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Tag Archives: December

Egyptian Janus – From Secular to Theocratic Dictatorship

13 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by commart in Egypt, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Politics

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2012, December, despotism, dictatorship, Egypt, freedom of speech, human rights, Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood, political, politics, torture, tyranny

Middle East journalist Jeffrey Fleishman’s November 27 header in the Los Angeles Times has a poetry in it for the ages: “Morsi may have misjudged Egypt’s tolerance of authoritarianism.”

A moment’s reflection may remind that all regimes labeled autocratic involve by definition the imposition of power, and while there may be elections, the story will also contain some combination of reports of bribery, intimidation, suppression, theft (of whole businesses, not mere wallets), and murder.

Organizations like the “Muslim Brothers” and leaders like President Morsi waste no time in organizing their challengers and rivals for neutralization even though they may not get all they want all at once.

For Morsi specifically, the distance between inauguration and the sacking of Mubarak’s army chief Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi was one month, mid-June to mid-August, and while overhaul of the military was arguably a first order of business, Morsi would go on to  conduct assaults, essentially, on Egyptian freedom of speech, human rights and rule of law, and, of course, on the courts.

Last week, Al-Monitor reporter Mohamad Jarehi wrote the following in relation to the old Mubarak torture chambers and methods returned to use courtesy of the Muslim Brotherhood:

“The torture process starts once a demonstrator who opposes President Mohammed Morsi is arrested in the clashes or is suspected after the clashes end, and the CSF separate Morsi’s supporters from his opponents. Then, the group members trade off punching, kicking and beating him with a stick on the face and all over his body. They tear off his clothes and take him to the nearest secondary torture chamber, from which CSF personnel, members of the Interior Ministry and the State Security Investigations Services (SSIS) are absent.”

The revelation and publicity may have been developed as a message to intimidate Egyptians who had believed they had a shot at freedom and modernity.

The truth is Egyptians have to find their own way out of the darkness and hell in which despots and thugs keep from them the freedom to inquire and speak broadly and openly about many things, to have recourse to court and security systems that are truly their own and working for them equally, and far more than either of those paths toward freedom and security, to choose for themselves between what is balanced, good, and kind, and what is cruel, dangerous, inhuman, and mad.

About three hours ago, the Associated Press reported that, “Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s center said . . . it will not deploy monitors for Egypt’s constitutional referendum.”

If it stinks too much for “Jimmuh” and his outfit, imagine, but one need not leave judgment with notice of the Carter Center’s disinterest in monitoring a state-defining referendum: today, The Algemeiner reported that since early 2011, more than 100,000 Egyptians have sought asylum in the United States.

Reference Update

I’ve gone loosely chronological with this listing as I track but don’t plug stories on a daily basis.  In a way, reading down the headlines tells the story.  This set starts, close enough, with “Morsi may have misjudged Egypt’s tolerance of authoritarianism” and ends (close enough — I revise as I go) with “Al-Masry Al-Youm Reports on Brotherhood Torture Chambers.”  Think about that.

Richter, Paul.  “n U.N. speech, Egypt’s Morsi rejects broad free speech rights.”  Los Angeles, Times, September 26, 2012.

Fleishman, Jeffrey.  “Morsi may have misjudged Egypt’s tolerance of authoritarianism.”  Los Angeles Times, November 27, 2012.  Note to readers: authoritarianism is never tolerated but always imposed.

Engel, Richard.  “Egyptians fear decades of Muslim Brotherhood rule, warn Morsi is no friend to US.”  News analysis.  NBC News, December 1, 2012 and earlier.

Fleishman, Jeffrey and Reem Abdellatif.  “Egypt court postpones ruling as protesters mass at chambers.”  December 2, 2012.

Fleishman, Jeffrey and Reem Abdellatif.  “Egyptian police fire tear gas during rally against President Morsi.”  Los Angeles Times, December 4, 2012.

Blair, Edmund and Marwa Awad.  “Rivals clash as Mursi’s deputy seeks end to Egypt crisis.”  Reuters, December 5, 2012.

Bloomfield, Douglas M.  “Washington Watch: The death of Egyptian democracy.”  The Jerusalem Post, December 5, 2012.

Reuters.  “Slideshow: Protests in Egypt”.

Fox News.  “Clashes between rival protesters in Cairo kill 3, wound hundreds”.  December 6, 2012.

Jarehi, Mohammad.  “Al-Masry Al-Youm Reports on Brotherhood Torture Chambers.”  December 7, 2012.

Fleishman, Jeffrey and Reem Abdellatif.  “Egypt’s Morsi reverses most of decree that expanded his powers.”  Los Angeles Times, December 8, 2012.

Gabbay, Tiffany.  “Egyptian Reporter Given a Disturbing Look Inside The Muslim Brotherhood’s ‘Torture Chambers’.  December 10, 2012.

The Independent.  “Morsi gives Egyptian army right to arrest civilians.”  December 10, 2012.

Friedman, Thomas L.  “Can God Save Egypt?”  The New York Times, December 11, 2012: “What has brought hundreds of thousands of Egyptians back into the streets, many of them first-time protesters, is the fear that autocracy is returning to Egypt under the guise of Islam. The real fight here is about freedom, not religion.

Human Rights Watch.  “Egypt: Investigate Brotherhood’s Abuse of Protesters”.  December 12, 2012.

Michael, Maggie.  “Carter Center won’t monitor Egypt’s vote.”  Associated Press / Connecticut Post, December 13, 2012.

The Algemeiner.  “Amid Egyptian Protests, Coptic Christians Concerned for Their Survival.”  December 13, 2012.

Fahim, Kareem.  “In Cairo Crisis, the Poor Find Dashed Hopes.”  The New York Times, December 13, 2012: “We had high hopes in God, that things would improve,” Fathi Hussein said as he built a desk of dark wood for one of his clients, who are dwindling. “I elected a president to be good for the country. I did not elect him to impose his opinions on me.”

Kirkpatrick, David D.  “Prosecutor Says Morsi Aides Interfered in Inquiry.”  The New York Times, December 13, 2012:

“All 49 captives had been beaten, Mr. Khater wrote, and they said members of the Muslim Brotherhood had tried to coerce them into confessing that they had taken money to commit violence. But prosecutors found no evidence that they had done so.

“Even so, Mr. Morsi declared in a televised speech later that night that prosecutors had obtained confessions.”

Earlier Reference

McElroy and Magdy Samaan.  “Egypt’s new president Mohammad Morsi sacks army chief.”  The Telegraph, August 13, 2012.

Muwafi, Murad.  “Egypt fires spy chief, security leaders in wake of Sinai attack.”  Global Post, August 8, 2012.

Bradley, Matt.  “Egypt’s President Morsi Defies Courts.”  Video report and interview.  Wall Street Journal, July 10, 2012.

Youssef, Nancy A. and Mohannad Sabry.  “Morsi inaugurated in Egypt.”  McClatchy, June 30, 2012.

# # #

Mohammed Salaymah’s Pistol

13 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Israel, Politics

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2012, December, fake pistol, gun, hate, Hebron, ideology, middle east conflict, Mohammed Salaymah, political, political theater, politics, post-Soviet, provocation, replica, training

pistol-toy-Hebron-121212.jpg

Yesterday, Mohammed Salayma, 16 or 17 years old and in the vicinity of the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, took the pistol pictured to the left and raised it to the face of an Israeli border guard. A fellow officer drew her service weapon and shot Salayma three times, killing him.

Salayma’s gun turned out a replica.

Out in the wild, the sale and manufacture of replica guns serve interests from children’s toys to theatrical productions.  In the post-Stalinist, post-Soviet drama in which “actions” are planned for effect — or perhaps they just happen that way (sure they do) — perhaps someone had written the headline before arming or criminally failing to educate the victim.  As much seems suggested by the above gun replica.

Criminals have used replicas recently to attempt and carry out robberies, e.g., Tanyos, Faris.  “Police: Suspect in Plain Pantry robbery carrying replica gun.”  KOIN Local 6, December 5, 2012; Fanelli, Joseph.  “Convenience store robber with fake gun stopped by employees in East Portland.”  The Oregonian, July 26, 2012: “The two employees realized the gun was fake when the man accidentally dropped the gun and it split into two pieces, said Avinash Maskey, 24, who works the morning shift at the gas station.”

Do your own Googling if the subject interests you.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police define a replica as “a device that is not a real firearm, but that was designed to look exactly or almost exactly like a real firearm.”

Look again at that photograph of the pistol that was raised to a guard’s face in the middle east conflict zone.

“Replica firearms are prohibited devices in Canada,” says the Mounties page: Royal Canadian Mounted Police.  “Replica Firearms.”

No wonder.

Suicide-by-cop or just plain awesome stupidity (or communal or lonesome but in any case vicious and unscrupulous political ambition), the story will come out as to what directly motivated Mohammed Salayma, an older teenager, to walk up to  to a military guard, stick a fake gun in his face, and thereby draw fire.

Salayma’s death alone would be a tragedy, albeit not one unfamiliar to armed conflicts, but in the middle east conflict, riots and worse come from such sparks.

The Jerusalem Post.  “IDF, Palestinians clash following teen’s funeral.”  December 13, 2012: “Palestinian media reports 5 hurt in clashes before funeral of Palestinian teen killed by Border Police after pulling out fake gun.”

Ma’an News Agency, ever reluctant to put a whole truth (remember: clear, accurate, complete) up top in its articles (here’s the prosaic lead: “An Israeli border guard officer on Wednesday shot dead a Palestinian teenager in Hebron’s Old City in the southern West Bank”), nonetheless winds around to quoting Israel police: “Initial findings are that he had a fake pistol that he pointed at the officers at the time of the incident.”  I’ll call that middle-of-the-clip effort a kind of balanced reporting.  (Ma’an News Agency.  “Israeli forces shoot, kill Hebron teenager”).

Update 12/18/2012/1415H EST

Related Article: http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/119536/ore-confusion-arrives-in-hebron

Syria: An Appeal for Regional Cooperation and Support

06 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share

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2012, appeal, December, humanitarian, Syria

“So far nearly 50,000 people have been murdered by pro-Assad soldiers and paramilitaries, making Syria’s uprising the bloodiest of those of the Arab Spring. While more than two million people have been displaced from their homes, the number of refugees is expected to reach 700,000 by the end of this year. With the beginning of winter soon arriving, with sub-zero temperatures, many children are at great risk unless we stop the ongoing massacre.” Sinem Tezyapar publishing in the Jerusalem Post, December 5, 2012 (“Syrian people need urgent help from Israel, Turkey”).

Loosely related from 2005: Efraim Inbar’s pamphlet “The Resilience of Israeli-Turkish Relations” (PDF): “Annual trade between the two nations grew to US$2 billion in 2004, up from US$200 million in 1993, and since the mid-1990s Turkey has been the number one tourist destination for Israelis.”  Hard to believe today — doubtlessly true seven years ago.

Egypt Starts Its Slow Burn

06 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Egypt, Fast News Share, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East

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2012, December, Egypt, protests

The above video was uploaded about six hours ago.  According to “MZWORDLNEWZ”, all of that above would seem to have taken place last night.

I’ve no way of vetting the video other than by glancing over related reference.

Egomania comes with hidden costs, but it’s no secret that people — even close associates (as noted in the RT piece listed in reference) — may only take so much provided their spirits are good and intact and they have room to maneuver.  At this point, President Morsi has polarized his country and lost both a fair chunk of popular support and trust as well as critical personal support.

Would that the powerful pay the price for the chaos and damage they bring to their states, but, and this seen too well in Syria’s meltdown, the would-be constituents of a democratic society and subjects of a creeping Islamic theocracy will arm up, figure out how to discern one another, and have a go in the streets while the military’s fat cats enjoy patronage and power and, for themselves, peace away from the spotlights.

Oren Dorell’s piece published in USA Today has some analytic wisdom in it and will fill in the reader on the military’s compact with President Morsi.

Won’t get fooled again?

That’s up to the Egyptians.

Associated Reference

Goldberg, Ellis.  “The Pharoah’s Curse: Muhammad Morsi and the Temptations of Power.”  Speaker’s address video (1 hour and eleven minutes), primarily audio communication.  Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University, November 16, 2012.

Dorell, Oren.  “Analysts: Egypt’s military won’t buck the Brotherhood.”  USA Today, December 3, 2012.

Hauslohner, Abigail and Stephanie McCrummen.  “Egypt’s Republican Guard tanks and soldiers deploy around palace after deadly clashes.”  The Washington Post, December 6, 2012: “By Thursday afternoon, at least three of Morsi’s advisers had resigned over the decree, and Egypt’s influential al-Azhar University, a seat of moderate Islam, was calling on Morsi to rescind it.

Hussein, Abdel-Rahman.  “Egypt violence worsens as five die in Cairo clashes.”  The Guardian, December 6, 2012.

Russia Today.  “Curfew hits Cairo after military tanks quell anti-Morsi protests”.  The piece features a recent-events video.  “They’re saying . . they will not step down, will not back off, until Morsi steps down from power.”  Also notable in the RT report: “The volatile situation has also led to the resignation of five more of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s advisors, including Seif Abdel Fattah, Ayman Sayyad and Amr Leithy who quitted Wednesday over the violence. Mena news agency reported a further resignation on Thursday. Three others did so last week to protest Morsi’s November decree.”

Salter, Ann.  “Egypt: Army moves in to break up protests.”  IB Times.  Video.  December 6, 2012:  “”When Egypt reaches a point, after a revolution, where a brother kills his brother, when the people of one nation reach a point where they carry weapons against each other and slaughter each other – this is not democracy. This is terrorism, terrorism from the ruling party . . . .”

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Epigram

Hillel the Elder

"That which is distasteful to thee do not do to another. That is the whole of Torah. The rest is commentary. Now go and study."

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? If not now, when?"

"Whosoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whosoever that saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."

Oriana Fallaci
"Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomenon...I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born."

Talmud 7:16 as Quoted by Rishon Rishon in 2004
Qohelet Raba, 7:16

אכזרי סוף שנעשה אכזרי במקום רחמן

Kol mi shena`asa rahaman bimqom akhzari Sof shena`asa akhzari bimqom rahaman

All who are made to be compassionate in the place of the cruel In the end are made to be cruel in the place of the compassionate.

More colloquially translated: "Those who are kind to the cruel, in the end will be cruel to the kind."

Online Source: http://www.rishon-rishon.com/archives/044412.php

Abraham Isaac Kook

"The purely righteous do not complain about evil, rather they add justice.They do not complain about heresy, rather they add faith.They do not complain about ignorance, rather they add wisdom." From the pages of Arpilei Tohar.

Heinrich Heine
"Where books are burned, in the end people will be burned." -- From Almansor: A Tragedy (1823).

Simon Wiesenthal
Remark Made in the Ballroom of the Imperial Hotel, Vienna, Austria on the occasion of His 90th Birthday: "The Nazis are no more, but we are still here, singing and dancing."

Maimonides
"Truth does not become more true if the whole world were to accept it; nor does it become less true if the whole world were to reject it."

"The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision."

Douglas Adams
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" Epigram appearing in the dedication of Richard Dawkins' The GOD Delusion.

Thucydides
"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."

Milan Kundera
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

Malala Yousafzai
“The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born.”

Tanit Nima Tinat
"Who could die of love?"

What I Have Said About the Jews

My people, not that I speak for them, I nonetheless describe as a "global ethnic commune with its heart in Jerusalem and soul in the Land of Israel."

We have never given up on God, nor have we ever given up on one another.

Many things we have given up, but no one misses, say, animal sacrifice, and as many things we have kept, so we have still to welcome our Sabbath on Friday at sunset and to rest all of Saturday until three stars appear in the sky.

Most of all, through 5,773 years, wherever life has taken us, through the greatest triumphs and the most awful tragedies, we have preserved our tribal identity and soul, and so shall we continue eternally.

Anti-Semitism / Anti-Zionism = Signal of Fascism

I may suggest that anti-Zionism / anti-Semitism are signal (a little bit) of fascist urges, and the Left -- I'm an old liberal: I know my heart -- has been vulnerable to manipulation by what appears to me as a "Red Brown Green Alliance" driven by a handful of powerful autocrats intent on sustaining a medieval worldview in service to their own glorification. (And there I will stop).
One hopes for knowledge to allay fear; one hopes for love to overmatch hate.

Too often, the security found in the parroting of a loyal lie outweighs the integrity to be earned in confronting and voicing an uncomfortable truth.

Those who make their followers believe absurdities may also make them commit atrocities.

Positively Orwellian: Comment Responding to Claim that the Arab Assault on Israel in 1948 Had Not Intended Annihilation

“Revisionism” is the most contemptible path that power takes to abet theft and hide shame by attempting to alter public perception of past events.

On Press Freedom, Commentary, and Journalism

In the free world, talent -- editors, graphic artists, researchers, writers -- gravitate toward the organizations that suit their interests and values. The result: high integrity and highly reliable reportage and both responsible and thoughtful reasoning.

This is not to suggest that partisan presses don't exist or that propaganda doesn't exist in the west, but any reader possessed of critical thinking ability and genuine independence -- not bought, not programmed -- is certainly free to evaluate the works of earnest reporters and scholars.

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