Noha Hashad not only escaped Egypt, but sought Jerusalem

...Looking out at the Mediterranean Sea from her Haifa balcony, far away from her family, Hashad is living in self-imposed exile. She fled Egypt by the skin of her teeth thanks to the Arab Spring and the subsequent fall of Mubarak. She has had to contend with constant threats from Islamic elements. "Israel is a jewel," she said, gently caressing her physical scars. "Israel is a diamond, and I'm lucky to be here."

Emily Amrousi..
Israel Hayom..
03 April '15..

The biblical proverb commands human beings of each generation to view themselves as if they had fled Egypt. Here, sitting right in front of me, is a real-life Egyptian refugee, a woman whose escape was very recent. Her wounds are still fresh, and hallmarks of the arduous journey could be visible on her face.

Not only did Noha Hashad flee Egypt, but she chose Jerusalem as her safe haven. Perhaps she is worthy of consideration for the title of Righteous Among the Nations. In championing for Israel's cause in her homeland, she paid (and is paying) a dear price. When she openly sided with Israel, she was arrested by the Hosni Mubarak regime, suffering beatings and torture at the hands of the authorities. As a result of her ordeal, she was left disabled.

Looking out at the Mediterranean Sea from her Haifa balcony, far away from her family, Hashad is living in self-imposed exile. She fled Egypt by the skin of her teeth thanks to the Arab Spring and the subsequent fall of Mubarak. She has had to contend with constant threats from Islamic elements.

"Israel is a jewel," she said, gently caressing her physical scars. "Israel is a diamond, and I'm lucky to be here."

"No fear gene"

Now 51 years of age, Hashad was born and raised in Muslim Cairo. As a young girl, she was sent to a private school in Saudi Arabia, where she underwent instruction on the Quran and Islam. On her mother's side, she is a direct descendant of Hussein Bin Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and the founder of Shia Islam. On her father's side, she is certain that there is a connection to Judaism. It is believed that her father is a descendant of the Baal Shem Tov.

"Apparently, my last name, Hashad, is derived from the Hebrew word Hassid," she said.

An educated woman, Hashad speaks fluent English. She declines the opportunity to discuss her family for fear that they could be subject to harm in Egypt. She took an interest in the Israeli-Arab conflict just as she was in the process of completing her doctorate in nuclear physics from Beni-Suef University. She also taught nuclear physics at both Beni-Suef and Cairo University. On top of that, she oversaw her own research laboratory.

From her new home in Haifa 500 kilometers away, Hashad is now in the process of founding a center to promote peace in the Middle East. She is currently working on translating Mahmoud Abbas' first book into English. Hashad must still face down threats to her life which are posted on Facebook and expressed in letters and phone calls.

"I'm not afraid," she said. "I don't know why. I don't have the gene of fear."

Her curiosity about Egypt's neighbor to the northeast began to percolate in 1999. This was when Hashad was hard at work on her master's thesis which focused on molecular physics. Her expertise was considered so vast that she was offered an opportunity to work for the Egyptian government in the area of radioactive safety.

The miracle of freedom. Noha Hashad's exodus from Egypt

...They say every generation one must see themselves as if they themselves made the exodus from Egypt. Egyptian nuclear physicist Noha Hashad not only escaped Egypt, but sought Jerusalem.

"Israel is like a jewel, a diamond, I am very 
fortunate to be here." Egyptian nuclear 
physicist Noha Hashad fled to Israel in 2011 
Photo credit: Michel Dot Com

Emily Amrousi..
Israel Hayom..
01 April '15..

They say every generation one must see themselves as if they themselves made the exodus from Egypt. Egyptian nuclear physicist Noha Hashad not only escaped Egypt, but sought Jerusalem. The 51-year-old native Egyptian Muslim was an accomplished academic who lectured at many universities when she began identifying with Israel.

Noha was arrested by security forces belonging to Hosni Mubarak's regime. Her crime? Looking for proof of the Jews' rights to the land of Israel in the Quran. She was jailed for 12 years. Noha was interrogated and tortured under suspicion of spying for Israel. Her interrogations left her handicapped. She managed to escape Egypt during the Arab Spring protests and the fall of the Mubarak regime in 2011, fleeing to Jordan and then coming to Israel as a refugee.

This is the first time Noha Hashad's story is coming to light.

"Israel is like a jewel, a diamond, I am very fortunate to be here," she said, sitting near the beach in Haifa. Noha founded a center for peace in the Middle East, with respected scholars of Middle East studies, and is working on the English translation of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' first book, "The Beginning and End of Zionism."

The book is being translated to "expose his [Abbas'] true face -- not Holocaust denial like in his known doctoral work," Noha said. "But Israel denial."

Giving Sisi the Netanyahu Treatment

...The Egyptians understand that Washington isn’t interested in their friendship. Nor is the administration particularly supportive of Cairo’s efforts to rein in Hamas or to fight ISIS. Indeed, the Egyptians are now experiencing the same sort of treatment that has heretofore been reserved for the Israelis. That’s especially true in light of the arms resupply cutoff against Israel Obama ordered during last summer’s war in Gaza.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
11 March '15..

In a Middle East where Islamist terror groups and the Iranian regime and its allies have been on the offensive in recent years, the one bright spot for the West in the region (other, that is, than Israel) is the way Egypt has returned to its old role as a bulwark of moderation and opposition to extremism. The current government led by former general Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has clamped down on Hamas terrorists and has been willing to deploy its armed forces to fight ISIS in Libya while also clamping down on a Muslim Brotherhood movement that seeks to transform Egypt into another Islamist state. Yet despite this, the Obama administration is unhappy with Egypt. Much to Cairo’s consternation, the United States is squeezing its government on the military aid it needs to fight ISIS in Libya and Sinai terrorists. As the Israeli government has already learned to its sorrow, the Egyptians now understand that being an ally of the United States is a lot less comfortable position than to be a foe like Iran.

The ostensible reason for the holdup in aid is that the Egyptian government is a human-rights violator. Those concerns are accurate. Sisi’s government has been ruthless in cracking down on the same Muslim Brotherhood faction that was running the country until a popular coup brought it down in the summer of 2013. But contrary to the illusions of an Obama administration that hastened the fall of Hosni Mubarak and then foolishly embraced his Muslim Brotherhood successors, democracy was never one of the available options in Egypt.

The choice in Egypt remains stark. It’s either going to be run by Islamists bent on taking the most populous Arab country down the dark road of extremism or by a military regime that will keep that from happening. The obvious Western choice must be the latter, and Sisi has turned out to be an even better ally than Washington could have dreamed of, as he ensured that the Brotherhood would not return to power, took on Hamas in Gaza, and even made public calls for Muslims to turn against religious extremists.

But rather than that endearing him to the administration, this outstanding record has earned Sisi the Netanyahu treatment. Indeed, like other moderate Arab leaders in the Middle East, Sisi understands that President Obama has no great love for his country’s allies. Besotted as he is by the idea of bringing Iran in from the cold, the American government has allied itself with Tehran in the conflicts in both Iraq and Syria. He also understands that both of those ongoing wars were made far worse by the president’s dithering for years, a stance that may well have been motivated by a desire to avoid antagonizing Iran by seeking to topple their Syrian ally.

Egypt’s Offer, Abbas, Refugees, and Peace

...Egypt’s offer to the PA is a healthy sign that many in the Arab world are rising above their hatred for Israel and ready to make peace, if not for the sake of the Jews then to help them combat the Islamist terror threat. That is a remarkable thing that should be celebrated. The Palestinian refusal is, however, a very unremarkable confirmation of the fact that they remain unready and unwilling to make peace.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
05 September '14..

When the Egyptian government reached out to Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas recently, one surprising and one predictable thing happened. The tale of this offer and its rejection tells us all we need to know about Palestinian politics and the changing political landscape of the Middle East.

The Palestinian Ma’an News Agency reported today that in a speech given to members of his Fatah Party on Sunday, Abbas said that the Egyptian government had made a startling offer to the PA. The Egyptians told Abbas that they were willing to cede a 618-square mile area of the Sinai adjacent to Gaza for resettlement of the Palestinian refugees, an idea first floated by former Israeli National Security Adviser Giora Eiland.

“They [the Egyptians] are prepared to receive all the refugees, [saying] ‘let’s end the refugee story’,” Abbas was quoted by Ma’an news agency as saying.

The Palestinian leader noted that the idea was first proposed to the Egyptian government in 1956, but was furiously rejected by Palestinian leaders such as PLO militant Muhammad Youssef Al-Najjar and poet Muin Bseiso who “understood the danger of this.”

“Now this is being proposed once again. A senior leader in Egypt said: ‘a refuge must be found for the Palestinians and we have all this open land.’ This was said to me personally. But it’s illogical for the problem to be solved at Egypt’s expense. We won’t have it,” Abbas said.

The remarkable thing about this is the decision of the Sisi government to embrace such a practical solution to the long, sad tale of the 1948 Palestinian refugees and their descendants. Like the rest of the Arab world, the Egyptians were never interested in resettling the refugees anywhere, let alone on a huge swath of the Sinai next door to Gaza. Not even during the 19 years during which Egypt illegally occupied Gaza and Jordan illegally occupied the West Bank and part of Jerusalem did either nation seek to ameliorate the suffering of the refugees by offering them the full rights of citizenship or a home anywhere but in the State of Israel. The same applies to every other Arab and Muslim country. All stuck by the demand of a “right of return” aimed at destroying the newborn Jewish state which was at that time absorbing an equal number of Jewish refugees that had fled or been thrown out of their homes in the Arab and Muslim world. Israel’s enemies purposely kept the Palestinian refugees in order to use them as props in their never-ending war on Israel.

Egypt’s offer was, of course, not merely aimed at finally doing the right thing by the refugees. The Hamas stronghold in Gaza is a threat to the Egyptian military government in Cairo because of its alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood. They also recognize how toxic the situation in Gaza—where hundreds of thousands of the descendants of the refugees live—and the need to get these people out of a bad situation that is only made worse by their exploitation by the Hamas terrorist government of the strip.

A Groundhog Day That Never Ends. Why Hamas and Fatah Carry on the Charade

...Abbas knows he does not have nearly enough control over the Palestinian polity to claim to be a legitimate head of state even if he were to sign a deal with Israel. Hamas’s inclusion can potentially make him president of a failed state instead of failed president of a non-state. The benefits to Hamas are obvious...

Seth Mandel..
Commentary Magazine..
23 April '14..

Progress in Hamas-Fatah unity talks may appear to be fertile ground for jokes at Secretary of State John Kerry’s expense, since it seems the one divide he hasn’t been feverishly trying to bridge is the one place where prospects for reconciliation have improved. But Kerry can rest easy on this score: whatever Kerry’s diplomatic faults (and they are many), he is not going to be outdone on the peace score by the terrorists of Hamas.

In fact, the Hamas-Fatah unity talks–a staple of those truly dedicated to wasting everyone’s time–are worth watching, but not for the reason the region’s idealists think. Instead, the Palestinian civil war and attempts to end it demonstrate, for those paying attention, why Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have so often been a fool’s errand. Even the Western media’s most excitable Palestinian boosters–Israel’s leftist daily Haaretz–can’t quite conceal the contradiction at the heart of the internecine compromise we are told is within reach. The paper reports:

The headlines were all referring to a meeting expected to take place Tuesday between the Fatah delegation to the reconciliation talks and the Hamas leadership, with the participation of Moussa Abu Marzouk, deputy to Hamas political chief Khaled Meshal. Will reconciliation come about this time between the factions, which have been at loggerheads since 2007? Will the reconciliation agreement they signed in 2011 be implemented?

That last sentence is quite the red flag. The two sides have signed agreements in the past: not only does signing a new one concede the fact that the last agreement hasn’t been honored, but the new agreement might not even require the last agreement’s implementation. The concern by Israelis has always been that even if Mahmoud Abbas signs a peace deal with them, his successor might not honor it. But the history of Hamas-Fatah reconciliation suggests it won’t get that far: the Palestinian signatories themselves are unlikely to honor it.

Haaretz continues:

If the parties reach agreement, Israel might view this as intentional Palestinian abandonment of the negotiations with Israel, and use reconciliation as a pretext to halt the peace process. This, despite the fact that Hamas had agreed at the time to allow PA President Mahmoud Abbas to continue negotiations without Hamas committing to accept their outcome, and the fact that in 2010, Hamas made clear that it does not oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state within in the 1967 boundaries.

At the same time, Abbas can present himself as the legitimate representative of all parts of the Palestinian state and thus bolster his demand for international recognition for the state.

It is unclear from the agreements attained so far what the status will be of the accords signed between the PLO and Israel, whether the PA will be able to continue implementing them and what will happen to security cooperation with Hamas still supporting armed struggle. For Hamas, which is in deep economic trouble and in a hostile relationship with Egypt, reconciliation could be an indispensable way out. The funding sources that reach the PA could then be used to cover civil activities of government ministries that would be under Hamas control. Abbas could then ask Egypt to change its position toward Hamas and also open lines of communication for Hamas with other Arab countries.

The tone of that section is typical of the Israeli left: the Israeli government would use the talks as “pretext” to skip out on their own negotiations with a government quite different from the one they were negotiating with. How unreasonable. Additionally, even Haaretz notes that this is “despite the fact” that Hamas is allowing Abbas to continue talks with Israel “without Hamas committing to accept their outcome.” So they are meaningless.

About That Gaza Humanitarian Crisis

...These and other measures have produced a crisis of unprecedented severity in Gaza. But since there’s no way to blame Israel for it, Gaza’s erstwhile champions have gone AWOL. One can only pity any Palestinians naive enough to have thought the world actually cared about their suffering.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
15 October '13..

As Jonathan noted Sunday, many diplomats, journalists and human rights organizations spent years loudly condemning Israel for a “humanitarian crisis in Gaza” that never existed. The truly remarkable thing, however, is how silent all these parties have fallen over the last few months, when Gaza has been suffering far worse than it ever did back when its “humanitarian crisis” was a cause célèbre. The reason, of course, is that there’s no possible way to blame the current crisis on Israel: The culprits are Egypt and the Palestinians’ own rival governments; Israel, in contrast, has been trying to alleviate the distress. And it turns out that if Palestinian distress can’t be used as a stick to bludgeon Israel, Gaza’s erstwhile champions have no interest in it whatsoever.

Ever since the Egyptian military overthrew the elected Muslim Brotherhood government this summer, it has cracked down ruthlessly on Gaza, accusing that territory’s Hamas government of complicity in jihadist terror in Sinai and of conspiring with the Muslim Brotherhood to attack police stations and prisons. As journalist Khaled Abu Toameh wrote recently, this crackdown is hurting Hamas far worse than Israel’s military offensives in Gaza ever did. Here are just a few of the steps Egypt has taken:

It has destroyed an estimated 90% of the tunnels from Sinai into Gaza. This move is entirely Hamas’s own fault: Its purpose is to stop is the extensive two-way traffic in arms and terrorists that Hamas presided over for years, and which has fueled much of the terror in Sinai. But since the tunnels were also a source of cheap Egyptian goods, their demolition has caused real hardship for impoverished Gazans.

To compensate, Israel has increased its own shipments of food and other supplies to Gaza, but Israeli goods are more expensive than their heavily subsidized Egyptian counterparts. Moreover, Hamas rejected an Israeli-Egyptian offer to send one particularly critical product previously brought in through the tunnels – cheap Egyptian fuel – via Israel instead, leading to serious shortages.

Surprised? Egyptian and Israeli interests are closer to each other’s than those of US

The whole idea was to “send a message” to Egypt! Well, the first part of the message is received, in Egypt and Israel, that the USA does not support its allies. The rest will be coming shortly when the final chapter in the saga of the Iranian nuclear project is written.

Fresnozionism.org..
11 October '13..

It probably annoys the hell out of the antisemites there (practically everybody), but Israel is a better friend to Egypt than the US. And maybe vice versa.

OK, nations don’t really have ‘friends’. It’s a philosophical category mistake, like saying that colors are things. What they have are interests, and Israel’s interests align with Egypt’s more closely than either nation’s interests do with those of the US.

Israel and Egypt’s military regime see Hamas as a dangerous destabilizing force which challenges both of them. Egypt has probably destroyed more of Hamas’ smuggling tunnels under its border with Gaza in the last few months than Israel ever did (to great international silence, by the way). The US defines Hamas as a terrorist organization, but forced Israel to end economic pressure on it after the Mavi Marmara affair.

Hamas, of course, is the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood, closely aligned with the Brotherhood in Egypt. There are reasons to think that the Brotherhood is excessively influential with the Obama Administration.

Hamas’ biggest buddy in the Middle East has become Turkey, whose ruler Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has turned his country from an ally to an enemy of Israel. President Obama has emphasized his closeness to Erdoğan, the first national leader with whom he had a bilateral meeting after his election.

Hamas also gets weapons and support from its ideological enemy but pragmatic patron, Iran, Egypt’s historic rival — and Israel’s foe.

Speaking of Iran, we note that both Israel and Egypt find the idea of an Iranian bomb unacceptable. Despite statements to the contrary, so far the US is acting in a way that will provide Iran the time to develop nuclear weapons, and has prevented Israel from taking direct action.

The recent partial cutoff of US aid to Egypt, along with a humiliating lecture on the subject of “inclusive democracy,” has done a great deal of damage to relations between Egypt and the US. Although it is probably true that Egypt doesn’t need F16s or Abrams tanks, the US also cut off several hundred million dollars of cash aid to the regime. And while it could have shifted the cost of the ‘big weapons’ to food aid and other economic help, it did not do so.

The ever more bizarre and dangerous world of Hamas

If the leaders of Hamas believe that the Egyptians are determined to undermine or topple their regime, they will not hesitate to initiate a new military confrontation against Israel. Hamas would never dare to initiate one against the Egyptian army. It is easier to fire rockets at Israel.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
27 September '13..

As Egypt steps up security restrictions along its border with the Gaza Strip, Hamas and some Palestinian terror groups have been holding "military parades" in a bid to show that they are prepared for war.

The parades, which saw hundreds of heavily armed militiamen march through the streets, are mainly intended to send a message of warning to Egypt's new rulers against any attempt to launch a military offensive inside the Gaza Strip.

Some Hamas leaders are convinced that the Egyptians are preparing to launch a military strike against the Gaza Strip under the pretext of combatting terror in Sinai.

However, the show of force by Hamas and its allies is also designed to send a warning message to Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Hamas believes that Israel and the Palestinian Authority are directly involved in an Egyptian-led scheme to overthrow their regime and bring Mahmoud Abbas's forces back to the Gaza Strip.

The parades are also intended to send a warning message to Abbas as to what awaits him and his loyalists if they dare enter the Gaza Strip with the help of Israel and Egypt.

Given Hamas's growing isolation in the aftermath of the downfall of the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Cairo and the Egyptian authorities' severe and unprecedented restrictions along the border, there is no underestimating the threats coming out of the Gaza Strip.

If the leaders of Hamas believe that the Egyptians are determined to undermine or topple their regime, they will not hesitate to initiate a new military confrontation with Israel.

Egypt Cracks Down on Gaza. Where's the Coverage? Where's the Flotillas?

When Israel tries to protect its citizens from thousands of rockets, missiles and terrorist attacks from Gaza, there’s a hue and cry, outrage and indignation. When Egypt responds to terrorism in the Sinai… Where are the protests? Where are the flotillas? And for heaven’s sake, where’s the coverage?

SC..
CAMERA Snapshots..
17 September '13..

Remember when Gaza was an “open air prison,” as the Huffington Post called it? Remember when the tunnels, smuggling terrorists and weaponry in and out of the Strip, were “a legitimate trade and passenger route, one that is necessary for survival,” according to The New York Times?

That was when Israel was trucking in tons of goods and the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza was open.

Well, Israel is still trucking food, medicine, clothing, construction materials and other supplies into Gaza. Last week, September 8-14, Israel sent 1,428 trucks carrying 38,545 tons of goods into the Palestinian enclave. So what’s changed? Egypt is cracking down on Gaza, that’s what.

Then how come you don’t hear much about the suffering of Gaza residents? Because it can’t be blamed on Israel.

IRIN, the Integrated Regional Information Networks, describes itself as an editorially independent, non-profit project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). On September 17, IRIN reported:

Residents and officials in Gaza say the repeated closures of the border crossing into Egypt, a key lifeline for Palestinians in the occupied territories, is destroying livelihoods, harming health and lowering basic living conditions.

The border crossing at Rafah has now been closed for seven consecutive days - the second sustained closure in the past few weeks - following instability in the Sinai region on the Egyptian side of the border.
A reopening is promised tomorrow, Wednesday, but the closures, reduced operating hours and the crackdown on smuggling tunnels are squeezing the country’s most important supply line.

[…]

The closures, along with the large-scale destruction of smuggling tunnels that were a major supply route into Gaza, are leading to shortages and higher prices for basic goods.

OCHA estimates that fewer than 10 tunnels are operational, down from 50 in previous weeks and 300 before June [when demonstrations erupted in Egypt, culminating in the removal of President Mohamed Morsi].

So, Egypt –which is not trucking supplies into Gaza– closes the Rafah crossing and shuts down the smuggling tunnels that are “necessary for survival”. Naturally you’ve read about this in The New York Times and the Huffington Post. No?

In Egypt's War On Hamas, No Flotillas or Rachel Corries in Sight

...Hamas, as it is being pushed to the wall and increasingly isolated, faces two options: either to initiate a new confrontation with Israel to create Arab and Islamic pressure on Egypt to halt its war, or to confront the Egyptian army in a direct military engagement by joining forces with the jihadis in Sinai.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
12 September '13..

For the past two months, the Egyptians have been at war not only with the jihadis in Sinai, but also in an all-out war with the Palestinian Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip. This war is being waged on two fronts: in the media and along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.

As far as Hamas is concerned, this is a war of survival that it cannot afford to lose. The Egyptian war is clearly hurting Hamas much more than the two military offensives launched by the Israel Defense Forces in the Gaza Strip since 2008.

Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip are now talking openly about the Egyptian war, which they believe is aimed at toppling their regime there. The officials admit that they were not prepared for this war from the largest Arab country, which until last June was their main ally in the Arab and Islamic countries.

Since the ouster of Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi, the state-controlled media in Egypt has turned Hamas into the country's number one enemy. Almost every day an Egyptian newspaper runs a story about Hamas's ongoing attempts to undermine Egypt's national security, and its involvement in terror attacks against the Egyptian army.

Hamas spokesmen in the Gaza Strip now spend most of their time denying the allegations and accusing the Egyptian media of waging a smear campaign not only against their movement, but all Palestinians.

No Rachel Corries complaining when Egypt bulldozes homes to block terrorist tunnels

Isn't it amazing that when Israel defends itself from Hamas terror and smuggling of weapons, it is violating the human rights of 1.6 million Gazans - but when Egypt does the exact same thing, it is simply defending itself?

Elder of Ziyon..
02 September '13..






From Ma'an:

Egypt plans to impose a 500-meter buffer zone along its border with the Gaza Strip, a senior Egyptian military official said Sunday.

Egyptian residents living in Saladin, al-Barahmeh, Canada, Brazil, al-Sarsouriya and other neighborhoods close to the Gaza border have received eviction notices.

Homeowners who received eviction orders demonstrated against the decision and burned tires in protest.

Army bulldozers have also uprooted trees in the border area.

The army has demolished 13 homes in the al-Sarsouriya neighborhood where tunnel entrances were found.

An Egyptian military official told Ma'an that most cross-border tunnels with entrances in fields or open areas had been destroyed in a security campaign to stop smuggling. He said it was more difficult to locate tunnels that opened into houses.

This was the same kind of clearing operation that Israel was doing on its side of the Gaza border - and which was permitted by Oslo - when Rachel Corrie was killed.

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Egypt - Radicalization and Escalation and Israel's Necessary Discretion by Mordechai Kedar

...The public declarations about "the Israeli interest in maintaining the peace agreement" causes untolled damage, because this gives our enemies to understand that there is a vulnerable point where they can apply pressure on us since there are among us those who are willing to give everything in exchange for a piece of paper that has the word "peace" written on it, and they are even willing that "sacrificial victims for peace" will die. We ourselves raise the price for peace to a level that we cannot afford.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar..
Middle East and Terrorism..
23 August '13..

The crisis in Egypt is deepening, and both sides of the conflict are becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions. The fatalities that have occurred among Mursi supporters as well as among the military people causes both sides to act on the basis of their hearts and emotions, and not from logic. Both sides think "We'll show them" and "we will break them", the Egyptian public scene is crashing, representatives of foreign companies are leaving in droves, and everyone blames everyone else for the miserable situation.

The vice president, Mohamed al-Baradei, resigned and fled the country, because he saw that Egypt is sliding into a swamp of blood, fire and tears, where dozens of people are killed in the streets every day, the economy is collapsing, and the solution to Egypt's problems seems farther away than ever. Al-Baradei may be put on trial for treason because he fled from Egypt and evaded his responsibilities.

The army detained Mohammed Badie, the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood organization, for two weeks, suspected of inciting the masses to violence and bloodshed. If he actually is put on trial, the Brotherhood and their supporters will most likely not stand by passively and watch, but will envelop the country in another wave of violence.

Another very disturbing phenomenon has been happening recently - the destruction of museums and the theft of antiquities. Some thieves steal exhibits in order to sell them for a small fortune on the black market to collectors; mainly gold coins, statuary and sarcophagi, which were recovered from ancient tombs from the days of the pharaohs. But along with the theft is another phenomenon: the destruction of exhibits, vandalism for its own sake, stemming from the deep hatred that radical Muslims feel toward the cultures that preceded Islam, and especially the Pharaonic culture which Islam considers to be heretical. We saw something similar in March of 2001 in Afghanistan, when the Taliban destroyed the two enormous statues of Buddha in Bamiyan Valley.

The international sphere is also undergoing a major shake-up: the United States' plan to put the Brotherhood in power has failed, but the White House and the State Department continue to issue pronouncements of support for the Muslim Brotherhood and objects to the army's actions, including the arrest of Badie. It may be that Mubarak will be freed from the defendant's box and the heads of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Mursi and Mohammed Badie, will take his place. It seems like Washington fell asleep on the 30th of June and still has not awakened to the new situation.

General al-Sisi and his comrades are not giving in to American pressure, and despite the good relations between the Egyptian military and the United States, al-Sisi refuses to accept Obama's calls, and when the Americans issue declarations opposing the army's acts, al-Sisi becomes angry. He places his definition of Egyptian interests over Obama's definition of Egyptian interests. Al-Sisi sees the dismal failures of the United States Middle East policy in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Iran, and he understands that he should not allow the Americans to influence events in Egypt, otherwise it may become another link in the chain of failures.

How the Media Covers Israel vs. Egypt - Five Thoughts on the Egypt Crisis

Simon Plosker..
Honest Reporting..
21 August '13..

Compared to many parts of the Middle East, Israel is a veritable island of calm. With ongoing peace talks taking place in a media blackout, there has been relatively little to report for once.

Which is just as well because most journalists’ attentions are now trained on Cairo as the Egyptian army deals with the Muslim Brotherhood in a quite brutal manner.

This gives us an opportunity to make some observations concerning the media’s treatment of the issue, the reporting of Israel’s role in the crisis and the differences between this and the coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

1. A strange sense of proportion

Headlines such as this from the New York Times:

now find themselves co-existing in the same Middle East sections that are reporting on hundreds of deaths in Egypt. In addition, the death toll from Syria’s brutal civil war is said to have surpassed 100,000.

While we should not demean the loss of any individual human life, events taking place in Israel’s neighborhood perhaps give some perspective and proportion when we consider the enormous amount of coverage Israel receives in the mainstream media.

How many Egyptians, Syrians, Iraqis and others need to die violently before the media and others recognize that the Israel-Palestinian conflict and issues such as Jewish housing construction in Jerusalem are not the fulcrum around which all Middle East conflict revolves?

And while incidents such as the above are legitimately deemed newsworthy, it is noteworthy that individual Palestinian deaths command such coverage irrespective of whether or not the Palestinian involved could be considered a combatant or not. Indeed, the NY Times article refers to B’tselem’s figure of 10 Palestinians killed this year by the military without considering how many of those were terrorists.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Check-it out!

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The Irrationality and Madness of King Erdogan

...Madness, unfortunately, cannot be compartmentalized. Erdogan’s latest outburst–in which he, as Michael Rubin pointed out, accused Israel of being behind Egypt’s military coup while citing as the only evidence a public conversation between French intellectual Bernard Henri-Levy and Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni from two years ago (when she actually was in opposition)–is the acne of a conspiratorial mind that has lost touch with reality.

Emanuele Ottolenghi..
Commentary Magazine..
20 August '13..

Since Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan invited Hamas to Istanbul in 2006, shortly after the Islamist terrorist organization won parliamentary elections in the Palestinian Authority, Israel-Turkey relations have deteriorated.

Erdogan has repeatedly exploited the Palestinian issue to score propaganda points both at home and with Arab and Muslim audiences and has sacrificed a strategic alliance over his pride, especially after the Israeli incursion into Gaza in late 2008 and the Mavi Marmara affair. Why Erdogan would take cheap shots at Israel has been repeatedly discussed here and elsewhere and needs not be rehashed.

But as his vicious rhetoric increasingly flirted with anti-Israel language, there was little opposition inside Turkey to this aspect of Erdogan’s boisterous style on the international stage. Even when he brought his personal animus to a debate with Israeli President Shimon Peres, whom he abruptly abandoned on stage in Davos, or when he sought revenge against Israel at NATO by seeking to exclude Israel from NATO-Mediterranean dialogue programs, or when he set up a kangaroo court against Israeli military personnel in Istanbul, few dared label this trend for what it was: political insanity and a self-inflicted wound.

As if one could act irrationally on one front while being reasonable on all other fronts, Turkish society continued to back Erdogan. After all, his regional policies appeared briefly to pay dividends–Turkey’s economy was booming, trade with Iran was booming, relations with Syria were thawing, and popularity across the Arab world for standing up to Israel gave Turkey the brief illusion it could regain its role of regional guide it lost at the end of the Ottoman Empire.

When the West Prefers Illusion In Place of an Ugly Reality

This is the triumph of illusion, required because reality doesn't comport with the liberal, democratic Western standard in which every difference can be split. The reality is that Israeli fights every day against people dedicated it its destruction as a sovereign entity. Reality is ugly, so the West pretends we're only a minute or two, an Israeli concession or two, a settlement or two from Israeli-Palestinian "peace."

Shoshana Bryen..
American Thinker..
20 August '13..



The Palestine Liberation Organization was created in 1964. Like most revolutionary movements, it wrote a Charter to define its aims and fundamental policies, including:

Article 17: The partitioning of Palestine, which took place in 1947, and the establishment of Israel are illegal and null and void, regardless of the loss of time...

Article 18: The Balfour Declaration, the Palestine Mandate System, and all that has been based on them are considered null and void. The claims of historic and spiritual ties between Jews and Palestine are not in agreement with the facts of history or with the true basis of sound statehood. Judaism... is not a nationality (and) the Jews are not one people with an independent personality...

Article 19: Zionism is a colonialist movement in its inception, aggressive and expansionist in its goal, racist in its configurations, and fascist in its means and aims...

Article 24: This Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, (or) on the Gaza Strip.

Contrary to belief in some quarters, the Charter has never been amended and in fact, fealty to "armed struggle" (i.e., terrorism) was reasserted as late as 2011. In pursuit of its goals, Palestinian terrorism has killed more than 5,000 Israelis since 1949. Airplane hijackings; sniper shootings (including an infant in her father's arms), bombings on buses, in cafes and in restaurants; little boys bludgeoned to death; children murdered in their homes in front of their parents. Raw anti-Semitism pours today from Voice of Palestine Radio. School children learn that Israel is only a temporary impediment to Palestinian aspirations and that killing and dying is the highest good.

This would seem to preclude peaceful coexistence with the State of Israel.

Yet, it has become conventional Western wisdom that the Palestinian leadership -- bifurcated as a result of a brutal civil war, without an electoral mandate, beholden in part to Iran -- wishes nothing more than a split, rump state in the West Bank (and Gaza), areas it previously rejected. And furthermore, in exchange for that, Palestinians will accept a) the Jews as a national people "with an independent personality," b) the legitimacy of the 1947 partition (or 1949 Armistice Line), and c) Zionism -- not as fascist, racist and aggressive -- but as the legitimate expression of Jewish national peoplehood.

This is the triumph of illusion, required because reality doesn't comport with the liberal, democratic Western standard in which every difference can be split. The reality is that Israeli fights every day against people dedicated it its destruction as a sovereign entity. Reality is ugly, so the West pretends we're only a minute or two, an Israeli concession or two, a settlement or two from Israeli-Palestinian "peace."

No, we weren't, nor will we be. But it is through similar illusions that American policy toward Egypt is best understood.

Anyone Surprised NY Times Blames Israel and AIPAC for Prolonging Egypt's Agony?

So why rely on dubious, unattributed sources like "the Israelis" and "Western diplomats " and "the diplomats believed," and General Sisi "appeared to be" etc.? Could it be that on-the-record pronouncements would have spoiled the conspiratorial atmospherics favored by the Times' reporters? And not given the Times a pretext to build a breach between Israel and the United States?

Leo Rennert..
American Thinker..
19 August '13..

It's the lead story on the Sunday front page of the New York Times -- a lengthy piece on how frantic, behind-the-scenes efforts by U.S. and European diplomats supposedly came close to building a path toward ending the bloody conflict in Egypt between the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and the military-backed interim government.

In the end, as we all know, external prodding failed. But in allotting blame for why diplomacy didn't succeed, the Times gratuitously points an accusing finger at Israel and AIPAC, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, for allegedly siding with the Egyptian military and undermining U.S. diplomacy ("How a U.S. Push to Defuse Egypt Ended in Failure -- Barrage of Diplomacy -- Despite 17 Calls from Hagel, Cairo Chose Confrontation" by David Kirkpatrick, Peter Baker and Michael Gordon).

The article not only gets the most prominent spot up front, but continues inside the paper with a spread, including photos, that takes up an entire inside page.

Yet length doesn't guarantee accurate reporting. In fact, the Times dispatch is built on a deeply flawed premise that outside pressures somehow might have been able to bring Egypt's agony to an end, especially if President Obama had shown more backbone and cut off $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid to Cairo. The reality, ignored by the Times, is that Egyptians and only Egyptians can put an end to this bloody affair. Suspension of U.S. military aid would be more than offset by more generous military aid from Saudi Arabia and other wealthy Arab oil states.

But in pursuit of external meddlers aligned against Washington diplomacy, the Times prefers to build a case against Israel and AIPAC. Here's how Kirkpatrick, Baker, and Gordon put it:

The fantasy of Hamas fading away

...But however serious these problems may be, they do not at present constitute anything that comes even close to a mortal threat to Hamas. The group’s iron grip on Gazan society remains undiminished. Though it is broke, even in times of plenty it has always depended on UNRWA, the United Nations agency devoted to aiding and perpetuating the Palestinian refugee problem, to take care of the strip’s poor.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
01 August '13..

Even optimists about the new round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks acknowledge that the Hamas problem makes it difficult to imagine an actual agreement coming out of the negotiations. So long as Gaza is ruled by Hamas and Hamas is unwilling to recognize Israel’s existence, let alone its legitimacy, how could any accord survive? But some are seeking to downplay this all-too-obvious flaw in Secretary of State John Kerry’s reasoning in making his diplomatic push by arguing that the Islamist rulers of Gaza (which contains 40 percent of the Arab population of the disputed territories) are either weak or about to fall.

The glass-half-full peace process scenario seems to rest on the assumption that Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas will get a major boost in popularity if he is able to win, with the help of American pressure, an Israeli withdrawal and an independent state. The hope is that this will render Hamas’s opposition ineffective. An even more wildly optimistic scenario goes so far as to envisage Hamas falling from power or becoming so weak that talk of a merger with Fatah becomes a reality, thus ending the Palestinian schism and easing the way to peace.

Unfortunately, this sort of optimism tells us more about the desire on the part of some in both the United States and Israel to ignore the reality of Palestinian politics than it does about the possibility of regime change in Gaza. For example, even if we take all the assertions in veteran Israeli journalist and author Ehud Yaari’s analysis of the situation in Gaza in the New Republic at face value, there is very little reason to believe that the downturn in Hamas’s fortunes will be translated into it being more amenable to peace or a genuine chance that it will loosen its hold on power.

Yaari is right when he asserts this isn’t the best of times for the Hamas regime. The fall of the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt is a body blow to the Palestinian group that traces its own origins back to that organization. Though relations with the recently toppled Morsi government were not always smooth, his military successors are openly hostile to Hamas. They have not only shut down the border with Gaza and closed many smuggling tunnels, they have publicly charged Hamas with providing assistance to Brotherhood efforts to subvert the new regime as well as implicating it in violence and murders associated with Morsi’s escape from a Mubarak regime jail in 2011. This has not only deepened its isolation but shut down a vital source of funds.

Strangling the entire Gaza Strip and the outcry. Well, not exactly.

Egypt is allowed to strangle the entire Gaza Strip and deny its people food and fuel, especially on the eve of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, but one hardly hears about these anti-Palestinian measures: they are being carried out by an Arab country, not by Israel.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
12 July '13..

The Palestinians often complain that Israel, the US and other countries keep intervening in their internal affairs. These complaints often draw much attention from the Western media and many in the international community.

But when the Palestinians meddle in the internal affairs of Arab countries, sometimes triggering acts of violence and instability, the international media and public opinion tend to look the other way.

And when the Arab countries retaliate by punishing the Palestinians, as is happening these days between the Palestinians and Egypt, the international community and human rights organizations rush to bury their heads in the sand.

Egypt is allowed to strangle the entire Gaza Strip and deny its people food and fuel, especially on the eve of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, but the media and human rights groups are missing in action. This, by the way, is happening at a time when Israel has announced a series of gestures toward the Palestinians on the occasion of Ramadan.

Each time they are punished for poking their nose into other people's business, the Palestinians start whining and crying, accusing the Arab countries of turning against them.

Today, it is Egypt's turn to punish the Palestinians for meddling in that country's internal affairs.

Following the military coup that ended President Mohamed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood regime, the first decision the new rulers of Egypt took was to ban Palestinians from entering their country without prior permission from Egypt's security authorities.

Is the new interim president replacing the ousted Mohamed Morsi secretly Jewish?

Petra Marquadt-Bigman..
The Warped Mirror/JPost..
07 July '13..

Last week, a lot of people decided it was best just to make fun of the news that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood spread the rumor that the new interim president replacing the ousted Mohamed Morsi was secretly Jewish. As the blog Simply Jews put it laconically: "Jew Mohamed Morsi out, Jew Adli Mansour in."

By now it is of course a time-honored Arab and Muslim tradition to express one’s hatred by calling someone a “Jew” or at least a “Zionist agent.” Apparently, there can be no worse smear, and no conspiracy theory is too bizarre to attract believers – by the way, did you know that it is “not propaganda” that also Qatar’s rulers “are Jews”? Yes, here we go: “The Thani clan is the clan of Ben-Gurion … Hamad Bin-Gurion Al-Thani is a Jew.”

But back to Egypt’s Jewish rulers… For whatever reason, Egypt’s Muslim Brothers eventually decided to pull the post about the secretly Jewish new interim president and the many evil conspiracies that had led to his appointment. Reporting this story in the Washington Post, Max Fisher noted in his conclusion[my emphasis]:

“The article has since been removed, suggesting perhaps that someone in the Brotherhood had acknowledged the potential for criticism. It would be wrong to conclude from just this one article that the Muslim Brotherhood was retreating back into some of its worst habits: conspiracy theories, anti-Semitism, the insistence that no disagreement could be legitimate. But now that the group has been forced from power, this is a very real risk — not just for the group and its chances of regaining power, but for an Egyptian political system that is dangerously divided.”

Unfortunately, there is absolutely no need to rely on “just this one article” in order to realize that the Muslim Brotherhood couldn’t possibly be “retreating back into some of its worst habits.” The record is clear: the Muslim Brothers have never given up these “habits,” and there is a reason why they have been described by the ADL as the “Brotherhood of Hate.”

Israel's reviled strategic wisdom by Caroline Glick

...As far as Israel is concerned, all we can do is continue what we have been doing, and hope that at some point, the Americans will embrace our sound strategy.

Caroline Glick..
CarolineGlick.com
05 July '13..

On Wednesday, Egypt had its second revolution in as many years. And there is no telling how many more revolutions it will have in the coming months, or years. This is the case not only in Egypt, but throughout the Islamic world.

The American foreign policy establishment's rush to romanticize as the Arab Spring the political instability that engulfed the Arab world following the self-immolation of a Tunisian peddler in December 2010 was perhaps the greatest demonstration ever given of the members of that establishment's utter cluelessness about the nature of Arab politics and society. Their enthusiastic embrace of protesters who have now brought down President Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood regime indicates that it takes more than a complete repudiation of their core assumptions to convince them to abandon them.

US reporters and commentators today portray this week's protests as the restoration of the Egyptian revolution. That revolution, they remain convinced, was poised to replace long-time Egyptian leader and US-ally Hosni Mubarak with a liberal democratic government led by people who used Facebook and Twitter.

Subsequently, we were told, that revolution was hijacked by the Muslim Brotherhood. But now that Morsi and his government have been overthrown, the Facebook revolution is back on track.

And again, they are wrong.

As was the case in 2011, the voices of liberal democracy in Egypt are so few and far between that they have no chance whatsoever of gaining power, today or for the foreseeable future. At this point it is hard to know what the balance of power is between the Islamists who won 74 percent of the vote in the 2011 parliamentary elections and their opponents. But it is clear that their opponents are not liberal democrats. They are a mix of neo-Nasserist fascists, communists and other not particularly palatable groups.

None of them share Western conceptions of freedom and limited government. None of them are particularly pro-American. None of them like Jews. And none of them support maintaining Egypt's cold peace with Israel.

Egypt's greatest modern leader was Gamal Abdel Nasser. By many accounts the most common political view of the anti-Muslim Brotherhood protesters is neo-Nasserist fascism.

Nasser was an enemy of the West. He led Egypt into the Soviet camp in the 1950s. As the co-founder of the Non-Aligned Movement, he also led much of the Third World into the Soviet camp. Nasser did no less damage to the US in his time than al-Qaida and its allies have done in recent years.

Certainly, from Israel's perspective, Nasser was no better than Hamas or al-Qaida or their parent Muslim Brotherhood movement. Like the Islamic fanatics, Nasser sought the destruction of Israel and the annihilation of the Jews.

Whether the fascists will take charge or not is impossible to know. So, too, the role of the Egyptian military in the future of Egypt is unknowable. The same military that overthrew Morsi on Wednesday stood by as he earlier sought to strip its powers, sacked its leaders and took steps to transform it into a subsidiary of the Muslim Brotherhood.