The Silence of the Arab Regimes

The New York Times has taken note of a phenomenon I had been planning to talk about soon anyway, so I'll use their piece as a takeoff point for my own comments: "Arab Leaders Silent, Viewing Hamas as Worse Than Israel."

As Israel's current operation in Gaza grows into something much longer and deadlier than Cast Lead six years ago, there has been much international condemnation, from Europe, the UN, and human rights groups. The US is less critical and the US Congress openly supportive (and the US is resupplying Israel with munitions in the midst of the operation), but there has been considerable criticism in the media and academia.

But two sources of pressure that helped bring previous Gaza interventions to a ceasefire are absent here. First, domestic support in Israel is higher than in some previous interventions, with polls showing overwhelming support among Israeli Jews, and Israeli peace activists increasingly facing confrontations with supporters of the war.

But even more striking is the fact that, while there has been much sympathy expressed toward Gaza in the Arab "street," the Arab regimes have been mostly silent. Egypt did make a ceasefire proposal early on, which Israel accepted (and which some suspect was negotiated beforehand) and Hamas rejected. But after the Hamas rejection, Egypt essentially washed its hands of the situation. And Egypt, of course, shares a border with Gaza, and by keeping the Rafah crossing closed, is complicit, at the very least, with maintaining the siege of Gaza. It allows humanitarian supplies in, but doesn't allow those under bombardment out.

The other country with diplomatic relations with Israel, Jordan, is also part of the broad Sunni alliance that opposes the Muslim Brotherhood, and which also includes Saudi Arabia and the UAE. At least there is evidence that the Jordanian street (with its substantial Palestinian component) is restive and supportive of Gaza civilians, if not Hamas.

The Egyptian "street" is another matter. Some of Egypt's talk-show hosts have been so virulently anti-Hamas that Israel has been quoting them in propaganda broadcasts into Gaza. Though Field Marshal Sisi rose to power under the Morsi Presidency, he and his supporters have vowed to crush the Muslim Brotherhood, and of course, Hamas was formed from the Gaza branch. And most indications are that the sentiment is widely shared among secular Egyptians.

With Egypt, Jordan, the Saudis and the UAE forming a solid front against Hamas, and Libya, Syria, and Iraq preoccupied with other matters, Hamas has few friends: Qatar, Iran and Hizbullah, and the latter two are tied down in Syria and Iraq. Whereas the Hamas leadership in exile were once welcomed in ‘Amman, and after that in Damascus, today they are stuck in distant Doha.

I have left out one Arab regime: the Palestinian Authority. Despite the recent reconciliation between Hamas and the PLO under Mahmoud ‘Abbas, and very vocal criticisms by ‘Abbas, and threats to take Israel to the International Criminal Court,the Palestinian Security Forces kept the West Bank largely quiet during the first two weeks of the campaign. Only in the last ten days or so have demonstrations in the West Bank led to open clashes, but ‘Abbas has largely kept the West Bank, if vocal, nonviolent.

We can only speculate whether the post-Arab Spring anti-Muslim Brotherhood alliance encouraged Israel to launch the present campaign; but it has surely encouraged it to seek a more thorough destruction of Hamas' military capabilities than it did in earlier incursions.

Schleifer Challenges the Wesern Conventional Wisdom on the Elections

While I have some doubt about President-elect al-Sisi's prospects, based on the vagueness of his program, the problems of the country and the excessive expectations of his supporters, I also know that the apparent low turnout does not automatically mean, as some Western pundits seem to be concluding, that there is widespread support for the Muslim Brotherhood.

Abdullah Schleifer knows Egypt very well, and he makes this point forcefully in his column at Al Arabiya: "Sisi wins, the turnout is low, and critics reign supreme."

While he's more optimistic about Sisi than I am, he rightly notes the fragility of the Brotherhood's 2012 victory, which it then treated as a solid mandate, overplaying a weak hand. While he recognizes the Brotherhood and leftist boycott was a factor in the turnout, he also notes:

But among the abstainers, far, far greater in number were two other constituencies that actually overlapped into one. A large number of prospective voters who remained pro-Sisi but were convinced that Sisi would win so overwhelmingly, that there was no need for them to spend hours standing in lines to vote. And secondly there were a large number of voters who remained pro-Sisi and anti-MB, but now lacked the passion, after the passage of more than ten months, that had inspired the earlier super enthusiasm. Add to that mix of overconfidence and complacency the unbearable heat wave that swept over Egypt for all three days of voting, but particularly on Tuesday with temperature around 40 C or higher. The voting centers remained open till 9pm but these past few nights the heat wave did not ease up until several hours later in the night. And when the government declared Tuesday a holiday for public sector employees and for the banks, it became a national holiday and few of the many who were over-confident and complacent felt compelled to leave their homes, however modest, to stand in line in the far hotter streets.

His piece is a useful corrective to the conventional wisdom.

The Saudis Designate the MB as Terrorists

It's been a busy day and I'm late in blogging, but I should at least note the latest round in the feuding among the GCC states: the Saudis have designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, along with Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) ordering Saudis fighting with those groups in Syria to return home. They join with Egypt and the UAE in their hostility to the Brotherhood, and do so days after pulling their Ambassador out of Qatar, the Brotherhood's main Gulf cheerleader.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat

The Brotherhood was already illegal in the Kingdom. Even when Muhammad Morsi was President of Egypt and made an official visit to the Kingdom, the Saudi paper Al-Sharq al-Awsat ran an article on the history of relations between the Kingdom and the Brotherhood  (link in Arabic) and, as I noted at the time, chose to illustrate it not with a picture of Morsi but with a 1936 photo of the Brotherhood's founder, Hasan al-Banna, bowing and kissing the hand of the Kingdom's founder, King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Al Sa‘ud (right).

I'm not sure Morsi got the message, but I suspect it was basically a put-down to these johnny-come-lately upstarts as to who gets to define Islam.

Another Bloody Friday in Egypt

Egypt has had another bloody Friday, the bloodiest in a couple of months, as conflict with Muslim Brotherhood supporters intensifies in the last two weeks before the constitutional referendum. officially 11 dead and over 50 injured; higher numbers from the Brotherhood.

The next two weeks will be violent; the question is whether it subsides or intensifies after the referendum, the outcome of which seems foreordained.

With much less Sturm und Drang, Tunisia is also hoping to adopt a new constitution this month. I must say more about that soon.

Egypt Starts the New Year by Launching War on Muppets

Well, not actually Muppets™; the Jim Henson folks weren't involved, but Egypt's defenders of truth, justice and the Egyptian way have uncovered a sinister plot by one of the country's biggest telecom companies to send coded messages to Muslim Brotherhood plotters of terrorist attacks via high-budget, professionally produced television commercials using puppets. I am not making this up. From AP:

Ahmed "Spider," a self-styled youth activist known as a strong supporter of ousted President Hosni Mubarak, says code about an upcoming attack is included in the details of the puppet ad.

Fahita and her daughter Karkoura search for her deceased's husband sim card, while explaining to her friend over the phone about another character "Mama Touta." In the background, a radio anchor explains how to make "stuffed turkey" for Christmas while sitting next to a cactus from which ball ornaments were dangling. She says she asked the building guards to get a sniffer dog of a shopping mall to search for missing things and gets money in return.

Spider explained the alleged code on the Al-Tahrir network on Tuesday night: the mall and the dog refer to the planned site of the attack, and "Mama Touta" is the Brotherhood's secret name.

"The dog, garage, guard, mall and next to us these are elements tell us that there will be a big mall and an explosion after a dog . fails to find the bomb in a car," Spider said. He said he filed a complaint with Egypt's prosecutor general who referred it to state security prosecutors, who handle terrorism and other political allegations.

Because television ads by major telecom companies are how terrorist groups communicate secret plans  to their plotters.

Yes, it started with paranoid talk show hosts, but now the Ministry of the Interior is going after the alleged offenders, Vodafone. George Orwell, please call your office.

I've been trying to decide how to comment here. Options:

1. Scathing sarcasm skewering the stupidity of it all seems appropriate until you realize the innate menace of delusional paranoia in high places, especially high places with powerful coercive apparatus at their disposal.
2. Spewing incoherent rants and extreme profanity: seems personally and emotionally satisfying but contributes little to the debate.
3. Finally realizing I love Big Brother and hate puppets as enemies of the state.
4. Just taling about it and letting you make up your own mind, but then the puppets might brainwash you!

Ahmad "Spider" is a Mubarak loyalist also accused of being an agent of influence of the security services. Piling on as well has been the Faraeen network of Tawfiq Okasha, often called "Egypt's Glenn Beck" but taken way more seriously by people in high places, who spends much time on the threat of Freemasonry, which is of course behind the Israeli-Zionist-American-Muslim Brotherhood plot to destroy Egypt.

The Economist notes the issue; (their Pomegranate blogger "M.R." sounds a lot like Max Rodenbeck), and one of the fuller explanations comes from Zeinobia, who also provides us with the offending ad:

Oh. My. God.

Sarah Carr, who has been far too silent of late, nails it as usual:

Sometimes it seems that Egypt does extreme tragedy and extreme comedy and nothing in between. As a result, living in this country is a bit like cohabiting with someone with a hormonal imbalance.

Egypt dazzled the world today with the revelation that a puppet is under criminal investigation. The particulars of this case are too traumatic to recount in detail, and can be read about here, but in summary telecom giant Vodafone is accused of employing a popular puppet, Abla Fahita, to send coded terrorism messages in one of its adverts. As evidence of this the instigator of the case mentions:

1.A cactus tree
2. A christmas bauble
3. Mama Toutou

The instigator concerned is non other than Ahmed ِElsayed AKA Ahmed Zbaydar, apprentice of late night television king and Freemason botherer Tawfik Okasha. Zbaydar is a lisping streak of piss who is no stranger to hair gel and who fancies himself a spy hunter.

He has been wafting about in the public sphere since 2011 when he shot to somewhere roughly 392 kilometres north of fame by appearing with Okasha and dropped earth shattering revelations about Freemasonry. He went on to fight the good fight for his beloved country by defaming opposition activists on his Facebook page. Both he and Okasha really came into their own after June 30 when their dire warnings about the Muslim Brotherhood being a secret Freemason organisation directed by Israel and America merged with popular suspicion of, and discontent with the group. And so they were brought out of the twilight slightly, along with that other grand wizard of bollocks Amr Mostafa, a music composer who also runs a Facebook page where he currently spends most of his time wishing death on members of the Muslim Brotherhood and getting many likes for doing so. His latest coup (insert joke here) was a series of illegally-got recordings of telephone conversations between opposition types in which nothing of any import was said. They were broadcast on a satellite channel with much fanfare.

And so it seems that this grand civilisation of 7,000 years is once again being held hostage by buffoons. Every country has its Glenn Beck type public figures, the difference in Egypt is that they are taken seriously where it suits the political ambitions of those at the reins and serves a useful purpose. Thus we have the Public Prosecutor accepting a complaint about a finger puppet while nobody has been charged for the deaths of nearly 1,000 people at Rab3a, because the current mood is almost fascistic in its reverence for the state and for state hegemony and for state opponents to be eliminated. If there was a page equivalent to We Are All Khaled Said now it would be Turns Out We Are All Adolf Hitler. Comedy and tragedy often overlap.

Egypt's Deepening Splits as the Year Winds Down

Egypt's year is ending badly; key figures from Al Jazeera English's Cairo Bureau have been arrested for "reporting false news" and meeting with members of the now banned Muslim Brotherhood. And while Al Jazeera's Arabic services have already been suppressed, leftist and secular critics are also under fire, as are Islamic charities. The violence at Al-Azhar and other universities during final exams and the recent wave of bombings is not reassuring to those of us who keep telling ourselves that "Egypt is not Algeria in the 1990s."

So has everybody associated with Morsi and the Brotherhood been arrested? Well, no, not quite, but you won't see this picture in the state media these days.

The Sisi cult continues to reach levels not seen since the Nasser era, aided and abetted by people who used to be reformers, liberals, and even revolutionaries.

As will be seen in in this, via The Arabist,  not a great way to start a week, let alone a new year:

Government to Delay MB Dissolution Until Appeals Exhausted

The Egyptian government will not implement the court-ordered dissolution of the Muslim Brotherhood organization until the appeals process is complete.

This would seem to delay but not avoid a potential new outbreak of violence.

Banning the Brotherhood, Again

The Muslim Brotherhood has survived for 85 years despite being formally illegal for much of that time, including the entire period 1954-2011, though it elected members of Parliament (as independents) in the late Mubarak years. Before Nasser's 1954 crackdown the British instigated a ban in 1942 during World War II and the King banned it again in 1948. In other words, Egyptian secularists who feel that today's court decision, which "bans the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood organization and its non-governmental organization and all the activities that it participates in and any organization derived from it," will mean the decisive end of the organization are unlikely to be proven right.

Even without the history of the Brotherhood as a tightly organized underground body which has survived for decades in the shadows, today's decision will be appealed. The case, in fact, was not brought by the government but by the leftist Tagammu‘ Party.

Nor is it made clear in the decision whether "any organization derived from it" includes the Freedom and Justice Party, the Brotherhood's political wing. If the FJP is banned from running in Parliamentary elections, the Brotherhood will have no incentive to try to find a modus vivendi with the military backed government. Up to now some have speculated the FJP may be allowed to run candidates, and today's ruling is unclear on the fate of the FJP.

Retaking Dalga

Egyptian troops have retaken the town of Dalga in Minya Governorate, which had been held by Islamists since the crackdown last month on Morsi supporters. The operation involved both Army and police units and was supported by helicopters.

Dalga has a substantial Coptic population and its Copts have reportedly been subjected to extortion and threats; at least five churches in Dalga, including one ancient one, have reportedly been burned.

The military-backed regime has been criticized for lack of action against Islamist attacks on Copts, and previous attempts to retake the town have failed.

Writing the Brotherhood's Obituary: Not So Fast: Remember the Past

The Washington Post suggests that "Egypt's Brotherhood Seems at Risk of Falling Apart." They assert:

CAIRO — The world’s most influential Islamist movement is in danger of collapse in the land of its birth — its leaders imprisoned, its supporters slain and its activists branded as terrorists in what many are describing as the worst crisis to confront Egypt’s 85-year-old Muslim Brotherhood.

Obviously they didn't read my post of earlier today about 1954, when Nasser dissolved the Brotherhood and jailed the Supreme Guide. It was 20 years before the Brotherhood emrrged from underground, and nearly 30 more years before it won the Presidency. And 1954 wasn't even the first time it was banned; it had been banned in 1940-42 and again in 1948. Its first Guide was assassinated, its second spent much of his tenure in prison, and Anwar Sadat, who had tolerated the Brotherhood, jailed the third in 1981.

They are comeback champions, and I suspect this latest obituary may be as premature as all the others.

Echoes of 1954: Nasser, The Brotherhood and the Manshiyya "Incident"

Mark Twain allegedly said (in one of many Twain quotes that Twain scholars can't confirm but that keep being attributed to him), that "History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes." Whether Twain or not, it's a useful observation. And it seems to be rhyming again.

Badie Under Arrest

The Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Muhammad Badie, one of the few leaders of the organization not already in detention, has been arrested. Multiple reports indicate the state will move to dissolve the Muslim Brotherhood imminently. General Sisi, who seemed to be on good terms with the organization just two months ago (and some Brothers hinted he was a member), is now denouncing it as a terrorist organization.

It does not repeat, but it does "rhyme with," 1954. In October, 1954, a charismatic military leader of Egypt, who up to that time had worked with the Brotherhood since at least 1947  and may even have once been a member, and had tolerated the Brotherhood even when he dissolved other political parties, suddenly banned the Muslim Brotherhood, arrested its Supreme Guide and the rest of its leadership, and soon consolidated his own power within the military leadership. That officer was Col. Gamal Abdel Nasser, and he was responding to a very public assassination attempt against himself.

The Podium at Manshiyya, 1954

In October 1954, two years and three months after the July 1952 Free Officers' coup, Nasser was embroiled in a power struggle with Muhammad Naguib, and had largely won it. Muhammad Naguib was still nominally President of the Republic, but that was an increasingly empty title. The headlines and video below call Nasser ra'is, as he was both Prime Minister (President of the Council of Ministers) and Chairman/President of the Revolution Command Council, the ruling military junta. Naguib was on the way out.

The old political parties had already been dissolved, but the Free Officers had an ambivalent relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, with whom they had conspired against the King. The link cited above includes an excerpt from the memoirs of the leftist Free Officer Khalid Mohieddin (the only surviving Free Officer, 91 this year), remembering meeting Nasser and the Brotherhood as far back as 1947, when MB founder Hasan al-Banna was still in charge. Nasser, Anwar Sadat, and other Free Officers worked closely with the Brotherhood and both were rumored to have been onetime members. Sadat later strongly denied this, though in his Presidency he let the Brotherhood re-emerge; the evidence on Nasser is inconclusive. One or two less-influential Free Officers seem to have been full members.

Supreme Guide Hasan al-Hudaybi

After the 1952 Revolution the Brotherhood and the Free Officers coexisted for a while, even as the old political parties were suppressed. Banna's successor and the Brotherhood's second Supreme Guide, Hasan al-Hudaybi. cooperated, and reportedly shut down the Brotherhood's Secret Apparatus (Al-Jihaz al-Sirri), its secret, armed, revolutionary wing. But as Nasser consolidated power against Naguib, there remained one major political force besides the Revolutionary Command Council, and that was the Muslim Brotherhood.

Even nearly six decades later, the events of October 26, 1954 (a week after a treaty was signed with Britain for withdrawal from the Canal Zone, a treaty the Brotherhood opposed) remain controversial. The ascendant Nasser made a trip to Alexandria, Egypt's second city. Among several stops was a public speech in the city's Midan al-Manshiyya (Midan Muhammad ‘Ali), the city's biggest open space. His speech was being broadcast live to the entire Arab world, and midway through the speech, a former member of the Brotherhood's supposedly dissolved Secret Apparatus, Muhammad ‘Abd al-Latif, pushed his way forward and fired eight shots at Nasser. They all missed him. Nasser quickly recovered and continued his speech:

My countrymen, my blood spills for you and for Egypt. I will live for your sake and die for the sake of your freedom and honor. Let them kill me; it does not concern me so long as I have instilled pride, honor, and freedom in you. If Gamal Abdel Nasser should die, each of you shall be Gamal Abdel Nasser ... Gamal Abdel Nasser is of you and from you and he is willing to sacrifice his life for the nation.

Here's the audio of Nasser speaking, just before the shots ring out, and the chaos afterward:


Obviously, his blood did not in fact spill. Al-Gumhuriyya was at the time the Free Officers' main voice:

"Eight Stray Bullets: Brotherhood Member Fired at President in Alexandria and Did Not Hit Him"

If you're feeling a bit skeptical about all this, you're not alone. (eight  bullets and all missed? While being broadcast live? And Nasser had a ready-made and heroic response? What happened next: did the Brotherhood burn the Reichstag?) But sixty years later the truth is no clearer. The shooter was indeed a former member of the supposedly dissolved Secret Apparatus. After the Brotherhood finally won the Presidency in 2012 the waters remained just as muddied, with official statements saying the whole thing was staged but other reports saying some Brothers were now claiming credit for involvement.

We may never know. I suspect revisionist history is about to revision back again.

A few weeks later Naguib lost his last official titles and was arrested; Nasser was supreme. The Brotherhood was formally dissolved, its leaders arrested, and several were executed. Hudaybi, who had worked with Nasser, was jailed.

The video below, apparently from November after Naguib's final fall, is heavy on overdone propaganda but shows Nasser's visit. The narration is all Arabic but you do hear the shots on the soundtrack midway through, also heard in the earlier audio clip.

:

Some Lingering Questions About Egypt

I think there are many lingering questions surrounding last week's events in Egypt, but among them are these:

1. Egypt's military deposed Muhammad Morsi on July 3. The crackdown to disperse the pro-Morsi demonstrators took place last Wednesday, six weeks later. The military leadership had warned the dispersal was coming, but had delayed it several times. Why did the military move when it did, when little had changed? Especially when the US was clearly urging its clients in the Egyptian military not to move? There are hints that while the US and Europe were urging caution, others in the region were not. Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, for example, have openly supported the crackdown, if deploring the deaths. And this New York Times article mentions (almost in passing) that General Sisi has good ties with the Israelis since his days running military intelligence, and that Israel reassured him he should move. Israel and the Gulf States (except Qatar) have their own reasons for wanting to see the Brotherhood suppressed, and this may be a case of some key US allies urging another key US ally to make a move that the US opposes. If so, this may be another example of the decline of US influence in the region, even among its friends.

2. Could the bloodshed have been avoided or reduced? This is tricky; many on the pro-Morsi side did clearly arm themselves and fight back despite offers of a safe exit, seeking martyrdom; the attacks on churches and police stations voids their claim to have been merely peaceful protestors. But I remain struck by the contrast between the numbers killed since last Wednesday and those killed in the government's long war against Al-Gama‘a al-Islamiyya in 1992-1997. While I have not found exact numbers who died in that "war," it seems to have been in the hundreds on each side. In one of the better known cases, the so-called "Siege of Imbaba," when part of the Cairo district of Imbaba known as al-Munira al-Gharbiyya had made itself virtually self-governing and was called "the Islamic Emirate of Imbaba, the government, beginning on December 8, 1992, surrounded the quarter with between 12,000 and 18,000 troops and gradually reduced it over several months. Thousands were arrested and there were widespread reports of torture, but the death toll was apparently much lower than last week.

It's true the parallels are inexact. Al-Gama‘a al-Islamiyya was smaller than the Brotherhood, and after a year in power, the Brotherhood supporters were able to arm themselves for resistance far better than the Gama‘a. And Imbaba was not located in such central locations as the Morsi demonstrations, and could be more readily sealed off. The high casualties however, create a new set of  "martyrs."

The government may not have sought such carnage; there is the old saw that one should never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence, and many victims were indeed provocateurs. But the high casualties make it even harder to avoid a civil conflict that could be much bloodier than that in the 1990s.

The Arabist: "It Only Gets Worse from Here."

Of the huge outpouring of commentary on today's events, some of the best and clearest analysis I've seen is from Essandr El Amrani at The Arabist: "It Only Gets Worse from Here."

I think he captures the zero-sum thinking we're seeing on both sides, in which neither side has really sought to find a middle ground. His analysis of the liberal predicament:

The fundamental flaw of the July 3 coup, and the reason those demonstrators that came out on June 30 against the Morsi administration were wrong to welcome it, is that it was based on an illusion. That illusion, at least among the liberal camp which is getting so much flak these days, was that even a partial return of the old army-led order could offer a chance to reboot the transition that took such a wrong turn after the fall of Hosni Mubarak on February 11, 2011. This camp believed that gradual reform, even of a much less ambitious nature than they desired in 2011, would be more likely to come by accommodating the old order than by allowing what they perceived as an arrangement between the military and the Islamists to continue. Better to focus on fixing the country, notably its economy, and preventing Morsi from sinking it altogether, and take the risk that part of the old order could come back.

In this vision, a gradual transformation of the country could take place while preserving political stability through the armed forces.  It would be negotiated and hard-fought, as so many democratic transitions in other parts of the world have been, but the old order would need the talent and competence of a new technocratic, and ultimately political, class to deliver and improve governance. Their hope was that the Islamists would understand that they had lost this round, and that they could be managed somehow while a new more liberal order emerged. This, in essence, was what Mohamed ElBaradei and other liberals bought into on July 3, no doubt earnestly, and what so many other outside of formal politics fervently hoped for: not the revolution radicals want, but a wiser, more tolerant, order in the country.

Unfortunately, among the broad liberal camp in Egypt, those who entertained such hopes are in a minority. Even among the National Salvation Front, as its obscene statement praising the police today showed, most appear to have relished the opportunity to crush the Muslim Brothers and appeared to believe that other Islamists could simply choose to be crushed alongside it, kowtow to the new order, or be pushed back into quietism. It appears that much of the business and traditional elite – represented politically by the Free Egyptians and the Wafd Party among others – falls into that category. They are joined by the security establishment, or deep state if you prefer.

 He doesn't excuse the Brotherhood:

An Islamist camp that, as elements of it are apparently beginning to, sets fire to churches and attacks police stations is one that becomes much easier to demonize domestically and internationally. But it is also much more unpredictable than Egypt's homegrown violent Islamist movements were in the 1980s and 1990s, because there is a context of a globalized jihadi movement that barely existed then, and because the region as a whole is turmoil and Egypt's borders are not nearly as well controlled as they were then (and today's Libya is a far less reliable neighbor than even the erratic Colonel Qadhafi was then.)  

In their strategy against the July 3 coup, the Brothers and their allies have relied on an implicit threat of violence or social breakdown (and the riling of their camp through sectarian discourse pitting the coup as a war on Islam, conveniently absolving themselves for their responsibility for a disastrous year) , combined with the notion of democratic legitimacy, i.e. that they were after all elected and that, even if popular, it was still a coup. On the latter argument, they may have gained some ground over time both at home and abroad. But on the former, they got things very, very wrong: their opponents will welcome their camp's rhetorical and actual violence, and use it to whitewash their own.

I think he nails it pretty well here, and the growing dangers come, of course, amid a collapsed economy and a vanishing tourism sector. It may indeed only get worse from here.

MB, Salafi Attacks on Churches Across Egypt at Unprecedented Levels

Muslim Brotherhood supporters and sympathizers are now openly attacking churches (as well as police stations), though unlike police stations, which are symbols of the state, the attacks on Christian sites have little obvious link to the events of today. From the Maspero Youth:

 The Maspero Youth Union operations center is monitoring the attacks on churches and Coptic property in 5 provinces.
Extremist groups from the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salfyeen, and Jama’a Islameya implemented their threats of attacking Christians and police departments in of the dispersion of the sit ins at Nahda in Giza and Raba’a eladaweya in Nasr City. Starting from early morning, these terrorists began attacking churches and Coptic property in the provinces of Minya, Fayoum, Al Suez, Luxor, and Sohag. The losses have been reported as follows: 

1: Attacking the bishopric of Sohag and the burning of St. George’s Church (which is a part of the bishopric), resulting in heavy losses due to the late arrival of the fire trucks.

2: The attack on the Monastery of St. Mary and Anba Abraam in the village of Delga, as well as the Monastery of Mowas in el Minya and the burning of three churches therein: St. Mary’s ancient church from the third century, St. George’s Church, St. Antony’s church and the attached services building, as well as the bishop’s headquarters.

3. The attack on the houses and stores of Christians in the village of Delga, where the robbing and burning of 20 houses and stores took place as well as the injury of 3 people with rubber bullets. The attacks continue in the absence of the police after the burning of the precinct in Delga. The house of the priest Angelos, the priest of St. Mary and Anba Abram’s church, was also burned.

4. The attack on St. Mina’s Church in the Abo Helal area and throwing of Molotov cocktails into the church, as well as the burning of the medical center associated with the church. A nearby church, Anba Moussa’s, was also defamed, as well as the burning of a nearby pharmacy owned by Dr. Nabil Qebty and a doctor’s office owned by Dr. Amir Fahmy.

5. The attack on a Baptist church in Beny Sweif in the province of El Minya.

6. The entire burning of St. Mary’s Church in the village of Nazla, a part of Joseph the Just’s Center in Fayoum.

7. The burning and destruction of the Monastery of Al Amir Tadros the Shetby, east of the village of Nazla, also a part of Joseph the Just’s Center. Homes and stores of Copts there were also attacked.

8. The attack on a St. Joseph’s School, which is run by nuns, in El Minya.

9. The attack and defamation of St. Tadros el Amir’s Church in El Minya, as well as the burning of the “golden boat”, which was part of a Protestant church in El Minya.

10. A Copt named Askandar Tos was shot and killed in the village of Delga, following the break in on his house.

11. Attacks on the stores and hotels owned by Copts in El Karnak Street and Cleopatra in Luxor, including the looting and destroying the Santa Clause chain of stores, the “Arkhashom lelglod” stores, the Moris Pharmacy, and Horus Hotel.

12. The defamation of St. George’s Church in El Wasty as well as the breaking of the windows of the office of the church’s priest.

13. The defamation of the Archangel Michael’s Church in Asyout without any losses.

14. The burning of a Greek church in Barades Street in El Suez.

15. The burning of Franciscan schools in the “Army Street” in El Suez. The Good Shepherd School which is run by nuns was also attacked, and some machinery was destroyed , but they were stopped by those living in the area.

16. The burning of the “Friends of the Bible” Organization in Al Fayoum, which is in front of the Mu’almeen club.

17. The complete burning of St. George’s Church in July 23rd Street in Al Areesh.

18. The attack on the bishopric and surrounding streets in Atfeeh.

This may be the largest number of concerted attacks on Copts and other Christians in modern times; somewhere between 17 and 21 churches and schools were reportedly burned today alone. Nor is this just "government propaganda":  some Brotherhood officials have openly justified attacks on churches. In Egypt's deepening divisions, the Copts find themselves in the crossfire.

The Twitter hashtag #EgyChurch is following the events.

Earlier, Muslims defending a church in Sohag against attack:

In better times

The same church today

About That Sama ElMasry Obama Video: Some Historical Context on Sama

The US image in Egypt has been going through rough times lately, partly through confused messages and the fact that many secular Egyptians still blame us for allegedly backing the Muslim Brotherhood.

But one rather extreme expression of secular Egyptian anti-Americanism has gone viral in Egypt and has made it into the American social media over the past week or so. Many of those who have picked it up are Americans to the political right who, like many on the Egyptian left, claim President Obama is pro-Muslim Brotherhood. The video, "starring" belly-dancer/personality/satirist Sama ElMasry, is crude, rude, offensive, slanderous, and more, so naturally it's gone viral. But it also is being spread by people who've never heard of Sama ElMasry (which was everybody till a year or so ago), who has self-promoted herself into celebrity status by her Anti-Brotherhood songs and dances on YouTube in the past year. I thought I owed it to those Americans who are seeing this out of context to put this entertainer and her shtick into some sort of context. First, though, the Obama video (offensive for plenty of reasons, and no, I don't share her views):



Okay, you probably get the idea: Sama ElMasry is not subtle in her satire. This is getting passed around in the US with captions like "the most bizarre anti-American video you'll ever see" and the like. But what most people on this side of the Atlantic don't know is who this lady (I use the word out of courtesy) is exactly.

Sama has shown up on this blog before, back in March of 2012, when I posted about her using one of the more memorable titles ever to appear in this space: Now, the "Nose-Job" Islamist MP and the Belly Dancer, and the Growing Islamist-Belly Dancer Axis. That, in turn, was inspired by an even better headline in the Egypt Independent: "'Nose Job' MP Files Complaint Against Belly Dancer Who Says She's His Wife."

The story was simply that ... well, actually, there was nothing simple about it:

Former MP Anwar al-Balkimy, who recently resigned from Parliament after covering up his nose job with a fabricated assassination attempt story, filed a complaint Monday against a belly dancer who claims he married her in secret.

In his complaint filed to the attorney general’s office, Balkimy took legal action against Sama al-Masry for the “false allegations,” which he said harmed his reputation as a member of Parliament and a religious preacher.

Earlier this month, the Salafi Nour Party suspended the Balkimy’s membership after investigators discovered he had lied about being the subject of an assassination attempt to cover up a nose job operation he had received at a private hospital.

 Nose jobs apparently being haram under the Nour Party's version of Salafi Islam.

Sama was described as an actress and belly-dancer in most of the publicity surrounding the case, but her career seems to have been stagnating a bit before that 15 minutes of fame. Since then, though, her celebrity has been growing.

As Mahmoud Salem (known in the blogosphere as Sandmonkey) later explained after she released her first satirical YouTube video some months after Muhammad Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood took power:

The 32 year-old El Masry was briefly a television news presenter before launching her career as a singer, actress and belly dancer. She released three songs, none of which was a hit, and acted in three films. But then she rose to fame this year when she was rumored to be the wife of Salafi MP Anwar Al Balkimy. Once a member of the ultra-conservative Al Nour party, Al Balkimy was forced to resign from his seat in parliament in the wake of a juicy scandal: He was discovered to have fabricated a story about a violent carjacking to explain away his heavily bandaged face, following a nose job at a private hospital. 

. . .Despite her vagueness regarding the relationship (El Masry confirmed she was married to an Islamist politician but never stated explicitly who he was), when Parliament was dissolved last summer, she went to the building and smashed pottery on the pavement in front of it. According to Egyptian tradition, the act of smashing pottery symbolizes the permanent sundering of a relationship. El Masry then disappeared from the news, until this song came out on YouTube.

Act Thuggish [the name of her first YouTube video] did not amuse the Islamists, but their responses varied. Brotherhood leaders Mohamed Al Beltagy and Mahmoud Ghozlan complained that the freedoms won in the revolution were being abused by the secularists in a dirty war against the Islamists, but refrained from proposing any punitive action against El Masry.

Salem's links to the video no longer work, but he explains the approach:

Last week Sama El Masry, a famous Egyptian belly dancer, uploaded a home-made video to YouTube; it shows her in a skin tight outfit, swinging her hips seductively to a song rife with anti-Muslim Brotherhood political innuendo. The sexy little number set the Egyptian social media and political worlds ablaze — but not only because it mocked the prudish Islamists with the double whammy of gyrating hips and no-holds-barred criticism of the Islamist party. In a bizarre twist that could only happen in post-revolutionary Egypt, the dancer was also famous for claiming to be the ex-wife of a Salafi member of parliament.

Titled "Act Thuggish," the song became an instant viral hit amongst anti-Islamist Egyptians. It openly mocks the Muslim Brotherhood party's failed Renaissance Project, a much-ballyhooed plan to "energize" Egyptian society. It also skewers Brotherhood heavyweights — like Khairat El-Shater and Essam El-Erian, vice chairman of President Morsi's Freedom and Justice Party.

Those unfamiliar with Egyptian politics might find the symbolism in the video a bit obscure, but for most Egyptians it is pure comedy gold. The opening lyrics are derived from chants that were heard at the October 12 anti-Muslim Brotherhood demonstration, called the Friday of Accountability; it ended with clashes between protestors and Muslim Brotherhood forces in Tahrir Square. Sama confirmed that the events of that Friday provided the inspiration for her song.

The entire video is replete with satirical images — like dancing with two meat cleavers, in a play on the Muslim Brotherhood's emblem, which features double scimitars crossed protectively over a Koran. Another section of the song is devoted to mangoes, a sendup of Morsi's boast about having kept his campaign promise to lower the price of fruit and other foods during his first 100 days as president.

Egypt’s vibrant and irreverent social media community loved the fact that this heavily satirical song was created and performed by a belly dancer. They immediately created an Arabic Twitter hashtag with tens of thousands of tweets in El Masry's name, with her online supporters hailing her as a symbol of the popular opposition and the revolution — a voice that spoke more clearly than most of Egypt’s secular politicians.

After that, she was off and running. Every month or so, sometimes more often, a new YouTube video went up, with Sama dancing and skewering Islamist politics, usually with references to current events, street humor, and with the sort of unsubtle and lewd (though rarely actually obscene) language seen in the Obama video. There is a fair amount of sexual innuendo, but she's never in a revealing costume and at times dances in niqab for effect. You can find many of the videos on YouTube, though unlike the Obama video most aren't subtitled in English, and even those skilled in Egyptian colloquial will miss many of the contemporary satirical jabs.

Thoughts for the Last Days of Ramadan: A Regional Tour d'Horizon

I have returned from vacation and of course, much has happened in my absence. In Islamic tradition, the last ten days of Ramadan are considered especially holy, a time for prayer and silent meditation, a time of special grace. As the Middle East approaches this year's ‘Id al-Fitr, it may be useful to pause and take a tour d'horizon of recent events. I'll post more on specific issues in coming days.

• The Israeli-Palestinian resumption of peace talks is good news for those of us who see no real alternative to a two-state solution. On the positive side, the sides are talking again, and addressing final status issues; the decision to defer the thorniest issues (Jerusalem, refugees, final borders) proved the fatal flaw of the Oslo process. Also positive is that the Arab League has reiterated its peace plan, assuring Israel of recognition by the entire Arab world. On the downside, Israeli settlements policy is already threatening the talks yet again,

• Hassan Rouhani has succeeded Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Though some (apparently misquoted) remarks attributed to him about Israel were not as encouraging a start as one might have hoped for, and of course the President doesn't make the nuclear decisions and this one is a cleric and a loyal son of the clerical regime, the transfer of power could offer an opportunity for some sort of breakthrough, or at least halt the efforts to go to war.

• It's an awkward time for US policy. Despite the successes Secretary Kerry had with Israel, and the Palestinians, US policy seems a bit uncertain. US Embassies and other missions are closed all week due to a terror threat. (Admittedly they'd be closed the latter half of the week for the ‘Id anyway. Egyptian secularists and liberals are more anti-American than they have ever been, and the few who aren't are being denounced as American stooges. US Ambassador Anne Patterson is unpopular in Egypt (though largely for reasons that aren't really justified) and is now moving to the post of Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs.

• Iraq is a mess. July was the deadliest day in Iraq for years, and communal violence remains deep and persistent. Yet the West largely ignores it, since the last foreign troops left. (After all, the invasion and occupation can't have played any role in the present mess, can they?)

• Just when things couldn't get worse in Syria, they seem to be getting worse. Regime forces are fighting their way back, retaking key parts of Homs and gearing up for Aleppo. Russia's open support for the Asad regime is possibly turning the tide. Wait, what happened to the West arming the rebels?

• And then there's Egypt. The military-backed regime seems to be reluctant to negotiate with the Muslim Brotherhood, despite US and European pressures to do so; the rhetoric of denouncing them as "terrorists" smacks of the Nasser and Mubarak eras, but then the Brotherhood shows no sign of settling for anything less than a full return of Morsi to power. The few liberals who have criticized both sides (mostly leftists and "third square" activists) get attacked as Brotherhood sympathizers, American agents, or maybe both. The good news: despite lots of threats, the weekend passed without a Tiananmen-style clearing of the Brotherhood encampments at Rabi‘a al-‘Adawiyya and in Giza. But even a military regime must be aware that such a potentially bloody move in the last days of Ramadan could backfire. But what happens after the ‘Id?

More thoughts soon as I get caught up on other business.

Al Arabiya: Preacher Says Angel Gabriel at Morsi Rally

I shouldn't even cite this, having recently called out Al Jazeera for bias, since its rival Al Arabiya tends to be as biased, but with an anti-Brotherhood tilt. But I can't resist. Al Arabiya has a headline: "Divine intervention? Angel Gabriel ‘spotted’ at pro-Mursi protest." The story doesn't fully live up to the headline as it involves someone having a vision:

Protesters in Cairo’s Rabia al-Adawiya Square believe they have seen the light.
In a show of support for Egypt’s ousted president Mohammed Mursi, a preacher giving a sermon at the Square this week told the crowds of a miracle.

In the speech, broadcast on Egyptian satellite channels, the preacher said the Angel Gabriel had been spotted among the crowds at the pro-Mursi Square.

Sheikh Ahmad Abdel Hadi, a Muslim Brotherhood preacher, addressed protestors saying: “Some good men in Madina Al-Munawara (in Saudi Arabia) told me of a vision in which Gabriel entered Rabia al-Adawiya’s mosque to keep people praying stationed in their positions.”

He added that there was another vision in which there was a gathering attended by Prophet Mohammed, Mursi and others. In the vision, when it was time for prayers, the people asked the prophet to head the prayers, but the propher asked Mursi to lead instead.

A Week After the Army Moved, the Army Speaks Softly, But Uses its Big Stick

This morning's Washington Post headlines emphasized the appointment of a Prime Minister and a Vice President in Egypt; other headlines around the world are emphasizing how the Public Prosecutor is going after senior Brotherhood figures, including the Supreme Guide. The emphasis seems to be on the civilian sector: President names a Prime Minister, Public Prosecutor (not the Army) charges the Supreme Guide. While General Sisi has not been completely invisible, but he's not exactly been at center stage, either.

Pay some attention to the uniformed men behind the curtain. The Egyptian Armed Forces may not have fought a war in nearly 40 years (except for a division-sized contribution to Desert Storm), but it is large and wields enormous influence in Egyptian society. Laura Dean at The New Republic scoffs at the idea of civil war, given the strength of the Army.

I agree that a full-scale civil war would be dampened down quickly by the Army and the equally potent Interior Ministry forces. But the profound polarization so many are noting, with the secularists acting as if the Brotherhood will now simply go away, is likely to mean that the Army will have to play a major role.

The irony is that the same secular liberals who were denouncing the battles at Mohammed Mahmoud Street and Maspero in 2011-2012, demanding the fall of SCAF, are again proclaiming that "the Army and the people are one hand." Maybe, but occasionally that hand turns into a fist, The fact that the transitional government is seeking to amend the 2012 constitution rather than replace it is  testimony to the fact that the Army (and the judiciary) plan to hold on to the perks they were given by the Brotherhood in that Constitution.  The Army is going to protect its own interests, first of all.

The efforts to dismantle the Brotherhood, despite initial rhetoric about working with all elements, suggest the Army may play rough at times. Besides closing the Brotherhood's TV stations and seeking to arrest its leaders (and Morsi's "preventive detention" by the Republican Guard, whose mission was to protect the President), raise some concerns, though again the Brotherhood's call for an uprising provides plenty of excuse. The Shura Council-appointed editors of Al-Ahram have now been replaced.

The Brotherhood proved arrogant and authoritarian. They have been replaced by the Army, which is sometimes arrogant and by nature authoritarian. The Army may, indeed, entrust power to a civilian government and oversee early elections. I hope so. But as Omar Robert Hamilton notes in the suitably titled "Selective Memories," many liberals seem to have already forgotten the events of less than two years ago.

Abdel Fattah Sisi is no Gamal Abdel Nasser, though he seems slightly more comfortable with public speaking than Field Marshal Tantawi did.

I hope that the insistence that this was a revolution, not a coup is borne out over time. But the next President should remember what the Caesars learned the hard way in Rome: if you rely on the Praetorian Guard to gain power, remember that they may tire of you in time.

The Ominous Nature of Today's Clashes

The deaths of at least 51 people in clashes between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian Army outside the Republican Guard Headquarters in Nasr City, combined with Brotherhood calls for an uprising, raise ominous prospects. The Salafi Nour Party,which had supported the military intervention, has withdrawn its cooperation, while the Sheikh al-Azhar has announced he is going into seclusion. Many liberal political figures are denouncing the violence.

The competing narratives are reminiscent of other clashes in other places. Each side says the other attacked; there are competing videos on YouTube. The delicate balance of the past five days, when the Brotherhood urged nonviolent protest, may be transformed by the call for an uprising. An Algerian-style civil war is still not necessarily likely, but the possibilities were increased by today's bloodshed.

It's time for the new interim government to be finally agreed upon and to start talks with as many elements as possible on a way forward. Further delays and shifting signals will leave the field to the Army and the Brotherhood, and perhaps many repeats of today's battle.

When is a Coup Not a Coup? Egypt on the Eve of Ramadan

The July 3 toppling of Muhammad Morsi in Egypt has predictably led to rolling clashes between supports of the deposed President and those who celebrate his departure. We've just had a four-day weekend in the US due to the Fourth of July falling on Thursday; I decided not to try to post through most of the holiday in order to allow my own thoughts to form more clearly.

What's clear is how much remains unclear. The confusion over the weekend over whether Mohamed ElBaradei was to become Prime Minister,or Vice President, or either is still murky; there have been many rumors about who is getting which jobs, with many distinguished names in play, but little certainty.

The US is seemingly unsure what to do. American law requires a cutoff of aid if there has been a military coup against a freely elected government. But US officials are carefully avoiding using the c-word, which would limit their freedom of action; the US has major strategic interests in Egypt, and with most of that aid going to the military, a cutoff of aid could lead to a radicalization of the Army which is holding most of the cards right now.

And I should mention that after this four-day weekend I found my email inbox full of over hundred (I stopped counting) messages from (ostensible) Egyptians all informing me, many in identical words and all in only three or four variant texts, that this was a revolution, not a coup. None of these were from anyone I knew, although a few purported to come from "the Egyptian people." If these folks think the US Administration will heed my advice, I'm flattered, but if they think spam-bombing Washington is the way lobbying works, they've got a lot to learn. Anyway, I got the message after the first dozen or so, I suspect that other Mideast hands got similar mail.

Was it a coup? Well, let me ask another question: was February 2011 a coup? We didn't generally call it that though it was the Army that sent Mubarak packing. But no one considered Mubarak freely elected (except perhaps Mubarak).

The tendency to see this as a simple case of polarization between the secular and the Islamists is complicated by the fact that the Nour Party, which is Salafi, has backed the coup (but may have blocked ElBaradei). But the arrests of Muslim Brotherhood leaders, and media closings, suggests an intention on the part of the new leadership to suppress the organization, which may not sit well with Nour.

And Ramadan starts at sundown. That may exacerbate tensions, especially among Islamists.

More thoughts are coming.