to a press conference with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s after refusing to remove her bra for a security check.
A similar incident took place in July when two female journalists, one from Agence France-Presse, were asked to remove their bra behind a curtain before it was x-rayed for security reasons.
There are a lot of other double standards against Israel in this designation. Read the whole thing.
It will be interesting to see whether our own media take on the IFJ via the editorial pages.
Per the NY Times article: A military official in Cairo, Col. Islam Jaffar, who came into contact with Ms. Eltahawy while she was in detention, 'acknowledged' her accusation:
“She complained to me that she was beaten and sexually assaulted by Central Security Forces,” Mr. Jaffar said. “But what did she expect would happen? She was in the middle of the streets, in the midst of clashes, with no press card or form of ID. The press center had not given her permission to be in the streets as a journalist. The country is in a sensitive situation. We are under threat. She could be a spy for all we know.”
Wow; let's read that back: "But what did she expect would happen?" Ah, let's see ... 'gang rape by central security forces' is not the answer that immediately springs to mind.
There is so much wrong with Mr. Jaffar's response, it is hard to know where to start condemning it. Are we to understand that if Ms. Eltahawy _did_ have a press card, she would not have been sexually assaulted? Or perhaps she would only have been assaulted by people other than the Central Security Forces...? Anyone with a memory span exceeding that of a gnat will remember the ordeal of CBS reporter Lara Logan, who was sexually assaulted by an Egyptian mob, in Tahrir Square, last February.
But here's the kicker: The societal reality underlying this event might be even more disturbing than the random sexual violence this attack appears to represent. Ms. Eltahawy penned an article in June of this year entitled 'These "Virginity Tests" Will Spark Egypt's Next Revolution' (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/02/egypt-next-revolution-virginity-tests). Ms. Eltahawy's critique alleged and condemned state-sponsored sexual assaults in downtown Cairo four years ago that targeted girls and women during a religious festival. Ms. Eltahawy claimed the police watched and did nothing. The same article also cited startling statistics that more than 80% of [Egyptian] women now say they've been sexually harassed, and more than 60% of men admit to having done so.
Most people, before this week, might have been forgiven for assuming that the attack on Ms. Eltahawy was an aberration, rather than reflective of current norms in Egyptian culture. So what do we make of Mr. Jaffar's bizarre statement? Are we to now understand and accept that gang rape is acceptable as par for the course in Tahrir Square (the shining symbol of Egyptian democracy)? Should sexual abuse be expected by any reporter as a natural risk to be assumed when covering the Arab Spring - whether or not he/she is carrying a press card? I guess that, for the media in Arab countries, the international community that has let this event pass without any real fuss and Mr. Jaffar, gang rape is tolerable and somehow excused - or perhaps called for - when "[t]he country is in a sensitive situation" and/ or "we are under threat" ...
Ms. Eltahawy's article claimed that women's rights were at the heart of the current revolution and that if the revolution were to be 'worth its salt' "...in a country replete with misogyny, religious fundamentalism (of both the Islamic and Christian kind" it would have to have address the repression of women. The recent attack on Ms. Eltahawy proves that the revolution that must take place in order for Egypt to change must transcend politics and religion as expressed in Egypt.
A cultural revolution, that makes sexual abuse a contemptible exception, rather than the rule, is called for. Nothing less.
The 'twitterverse' is all abuzz this morning because Eltahawy has been beaten and arrested in Cairo's Tahrir Square.
Before you feel too sorry for her, go back and watch the video here starting around the 4:40 mark. I wonder if she actually believes that 'Palestinians' are treated worse than Egyptians these days, and whether she still wants to spend her time promoting hatred of Israel.
Or maybe it's only Europeans who view destroying Jews as more important than saving their own states.
Summing up days 1 and 2 of the J Street conference
Ron Radosh is one of several conservatives I follow who is attending the J Street confab as media. Here's part of his summary of day 1.
After softening up the audience with constant praise of their group, Saperstein suddenly turned and presented a tactical criticism that did not go over well with the surprised audience. How, he asked, should we apply our values? How do we decide when to make tactical decisions that do not have great support in America’s Jewish community? “When,” he asked, “do we push the envelope?” Saperstein then let the audience know he was referring to the organization’s recent decision to favor the recent UN resolution condemning Israel, which the Obama administration vetoed in the United Nations.
J Street, he told the delegates, was a group of the center-left that embodied people on various parts of that spectrum. They could not win their fight, he suggested, unless they kept the center and got more, not less, support from it. By not supporting the U.S. veto, he told them, they became “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” Many centrists who had supported them have broken ranks and dropped out of J Street. “We,” he said, “made them move away from us.” J Street therefore pushed the mainstream of the Jewish community away from them, rather than towards them. This meant that when they said the right things, they would have little impact, since the Jewish community would not trust them.
Saying that he understood that J Street’s leaders made a tough call, Saperstein argued that if they had supported the veto, they would have been in a position to wage a successful call for a new movement in America to oppose Israel’s settlements. Now they were undercutting their own program to help the Obama administration advance the peace process.
Saperstein, in other words, was saying that J Street should have tactically not taken the position they believed in, simply because they lost potential allies in doing so. He said they needed to wage an effort to fight the Tea Party and those who wanted to end U.S. foreign aid and especially aid to Israel. Claiming that he was concerned with those who wanted to delegitimize the Jewish state, he said they needed a broad tent that would give credibility to their effort to be both pro-peace and pro-Israel. They had to oppose those who sought to support the BDS campaign — boycott, divestment and sanctions — favored by many of the far left in America.
The pro-Israel forces, he concluded, needed their vision of a pro-peace position. This is not, he said, “a time for retreat, since our vision will prevail.” That vision, he ended, stood for “dignity, social justice, and peace.”
...
When the young man who introduced Peter Beinart spoke, he said Beinart inspired him, because while he loves Israel, he did not love its actions during the war in Gaza. Current policies of the Israeli government, Beinart said, were a moral failure and harmed Israel and put the country at risk. One had to wonder, what policies of Israel’s enemies, if any, does he think had the same effect? Does he really believe that a change to the “peace” policies he espouses would end Arab intransigence? Israel had to create a vibrant, democratic Israel — not the kind of Israel now led by the reactionary Netanyahu government. Then and only then could the true holy mission of the Jewish people be realized, he said.
The crowd seemed to love it. As for myself, I wondered how this arrogant, so-called pundit had the nerve to tell the Jewish Israelis what was in their interest, and to tell them that he knew more than those who elected the center-right government what was in their own best interest. Beinart had not one word to say about the actual threats facing Israel from the new Middle East being created as we speak, from Iran, and from the very real threats to Israel from radical Islam.
The latter is hardly a surprise, since J Street’s own statement of principles says it opposes “efforts to demean and fan fears of Islam or of Muslims.” In their eyes, evidently, any criticism or mention of radical Islam is verboten, since it reflects the kind of understanding liberals and the left can never comprehend.
The Palestinian Authority, Serry said, was developing solid reforms, and they had to be met by similar actions by Israel, especially that of rolling back Israel’s settlements. Palestinian statehood, Serry argued, was not sustainable unless Israel gave up Palestinian land it held in its own hands. Hebron, he said as an example, needed more land to expand and to create viable living arrangements for its Palestinian population. In making their demands known, he told the audience, Palestinians had to make a “root-and-branch” commitment to non-violence. And supporters of the Palestinians’ goals, a group he clearly thought included J Street, had to urge that Israel end its blockade of Gaza. Israel, he said, could not punish Palestinian children because of its own dispute with Hamas.
There must be, he ended, no expansion by Israel of existing settlements.
Next to speak was Ron Pundak, who began by saying that he might be a minority of one in Israel, but he would nevertheless present his ideas, however little they might be representative of the organization to which he was now speaking.
In Israel, Pundak complained, no discussion of what was really necessary was taking place. The “right-wing government,” as he called Prime Minister Bejamin Netanyahu’s administration, was “obsessed with the past, and saw any criticism of Israeli policies as anti-Israel.” Bibi, he went on, “has nothing to say and uses hard words,” but the substance of what he says is virtually nothing.
Today’s Israeli regime, Pundak said, was jeopardizing the Zionist dream he and others grew up with. If Israel did not pursue a real and honest peace — which he evidently thought it was not doing — later on there would no Israeli prime minister around to accept a genuine offer of peace when it might be made. To great applause, Pundak said the millions of Palestinians living in the area had to be citizens of their own state, a policy he argued the majorities of Israelis favor. But without real leadership, he warned, there could never be such an outcome.
Turning to the vital issue of Iran, Pundak actually argued that Iran was being used as a pretext by those who did not want a Palestinian state to stop trying to attain peace. The Iranians were indeed trying to gain a nuclear capability, Pundak said, but they were not intent on annihilating Israel. Clearly, the words of Ahmadinejad meant nothing to him, nor did the worries of prominent Israelis like the historian Benny Morris. “Israel,” Pundak said, “can live with a nuclear Iran and it must not base its policies on a worst-case scenario.” Thus, it should not be looking for new enemies as an excuse not to make peace. In Pundak’s vision, clearly, Israel had no real enemies, and it was only the Netanyahu government who pronounced that they did. For example, he said that the Israeli government was now “creating Turkey as a future new enemy,” ignoring the growing Islamic orientation and new alliances of the Erdogan government. Such an Israeli government, Pundak said, could not reach a comprehensive peace agreement with the Palestinians. It was the responsibility of Americans, therefore, to push the Obama administration to favor this course.
Pundak is one of the people who ought to burn in hell for resurrecting the PLO at a time when it was dead. Pundak was one of Shimon Peres' poodles who went to negotiate with the PLO in secret in Oslo in 1993 at a time when it was illegal for Israelis to meet with PLO representatives.
I'm not posting Radosh's summary of Mona Eltahaway's speech, because I already posted video of the entire speech.
Here's Mona Eltahaway speaking to J Street's conference in Washington on Sunday. Watch what excites the J Street crowd. For those who have limited time, start at 4:40. Just keep track of what the J Street crowd cheers.
It is wrong–for anyone–to cheer for hate. It is wrong, at a pro-Israel conference, to cheer someone who professes her hatred for Israel–not her disappointment, not her concern, but her hatred. She can hate whoever she wants. And if J Street wants her to come to their conference and speak at a major session, they can do that too. But when she comes to that pro-Israel conference, starts talking about hatred for Israel and draws the loudest cheer from the crowd, that’s bad. It’s bad for J Street and it’s bad for J Street’s supporters if they intend to show their support for the Jewish state.
Whether or not it's bad for J Street is irrelevant. It exposes the truth and truth is always a good thing.
J Street is not pro-Israel and it does not belong as part of the pro-Israel community. It's time we all called the spade a spade. J Street is a pro-Obama, Leftist organization that at best is indifferent to Israel's continued existence. If anything, the fact that it masquerades as a pro-Israel organization is what makes J Street so dangerous.
If it's a choice between Israel and the 'Palestinians' (and truthfully, that's what the choice is, for the 'Palestinians' aspire to end Israel's existence), J Street will feel guilty if Israel wins.
Those who are truly pro-Israel will be happy if Israel wins at the 'Palestinians' expense.
Mona Eltahaway v. Alan Dershowitz on Egyptian democracy on CNN
Eltahawy and Dershowitz argue on the nature of democracy that is in the interest of the United States regarding what may come in Egypt. Sparks fly around the 4:30 mark.
Let's go to the videotape.
What do you think the odds are that President Obama will make that kind of statement to the Arab countries?
I don't know about the rest of you but I am fearful of a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Egyptian government. And contrary to what Mona Eltahaway said, for those who are not Egyptians, but Israelis, that IS what this is about.
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
