A State of Darkness Exists Between the U.S. and Egypt

In Latin, which we study in Egypt, that state is called "in tenebris."  That state is made up of two opposites: theory in America, reality in Egypt.  It also has an outer layer -a rim.  The American rim consists of a supposition that an American road map to a Jeffersonian democracy should be a yardstick measuring the developments in present-day Egypt.

Here is my response: throw away that yardstick; stick only to reality as it manifests itself in the facts on the ground in Egypt; then get rid of the so-called experts who are wasting everyone's time by calling Egypt, "a failed State."  In fact an interviewer of President Obama on TV channel 13 on August 28 described Egypt to the President as "a collapsed government."  To his credit, Obama stayed away from such characterization.

Here are some examples of theoretical constructs by American public opinion-molders that have no anchor in the cold facts:

• Bill Keller rightly says, "Egypt's fate is, and must be, in Egyptian hands."  But then he leaps, without more, to asserting that "there is a gloomy sense that Egypt may already be in a kind of death spiral."
• Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, whose Republican Party is threatening to shut down the U.S. Federal Government this October through defunding major programs, has this to say "Somebody needs to look El-Sisi in the eye and say: You're going to destroy Egypt; you're going to doom your country to a beggar State; you're going to create an insurgency for generations to come; turn around, General, before it's too late."  All that oppressive paternalism was screamed out by the Senator on the CBS News program "Face the Nation."
• A recent editorial in the New York Times (August 20, 2013) advocated "not to help the military, which is making things worse, and could fuel a generation of Islamists to choose militancy over the ballot box."
• Ross Douthat, an Op-Ed page contributor to the New York Times, looking down on the new Egypt from a perch higher than the Pyramids of Gaza, admonishes, "Let Our Client Go."  By client he means sovereign Egypt.  His unwise counsel is amplified as he states: "Client governments are never as tractable as their patrons in far-off capitals expect (meaning the U.S.A.), and great power that thinks it's buying influence is often buying its way into trouble instead."

The marshaling of theories shall have no effect on the realities of the Second Egyptian Revolution, which have ousted Morsi for good.  From the multitude of sources flowing to me from the Egyptian street, I see no "collapsed Government," no "death spiral," no "beggar State," and no "client" to patron relationships between Washington and Cairo.  These relationships are driven, not by hegemony, but by mutual national interest.

I can see only a mutiny by the Brotherhood against the will of millions of citizens who, with no recall mechanism in place, called for a halt to the radicalization of their country.  Yes, there has been a coup in Egypt.  But it was a "coup creep" by the Morsi regime against the populist achievements of the January 25, 2011 Revolution.

That Revolution was engineered, not by the Brotherhood, but by a broad coalition of people of all ages, Muslims and Christians, well-to-do and the homeless poor, literate and illiterate.  They came together declaring the unity between the Quran and the Bible, and hoisting the flags of Egypt on which was inscribed "We Love Egypt."  In Tahrir, they gave me that flag.  No Islamist flags were seen in Tahrir or elsewhere at that time, except after Morsi assumed power and abused his mandate.

On the slim shoulders of 50.50% of the electorate of 53 millions of whom 70% voted, the Morsi regime came.  A cartoon in the Egyptian press aptly assessed the meaning of that electoral result.  It showed two Egyptians sitting at a cafe with one of them telling the other: "The fact that General Shafiq (Morsi's opponent) lost does not mean that we love Morsi."

That cartoon expresses my feelings as I voted for Morsi in order to help Egypt escape another President from the military.  The Brotherhood saw it differently.  To them, the ballot box became the tip of the spear puncturing the balloon of hopes for an inclusive, secular and service-oriented regime.  Morsi failed them and they, on June 30, 2013, struck back with the help of the only other organized force -the military.  About that, there is no theory, but a fact-based reality.

I have expounded above on the theories in America.  I now turn to the reality of the danger, under Morsi, of the rise of an Islamic Emirate of Egypt.  I am invariably reading the lips of the Brotherhood through their writings.  It should be here noted that by the late 1980's, and within less than a decade of the assassination of President Sadat by the Islamists, Mubarak's Egypt began to see that "the Brotherhood and jihadist groups were in fact two sides of the same coin."  (Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, The Muslim Brotherhood (2013) (page 76).

In his book entitled, "Jihad is the Nation's Vocation," published in Arabic in 2003, a Brotherhood author by the name of Magdy Ahmed Hussein asserts the following: "This work is a contribution towards arming the Islamic movement inside as well as outside of Egypt with this ideology (jihad) which I regard as an ignored religious duty."  The author is a disciple of the departed Sayed Qutb who was correctly described in an issue of the Sunday New York Times Magazine as "the spiritual leader of Al-Qaeda."

The former Supreme Guide of the Brotherhood, Mehdi Akef, in a booklet entitled "Muslim Brotherhood Initiative: On the General Principles of Reform in Egypt" expresses his unbending belief in the Islamization of Egypt.  To him, that Islamization is the cornerstone of development as he points out: "We stand no chance of achieving development in any field of our life unless we return to our religion, apply our Shariah" (Islamic Law). p.8.

Well, for the past six decades, Egyptian Constitutions including the Constitution of December 2012 have provided for the inclusion of Sharia as "principal source of legislation."  That means that whatever is not textually prohibited by the Quran and the Sunna constitutes the vast domain of legislated law.  Akef abridged that domain in order to consist only of revealed law.  That is not what Islamic jurisprudence calls for.

The Brotherhood nemesis, Dr. Abdel-Moniem Abu El-Fotooh, also disagrees with his former Supreme Guide.  In his book in Arabic "Innovators not Spoilers" published in 2005, he attacks that destructive rigidity by saying: "Faith is lost between immobility and disbelief." (p.40).  He drives his point further home by quoting from the primary source of Islamic Law, the Quran, which in Chapter 43, verse 23, denigrates those who want to have the Muslims of today emulate their forefathers of 14 centuries ago.  The verse reads: "We found our fathers follow a certain religion, and we will certainly follow in their footsteps." (Translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali).  For his call to innovation and inclusiveness, Abu El-Fotooh, was jettisoned by the Brotherhood.  He ran for President, but did not make it to the run-off which produced Morsi.

It now looks that the suppression of that Brotherhood's mutiny, which extends to suspected dealings with jihadi movements, might have influenced Tunisia to declare on August 27 "The Sharia's Ansar -supporters," a terrorist organization.  Cairo's resort to curfews and to emergency measures promulgated under Law 162 (1958) may one day replicate the actions adopted by Tunisia.  There is no other effective way to suppress a mutiny and keep the country safe and functioning.  Any calls by the present government for a compromise, through inclusiveness, had one uniform response from the Brotherhood: No!!

The problem facing America's theoreticians is of two-folds.  On the one hand, they are challenged conceptually.  And on the other hand, they are challenged linguistically.  They do not read Arabic.  Thus they are unable to connect with the facts on the ground in Egypt.

What would have they learnt if only they could read the lingua franca of the one-third billion Arabs, including the Egyptians?  They would have learnt the following and more:

• that Khairat El-Shatter, the man behind the Brotherhood's throne, is a co-conspirator in attempting to split northern Egypt from southern Egypt.  The ancient Egyptians united Egypt.  Now, the present-day "ancient Muslims" are trying to divide it;
• that the criminal courts in Egypt have before them, among 62 detained Brotherhood members, a Salafi accused of throwing off a child to his death from the roof of a building in Alexandria while hoisting a Qaeda black flag.  The name of the alleged suspect is Mahmoud Hassan Ramadan;
• that the first Deputy of Muhammad Badie, the former Supreme Guide of the Brotherhood, has just issued an attack on the Brotherhood's conduct in Egypt.  His critique included: the Brotherhood's supreme arrogance; the unquestioned submission of its members to the dictates of the Guidance Bureau, and the stipulation that the entire social network of any member should be confined to the Brotherhood social circles; 
• that the New York Times Cairo reporter, David D. Kirkpatrick, has published in the paper's issue of August 30, 2013 falsehoods on the arrest on August 29 of Mohamed El-Beltagy, a Brotherhood leader.  The falsehoods in Kirkpatrick's reporting are at three levels:  He called that action "a continuing roundup of Brotherhood leaders;" he characterized El-Beltagy as "a former Brotherhood lawmaker considered a moderate within the group;" and he did not refer to the probable cause for which that fugitive was apprehended.  For now, El-Beltagy is facing the following charges in three cases: incitement to murder; participation in the abduction and torture of police officers; and aiding and abetting of acts of violence including engagements with the security forces using firearms.  I submit that such journalism contributes to the state of darkness which exists between the U.S. and Egypt.
• that the Brotherhood's newspaper "Freedom and Justice" has within its editorial policy a non-changeable theme: Hatred of the Arabism, exaltation of Islamism.  How can this be tolerable in a country which calls itself "The Arab Republic of Egypt?!"

These are the realities of post-Morsi Egypt.  

Again to a Latin adage: "Inter arma leges silent."(In time of war, the laws are silent).  It conforms to the Islamic jurisprudence of "dire necessity."  And to the British adage: "Circumstances Alter Cases."

The Decapitation of the Brotherhood: How the Sit-Ins Had Demolished Their Standing

Since 1928, their motto included these incantations:  "The Quran Is Our Constitution - And Dying for the Cause of God is Our Most Cherished Aspiration."  A motto expresses a belief.  In civilized societies, religious beliefs are personal, not communal, unless you are a member of that community.  Islamic law upholds respect for diversity of beliefs.  In fact it upholds the personal right to non-belief.  For it assigns the power of judging beliefs, not to another human being, but to the Creator.

This is the rock upon which the separation between state and religion rests.  It is a powerful instrument for social peace under legislated, not revealed, law.  In this principle, one can see the intersection of the U.S. Constitution and Sharia legal principles, progressively interpreted on the basis of their original sources.

It is in this critical area of matters of State, that the Brotherhood failed.  Herein lies the fault line in the way the Morsi regime governed Egypt for a year.  That year led to the upheaval of June 30, 2013 which took the form of a Second Egyptian Revolution.  The First Revolution was that of January 25, 2011 which toppled Mubarak, who is now released on bail from imprisonment.

The task of this blog is not propaganda.  It is, to the maximum extent possible, a weekly examination of ascertainable facts.  The evidence is based on specific declarations and documents, most of which is in Arabic. The goal is to inform, not to proselytize.  I have neither the time nor the inclination to do that.  Nor am I the spokesman of either the Egyptian Government, nor a vindictive hater of the Brotherhood.  I am my own paymaster, a teacher of law in both the U.S. and Egypt, and am privileged to be a dual citizen of both the U.S., my country of adoption, and Egypt, my country of birth.  My only aspiration is to continue being a bridge between the two cultures.  If I fail, it shall not be for lack of trying.  And if I succeed, the reward shall be limited to the deep satisfaction of having, in a small measure, revealed to the world of America and the world of Egypt (25% of all Arabs) to one another.

There is no escaping the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood, having ascended to power in Egypt in post-Mubarak Egypt, proceeded through Morsi, for whom I voted, to brutalize Egypt through a forced Brotherhoodization.  They have declared that "our rule shall last for 500 years,"  in the way Hitler has aspired to "a Reich of a thousand years."  To me, who withheld his vote from Shafiq, the military opponent of Morsi, I could see no deliverance from the Brotherhoodization except through the armed forces.  More than 30 millions, who engineered the Second Egyptian Revolution on June 30, called on General El-Sisi to act on behalf of secular Egypt.  There was no mechanism for recall.  In response, he did.

In its hour of national peril in 1958, France, an icon of democracy, called on General De Gaulle to topple the old and bring in a new republic.  Their call, not unlike that of the Egyptians in Tahrir, on June 30, was "L'armee au pouvoir."  Was that a French coup or was it a revolution?  I do not care about the semantics.  My commitment is to the substance.  De Gaulle saved France by ending French colonialism in Algeria.  As a result of being sent to Algeria during the war as a UN spokesman, I got hooked on the subject of colonialism which became my Ph.D.  thesis at New York University.  Furthermore, I acquired substantial field expertise in insurgency and counter-insurgency on which I lectured at NYU in the early 1970s to large classes of U.S. armed forces officers.

With my education being primarily based, not on books, but on field experiences in Algeria, Gaza, Yemen, Darfour and Iraq, I now turn to the Brotherhood sit-ins in Cairo.  Were those sit-ins at Rabaa or Al-Nahda squares "peaceful?"  They were not.

Here is a hypothetical drawn from an imaginary Brotherhood-like sit-in at Times Square, New York City -my city for 61 years.

Imagine a large crowd of American protesters invading Times Square, New York City. Their sit-in is accompanied by the erection of a brick wall across that Square, cutting traffic off, and causing shops, restaurants, theatres and hotels to shut down for days. They set up tents and eateries and field hospitals. The City's authorities then discover that arms are being smuggled in; pavements are broken to provide stones to be slung at the police; nobody is allowed to leave the encampments; and children are dressed in shrouds proclaiming: "For our President, we are ready to die!!"
 
As Americans, they are covered by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: "...the right of the people peaceably to assemble..." "Peaceably" is a condition. When negated, that right is denied to the protesters and their "freedom of speech" is "abridged."

What took place in the Cairo public squares, at the mosque of Rabyaa and Al-Nahdha, prior to their break-up on August 14 after one full month, is by all accounts a mirror image of that hypothetical about Times Square.

Yes --Morsi had breached his contract with Egypt during his 1-year tenure as elected president. Ruling in the mode of representative of the Brotherhood, not as president for all Egyptians, was a negation of his oath of office. Under his erratic rule, the Brotherhoodization of Egypt, a historically cosmopolitan country, became the national hallmark. Out of 27 provinces (he and I hail from the same province of Sharkia), no less than 13 such provinces had Muslim Brothers as their governers. Even Luxor, the capital of Egyptian tourism, suffered the indignity of a governor by the name of Mr. Al-Khayyat as its top executive. A popular firestorm then erupted forcing Morsi to seek his resignation. Al-Khayyat was not only a Salafi, an extremist movement to the right of the Brotherhood, but also had the blood of 59 tourists on his hands. They were mostly Swiss, Germans, Japanese, Americans, and Australians who perished at the great Valley of the Kings prior to the Morsi regime.

Since the overthrow of Mubarak, by the popular uprising of January 25, 2011, the Egyptian street found its voice. Since then "Streetocracy" became the vehicle of popular will. As in the case of the Berlin Wall which came down in 1990, the wall of fear from dictatorship in Egypt came down. Thus when Morsi, who was not even the first Brotherhood choice for presidential candidate, tried to convert Egypt into an Islamic state, millions of Egyptians screamed foul.  The decapitation of the Brotherhood, especially with the arrest of its Supreme Guide, Mohamed Badie on August 20, began with those sit-ins -a Brotherhood self-inflicted wound.

Badie's predecessor, Mahdi Akef, upon meeting him at the Brotherhood's HQ five years ago, began the conversation with me with his top advisors by: "Brother Yassin - Do you speak to the Jews?!"  My answer was crisp: "The Jews are my brothers and sisters.  And my wife is a devout American Catholic.  You see, my late father, a graduate of Al-Azhar University and a former professor of Islamic philosophy, provided me with a life road map as he bade me good-bye upon leaving Egypt as a Fulbright on my way by boat to America.  It was August 27, 1952, at a pier in Alexandria, when, wearing his Azhari turban, he pulled me aside and said: 'Son! Live as the Americans live.  It is the essence of Islam.'"

Compare this to what Mahdi Akef admonished in a little book entitled "Muslim Brotherhood Initiative: On the General Principles of Reform in Egypt."  On page 4, he defines reform in Egypt as the application of "Allah's Sharia (Islamic Legal Code) which is best for this world and the Hereafter."  Compare this Brotherhood call for Pax Islamica with Al-Azhar call in August, 2011 in a document of principles approved by the Coptic Church that "Islam does not recognize a State based solely on religion."  So as I teach "Islamic Law and Global Security"  at Fordham University School of Law, I adhere not the Akef interpretation of Islam, which is akin to Al-Qaeda's dogma, but to Al-Azhar's interpretation.  In fact "Allahu Akbar" means that we are equal before God regardless of our faith or of no faith.

Thus it is mystifying to find in the U.S. unrealistic calls for a compromise with the Brotherhood who have repeatedly rebuffed the calls of the present Egyptian Government for inclusion in the cabinet.  The Brotherhood's ideology is not anchored in identifying with Egypt.  Badie had declared, "To hell with Egypt!!"  They identify with what appears to me, as a  professor of law and politics, a mythical union with pan-Islamism -a recipe for disaster for Egypt where 25% of all Arabs reside.  Going underground has, for the past 80 years, been the Brotherhood modus-operand, which may lead to a full blown civil war.

There has been a lot of blood running alongside the River Nile.  A tragic spectacle for which all humanity should grieve.  There has been a lot of destruction of institutional Egypt especially Coptic Egypt.  I have documents from reliable Coptic church sources indicating that:  "No less than 73 churches and convents have been destroyed.  Private Coptic property has been either torched or vandalized including private homes, funeral homes, orphanages, bible schools, 75 shops, 15 pharmacies, 3 hotels and 58 church buses."  Unbelievable!!  If that is the Brotherhood's response to unseating Morsi, how could Egypt as a State not welcome the intervention of the army and the police?

In the light of these facts, it is obscene for Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina to recently lecture the Prime Minister of Egypt in Cairo by saying: "Mr. Prime Minister, it's pretty hard for you to lecture anyone on the Rule of Law."  Senator, I humbly suggest that your assumed expertise in ending gridlocks cannot work its magic in Cairo.  It may be more effective in solving the gridlock in the U.S. Congress.  Financial aid, Senator Graham, does not nullify sovereignties.  From my study of imperialism, I learnt that amity between nations is primarily built on mutual respect.

Your proposed sanctions, Senator Graham, may inflict wounds primarily on the dignity of Egypt, wounds which may not quickly heal.  Egypt's present fight against terrorism in Sinai and the interior are also America's cause.  And please, Senator Graham, you don't have to listen to me.  Listen to Israel whose leaders are now assessing the Egyptian crisis in these practical terms: "Either the army or anarchy!!"  The Israelis are geographically much closer to the scene in Egypt than you, Sir, in "the sovereign State of South Carolina!!"  

And you may have noticed, Senator Graham, that for Egypt, there is now an Arab Marshall Plan in the making, led by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Emirates.  Senator, through your and other high-level American utterances and threats, a perception, perhaps faulty, has taken hold in Egypt.  The general belief is that the U.S. is, for some incomprehensible reasons, enamored with the Brotherhood.  The anti-Brotherhood forces, opposed to political Islam, both inside Egypt and outside, are striking to roll it back.  From my lookout, I believe that the future belong to them, not to the Brotherhood.

The Abuse of Language as a Means to Sordid Ends

We need a new vocabulary to place the Second Egyptian Revolution in its proper context.  A lot of verbiage has been produced especially by the opponents of a secular Egypt.  Their language is a mere cover-up to a sordid end.  Their end is the resurrection of the Islamist regime of Mohamed Morsi and the marginalization of more than half of the Egyptian electorate who rose up against it on June 30.  Words are power, and power should be invoked in support of the popular will.  That popular will has been manifested in Tahrir, and the armed forces, under General El-Sisi, have appropriately responded to its call.

The examples on the abuse of language as a means to attack the legitimacy of the Second Egyptian Revolution are legion.  Herein below, I shall present the abused language, and follow up by providing the near universal consensual meaning.  The purpose is to pierce the veil of linguistic obfuscation through the presentation of selected examples.

• The sit-ins at several locations in Cairo are a legitimate peaceful exercise of the right to assembly:

Not so.  Your sit-ins in Rabaa and Nahdha and other central locations have proved to be armed guerrilla camps.  You have stored weapons smuggled in to you by your cohorts inside and outside of Egypt, especially by Hamas.  You have besieged the  residences of the peaceful inhabitants of the sit-in areas; broken and entered those homes to use those buildings as lookouts and sniper positions.

You have also set-up tents and vendor locations for the purpose of endless criminal trespass; built up  veritable walls to block access to public streets; committed acts of torture against whomever came within your perimeters with an opposite message; stored materiel for Molotov cocktails for use against the power of the State, including its use of the army and the police; and you have cut down trees and destroyed pavements for use as a stone-throwing weaponry in your armed confrontations with Egypt of June 30.

Your actions have to do neither with the constitutional right to peaceful assembly, nor with the freedom of speech in the new Egypt.  In spite of the language you use, you represent a rebellion against secular Egypt.  Whoever condones using children as human shields, as you have been doing, is committing a war crime. 

• The calls for raising the flag of "Allahu-Akbar" are appropriate for the replacement of the flag of Egypt

Really?  Your pan-Islamism has no real roots in Egypt.  No Islamist flag was ever raised in Tahrir during the January 25, 2011 Revolution whose rightful authors were the youth, both Muslims and Copts.  You came late for that uprising against the secular dictatorship of Mubarak and then, through the ballot box, assumed its leadership.  But leadership to where?  To an Islamic totalitarianism which was thrown out on July 3, 2013.  That was because Morsi had violated his contract with the new Egypt.

And guess what?  Under Islamic jurisprudence, Allahu-Akbar does not mean what you presume it to mean.  You use it as a battle cry.  But from a Sharia perspective it means that all human beings, of whatever faith, are equal before God.  So if you wish to act on the sermon of Sheikh Ahmed Amer in which he said: "The flag of Egypt should be burnt and replaced by a flag proclaiming Allahu Akbar," you shall be proclaiming that you are no longer a part of the Egyptian body politic.

Many of you greeted the seditious call by Ahmed Amer for the destruction of the national flag, by chanting "Allahu Akbar."  You have thus subverted the lofty call for universalism implicit in "Allahu Akbar" for the sordid end of wiping out the identity of Egypt as a State.  If you wish for an Al-Qaeda flag,  you shall not find it in the land of the Nile.  Under your ideology, nationalism and Arabism are not values worthy of your respect.  You have placed pan-Islamism, as a political tool, above all else.  Your downgrading of Arabism and nationalism is intended to deny that those terms afford, among other things, full protection and equality to minorities, including the Copts.

• Those who lost their lives in confrontations with the army and the police, as of the ouster of Morsi, are "martyrs" (shaheed).

We bow our heads in prayer and in grief for them.  They were victims of your manipulation of the term "legitimacy" (Shariyah).   Your leadership pushed those victims to that horrific fate.  But as we all grieve for that senseless human loss, we have to correct your abuse of the definition of "shaheed." 

Islamic law defines "a martyr" as a person who lost his or her life while pursuing the legitimate causes of defending the homeland against outside aggression, and fending for oneself against an attack on person, household or property.  Shahadah (martyrdom) in Islamic jurisprudence is primarily a defensive mechanism.  Thus the shaheeds are those army and police personnel whose lives were lost battling you for the defense of Egypt.

With a heavy heart, we have to note that your supporters lost their lives while threatening and/or aggressing against the security of the Egyptian street and the peace of Egypt which is guaranteed by the armed forces.  Warnings to you to disband and to allow Egypt to recover were, over a six-week period, repeatedly flouted by you.  Those victims, led by you to their tragic fate, were duped by your calls "For Morsi and Islam we sacrifice ourselves."  An ugly means to an autocratic end.

In this regard, you became no different from suicide bombers who mistakenly think that the killing of innocent civilians, whether on 9/11 or on the streets of Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan or Yemen, is a passport to paradise.  Islam does not condone self-sacrifice.

• Efforts to return Morsi to the presidential palace, through your mutiny against secular Egypt, are your form of worship to be rewarded in the after-life.

This is a canonization of Morsi and his elevation to sainthood.  Your belief in a theocracy on the banks of the Nile magnifies your disconnect with the character, the psyche, and the national identity of Egypt as a State of diversity.  An important reason for the collapse of your Islamist regime is that you have not understood the Egyptian public.

Voting for you in the parliamentary and presidential elections was, to a substantial extent, a vote for relief from 60 years of military rule.  The Brotherhood has never before been tried as a government for Egypt.  Egyptian cabinets before 1952 included ministers and cabinet advisers who were Copts, Armenians, Jews, French, Greeks and British.  A true diversity and a modern cosmopolitanism.  That is why Egypt before 1952 was a story of success, before it gradually descended to the level of pre-disintegration under secular military dictatorship, ushered in by Nasser.

• Solidarity with the aspirations to the creation of a Palestinian State in the West Bank and Gaza should be pursued, among other measures, through collaboration with Hamas

But Hamas is at war with both the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and with Israel.  Egypt, as a State, voted repeatedly at the UN, for a "Palestine," while Hamas spurned all Egyptian and other mediation efforts for reconciliation with the Abbas regime.  The failure of efforts to forge Palestinian unity has hampered the Palestinian objective of statehood and has in part thwarted all moves towards an Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Yet the Morsi regime cuddled Hamas (the acronym for the Movement of Islamic Resistance) which is looked upon as a Brotherhood affiliate.  In an effort to break the Israeli blockade, Hamas has tunnelled into Sinai for the purpose of smuggling arms, fuel, drugs and food stuffs.  This tunnel invasion also brought into Sinai jihadi elements for the double purpose of waging guerrilla warfare against Israel, and of harassing, together with the Bedouins, Egyptians security personnel.  You seem to forget that the Egypt/Israel peace treaty of 1979, forged under the sponsorship of U.S. President Jimmy Carter, restored Sinai to Egypt.  The Islamist response to that Egyptian achievement was to assassinate the President of Egypt -Anwar Sadat in 1981.

With hit and run war going on in Sinai, an internal Islamist mutiny in Egypt's urban centers, the Egyptian army and police were facing intolerable security threats on two fronts.  Their moves to clear the so-called "peaceful" sit-ins in Cairo as of August 14 could not have been undertaken during the Morsi Islamist regime.  The mutinous Brotherhood declared that the attacks in Sinai and the rebellion in the interior would stop "the instant" Morsi is re-instated -a clear inculpation of the Brotherhood in the Islamization of Egypt at the intolerable cost of sacrificing territorial integrity.

Your support of Palestinian rights, through abetting your proxy, Hamas, was not only an incredible foreign policy contradiction.  It also amounted to high treason against the State (Egypt) to whom Morsi, in his Oath of Office, had pledged to put its interest above all else.  He has violated that Oath.

Your language is not only double talk.  It is transparent linguistic acrobatics intended to lead Egypt to a sordid end.  Islam is a revered faith.  But the Brotherhood is an ideology whose space in this age of globalization and inter-faith communication is shrinking.  Unfortunately, you are far behind the 21st Century.  You may still catch up with the world of today -Renounce violence and stop trading in Islam as if it were a political commodity.  For faith of every stripe, is personal, as Islam itself instructs us.

With Regard to the Second Egyptian Revolution of June 30, The U.S. Should Speak Softly and Carry No Sticks

With apologies to President Teddy Roosevelt who admonished: “Speak softly and carry a big stick!!”  Mr. President, Sir, allow me as an Egyptian American (I am of dual nationalities) to modify your saying.  With regard to the Second Egyptian Revolution of June 30, it is of mutual interest for both Cairo and Washington, that the U.S. refrains from shouting at the Egyptian transitional government.  First: It will have no effect; Second: it is none of the U.S. business; and Third: It gives the pro-Morsi forces some false hope that their man should be given a second chance.  Nonsense!!

As to the “no effect factor,” see the book by Andrew Bacevich: The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (2010).  The same thesis is reflected, though in a different way, in the recent book by Richard Haas, the current president of the Council on Foreign Relations.  Under the title of Foreign Policy Begins at Home: The Case for Putting America’s House in Order (2013), Haas concludes as follows: “Either the United States will put its house in order and refocus what it does abroad, or it will increasingly find itself at the mercy of what happens beyond its borders and beyond its control.”  Well said, Mr. Haas.

With regard to the “none of the U.S. business” factor, I begin by the obvious: the sovereignties of nations, large or small, are co-equal.  Malta, whose population is less than the number of tenants in the complex where I live in Manhattan, has the same degree of sovereignty as that of China.  Why?  Sovereignty, in legal and political terms, is not measured by power and influence.  It is inherent in a well-defined population within recognizable borders.

Thus Egypt and the U.S. enjoy, each respectively, co-equal sovereignty, No dictat and no Pax-Americana.  From my focus on decolonization, both as an academic and a former U.N. Principal Political Officer in charge of the Africa Division, I have always appreciated two essential values in U.S. politics: support for liberation movements, and the general adherence to Washington’s advice: “No entangling alliances.”

One might say: “But the U.S. provides Egypt with $1.5 billion in annual aid since 1973.  Shouldn’t Washington have at least some say in the Egyptian sector of the Arab Spring?”  A fair question; but a wrong premise. For starters, Egyptian sovereignty is not for sale.  Waving the stick of withholding that aid would be very short-sighted.  That aid, most of which is spent in the U.S. on military equipment and training, is an integral part of the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty of 1979. An Egyptian President, Sadat, gave his life at the hands of Islamists, for that peace.  Playing that card would be tantamount to the possible unraveling of that Treaty which is guaranteed by the U.S.

Note also that the Peace Treaty of 1979 is, in part, a factor in the security chaos in Sinai against which Egypt’s armed forces and other security elements are battling.  It has restricted the volume and the quality of the tactical armed strength on the Gaza/Sinai borders.  Area “G” of Sinai has become a veritable ware zone.  In that war, where the so-called jihadists, together with Hamas and other marauding terrorist elements, including some Sinai Bedouins, Egypt is daily shedding blood.  You cannot put value on human blood.

I stated above a third factor.  The U.S. is perceived to be giving, through utterances by Secretary Kerry, Secretary Hagel, and congressional leaders, some hope in the resurrection of the Morsi reign.  This is wrong, counter-productive, and cannot be politically or strategically sound.  When I teach political science or law, I begin by defining politics as “the art of the possible.”  The chance of a Morsi come back is a mid-summer dream.  The culture of “no second chance” in a revolutionary context stands in the way of the Muslim Brotherhood.

A second chance might be acceptable in a peaceful American political culture.  Witness the “comeback kid” phenomenon in the case of Bill Clinton, and in the attempts at similar feats by former New York Governor Spitzer, and former Congressman Weiner.  There is a chasm of 6000 miles between “a comeback” tolerance in the American culture, and “a comeback” utter rejection in the culture of the Egyptian Second Revolution.  That geographic distance between Washington D.C. and Cairo has greater vertical depth: the way the Islamist regime has mismanaged Egypt during one very very long year to which the majority of Egyptians put an end in Tahrir on June 30.

Let us now tackle the issue of “Islamic mismanagement in Egypt” from June 30, 2012 to June 30, 2013 –when the armed forces, though engaged in war in Sinai, came to the rescue of Egypt.  My sources are many, and my evidence is drawn from largely Egyptian voices.

I begin by Dr. Abdel-Monium Abu-Elfotooh, who was pushed out of the Muslim Brotherhood.  His views were those of reforming that historic organization which had suffered brutal suppression as of 1948.  In 1948, its founder Hassan El-Banna was assassinated by the regime of Ilbahim Abdel-Hadi.  The predecessor of Abdel-Hadi, Prime Minister Al-Nokrashi, had been killed in 1947 by the “Secret Wing” of the Muslim Brotherhood.  One of my several sources is in his book: “Innovators, Not Spoilers” (in Arabic, 2005).  That book by Abul-Elfotooh, which was published while he was a member of “The Guidance Bureau” of the Brotherhood, included his responses to a press interview.  On p. 103, he speaks the language of the 21^st century.

Abul-Fotooh told his interviewer (my translation): “I am fully supportive of the freedom of expression, including the freedom of apostasy (ilhad).  The Brotherhood is against all forms of exclusion, prohibitions or restraints on freedoms.  The Brotherhood is for a secular State not a religious State.  They do not reject a president for the Arab Republic of Egypt, even if that president was a Christian.  They do not condone anyone who pretends to speak in the name of the Almighty Allah (God).  The Brotherhood has no monopoly on Islam.”

Before the presidential run-off of Morsi vs. Shafik, I gave Abdul-Fotooh, as a presidential candidate, my vote.  He spoke my language.  He also seemed to anticipate my conclusions in the book on which I am working now for publication in New York to counter Islamophobia.  The title of this forthcoming book: “Sharia Legal Principles for the Twenty-First Century.”  I am dedicating that work to my late father, Sheikh El-Sayed Muhammad El-Ayouty, a graduate of Al-Azhar who taught Islamic philosophy and history.

My forthcoming book is also dedicated to the late Gamal El-Banna, who, though a brother of Hassan El-Banna, was kept by the clumsy conservatives of the Brotherhood, at arm’s length.  Gamal, the younger brother, espoused in several of his sources which he had gifted to m, the principle of “diversity” in Islam.  (I once carried his bags at the Geneva Airport).

One of his many books is entitled “Islam Is Faith and Community (ummah), Not Faith and a State.” (January, 2003).  He rebuts ten years earlier than the chants of the pro-Morsi crowds in Cairo for “a Caliphate” which arose as of 2013 following the collapse of the Morsi regime.  That chant was repeated on July 3 by El-Zawahri, Bin Laden's successor.  It was in the context of a threat addressed by that evil man against Obama.

On the dust jacket of that book by Gamal El-Banna, the author states that, “the Quran has addressed the Nation (Ummah) as a community of Muslims.  Nowhere does the Quran refer to a State.”  Then he defines the Ummah as “a diverse collectivity of mass organizations such as labor unions, political parties, charitable organizations, and civil society institutions.”

Within the two covers of that book by Gamal El-Banna, the central premise is "freedom of thought and expression is a sine qua non condition."  This is also a rebuttal to the thesis of Bernard Lewis especially in his book, “What Went Wrong:  The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East” (2012)

In effect, Gamal El-Banna is saying: “Professor Lewis: There is nothing wrong with Islam.  The wrong is with the thinking of the likes of the conservative wing of the Muslim Brotherhood.”  There is little doubt that handing the books by Bernard Lewis on Islam to US forces on their way to Afghanistan in 2002 could not have served the U.S. interest in reconciling with Islam in the aftermath of 9/11.

That colossal misunderstanding of Islam resulted from seeing that faith of 1.5 billion population through the prism of conservatives and so-called jihadis.  It is seeping through the present US assessment of the Second Egyptian Revolution.  Secretary of State Kerry, Secretary of Defense Hagel, US Ambassador to Cairo, Anne Patterson, are urging Cairo to release Morsi and to reach out to the Muslim Brotherhood.  The civilian and military leadership of the June 30 Revolution responded that the Brotherhood had rejected those overtures.  So far it has been a useless “dialogue of the deaf.” It it takes two to tango.

But we still also have unofficial US voices raising the proverbial stick.  Dennis Ross, former Middle East advisor to President Obama yells through the New York Times of July 30, that “the administration should make it clear that it has red lines that if crossed would result in a cutoff of aid.”  Then he goes on to suggest that the US “should enlist Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf emirates to pressure the generals.”  I wonder what Mr. Ross is smoking these days!!  He is presuming that these sovereign States are no more than US outposts in the Arab world.  And he also overlooks the political significance, though not the fact, that these are the very States which have just advanced $12 billion to Egypt.

Summing up the blessing by the Gulf States of the unseating of Morsi, Ambassador Bishara, the first Secondary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council wrote recently to me that: "No one ever thought of Egypt under a Mullah."

And there exists no “Faustian Pact: Between Generals and Democrats” in Egypt as claimed by Steven A. Cook, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in the title of his Op Ed page in the New York Times of July 26.  Such statements by Ross and Cook exemplify the disconnect between present day Egypt and the American foreign policy establishment.  A real shame!!. It was the founder of Saudi Arabia, the Bedouin King Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud who, when approached in the 1930s by the Muslim Brotherhood to allow for a branch of their movement in his Kingdom, refused.  His response was succinct: “Why? We are all brothers and we are all Muslims.”

Official reaction by Cairo to the characterization of the Second Egyptian Revolution as “the unraveling of Egypt” was swift.  Ahmed Al-Meslemani, the official spokesman of the Presidency declared: “Egypt is governed by the Egyptian House not by the White House.”

There were also unofficial voices raised in exasperation from what is perceived as US meddling in Egypt’s internal affairs.  A former dean of an Egyptian Law College told me on the phone: “If the Americans are enamored with the Muslim Brotherhood, they should give all of them visas –visas to Guantanamo.”

Owners of private micro-buses in Alexandria put up signs in the windshields of their vehicles: “No Muslim Brothers are allowed.  They cause fights to break out with ordinary passengers.”  Muhammad Al-Barghouthi, a journalist, wrote in the newspaper Al-Waltan, on July 30: “When it became clear that the political and moral legitimacy of the Brotherhood’s rule in Egypt was evaporating, the Brotherhood did nothing but cling to the results of the ballot box which brought them to power.”

Again to Abul-Fotooh’s book, “Innovators, Not Spoilers.” Here on page 113, he says while being a member of the Brotherhood's Guidance Bureau: “The Muslim Brotherhood has no experience in governance.  We are with whatever good they advanced, and against whatever mischief they perpetrated.  Don’t expect them to follow the example of the Taliban in forcing women to dress their bodies in tents, to destroy monuments or to ban music.”  That was before he was forced to quit the Brotherhood which embarked through the Morsi rule on just that perilous path.

So the U.S. should speak to the Second Egyptian Revolution softly and brandish no sanctions.  A distinguished Egyptian Ambassador, Dr. Mahmoud Karem, who is attached to the NATO Mission in Rome offered a sober counsel to both Egypt and the US.  In an article in English in Al-Abhram Weekly of July 9, 2013, entitled, "Cairo and Washington," he states in a conciliating tone: 

“We await a strong message from the U.S. anchored in strong ties of partnership with Egypt.  The U.S. inspiring constitution that leads with the well-known assertion ‘We the People’ should act as a harbinger for creating strong ties between both peoples.”

Ambassador Karem resorts to the U.S. Constitution as a possible ideological vehicle for a true Cairo-Washington rapprochement.  In that context, I, following his example, by resorting to U.S. laws anchored on the Constitution.  Therefore, I advance the following Q's and A's:

• Is occupancy by thousands of Morsi supporters of at least four main areas in Cairo for days "a peaceful demonstration?"

No!  The right to peaceful assembly is governed by three principles:  Time, Place and Manner.  Under US laws which underpinned the break-up of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement by the New York Police Department, the State acted on the basis of this tripod of legitimate freedom of assembly.  License to assemble is issued for a few hours, at a distance from buildings serving public or private functions, and without disturbing public peace and civilian activities.  Of course, no arms or threats of violence are permitted.  The sit-ins in Cairo have violated all the three parameters stated above.  They have become armed camps controlled by their organization.  The Egyptian authorities have the right and the obligation to put an end to that chaos.

•  Is the Egyptian Government entitled to marshal its armed and security forces to confront those who are abusing the right to freedom of assembly and of speech?

Of course.  There is chaos caused by the Brotherhood's hot-heads for the sole purpose of disenfranchising the 30+ millions of Egyptians who demanded Morsi's removal.  There is also a war in Sinai.  The Brotherhood have characterized the Egyptian Cabinet declaration of July 31 as "a declaration of war."  No reasonable person should support the shedding of blood of innocent civilians.  But the Islamist opposition, which is apparently armed for combat targeting the Second Egyptian Revolution by its own reaction to the call by the cabinet for the restoration of law and order, is inviting a lethal response.  This is a declaration of insurrection within Egyptian urban centers which is made more credible by the Brotherhood's declared support for the armed insurrection in Sinai.  A veritable civil war is in the making.  Let us recall that President Lincoln had to resort to the suspension of certain civil liberties under the Constitution as a means of keeping the Union together during the American Civil War.

• Are human rights organizations such as Amnesty International exercising their rightful global functions of enhancing the Rule of Law and the protection of civil liberties when they describe the warning by Cairo to the chaos-makers as "a recipe for bloodshed?"

Absolutely negative. 

Amnesty International is not a trustee over Egypt.  They have overstepped their moral and legal boundaries.  Theirs is an ill-advised characterization, thereby weakening their standing in Egypt, not to mention tarnishing the concepts of detachment and neutrality of other human rights organizations.  They are out of sync with the popular will manifested by the Second Egyptian Revolution.  Their scales and measurements are in sore need of adjustment by competent  professionals who know how to balance between civil liberties and national security.  Amnesty International could benefit from reading the transcripts of hearings held earlier this week by the US Senate Judicial Committee on the work of the National Security Agency.  That organization might also benefit by Secretary Kerry's statement on August 1 in Pakistan.  He declared that Egypt's military was restoring democracy in ousting Morsi.  His premise was that the "military was asked to intervene by millions and millions of people."   

At last, the U.S. is now speaking softly to the Second Egyptian Revolution.