Dennis Ross Goes All Over the Place

Take note how Dennis Ross vacillates, displaying remarkable 'flexibility' in his thinking on Egypt:-

...there is reason to be concerned...None of this means that Egypt’s path of change is foreordained. It does mean that the president, who has largely surrounded himself with members of the Muslim Brotherhood or sympathizers, dominates all of Egypt’s institutions of power...In this respect, Morsi and the Brotherhood seem to recognize reality. But in another important regard, they appear determined to deny it...it’s clear that the group the Brotherhood is wedded to its ideology and cannot admit anything that might call its basic philosophy into question...it is not acceptable to deny reality and foster a narrative and policies based on untruths and fictions. Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood should know this...They must respect the rights of minorities and women; they must accept political pluralism and the space for open political competition; and they must respect their international obligations, including the terms of Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel. The record to date is not good...

That was classic "all over the place".

And nowhere.

^

Thomas Friedman At It Again - Bribed By Ideology?

Despite his response to my post on his thinking, and the first version is here to which he responded, and his "explanation", DG in his Media Sampler, is still bothered - as we all should be - regarding the intentions of Thomas Friedman's writings on behalf of Egypt and ultimately, the Muslim Brotherhood:

1) I never met an Islamist I didn't think was moderate

How can you tell when an expert who predicted one outcome realizes he is wrong? When he starts telling you that a different outcome isn't so bad.

A week and a half ago Thomas Friedman naively told us that the victory of the Islamists in Egypt was a good thing. To be sure there were skeptics (and me, too).

Today, in Trust but Verify, Friedman walks back his earlier unbridled enthusiasm.

Friedman starts by observing that Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns met with a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, who declared that his organization's relationship with the United States was important.

(The full statement Friedman referred to is here:

Dr. Morsi called on the United States to rethink its strategies and change its policies toward the people in line with the Arab Spring revolutions, and to take more positive positions toward Arab and Islamic issues, because evident bias of U.S. administrations against Arab issues in the past never was in the US’s favour. Morsi added that the FJP is convinced of the importance of Egyptian-American relations, which must be based on balance between both parties.

The "balance" Morsi referred to is demanding that American not to be so closely allied with Israel.)

Then Friedman noted that MEMRI reported that the Muslim Brotherhood's website was filled with antisemitic imagery and articles and that a leading Coptic businessman was charged with "contempt for religion."

Skeptics might say that the Muslim Brotherhood leader was cynically seeking to reassure a major donor that his country's billions in aid would be money well spent, but that the Brotherhood was really an extreme organization. Thomas Friedman is so much more sophisticated than that ...

There are two ways to read these news reports. One is that the Brotherhood and other Islamists are cleverly hoodwinking the naïve foreigners, feeding them the lines they want to hear. The other is that the Islamists never expected to be dominating Egypt’s new Parliament — with more responsibility than other parties for completing the country’s democratic transition, constitution-writing and election of a new president — and they are trying to figure out how to reconcile some of their ideology, with all of their new responsibilities.
My view is that both can be — and are — true at the same time.
In my mind, we all have to guard against lazy happy talk about the rise of the Islamist parties in Egypt (“I’ve met with them; they all seem reasonable”) and lazy determinism (“Just read what they say in Arabic; they clearly have a secret plan to take over Egypt”).

Of course Friedman filled his earlier column with "lazy happy talk" based on a few superficial interviews. The other side is based on an extensive archive of material, which can't be so easily dismissed.

Friedman continues:

In the happy talk department, please don’t tell me that the rule of Turkey’s Islamist Justice and Development Party, known as the A.K.P., proves that no one has anything to fear about Islamists taking power democratically. There is much I admire in the A.K.P.’s performance. (The recent suggestion by Gov. Rick Perry of Texas that the A.K.P. is a party of “Islamic terrorists” is shockingly stupid.) But I will only cite the A.K.P. as a reassuring example of Islam and democracy in harmony after I see it lose an election and vacate power. That is the real test. As The Economist noted about the rule of the A.K.P. in Turkey in its Nov. 26 issue, “Around 76 journalists are now behind bars” in Turkey, “more than in China, many of them for supposed terrorist crimes. ... The West does not seem to notice the steady deterioration in human rights in Turkey, instead extolling it as a model for the Arab spring.”

Gov. Perry's reference isn't far from the truth as AKP does have ties with IHH, an international terrorist organization.

Friedman's condition for looking favorably on the AKP, its vacating power after losing an election, is a pipe dream as everything Erdogan's government doing is aimed at consolidating its hold on power and marginalizing its opponents.

So Friedman suggests engagement:

America needs to offer the Islamists firm, quiet (you can easily trigger a nationalist backlash) and patient engagement that says: “We believe in free and fair elections, human rights, women’s rights, minority rights, free markets, civilian control of the military, religious tolerance and the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, and we will offer assistance to anyone who respects those principles.”

And what if America offers those things and the Muslim Brotherhood continues playing the double game of nice words to America but not so nice words in its own milieu? That isn't something that Friedman addresses.

But why should we trust Friedman. In a 2006 column, The Weapon of Democracy, Friedman concluded:

But Hamas will have its hands full managing the West Bank, where it doesn't have as many people or arms as Fatah. As the Israeli strategist Gidi Grinstein put it, Hamas "is like a snake that swallowed an elephant." It has a lot to digest before it can move sharply in any direction.
Hisham Abdullah, the West Bank A.F.P. reporter, told me that when he went into Ramallah's main bookstore the other day and asked what was selling, the owner said he'd noticed Hamas people buying Dale Carnegie books on management.

This is just another way of saying that the burdens of governing will moderate Hamas. No doubt those Dale Carnegie books advised building up Gaza's armaments and planning ways to attack Israel, which is what Hamas did for the next couple of years leading up to Cast Lead.

It's clear that Friedman has backtracked a bit from his earlier column in that he at least is entertaining the idea that Islamists may not be democratic exemplars. However, his equivocation here and his own history suggest that he will go far to excuse the excesses of Islamists in power.

Lazy or corrupted thinking?

No, not by a bribe. But by ideology?

^

No News: Muslim Brotherhood Site Full of Antisemitism

A MEMRI Report:

Antisemitic and Anti-Israel Articles on Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Website

The website of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in Egypt, Ikhwanonline.com, contains articles with antisemitic motifs, including Holocaust denial and descriptions of the "Jewish character" as covetous, exploitative, and a source of evil in human society...their posting has recently taken on greater importance in light of the group's increasing strength...In addition to antisemitic content, articles on the site also include praise for jihad and martyrdom, and condemnation of negotiation as a means of regaining Islamic lands. Among these are articles calling to kill Zionists...articles on the site express[...] reservations regarding the peace agreement with Israel and insisting that Egypt was entitled to amend it. Such statements contradict assurances by Freedom and Justice party head Dr. Muhammad Mursi to senior U.S. officials that the MB would honor all international agreements signed by Egypt.

Hu, you expected something else?

To read the full report, visit MEMRI.

^

Dear Mr. Medad - Sincerely, Thomas Friedman

The other day I posted a blog on words of the New York Times' columnist, Thomas Friedman, as reported in Egypt. I also uploaded a slightly altered version at my Jerusalem Post blog, Green-Lined.

It is now updated to include this response of Mr. Friedman:-

Update (2012-01-11 15:03:25):




Dear Mr. Medad:


The quote attributed to me by the Egyptian daily is completely mangled. I was asked by an audience member to give my assessment of the liberal's performance in the Egyptian election. What I actually said, which the reporter, clearly not an English speaker, did not get, was that it was no surprise that the Muslim Brotherhood did so well in this first election because for the last 30 years Mubarak had cleared out all the political space between himself and the Brotherhood so that he was able to come to Washington and say to successive U.S. Presidents that "It is either me or them.'' I said that what the Egyptian elections produced, for the first time, were legitimate, authentic, liberal, secular, nationalist, progressive alternatives to the Muslim Brotherhood and now the Brotherhood would have to compete with such alternatives -- for the first time. I then said, given the fact that the liberals had only four months to organize their parties and that the Brotherhood had been in politics for 83 years, that I thought the liberals had done amazingly well. By the way, there were many cameras filming all of this, so it is easy enough to verify.


I would also note that this is a point I have made many times before in my writings -- in precisely those words -- that what was missing in Arab politics was a legitimate, progressive alternative to both the official parties and the Islamists. I would also note that in my previous NYT column from I Cairo, I wrote: "...the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist Al Nour Party — just crushed the secular liberals, who actually sparked the rebellion here, in the free Egyptian parliamentary elections, winning some 65 percent of the seats. To not be worried about the theocratic, antipluralistic, anti-women’s-rights, xenophobic strands in these Islamist parties is to be recklessly naïve.'' (see below for Barry Rubin's take on it)


On bribery, what I said is exactly what I have written in my own column in the New York Times twice before, "Our Congress has become a forum for legalized bribery,'' which is what I believe and is hardly an original observation. Judging from reports of allegations against senior political figures in Israel that I read about in your own newspaper, Israel's democracy is suffering from the same problem. I was warning Egyptians that uncontrolled money in politics is what can destroy their infant democracy, that it was eroding our own, and that they had to be very vigilant about this.'' I was reacting to reports in the press that money from Qatar and Saudi had flowed to Islamist parties, while the liberals were starved for cash. I made no connection to any particular special interest in America. Finally, my one-hour question and answer session at AUC was not something I was paid for.


Mr. Medad, you asked aloud whether I could have said what I was quoted saying? I am glad you asked it aloud. I just wish you had asked me first before publishing this blog on your site. I am in the phone book.


Sincerely,


Thomas Friedman

So, I am to conclude that

a) I cannot trust the Egyptian media or parts thereof.

b) I can call him up any old time to confirm what is reported that he has said in the press.

c) Congress is an institution - a "forum" - that has been bribed.

d) That despite almost 70% majority for MB & Salafists, Friedman still thinks there exists an "alternative" to them.

e) I have to watch out for Friedman quoting himself - partially. Here what he wrote in full in correcting me:

...To not be worried about the theocratic, antipluralistic, anti-women’s-rights, xenophobic strands in these Islamist parties is to be recklessly naïve. But to assume that the Islamists will not be impacted, or moderated, by the responsibilities of power, by the contending new power centers here and by the priority of the public for jobs and clean government is to miss the dynamism of Egyptian politics today.

Wait.  Is he being recklessly naive to think that of all the fundamentalist Islamic parties in the Middle East, in a country that has already assassinated a leader - Sadat - 30 years ago and gave birth to the Muslim Brotherhood will turn moderate?  That those parties' dynanism will turn to regime building rather than societal domination therough repressive religious instruments of control?  Is that naive or simple wishful-thinking?


Btw, here are exceprts from Barry Rubin's "Friedman Cheers as Egyptians are Enslaved":-

It is distasteful when Western intellectuals, politicians, and journalists who pride themselves on their enlightened humanitarian views watch people abroad fall subject to ruthless forces of dictatorship and dogma. When these same people actually cheer the new tyrannies, put their arms around the shoulders of those who despise them, and tell everyone else that there's nothing to worry about, that's actively disgusting.

Many in the West have so acted toward Egypt during the last year...Thomas Friedman has been one of them but perhaps no one else has been louder and more enthusiastic...Now, Friedman goes all-out to explain that the Muslim Brotherhood isn't radical, isn't a threat, in fact is a good thing, and will only become eve more moderate once it is in power.

In a column entitled, “Watching Elephants Fly,” obviously a reference to seeing something impossible happen, Friedman writes:

“...almost none said they had voted that way for religious reasons.

“Many said they voted for Islamists because they were neighbors, people they knew, while secular liberal candidates had never once visited...practically all of them said they had voted for the Muslim Brotherhood or Salafist candidates because they expected them to deliver better, more honest government — not more mosques or liquor bans.”

My reaction is, “So what?” They voted for an authoritarian, Sharia regime (and let’s remember a hardline interpretation of Sharia, not the interpretation of Sharia offered by New York Times reporters). That's what's important...But there’s even more irony here...There is nothing surprising in their political behavior, except to people like Friedman who predicted last year they would back liberal Westernized Facebook kids.

Once again, Friedman shows a striking inability to think logically...what will be taught in those mosques and how it will direct society. Why is Friedman dishonest?...he must create silly demands for the Islamists so he can claim that the people don't want those things.

...An aspect of Friedman's work that makes it so popular is that he constantly invents simple new theories and catch phrases to explain Middle East politics. After reading his column it is possible to believe that one has easily achieved understanding of the region. Of course, the reason that he must come up with so many theories is that they almost always fail.

Now he has a new, materialistic explanation for why Islamists will become moderate: they need the money...But I heard similar things about Iran in the late 1970s--they'll have to be moderate because they need to sell the oil--and about Yasir Arafat at the start of the peace process in the early 1980s--he'll have to be moderate because the Palestinians he rules will demand garbage collection and decent schools...It is awesome how our political geniuses simply don't learn from history...his shocking enthusiasm for the Brotherhood, summed up in his reported phrase: "The Muslim Brotherhood is a legitimate, authentic, progressive alternative." Mr. Friedman has responded that he was referring to the election and not the Brotherhood itself. That may be but if so this is a very strange formulation. And, of course, Friedman knows who won the election by a landslide, the Brotherhood and Salafists. He certainly didn't say: Great election, too bad about the result. And so he and many others--including the U.S. government--have given not just grudging acceptance but absolute approval to a party with a long history down to the present day of anti-Americanism, antisemitism, and support for terrorism, as well as the desire to transform Egypt into a repressive society and a political dictatorship.

...Western leftist intellectuals cannot understand how a dictatorship can be popular and yet still be a dictatorship that those who believe in democracy and freedom should criticize...

"Authentic." That usually means something arising from one's society and properly fitting into it. But here's a problem. Today, democracy as known in the West is not an "authentic" doctrine for Egyptians. It is seen as an import and doesn't have a strong cultural, intellectual, political, economic, or religious basis..."Progressive." In recent years, “progressive” has become a false flag for extreme left-wing movements in the West. Why did Friedman use that word? Probably because for him it is merely a synonym for the word “good." But it's fascinating that he puts the Muslim Brotherhood in the same category as the ideology of Obama and the dominant American political establishment at present.

So what does this mean? Friedman sees revolutionary Islamism as the proper Middle East counterpart of the Western left...Unfortunately, the Islamists don't reciprocate this love.

Isn’t Friedman aware that real Egyptian democrats are rushing to get visas and leave the country? That many Christians are getting out and the rest are trembling?

Within hours of the Friedman statement, the Free Egyptians Party—the most “authentic” liberal party in Egypt—declared a boycott of the remaining elections, claiming electoral fraud...The real moderates and democrats are in despair, knowing what they will be living under. And Friedman cheers their oppressors and says there is nothing to worry about...In playing these games, Friedman and the U.S. government ignore the mature adult way to handle such issues. A foreign policy professional should say something like this:

The Muslim Brotherhood won elections and clearly enjoys support from many Egyptians. It is now up to the Brotherhood to live up to those hopes and fulfill the promise of true democracy. To do so, the Brotherhood will have to break with past beliefs and policies...

The second thing that disgusts me is Friedman’s attempts to win applause by sucking up to his Egyptian audience. He tells them that the U.S. Congress is profoundly corrupt. Aside from demeaning his own country and civilization, the signal that statement sends is: Hey, democracy doesn’t really work!..."Money will kill your democracy like it did ours," said Friedman. So Egypt is now a democracy but America isn’t?

...I’m almost done but there’s one more thing important for you to know. It’s from a column I wrote a year ago, in the midst of the revolution. The radical blogger, Angry Arab, made fun of Friedman back then. Referring to Friedman as a “Zionist,” the blogger mocked him for claiming that the revolution would produce a moderate pro-American Egypt ready to keep the peace with Israel. Every Arab understood, said Angry Arab, that the exact opposite would happen.

A humorous example of Friedman's lack of self-awareness is the fact that he called his column, “Watching Elephants Fly.” Can many Americans hear that phrase and not think of a certain famous animated film by Walt Disney?

It’s title is most appropriate: Dumbo.

I guess I'll have to give Tom Friedman a call.

^

How Much Did Tom Friedman Receive For That Lecture?

Am I suspecting Tom Friedman, of the New York Times, of being venal?  Of receiving a bribe?

Why would I even suggest that?

Well, for one reason, can we believe a nice Jewish boy, smart, clever and experienced would believe things like what follows, that he said in a lecture Monday at the American University in Cairo (AUC).

...Friedman said that the Islamist sweeping the vote in the latest parliamentary elections was normal and expected.  "For decades, Egyptians were missing the Arab nationalist, and most importantly, an authentic political alternative during Mubarak's rule, now they finally found it represented in the 83-year-old Islamist group of the Muslim Brotherhood," Friedman said. "The Muslim Brotherhood is legitimate, authentic, progressive alternative. Only faced by the four-month old liberals, they had to win," he added.

The lecture comes during his visit to Egypt to reflect on the Egyptian scene amid the historical parliamentary elections and the approaching, long awaited first anniversary of Jan. 25 popular uprising that toppled the country's strongman Hosni Mubarak.

..."We now have a Congress that’s trying to find a legal framework for bribery, this tells you how money ruined our politics," Friedman explained.

The Muslim Brotherhood is "progressive"?  Is that a typo?  Should that not be "regressive"? 

And by "bribery", he wasn't referring to AIPAC ("I sure hope that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby."), was he?

Oh, how the might have fallen.

Or did he not say those things?

^

Quotable Words: On Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood

.

Here

As the ascendant Muslim Brotherhood tries to project itself as a responsible actor, including by hosting credulous New York Times columnist Nick Kristof for a home-cooked meal, it is important to recall these kinds of statements. Over the past two weeks, I have interviewed seven Brotherhood parliamentarians-to-be. Far from being moderate, these future leaders share a commitment to theocratic rule, complete with a limited view of civil liberties and an unmistakable antipathy for the West.

The Brotherhood’s theocratic vision presents itself in a number of forms. At the most basic level, the organization’s future parliamentarians insist that all law should be drawn exclusively from the sharia—and they are convinced that this is a goal shared by nearly all Egyptians. “Most political streams in Egypt—liberals, socialists, nationalists, and Islamists – demand that sharia be the main source of legislation,” Saad al-Husseini, the Brotherhood’s top candidate on a Gharbiya electoral list and a member of the Brotherhood’s Guidance Office, told me. A number of Brotherhood MPs-to-be even claimed that Egypt’s Christian community was pro-sharia. “The Christians are Egyptians, and true Egyptians will take the sharia’s side, and not the side of the French,” said recently elected Alexandria MP al-Mohammadi al-Sayyid.

To be sure, the Brotherhood, unlike Egypt’s Salafists, does not intend to legislate based on a literal interpretation of the sharia. It claims instead to be guided by pragmatic interpretations of the sharia’s true aims—or “maqasid,” as this principle known in the field of Islamic jurisprudence.

More Islamic Winter or a very nasty rainy season.

^

Muslim Brotherhood = Extinction of Democracy and Liberalism?

The Guardian is optimistic:

Political Islam poised to dominate the new world bequeathed by Arab spring

The Muslim Brotherhood's success in the first round of Egypt's elections has added to western fears of an Islamist future for the Middle East. But this does not necessarily mean that democracy and liberal policies face extinction

And how?

...as journalist Issandr El Amrani wrote in the wake of the election results in Egypt on his Arabist blog, "has profoundly depressed most educated, middle-class Cairenes … who had hoped that the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak would be followed by a relatively liberal democracy that would be inclusive of moderate Islamists.

"Among my Egyptian friends (most decidedly on the liberal side) there is now tremendous worry about a future in which politics is ruled on the one hand by identitarian Islamist politics and on the other by a populist, hyper-nationalistic army. I don't think it has to be so, and we could very well see a transition to a democratic (but not liberal) system which allows for rotation of power.

"Personally," Amrani concludes, "I think that there can be a positive outcome here: if the Muslim Brothers are serious about consolidating electoral democracy and work hard on addressing that issue, there will be other elections for those that disagree with their conservative views (or foreign policy, or economic liberalism) to make their case."

Now, is that optimism or self-deludement?

^

Seen An Egyptian Coptic Church Lately?

Ever heard of the Virgin Mary Church on Cairo’s al-Wahda Street?

No?

Well, on

May 8, this church, in the impoverished Cairo neighborhood of Imbaba, a ten-minute drive from Tahrir Square, was a scene of devastation. It had been ravaged by flames and its insides gutted, smashed, looted, and charred after clashes broke out between Muslims and Christians over the case of a Coptic woman named Abeer Fakhri, an alleged convert to Islam whom ultraconservative Salafis had claimed was being held against her will at the nearby Church of St. Mina, which was also attacked. Fifteen people were killed in the violence and almost two hundred injured.

This extract is from this article, "Egypt: The Victorious Islamists" by  Yasmine El Rashidi in the New York Review of Books, a very liberal left weekly.

The "good" news in Egypt is

Of all the organized political movements and groups, the Muslim Brotherhood, its Freedom and Justice party, and its loose alliance of similarly conservative political entities—such as the recently approved Islamist al-Wasat party—are the only ones pushing for elections in September. Liberal opposition groups have called for their postponement, citing the need for more time to organize, but the military, so far, has said it will not change the date.

And there's more:

The Brotherhood made scathing statements against women and Copts soon after Mubarak’s ouster. Its leaders are now openly calling for an Islamic state, something they had previously denied was among its goals. “They will never change,” the outspoken newspaper editor Abdel Halim Qandil told a friend and me recently. “I don’t trust them. They are deceptive.”...the Muslim Brotherhood seems confident that it will emerge victorious in September’s parliamentary elections. In February it said it would win no more than 20 percent of the seats; it is now—officially—aiming for 50 percent. Essam el-Erian recently told me, “But of course we want a majority or the largest percent we can get.” Through a coalition agreement with other Islamist groups, Lacroix said, this “seems increasingly likely.”
At the end of May, in a public library in Imbaba, not far from the Virgin Mary Church, a group of Salafis—who call themselves “Salafyo Costa” after Costa Coffee, which they like to drink—held an open meeting, intended “to begin a dialogue with liberals and help cast aside this idea of us as devils,” as Mohamed Tolba, one of the group’s organizers, told me...After the meeting, one of the Salafist wives approached me, inviting me to a women-only gathering at her house. “You’re so young,” another said, before proceeding to explain how she slowly converted from being uncovered to wearing a full-face veil. “It just takes time,” she said reassuringly. “You get used to it.”

...Sitting in the Virgin Mary Church with Father Sarabamon, I told him about the invitation of the Salafi women. He smiled. “They want to convert you,” he told me. “I fear the worst. You know already that they don’t teach Coptic history in schools. It will take time, but I see the direction we are moving in.”

As goes Egypt...

But of course Barry Rubin has been writing this for months.

^

Qaradawi You Heard Of?

Ever heard of someone called Yusuf al-Qaradawi?

No?

A promoted Muslim "moderate"?

Well, read Barry Rubin's piece.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi is the best-known Muslim Brotherhood cleric in the world and one of the most famous Islamist thinkers.

Barry informs us that he

supports the straight Islamist line: anti-American, anti-Western, wipe Israel off the map, foment Jihad, stone homosexuals, in short the works.

One of Qaradawi's initiatives has been urging Muslims to settle in the West, of which he said, “that powerful West, which has come to rule the world, should not be left to the influence of the Jews alone.” He contends that the three major threats Muslims face are Zionism, internal integration, and globalization. To survive, he argues, Muslims must fight the Zionists, Crusaders, idolators, and Communists.

Make no mistake, Qaradawi is not some fossilized Islamic ideologue. He is brilliant and innovative, tactically flexible and strategically sophisticated.

His opinion on the Western Wall in Jerusalem:

“The Jews' claim to Al-Buraq Wall dates back only to recent times. The longest reign of the Jews lasted for 434 years. Their reign in Palestine dates back to the times of Kings Saul, David and Solomon. Solomon’s sons split after his decease: Jude headed for Jerusalem while the state of Israel was established in Shakim, that is Nablus. The Jewish state in Nablus lasted for 298 years and the former for 434. This is the longest period that the Jews reigned. So those who claim that they have a long history in Israel are liars. That history lasted for only 434 years. [so, our history only is reckoned by having kings?] The Arabs, on the other hand, have been present in Palestine since the days of the Jebusites and the Canaanites, that is 30 centuries before the birth of Christ [which is, of course, well, not true]. Their history under the umbrella of Islam lasted for more than 14 centuries or even longer. Before the advent of Islam, there had been no Jews in Palestine because since 70 C.E. there had been no trace of Jews or Israelis in Palestine. [which is also not true. see my timeline or this book]

Qaradawi, we are not rebuilding the Pyramids for you Egyptians.


P.S.

Now being live-blogged here.

12:33PM Al-Qaradawi extols Egyptians to persevere with their revolution as it "continues to build a new Egypt" and should be "protect[ed] from hypocrites." He condemns the regime for being the source of sectarianism in Egypt while in "here in Tahrir", Christians and Muslims strove side-by-side for their revolution.

Wonder why no Jews are mentioned.

One more:

12:56PM   Al-Qaradawi calls on the "brave Egyptian army" to open the Rafah crossing so that Gazans can receive the supplies they need. Turning his attention to arab leaders, he says: "Don't fight history, you can't delay the day when it starts. The Arab world has changed."

UPDATE

And today, Saturday, here's how the NYTimes presents the new reality:

Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an influential Sunni cleric who is banned from the United States and Britain for supporting violence against Israel and American forces in Iraq, delivered his first public sermon here in 50 years on Friday, emerging as a powerful voice in the struggle to shape what kind of Egyptian state emerges from the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak...

...Sheik Qaradawi has long argued that Islamic law supports the idea of a pluralistic, multiparty, civil democracy.

But he has made exceptions for violence against Israel or the American forces in Iraq. “You call it violence; I call it resistance,” said Prof. Emad Shahin of the University of Notre Dame, an Egyptian scholar who has studied Sheik Qaradawi’s work and was in Tahrir Square for his speech Friday.

^

Niall Ferguson on Obama and Egypt

You do not want to miss this:-



On Prof. Ferguson, Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and William Ziegler Professor at Harvard Business School.

(k/t: RL)

Hillary Clinton Awards Muslim Brotherhood An Okay For Participation

From her remarks at a "special briefing:

...QUESTION: Secretary, do you think that the Muslim Brotherhood needs to be a part of the dialogue in the transition?


SECRETARY CLINTON: I think that's up to the Egyptians. But what I heard this morning was the Muslim Brotherhood was going in to meet with the vice president. So, clearly, they have made a decision to participate in the dialogue. How that goes, how long it lasts, that's for them to decide.

QUESTION: (Inaudible?)

QUESTION: (Inaudible?)

SECRETARY CLINTON: That -- I am not going to be pre-judging who should participate in their political process. They have to decide who is going to be eligible to run. What we want is to see an inclusive process.

I think she has said 'go ahead, include the MB'.

Don't you?

P.S. And I caught this from another interview:

...do we do business with, do we have relations with, do we support governments over the past 50 years that we do not always see eye to eye with? Of course. I mean that's the world in which we live.

^

Benny Morris' Take on the MB; Ted Honderich's Take on Terror

Benny Morris on the Muslim Brotherhood and in The Guardian.

__________
(extracts)

The west must be wary of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood

The Brotherhood's aim is to take over the Egyptian state through the democratic process – and then bring an end to democracy


...The Brotherhood also presumably wants to avoid deterring the secular middle class from participating in the popular upsurge, a participation that gives the popular revolt cachet abroad as well as at home (and in the greater Arab world). A display of Islamist leadership at the head of the crowds would alienate much of that middle class. So the Brotherhood has kept virtually out of sight.

...For now, the Brotherhood will be satisfied with toppling the hated Mubarak regime...But once the campaigning for these elections gets under way, we will see the country awash with Muslim Brotherhood activists and placards, broadcasts and sermons; perhaps even a measure of intimidation and violence...It is possible that the movement will follow the model of Turkey's Islamists and try to follow democratic norms

...observers in the west should not delude themselves. This is not a movement for which democracy has any appeal, worth or value. Its leaders see democratic processes merely as means to an end, an end that includes an end to democracy.

And since we're on The Guardian, this came up:

Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein instructed the Government Press Office Thursday to summon the Guardian’s correspondent in Israel to protest a letter to the editor that Edelstein said encouraged Palestinian terrorism.

The letter in the UK newspaper, written by Ted Honderich of London, criticized Israel for turning down alleged Palestinian offers revealed by the Guardian last week. He wrote that Israel’s “taking from the Palestinians” part of what he called “their historic homeland” justified Palestinian acts of violence.

“The Palestinians have a moral right to their terrorism within historic Palestine against neo-Zionism,” Honderich wrote. “Terrorism, as in this case, can as exactly be self-defence, a freedom struggle, martyrdom, the conclusion of an argument based on true humanity.”

The letter:

Ted, the dear, is a philospher.  He holds opinions.  He has descriubed the UK Daily Telegraph as a

neo-Zionist newspaper

"Neo-Zionism" is a key term in his philosophy.  As here:

That is not all you should do in connection with neo-Zionism. You should take every rational step against it. You should not be quiet about the violation of the Palestinians because you are Jewish. You should get hold of Michael Neumann's book The Case Against Israel. You should support the simple solution to the simple Palestinian problem -- the immediate and unnegotiated withdrawal of Israel from all of what remains to the Palestinians of their homeland. All of us should join those in the Church of England who want to divest from the company that makes the caterpillar bulldozers that destroy the homes and lives of Palestinians. All of us should take part in all forms of boycott against retail stores and other businesses dealing with neo-Zionist Israel, civil disobedience, non-cooperation, not voting, picketing, ostracism, naming, symbolic public acts, strikes and whatever else is rational against neo-Zionism. We should see the need for a new disrespect, especially disrespect for a compliant political class.. 

And he ties it in to a general conceptualization:

...there is a big difference between Zionism and neo-Zionism. I do not mean to add something to one of their definitions, which you will remember, but rather to remind you that the first, Zionism, has actually been achieved.

Taken as the project of the founding and security of Israel in its original borders, 80% of Palestine, Zionism is a fact. It is a notably settled and secure fact, about as much so as most such national facts. There is well-known pretence to the contrary by neo-Zionism, of course. But a nuclear power, a military power greater than all others but three in the world, a nation guaranteed by the world's only superpower, is not about to be driven into the sea, whatever ritualistic threats may be heard from a speechifying head of another state. Any other idea, founded on whatever ritual speech or document, is absurd illusion or culpable abuse of truth.

It follows, if any argument is needed, that an indubitable element in the explanation of the war against Iraq, neo-conservative support of Israel, was precisely neo-Zionism. It seems there is a general truth here...

And then, Honderich goes off the deep end of radical progressivism:-

No decent morality, no morality above contempt, could justify our leaders and political parties who embarked on war. They have been deficient in moral intelligence. The morality of humanity condemns them absolutely. It places them on a level with bin Laden. It brings them together with Sharon. It joins them to Saddam Hussein. Bush and Blair are greater contributors than these to the killings.

They are also in that company for other reasons. They are there for their earlier contributions in the history that led to the war. They are there, in particular, for the fact of neo-Zionism, without which the war on Iraq would not have happened. Neo-Zionism stands in connection with it. They are there for not having got around to learning from the fact of 9/11. That failure in moral intelligence was also a necessary condition of the war on Iraq...

Now do you grasp his "Neo-Zionism"?  It's a slur. It pejorative. And it is anti-Zionism.

He has been accused by Anthony Alcok of antisemitism, pure Jew-hate.

This isn't the first time he has sought to justify Arab terror.  In 2006, he published this:

...So we need a fundamental principle to tell us when democracy is right and which human rights to defend. For me that is the Principle of Humanity. Take rational steps to get and keep people out of bad lives.

It gives you a conclusion about neo-Zionism, Israel's expanding since 1967 into the last fifth of the Palestinian homeland. The Palestinians have a moral right in historic Palestine, including Israel, to their terrorism against that ethnic cleansing.

Is saying the Palestinians have this moral right just a defiant way of expressing sympathy with the Palestinians? It's more.

What is a moral right? It's something confirmed by the fundamental moral principle. Also, if you really have a moral right to some end, and only one means of getting there, you have a moral right to the means. Everybody believes the Palestinians have a right to a viable state.
Is there some better way than terrorism? I don't think so. Terrorism is necessary. They have no alternative. The idea that neo-Zionism would have given in without the threat of violence is nonsense.

That is philosophy?  Morality?



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The Muslim Brotherhood Whitewash Continues

In the NYTimes:-

Egypt’s Bumbling Brotherhood


By SCOTT ATRAN

The Muslim Brotherhood, which so scares the West, has been shut out of the revolution through its own incompetence.

See a critique of the UK media.

An insight from Evie Gordon.
Background from Dore Gold.
In the New Republic.
Frank Gaffney Jr.

UPDATE

Protesters tell 'The Jerusalem Post' they don't feel Egypt is completely free of Israeli occupation, "Camp David made us a slave."

“After Camp David, all the Arab world sees that we are no longer a leader. Camp David made us a slave”

Like many at Tahir square on Tuesday night, 26-year-old Mohammed Salama of Cairo spoke of an eagerness for Egypt to shelve its nearly three decade old peace agreement with Israel, but insisted he does not want the country to go to war with Israel. In his hands he held a sign reading in Arabic “Netanyahu is worried about Mubarak”, which he said he wrote because “this is my country and my leader, I don’t want him to care about Israel, only about my country.”

UPDATE

Anti-Semitic Imagery at Egypt Protests Draws Yawns from Western Media


Whether or not it represents the advent of freedom for Egyptians, the current protest movement clearly represents the advent of the total banalization of anti-Semitism in the Western media. (Also read Bruce Bawer at the Tatler: "CNN: See no evil")

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