Hamas is an Arabic acronym for "The Movement of Islamic Resistance." Misr is the Arabic word for Egypt. The incompatibility between Hamas and Egypt is multi-sided: Hamas is a renegade movement; Egypt is a historic entity. Hamas, since June 2007, is a sworn enemy of the Palestinian Authority based on the West Bank; Egypt is a unitary State since its unification 5000 years ago. Hamas is, since December 9, 1987, a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt; Egypt has followed the Al-Azhar principle that "Islam does not recognize a State based solely on religion."
Let us now start by excavating the ideology gap between Hamas and Egypt with regard to peace between Israel and the Arabs.
Hamas articulates Palestinian aspirations to statehood into strictly religious, not nationalist terms. In its charter of 1988, it declares: "In the struggle against the Jewish occupation of Palestine, the banner of Jihad must be raised." In its leaflet of October 5, 1988, Hamas declares: "We shall continue the uprising on the road to the liberation of our whole land from the contamination of the Jews, with the help of God."
By contrast, Egypt has concluded a peace treaty with Israel in March 1979. At no time of its history has Egypt ever reneged on an international treaty; the examples of 1951 and 1956 notwithstanding. In 1951, Nahas Posha, as Prime Minister and Chairman of the secular Wafd Party, declared in Parliament that the 1936 treaty with Great Britain was null and void. He declared that Egypt, through him, had signed that treaty "under duress" -referring to the pressures of the British occupation (from 1882 to 1954).
In 1956, Nasser declared the nationalization of the Suez Canal Company in order to fund the construction of the Aswan Dam, following the withholding of western funding. Mind you that, contrary to western writings, it was "the Company" which was nationalized, not the Canal itself. A State cannot nationalize what it possesses as sovereign territory. And all stakeholders in the Company were compensated despite the aggression against Egypt by France, the UK and Israel in 1956.
How about the diplomatic gap between Hamas and Egypt, at both the universal level and the regional level?
Through UN Security Council resolution 242 (1967), the whole world has rendered a consensus on the way out from the Palestinian Israeli impasse. But Hamas rejects UN decision-making altogether. Ironically, it accepts UN and other charitable contributions. In its communique No. 33, of December 23, 1988, Hamas thumbs its nose at the international community. It foolishly declares: "Do not head the UN Resolutions which try to accord the Zionist entity (meaning Israel) legitimacy over any part of the soil of Palestine ... for it is the property of the Islamic nation and not of the UN."
The Islamic nation? Under Islamic jurisprudence, whose primary sources are the Quran and the Sunna, Muslims are referred to as "Umma" -meaning "community of faith" not "a nation" connoting "a State."
This is while Egypt, where the League of Arab States maintains its headquarters, is a supporter of that UN Security resolution (which in part resulted from unacceptable adventurism by the Nasser regime. That regime had insisted on the withdrawal of the UN peace-keepers from Sinai).
We also have the Arab initiative of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to which all 22 Arab States (including the yet-to-be born State of Palestine) have agreed. The core of that historic initiative is striving for mutually-agreeable territorial withdraws with the full quid pro quo of recognition of Israel by all members of the League of Arab States. Hamas is in rebellion against that consensus. But ironically it claims to have "strategic depth" in the Arab world -a depth which only exists in its stunted imagination.
As we look now at yet another gap among others not herein cited, between Hamas and Egypt, we cannot escape the Islamic jurisprudential gap between Gaza and Cairo. Our focus here is on the concept of "Jihad."
Succinctly put, Hamas, though it calls itself "Islamic," does not practice what it preaches. In Sharia, jihad has dual domains: internal -fighting against one's own inner destructive urges; and external -fighting defensively and proportionately against aggression from the outside. Nowhere in the 27 Quranic verses on jihad do I find the Hamas interpretation of that overly-used and universally-abused term. Herein exists a major legal dilemma for Hamas on that front.
In his seminal book in Arabic, entitled "Al-Jihad," the late Islamic scholar, Gamal Al-Banna, a younger brother of Hassan Al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood (Hamas' mother) tackles that misconception. On page 7, he states:
"It is important to note the confusion between jihad and war-like combat. The danger of that confusion extends to the attempt to islamize the world... This should be regarded as a dangerous trend which opens the door to belittle the freedom of faith held by non-Muslim parties. It thrusts us Muslims into the dungeons of extremism and the raging hurricanes which attend it." (my translation)
Where is Egypt from that extremism? As far away as possible. And where would Egypt find its Coptic Church, established 200 years by its Alexandria citizen, St. Mark, hence the historic title of "the Pope of Alexandria." Under attack by Hamas-like marauders. In addition, where are the Christians of Palestine in the Islamic Emirate of Gaza, led by Hamas? And what is the position of Jerusalem which is revered by the Jews, Christians and Muslims? Hamas has no rational explanation. How can the Hamas extremist dogma of "the soil of Palestine... is the property of the Islamic nation," be reconciled with those undeniable historical facts on the ground? Totally irreconcilable.
Well, Egypt shares no part in that Hamas iron-clad ideology. It is interesting to note that Egypt as it tries to revive its tourism industry, announces in its brochures under the title of "Egypt Today:" "The Egyptian people have suffered under several waves of invasions, but have never been broken. Their talent is in flexibility and thinking up novel solutions to problems." (Booklet in English entitled "Luxor-Egypt," page 50).
For Hamas to try to bring Morsi of the Brotherhood back to power is like an ant trying to move the Giza pyramids. Its resort to terrorism, either directly or indirectly, especially in Sinai, shall not be soon forgotten or forgiven by the Egyptian Second Revolution of June 30. The free ride of Hamas via the Brotherhood bus is over. End of the line!! The Egyptian backlash has begun to gradually shrink the so-called "Islamists" not only inside MISR, but also beyond it from Jordan to Gaza to Tunisia.
The "Qassam Battalions," of Hamas, and its affiliate "The Supporters of Beit Al-Maqdis," have been implicated in the failed attempt to assassinate Egypt's Interior Minister in late August. Faced with the huge cohesive army of Egypt, these terrorist attacks shall only work for furthering the delegitimation of that renegade movement. Denials by Hamas of its involvement in Egypt's internal affairs are nothing but transparent obfuscation.
It was Abraham Lincoln who in 1858 coined the adage "Acts speak louder than words." Arab poetry and prose have for hundreds of years advocated the same. A Hamas leader by the name of Dr. Salah Al-Bardaweel unthinkingly declares on September 16 that "an eye witness has testified to Hamas that the Egyptian army has planted mines under its own checkpoints, and dug tunnels from the Egyptian Rafah side into Gaza." For good measure, he also hallucinated by adding: "The present Egyptian Government is trying to export Egyptian internal crisis to the besieged Gaza Strip." Really, Doctor?!! You are not a good liar, even by the standard of that Hamas specialty.
On September 13, Ismail Haniyah, "Prime Minister" of a Gaza "government" deposed by the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank, issued a message of assurances to Egypt. In it, he opines that "the resistance weapon is still raised in the direction of Israel. Haniyah has also recently declared that "Gaza is the first line of defense of Egypt," and that "the Palestinian question is the most important issue for Egypt."
Mr. Haniyah: You are far from reality on several counts: The first line of defense of Egypt is its reestablishment of its internal peace and economic viability; your side of the border has been, until recently, a conduit through hundreds of tunnels for smuggling into and from Egypt all kinds of contraband, including weapons; your jihadis have been infiltrated into Sinai to link up with other criminal elements with the objective of proclaiming "The Sinai Islamic Caliphate;" and the cause of legitimate Palestinian rights should be attained primarily through negotiations which you have condemned.
It is a pity that you still consider your visualization of the Palestinian future as unlinked to your reconciliation with Ramallah. So please, Mr. Haniyah, mind your own problems. But don't mess with MISR. Fighting terrorism in Egypt might take some time before it is at least contained.
The overwhelming majority of the Egyptian public shall not tire of its newly-minted refrain: "Our army: May God bless your hand!! You are the heroes of your land!!"
Friday, September 20, 2013
Monday, September 9, 2013
Through the Brotherhood's Scorched Earth Practices, a Cairo Paradise Becomes a Wasteland
Their so-called "peaceful sit-ins" in Cairo proved to have been arenas for the Brotherhood scorched earth practices. Their enclaves, dismantled by the army and the police on August 14, were later discovered to have been mutinous islands of destruction, desertification and iconic monuments elimination.
This blog is not an anti-Brotherhood propaganda. It serves as a factual antidote to their deceptive propaganda. A case in point is the tragedy of "Al-Orman Gardens" where the Brotherhood sit-ins of Al-Nahdha in Giza turned that historic paradise into a waste land. Al-Orman is truly a "Paradise Lost."
Testimony by Amre Rabee Raafat, Chief of the Central Management of Forestation testified as follows on September 3: "Al-Orman Gardens have suffered considerable devastation at the hands of the sit-in Brothers. These included the cutting down of rare historical imported trees; the theft of 500 ampules containing rare plants, 236 rare paintings of various species of plants; the disappearance of all furniture and computers; the destruction of all telephone and irrigation systems; irreparable damage to two historic pieces of museum-grade furniture donated by King Farouk to Al-Orman Gardens."
The barbarians had swept in under the false protective shield of "freedom of expression and of peaceful assembly." These freedoms were subverted by the Brotherhood, following the un-seating of President Morsi, into the freedom to punish historical Egypt. Its icons are not the Brotherhood icons. Their icons are over some mythical horizon outside of the borders of sovereign Egypt. Secular Egypt is not their fatherland. Their frontiers coincide and merge with Pan-Islamica.
The same Brotherhood hurricane of destruction did not spare places of worship, whether Islamic or Coptic. Their sit-ins at the Rabaa Mosque in Cairo resulted in deep scars in that historic place of worship. Again to the testimony of the authorities which are now engaged in emergency repairs of Rabaa which ironically gave its tormentors their "four-fingers" salute. The word "Rabaa" is close to the word in Arabic for "four" (Arbaa).
Mr. Tarik Muhammad Sayed is General Supervisor, Corps of Engineers, the Egyptian armed forces. He is in charge of the laborious and expensive process of repairing the extensive damage wrought by the Brotherhood's "peaceful sit-ins" on the Rabaa mosque. By the Brotherhood's hands, the beautiful Islamic mosaics, the marble inscriptions of Quranic verses, and the wooden carvings which would have been the envy of any internationally celebrated museum, were wiped out. Even the green areas surrounding Rabaa and featuring the historic fountain are now being resurrected. Nor was the Rabaa hospital spared the Brotherhood's scorched earth practices.
As to their respect for human life, there appears to be none. The more than a thousand killed in consequence of the Brotherhood's suicidal confrontations with the army and the police, represented a futile search for publicity through presumed martyrdom. As the leadership hid, fled or was detained, it kept on defying for six long weeks the warnings by the new authorities. The misguided rank and file, though armed but lightly, were the sacrificial lambs. While the Quran delegitimates death through self-destruction, the Brotherhood which exalts the Quran as their constitution, heavily engaged in it.
Yet Amr Darrag, senior official of the Brotherhood, bold-facedly announces to Al-Jazeera TV Network as recently as yesterday: "We reaffirm our peaceful approach, which is clear in all our protests." Give me a break, Mr. Darrag. Your hands are soaked in the blood of the innocent.
And in a country whose economy is in a free fall at present, the scorched earth policy and practices of the Brotherhood represent a dead-end effort to bring Egypt economically and financially to its knees. Their demonstrations at Bank Misr in Asslout Province, in upper Egypt, had a battle cry: "Save your skin by withdrawing your deposits." When Egypt fought for its freedom from the British in 1882, 1919, 1936, 1946, and 1951, poor peasant women donated their golden ornaments to assist the freedom effort. But that was Egypt which, only after 1948, saw in the Brotherhood a clear and present danger.
Is it now surprising that a preliminary recommendation by an Expert Committee of Egypt's Council of State calls for banning the Brotherhood again? That recommendation might acquire traction especially after the attempt of September 5 on the life of Egypt's Interior Minister, General Mohamed Ibrahim, through an Al-Qaeda-style car bombing. If that proposed ban is judicially-sanctioned, it shall be the Brotherhood's ban number 3. The first ban of the Brotherhood occurred in 1948 following the assassination of Judge Ahmed Al-Khazendar. That ban resulted in the assassination of Prime Minister Al-Naqrashi. That ban was judicially lifted during the Wafd Party regime in 1951.
Their ban #2 took place in 1954 following the Brotherhood's implication in the attempt on Nasser's life in Alexandria. That second ban was lifted in 1974 by President Sadat during the tenure of Prime Minister Mamdouh Salem. With the lifting of that ban, all Brotherhood's detainees were released and their property was returned to them. The lifting of that ban was conditional: they were permitted to function as a civic group without a license.
Since its inception, many have been the fluctuations of the fortunes of the Brotherhood over the past 85 years: from the pulpit of advocacy of Islam, to the delving into politics, alternating between grass roots mobilization and resort to armed violence. Finally, the Brotherhood reached its pinnacle through the assumption of power via the ballot box. Their mismanagement of governance led to the unseating of Morsi and the breakup of the so-called sit-ins in mid August.
Now, self-flagellation has begun. One of their opinion-molders, Mr. Hamza Zobaa declares in the Brotherhood's daily "Freedom and Justice": "We have fallen in the trap of excluding others from governing." Too little too late. In the liberal weekly "Akhbar El-Yom" of last Saturday, Ahmed Hashem says: "The Brotherhood's mask has fallen. That band of terrorists have committed crimes against Islam and innocent citizens." Another liberal weekly, "Rose El-Youssef," states under the by-line of its Editor-in-Chief, Issam Abdel-Aziz: "The Brotherhood has manifested its insanity through a desperate search for re-instating their fallen regime. They have forgotten the magical love for Egypt by the average Egyptian citizen. That average citizen could be Mustapha Ali, a warehouse worker who made his view known following the assassination attempt on the life of the Interior Minister: Referring to the Brotherhood, undoubtedly with its scorched earth practices in full view on Madinet Nassr, Mustepha Ali said: "These people would destroy Egypt."
An exaggeration? No!! Look at what happened early this month to a 1600-year-old Coptic monastery at Dalga, province of Minya, 160 miles south of Cairo. Speaking of that crime perpetrated by the hard-line Islamists, which engulfed the Coptic community of Dalga, Father Yoanns lamented: "The fire in the monastery burned for three days. The looting continued for a week." A tragic example of the Islamist scorched earth practices, which are their tool of choice.
The ouster of Morsi was not a mission for which the armed forces came to the fore on July 3. The ouster was the mission of 30 millions like Mustapha Ali who came out on June 30 to plead with the armed forces to save their beloved Egypt from the Brotherhood Then on July 26, more millions came out in the streets in response to a call by El-Sisi for public support for the Government action "against terrorism."
This blog is not an anti-Brotherhood propaganda. It serves as a factual antidote to their deceptive propaganda. A case in point is the tragedy of "Al-Orman Gardens" where the Brotherhood sit-ins of Al-Nahdha in Giza turned that historic paradise into a waste land. Al-Orman is truly a "Paradise Lost."
Testimony by Amre Rabee Raafat, Chief of the Central Management of Forestation testified as follows on September 3: "Al-Orman Gardens have suffered considerable devastation at the hands of the sit-in Brothers. These included the cutting down of rare historical imported trees; the theft of 500 ampules containing rare plants, 236 rare paintings of various species of plants; the disappearance of all furniture and computers; the destruction of all telephone and irrigation systems; irreparable damage to two historic pieces of museum-grade furniture donated by King Farouk to Al-Orman Gardens."
The barbarians had swept in under the false protective shield of "freedom of expression and of peaceful assembly." These freedoms were subverted by the Brotherhood, following the un-seating of President Morsi, into the freedom to punish historical Egypt. Its icons are not the Brotherhood icons. Their icons are over some mythical horizon outside of the borders of sovereign Egypt. Secular Egypt is not their fatherland. Their frontiers coincide and merge with Pan-Islamica.
The same Brotherhood hurricane of destruction did not spare places of worship, whether Islamic or Coptic. Their sit-ins at the Rabaa Mosque in Cairo resulted in deep scars in that historic place of worship. Again to the testimony of the authorities which are now engaged in emergency repairs of Rabaa which ironically gave its tormentors their "four-fingers" salute. The word "Rabaa" is close to the word in Arabic for "four" (Arbaa).
Mr. Tarik Muhammad Sayed is General Supervisor, Corps of Engineers, the Egyptian armed forces. He is in charge of the laborious and expensive process of repairing the extensive damage wrought by the Brotherhood's "peaceful sit-ins" on the Rabaa mosque. By the Brotherhood's hands, the beautiful Islamic mosaics, the marble inscriptions of Quranic verses, and the wooden carvings which would have been the envy of any internationally celebrated museum, were wiped out. Even the green areas surrounding Rabaa and featuring the historic fountain are now being resurrected. Nor was the Rabaa hospital spared the Brotherhood's scorched earth practices.
As to their respect for human life, there appears to be none. The more than a thousand killed in consequence of the Brotherhood's suicidal confrontations with the army and the police, represented a futile search for publicity through presumed martyrdom. As the leadership hid, fled or was detained, it kept on defying for six long weeks the warnings by the new authorities. The misguided rank and file, though armed but lightly, were the sacrificial lambs. While the Quran delegitimates death through self-destruction, the Brotherhood which exalts the Quran as their constitution, heavily engaged in it.
Yet Amr Darrag, senior official of the Brotherhood, bold-facedly announces to Al-Jazeera TV Network as recently as yesterday: "We reaffirm our peaceful approach, which is clear in all our protests." Give me a break, Mr. Darrag. Your hands are soaked in the blood of the innocent.
And in a country whose economy is in a free fall at present, the scorched earth policy and practices of the Brotherhood represent a dead-end effort to bring Egypt economically and financially to its knees. Their demonstrations at Bank Misr in Asslout Province, in upper Egypt, had a battle cry: "Save your skin by withdrawing your deposits." When Egypt fought for its freedom from the British in 1882, 1919, 1936, 1946, and 1951, poor peasant women donated their golden ornaments to assist the freedom effort. But that was Egypt which, only after 1948, saw in the Brotherhood a clear and present danger.
Is it now surprising that a preliminary recommendation by an Expert Committee of Egypt's Council of State calls for banning the Brotherhood again? That recommendation might acquire traction especially after the attempt of September 5 on the life of Egypt's Interior Minister, General Mohamed Ibrahim, through an Al-Qaeda-style car bombing. If that proposed ban is judicially-sanctioned, it shall be the Brotherhood's ban number 3. The first ban of the Brotherhood occurred in 1948 following the assassination of Judge Ahmed Al-Khazendar. That ban resulted in the assassination of Prime Minister Al-Naqrashi. That ban was judicially lifted during the Wafd Party regime in 1951.
Their ban #2 took place in 1954 following the Brotherhood's implication in the attempt on Nasser's life in Alexandria. That second ban was lifted in 1974 by President Sadat during the tenure of Prime Minister Mamdouh Salem. With the lifting of that ban, all Brotherhood's detainees were released and their property was returned to them. The lifting of that ban was conditional: they were permitted to function as a civic group without a license.
Since its inception, many have been the fluctuations of the fortunes of the Brotherhood over the past 85 years: from the pulpit of advocacy of Islam, to the delving into politics, alternating between grass roots mobilization and resort to armed violence. Finally, the Brotherhood reached its pinnacle through the assumption of power via the ballot box. Their mismanagement of governance led to the unseating of Morsi and the breakup of the so-called sit-ins in mid August.
Now, self-flagellation has begun. One of their opinion-molders, Mr. Hamza Zobaa declares in the Brotherhood's daily "Freedom and Justice": "We have fallen in the trap of excluding others from governing." Too little too late. In the liberal weekly "Akhbar El-Yom" of last Saturday, Ahmed Hashem says: "The Brotherhood's mask has fallen. That band of terrorists have committed crimes against Islam and innocent citizens." Another liberal weekly, "Rose El-Youssef," states under the by-line of its Editor-in-Chief, Issam Abdel-Aziz: "The Brotherhood has manifested its insanity through a desperate search for re-instating their fallen regime. They have forgotten the magical love for Egypt by the average Egyptian citizen. That average citizen could be Mustapha Ali, a warehouse worker who made his view known following the assassination attempt on the life of the Interior Minister: Referring to the Brotherhood, undoubtedly with its scorched earth practices in full view on Madinet Nassr, Mustepha Ali said: "These people would destroy Egypt."
An exaggeration? No!! Look at what happened early this month to a 1600-year-old Coptic monastery at Dalga, province of Minya, 160 miles south of Cairo. Speaking of that crime perpetrated by the hard-line Islamists, which engulfed the Coptic community of Dalga, Father Yoanns lamented: "The fire in the monastery burned for three days. The looting continued for a week." A tragic example of the Islamist scorched earth practices, which are their tool of choice.
The ouster of Morsi was not a mission for which the armed forces came to the fore on July 3. The ouster was the mission of 30 millions like Mustapha Ali who came out on June 30 to plead with the armed forces to save their beloved Egypt from the Brotherhood Then on July 26, more millions came out in the streets in response to a call by El-Sisi for public support for the Government action "against terrorism."
Hitler Appointed Joseph Goebbels Propaganda Minister in 1933; The Muslim Brotherhood Graduated Goebbels Successors in 2013!!
For my Masters Degree in history from Rutgers University, New Jersey, in 1954, I chose the history of Nazi Germany as my field. I was fortunate to have chosen Rutgers over Princeton. The former endowed my studies; the latter withheld any financial assistance to a new comer from abroad. My good luck at Rutgers also led me to a mentor, Professor Eyck, a great historian, and a German refugee whose faith was Judaism. Eyck advised me to focus on Goebbels. Why? "Propaganda is an instrument of war, and Goebbels perfected the big lie technique: "keep on repeating the lie, and in a short time people would believe it."
The similarities between the Muslim Brotherhood, especially after the ouster of Morsi in July 2013, and Goebbels, in the use of the big lie technique are unmistakable. How do I provide uncontroverted evidence on that? As a defense attorney and a professor of law, I have to build my case on solid proof. This blog does not propagandize and is not paid for. These are two factors leading publishers in America to desire publishing its 110 issues in a book which I shall entitle: "The Transformation of Egypt Through Revolution: 2011-2013."
Example (A) : El-Belthagy of the Brotherhood to Al-Jazeera, Monday, August 26, 2013: "The use by the transitional Government of Hazem El-Beblawi of 'war on terror' is a mere pretext to suppress the Brotherhood, to make the coup justifiable to the outside world, and to deceive the public in Egypt."
Evidence on That "Big Lie": Let the record show that: (a) the Government after 6 weeks from the beginning of the Brotherhood's sit-ins from July 3 until their removals on August 14, did not, even once, use that term; (b) even after the discovery, through the removals, that the sit-ins were armed little emirates at Rabaa and Al-Nahda, the Government restricted its use of that term to the military confrontations in Sinai; (c) the open support by the Brotherhood, declared and given to the Sinai insurrectionists, who were coopted by Hamas and other Jihadis, enhanced the Government's response through decapitating the Brotherhood without outlawing it so far; (d) the decapitation of the Brotherhood's leadership, including the recent detention of the fugitive El-Belthagy, resulted also from the Brotherhood's repeated rebuffs of the Government's entreaties to them to join El-Beblawi Cabinet.
Example (B): The so-called "National Coalition for Supporting Legitimacy and Rejecting the Coup" has issued on August 27 to all "honest Egyptians to refuse participation in the Committee of Fifty for constitutional amendments. That National Coalition claims that: the "coup" aims at subverting the popular will; the Constitution of December 2012 was approved by 64% of the voters; the prospective amendments are intended to bring back the Mubarak regime.
Evidence on That "Big Lie": I was on the ground in Egypt during the two stages of the plebiscite on the Constitution in December 2012. My investigations resulted in 120 pages of hand-written notes on that seminal event. My notes reveal the following: (a) at the Constituent Assembly, the secularists, including the liberals and the Copts, (nearly 30% of the membership), despairing of the high-handed ways of the Islamist majority, withdrew; (b) taking advantage of that withdrawal, the Islamists wrote into the draft Constitution their own version of the contentious articles; (c) fearful of the disbanding by the Supreme Constitutional Court of that flawed assemblage, Morsi declared that that draft would be immediately voted upon; (d) ignoring the popular calls for either a broad national debate or the reconstitution of the Constituent Assembly, the Morsi plans for a two-stage plebiscite went ahead in December; (e) the pleas for resolution of that constitutional impasse was summed up by Dr. El-Baradei's near tearful appeal to the Islamists in his famous TV lament "Take Pity on Egypt;" (f) only 22% of the electorate of 53 million voters took part in the plebiscite with the unverifiable result declared on December 31, 2012 by the triumphalist call by Morsi: "Egypt now has a Constitution;" (g) amending the Islamist constitution through the Committee of Fifty has to do with the legitimation of the popular will through elections within a few months for a House of Representatives to consider those amendments; (h) these amendments have nothing to do with the re-introduction of the Mubarak regime. That regime is still on trial, as Egypt gears up to putting Morsi also on trial for alleged crimes committed at the gates of his Presidential Palace (Al-Iltihadiyah).
Example (C): Again to El-Belthagy who declared to the correspondent of "Al-Anadoul" (of Turkey) on late August: "The massacre of 25 security officers in Sinai on August 19 was perpetrated by the Egyptian army. The Egyptian authorities are lying in attributing that heinous crime to unknown armed criminals in Rafah, north of Sinai. The coup leaders killed those recruits to divert attention from their problems as an illegitimate government."
Evidence on That "Big Lie": In criminal litigation, which I practice, there is a principle that implicitly tells the Court: "The Thing speaks for itself." In Latin, it is expressed in 3 words: "Res (the thing) Ipsa (for itself) Loquitor (speaks). It is a rule of evidence, which fully rebuts the Brotherhood's big lie cited-above. This is because the negligence (i.e. the crime) of the alleged wrong-doer may be inferred (legally found) from the mere fact that the accident happened. In this instance, even Master Goebbels would not have gone as far as his presumptive heir, El-Beltagy. This is especially so, bearing in mind that: (a) the Brotherhood had repeatedly manifested its affinity with terrorism in Sinai. The Brotherhood has conditioned the ending of the Sinai terror on the reinstatement of Morsi as President; (b) the Egyptian armed forces are a conscripted military institution with a tradition of cohesiveness going back to 1810. Under the system of compulsory draft, members of those forces identify with Egypt as a national entity. Members of the police/central security forces see in their counterparts in the armed forces their kith and ken; (c) that explains the utter failure of the Brotherhood's calls on the recruits and officers in the armed forces and the police to defect and flee their barracks; (d) there is no way that the army, which in Sinai depends on the police, as its strategic manpower depth, to shoot itself in the foot by killing its own auxiliaries.
Example (D): In "Freedom and Justice," issue of Sunday, August 25, another Brotherhood writer, Shaheen Fawzi, tries his hand at the big lie technique. In that Brotherhood daily, he proclaims the following: First he calls General El-Sisi, the Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister: "The Vanquished, God Willing" (Al-Halek Bi Amr-illah). Then he asserts that: "What is happening in Egypt today cannot but be attributed to Zionist and U.S. hands... The secular petro-States have called on their friends in Europe and the U.S. to support the armed forces of Camp David (meaning the Egyptian military) in their aggression against the Muslim Brotherhood."
Evidence on That "Big Lie": (a) in its first foreign policy proclamation, the Morsi regime had affirmed Egypt's respect for all international treaties already entered into by all previous Egyptian governments. By clear implication, those included the Egypt-Israel peace treaty of 1979; (b) Israel could not have influenced the more than 30 million Egyptians to demonstrate against the Morsi regime; (c) the European Union dispatched Ms. Ashston, whose portfolio is EU foreign policy, to Cairo more than once to broker a compromise between the Egyptian transitional Government and the Islamists to no avail; (d) not to be undone, the U.S. (former Ambassador to Cairo, Patterson; Secretary of State Kerry; and Senators McCain and Graham) tried repeatedly to bridge that gap, but their efforts collapsed; and (e) the U.S., in a show of displeasure at the ouster of Morsi delayed the delivery of 4 F-16 combat aircraft to the Egyptian military, cancelled the already scheduled joint military exercises, and placed the annual financial aid to Egypt under review. From the above, it seems that the Brotherhood, unaccustomed to the art of loyalty, is unable to distinguish between friend and foe, except on the basis of acceptance by everyone of its bidding.
In this regard, I have not touched upon what Shaheen Fawzi outrageously claims in the same "Freedom and Justice" article. For he goes on to say: "The Egyptian military intelligence still throws itself at the lap of the Zionists; fighting the Palestinian resistance in Gaza and elsewhere, and abetting the Israeli operation in Gaza called "Hot Lead" in December 2008. Even a habitual hashish smoker could not have been carried away in his hallucinations to the extent of that fantasy.
A Final Example (E): The Mufti of the Brotherhood, Abdel-Rahman Al-Bar issues a fatwa (a non-binding interpretation of a rule in Islamic Law). He calls those millions of Egyptians, who came out in public squares on June 30 to have Morsi ousted, "infidels" (non-believers). As to those who call for his reinstatement, they are "true believers as they support their legitimate ruler."
Evidence on That "Big Lie": (a) the issuance of fatwas has, since August 2011, been made the exclusive domain of Al-Azhar; (b) in the application of Islamic jurisprudence, a subject which I teach at Fordham University School of Law, New York City, I find Al-Bar to be engaged in a big lie wrapped within his so-called Fatwa. To begin with, Islam does not condone calling others infidels because it provides for a direct spiritual relation between every human and God. In addition, the Quran calls on Muslims to remove an unjust ruler. Moreover, the so-called Mufti Al-Bar is an interested party who, under any legal system, should have recused himself; (c) Abdel-Rahman Al-Bar is a fugitive from justice for his role in attacking the Azbakiyah Police Precinct; (d) the Supreme Guide of the Brotherhood Muhammad Badi; who is now under detention, had preceded his Mufti by declaring it open season on the killing of Egyptian army and security personnel for being "infidels who do not deserve to live." His reason: Those forces have refused to defect in support of the Brotherhood's exhortations.
The Brotherhood disciples of Goebbels are failing their departed Nazi master. Through his office as Hitler's Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels was convinced that he was serving the cause of Nazi Germany, reprehensible as that cause had been. Yet the Goebbels Class of 2013 made up of Muslim Brotherhood spokesmen and publicists feel, like the rest of their movement, no affinity to Egypt. Their Supreme Guide, in fealty to pan-Islamism, had uttered the offensive statement "To Hell with Egypt!!" (TOZZ FI MASSR!!)
So, if there is no loyalty to Egypt, one should at least expect from the Brotherhood fidelity to the Quran. Within its nearly 6400 Quaranic verses, the sin of lying is prohibited in 282 verses. In one such verse, the Quran admonishes: "So hearken not to those who deny the truth." (Chapter Al-Qalam, verse #8).
This is not to mention the numerous sayings of the Prophet Muhammad against lying, nor the ethos of Islam where it defines faith in the following terms: "Religion is the wise counsel." The big lie technique cannot, under any circumstance be characterized as "a wise counsel." Moreover, Islamic jurisprudence is anchored in "whatever is good for society" (Ma Yanfaul Nas). Using all of these religious parameters as a measure, the Muslim Brotherhood Goebbels Class of 2013 has failed to make its case.
Most of the time, they do not live in the world of facts. The Arabic proverb is "Truth Saves." Lies, whether big or small, perish, leaving their creators, the imposters, naked and on the run.
By the end of this month, my novel in Arabic, which originally appeared in Cairo in 1948, will appear again. It deals with the same issue: the manipulation of faith for the purpose of gaining power. The reader shall find in that novel similarities with today's Goebbels practices by the Brotherhood. Its title is "Dajjal Fi Qariah" (An Imposter in the Village), which is presently being republished by Aalam Al-Kotub (The World of Books, Cairo, September 2013). Our village of today is Egypt where the end for today's imposters shall not be different from the end of the Dajjal (Imposter) in that novel.
The similarities between the Muslim Brotherhood, especially after the ouster of Morsi in July 2013, and Goebbels, in the use of the big lie technique are unmistakable. How do I provide uncontroverted evidence on that? As a defense attorney and a professor of law, I have to build my case on solid proof. This blog does not propagandize and is not paid for. These are two factors leading publishers in America to desire publishing its 110 issues in a book which I shall entitle: "The Transformation of Egypt Through Revolution: 2011-2013."
Example (A) : El-Belthagy of the Brotherhood to Al-Jazeera, Monday, August 26, 2013: "The use by the transitional Government of Hazem El-Beblawi of 'war on terror' is a mere pretext to suppress the Brotherhood, to make the coup justifiable to the outside world, and to deceive the public in Egypt."
Evidence on That "Big Lie": Let the record show that: (a) the Government after 6 weeks from the beginning of the Brotherhood's sit-ins from July 3 until their removals on August 14, did not, even once, use that term; (b) even after the discovery, through the removals, that the sit-ins were armed little emirates at Rabaa and Al-Nahda, the Government restricted its use of that term to the military confrontations in Sinai; (c) the open support by the Brotherhood, declared and given to the Sinai insurrectionists, who were coopted by Hamas and other Jihadis, enhanced the Government's response through decapitating the Brotherhood without outlawing it so far; (d) the decapitation of the Brotherhood's leadership, including the recent detention of the fugitive El-Belthagy, resulted also from the Brotherhood's repeated rebuffs of the Government's entreaties to them to join El-Beblawi Cabinet.
Example (B): The so-called "National Coalition for Supporting Legitimacy and Rejecting the Coup" has issued on August 27 to all "honest Egyptians to refuse participation in the Committee of Fifty for constitutional amendments. That National Coalition claims that: the "coup" aims at subverting the popular will; the Constitution of December 2012 was approved by 64% of the voters; the prospective amendments are intended to bring back the Mubarak regime.
Evidence on That "Big Lie": I was on the ground in Egypt during the two stages of the plebiscite on the Constitution in December 2012. My investigations resulted in 120 pages of hand-written notes on that seminal event. My notes reveal the following: (a) at the Constituent Assembly, the secularists, including the liberals and the Copts, (nearly 30% of the membership), despairing of the high-handed ways of the Islamist majority, withdrew; (b) taking advantage of that withdrawal, the Islamists wrote into the draft Constitution their own version of the contentious articles; (c) fearful of the disbanding by the Supreme Constitutional Court of that flawed assemblage, Morsi declared that that draft would be immediately voted upon; (d) ignoring the popular calls for either a broad national debate or the reconstitution of the Constituent Assembly, the Morsi plans for a two-stage plebiscite went ahead in December; (e) the pleas for resolution of that constitutional impasse was summed up by Dr. El-Baradei's near tearful appeal to the Islamists in his famous TV lament "Take Pity on Egypt;" (f) only 22% of the electorate of 53 million voters took part in the plebiscite with the unverifiable result declared on December 31, 2012 by the triumphalist call by Morsi: "Egypt now has a Constitution;" (g) amending the Islamist constitution through the Committee of Fifty has to do with the legitimation of the popular will through elections within a few months for a House of Representatives to consider those amendments; (h) these amendments have nothing to do with the re-introduction of the Mubarak regime. That regime is still on trial, as Egypt gears up to putting Morsi also on trial for alleged crimes committed at the gates of his Presidential Palace (Al-Iltihadiyah).
Example (C): Again to El-Belthagy who declared to the correspondent of "Al-Anadoul" (of Turkey) on late August: "The massacre of 25 security officers in Sinai on August 19 was perpetrated by the Egyptian army. The Egyptian authorities are lying in attributing that heinous crime to unknown armed criminals in Rafah, north of Sinai. The coup leaders killed those recruits to divert attention from their problems as an illegitimate government."
Evidence on That "Big Lie": In criminal litigation, which I practice, there is a principle that implicitly tells the Court: "The Thing speaks for itself." In Latin, it is expressed in 3 words: "Res (the thing) Ipsa (for itself) Loquitor (speaks). It is a rule of evidence, which fully rebuts the Brotherhood's big lie cited-above. This is because the negligence (i.e. the crime) of the alleged wrong-doer may be inferred (legally found) from the mere fact that the accident happened. In this instance, even Master Goebbels would not have gone as far as his presumptive heir, El-Beltagy. This is especially so, bearing in mind that: (a) the Brotherhood had repeatedly manifested its affinity with terrorism in Sinai. The Brotherhood has conditioned the ending of the Sinai terror on the reinstatement of Morsi as President; (b) the Egyptian armed forces are a conscripted military institution with a tradition of cohesiveness going back to 1810. Under the system of compulsory draft, members of those forces identify with Egypt as a national entity. Members of the police/central security forces see in their counterparts in the armed forces their kith and ken; (c) that explains the utter failure of the Brotherhood's calls on the recruits and officers in the armed forces and the police to defect and flee their barracks; (d) there is no way that the army, which in Sinai depends on the police, as its strategic manpower depth, to shoot itself in the foot by killing its own auxiliaries.
Example (D): In "Freedom and Justice," issue of Sunday, August 25, another Brotherhood writer, Shaheen Fawzi, tries his hand at the big lie technique. In that Brotherhood daily, he proclaims the following: First he calls General El-Sisi, the Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister: "The Vanquished, God Willing" (Al-Halek Bi Amr-illah). Then he asserts that: "What is happening in Egypt today cannot but be attributed to Zionist and U.S. hands... The secular petro-States have called on their friends in Europe and the U.S. to support the armed forces of Camp David (meaning the Egyptian military) in their aggression against the Muslim Brotherhood."
Evidence on That "Big Lie": (a) in its first foreign policy proclamation, the Morsi regime had affirmed Egypt's respect for all international treaties already entered into by all previous Egyptian governments. By clear implication, those included the Egypt-Israel peace treaty of 1979; (b) Israel could not have influenced the more than 30 million Egyptians to demonstrate against the Morsi regime; (c) the European Union dispatched Ms. Ashston, whose portfolio is EU foreign policy, to Cairo more than once to broker a compromise between the Egyptian transitional Government and the Islamists to no avail; (d) not to be undone, the U.S. (former Ambassador to Cairo, Patterson; Secretary of State Kerry; and Senators McCain and Graham) tried repeatedly to bridge that gap, but their efforts collapsed; and (e) the U.S., in a show of displeasure at the ouster of Morsi delayed the delivery of 4 F-16 combat aircraft to the Egyptian military, cancelled the already scheduled joint military exercises, and placed the annual financial aid to Egypt under review. From the above, it seems that the Brotherhood, unaccustomed to the art of loyalty, is unable to distinguish between friend and foe, except on the basis of acceptance by everyone of its bidding.
In this regard, I have not touched upon what Shaheen Fawzi outrageously claims in the same "Freedom and Justice" article. For he goes on to say: "The Egyptian military intelligence still throws itself at the lap of the Zionists; fighting the Palestinian resistance in Gaza and elsewhere, and abetting the Israeli operation in Gaza called "Hot Lead" in December 2008. Even a habitual hashish smoker could not have been carried away in his hallucinations to the extent of that fantasy.
A Final Example (E): The Mufti of the Brotherhood, Abdel-Rahman Al-Bar issues a fatwa (a non-binding interpretation of a rule in Islamic Law). He calls those millions of Egyptians, who came out in public squares on June 30 to have Morsi ousted, "infidels" (non-believers). As to those who call for his reinstatement, they are "true believers as they support their legitimate ruler."
Evidence on That "Big Lie": (a) the issuance of fatwas has, since August 2011, been made the exclusive domain of Al-Azhar; (b) in the application of Islamic jurisprudence, a subject which I teach at Fordham University School of Law, New York City, I find Al-Bar to be engaged in a big lie wrapped within his so-called Fatwa. To begin with, Islam does not condone calling others infidels because it provides for a direct spiritual relation between every human and God. In addition, the Quran calls on Muslims to remove an unjust ruler. Moreover, the so-called Mufti Al-Bar is an interested party who, under any legal system, should have recused himself; (c) Abdel-Rahman Al-Bar is a fugitive from justice for his role in attacking the Azbakiyah Police Precinct; (d) the Supreme Guide of the Brotherhood Muhammad Badi; who is now under detention, had preceded his Mufti by declaring it open season on the killing of Egyptian army and security personnel for being "infidels who do not deserve to live." His reason: Those forces have refused to defect in support of the Brotherhood's exhortations.
The Brotherhood disciples of Goebbels are failing their departed Nazi master. Through his office as Hitler's Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels was convinced that he was serving the cause of Nazi Germany, reprehensible as that cause had been. Yet the Goebbels Class of 2013 made up of Muslim Brotherhood spokesmen and publicists feel, like the rest of their movement, no affinity to Egypt. Their Supreme Guide, in fealty to pan-Islamism, had uttered the offensive statement "To Hell with Egypt!!" (TOZZ FI MASSR!!)
So, if there is no loyalty to Egypt, one should at least expect from the Brotherhood fidelity to the Quran. Within its nearly 6400 Quaranic verses, the sin of lying is prohibited in 282 verses. In one such verse, the Quran admonishes: "So hearken not to those who deny the truth." (Chapter Al-Qalam, verse #8).
This is not to mention the numerous sayings of the Prophet Muhammad against lying, nor the ethos of Islam where it defines faith in the following terms: "Religion is the wise counsel." The big lie technique cannot, under any circumstance be characterized as "a wise counsel." Moreover, Islamic jurisprudence is anchored in "whatever is good for society" (Ma Yanfaul Nas). Using all of these religious parameters as a measure, the Muslim Brotherhood Goebbels Class of 2013 has failed to make its case.
Most of the time, they do not live in the world of facts. The Arabic proverb is "Truth Saves." Lies, whether big or small, perish, leaving their creators, the imposters, naked and on the run.
By the end of this month, my novel in Arabic, which originally appeared in Cairo in 1948, will appear again. It deals with the same issue: the manipulation of faith for the purpose of gaining power. The reader shall find in that novel similarities with today's Goebbels practices by the Brotherhood. Its title is "Dajjal Fi Qariah" (An Imposter in the Village), which is presently being republished by Aalam Al-Kotub (The World of Books, Cairo, September 2013). Our village of today is Egypt where the end for today's imposters shall not be different from the end of the Dajjal (Imposter) in that novel.
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