Five-hundred-and-twenty-nine death sentences.

All at once.

That’s the guillotine, 18th Century.

That’s not America, not Egypt (God willing), not democracy, not compassion, not justice.

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The mass sentencing underscored the severity of an ongoing campaign by Egypt’s military-backed leaders to silence opposition, eight months after a military coup ousted Morsi, the country’s first democratically elected leader.

Hauslohner, Abigail and Lara El Gibaly.  “Egyptian court sentences 529 people to death.”  The Washington Post, March 24, 2014.

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This blog is not about to promote the Muslim Brotherhood.

Moreover, given the violence attending Egypt’s post-Mubarak turmoil and the Brotherhood designs that have necessitated the initiation of military intervention in Egyptian politics on behalf of tens of millions of brotherhood-disappointed Egyptians, this is not to rail against strong measures.

However, the mass sentencing signals a backwardness similar to the Brotherhood’s, albeit one more suited to the Napoleonic Era than the Dark Ages, but still merciless and barbaric in concept.

Come forward, Egypt.

Arrest, charge, and try; perhaps imprison in the Guantanamo way until I / you / we know a little more than we do today about psycholinguistics, belief, self-concept, and both political and social pathology.

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Yesterday in Israel’s Arutz Sheva, a headline ran, “U.S. Warns Egypt Against Executing Brotherhood Supporters” and went on to quote State Department official Marie Hart as saying, “The imposition of the death penalty for 529 defendants after a two-day summary proceeding cannot be reconciled with Egypt’s obligations under international human rights law, and its implementation of these sentences, as I said, would be unconscionable.”

True.

It is understood here that criminality lives in the heart before it expresses itself in the streets, and that the political criminality promoted by the Muslim Brotherhood, which cloaked in religion deals itself such levers and sticks as it believes provided to them for acquiring wealth and sadistic power over others, calls for preventive measures (a Jew does not have to make such a case where modern Egyptians have so well stated their own position disfavoring the Brotherhood’s ugly agenda for all but itself).

As long as the United States maintains Guantanamo, it hasn’t much call for demanding Egypt afford decisive trials for all suspects; however, again, the same makes a case for long-term political detention involving those who indeed have been strongly associated with the harboring of murderous ambitions.

Nix the plus-500 death sentences, maintain the warrants, and perhaps as Jacob wrestled with God, wrestle with Islam until common decency, goodness, and conscience prevail — and if that fails, let’s just move on but have greater faith, greater investment, in ideals and virtues attending the better humanity of humanity.

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