The Most Important Priority for the New Egypt Is: "Building Egypt"

A great Egyptian educator, Lotfi El-Sayed Pasha, gave Egypt in the early 20th century a historic advice.  He said: "Raise Fences Around Egypt!!"  Because he was ahead of his time, that advice was discarded, especially by the military dictatorships from 1952 to 2011.

As if sleep-walking, Egypt plunged, at King Farouk's insistence in 1948, in a war for Palestine; lost the Sudan because of marginalization of the plebiscite of 1955 which united both countries; walked into the trap of union with chaotic Syria in 1958; and when the Baathists in Syria (the party of the Asad dynasty) destroyed that union, Nasser turned Egypt into a military ally of the Yemen republican revolution of 1962, thus alienating Saudi Arabia, and draining Egyptian resources.  This charade, no parade, of events was capped by Nasser's support of Qaddafi of Libya in 1969.

From one interventionary debacle, to another interventionary debacle without heeding the great advice of "Raise Fences Around Egypt!!"  That wisdom became concretized when smart Sadat sued for peace with Israel, signed a peace treaty with it in 1979 with US help.  Of equal importance, Sadat began to dismantle the grandiose ideological and vain edifice of "Egypt is the great sister of all Arab States."  Sadat was martyred basically for the principle of "Egypt First."  His assassination at the hands of the so-called Islamists was due to the collision between the reality of Egypt's need for internal nation-building, and the fanciful need of the Islamists (the Muslim Brotherhood) for pan-Islamism.

Relegating the development needs of Egypt to a secondary place in terms of food production, industrialization, infra-structure advancement especially in regard to transportation and communication, descent reclamation, nuclear and solar energy, retraining of the huge workforce, reinventing the excellence of the educational system, advertising Egyptian tourism, luring back Egyptian and foreign experts to plan for Egypt of 2050, and women training -not doing much of that and more has put Egypt into a deep hole.

Egypt of today has lagged even behind the advances in Africa south of the Sahara.  This most populous Arab country is today consumed by two retardant factors: (a) preoccupation with past glories; and (b) trying to solve today's problems with yesterday tools, especially in the challenging enterprise of reclamation of the Sahara, both the eastern and the western.

Decentralization has been a failure, because it does not effect devolution of decision-making from Cairo to the 27 provinces.  There is a commitment to teach through lectures at the university level, instead of turning the colleges into training grounds in how to think.  There is a predilection for pursuing Master's and doctoral degrees programs instead of deferring such lofty pursuits after investing into drafting graduates into public service at the village level.

Egypt's over preoccupation with the myriad of Arab problems is a poor investment into the future of Egypt.  There is "no place like home" to begin the rejuvenation of Egypt.  "Charity starts at home," and planning for Egypt of 2050 is basically planning for Egypt to be the South Korea of 2013.

Today's Egypt is incapable of running safe railways; today's South Korea is ready for outer space technology.  The train-buses collision in Dahshour, south of Cairo on November 18, killing 27, and injuring 34, is the latest tragic chapter in the history of a railroad system of 5000 kilometers and 150 years of age.  No upgrading, no proper maintenance.  Only the cosmetics of firing transportation ministers and other personnel.  But after the firings, the trains keep on running and colliding.

Here is but one example of the western culture of futuristic planning.  In a mass circulation advertisement, Bloomberg Businesss placed a placard in all trains of the Long Island Railroad (LIRR) whose record of being on time in eleven branches is 99.2%.  The ad correctly predicts the end in a few years of the US dependency on foreign oil.  It reads as follows:

"Oil fields of the future may be anchored directly to the sea floor, rather than drilling and exploring from venture floating platforms.  Are you exploring new frontiers for your next future venture?"

There is also another facet of primordial importance for what I may call "the reinvention of Egypt."  That is civic-mindedness.  In essence, love of country should be manifested not merely in songs of "I love Egypt," but also in serving the public beyond the call of duty.

In 1938, I sat to a written exam in Arabic composition at the end of my second year of primary education at a private school in Zagazig, Sharkia, Egypt.  The question read as follows: "What would you do for your country if you become a successful merchant?"  I wrote lots of stuff which I have learnt from highly-educated teachers at the tender age of being 10 years old.

Now in America as a teacher who keeps on learning, I learnt last week that 27 super-rich Americans, including Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet are donating half a trillion US dollars for investing in education, health and innovation.  That is 500 Billion U.S. dollars including 99% of the total worth of Buffet, and 95% of the total worth of Gates.  What an example in serving the public at large through private individuals!!

In the New York Times of November 14, 2013, Kareem Fahim and Mayy El-Sheikh, reported from Cairo that "the public which harbors deep antipathy toward the Brotherhood...seems desperate to move on from the era of protest."  Without moving on beyond the achievement of Egypt's Second Revolution of June 30, Egypt shall be doomed to be frozen in the present victory of the secularists over the Islamists.  By itself, that is not enough!!

The Brotherhood lost because of many factors, the most important of which is espousal of pan-Islamism and little or no commitment to Egyptian nationalism.  They even burnt the Egyptian flag.  Next in importance in the list of factors is the Brotherhood's lack of realization that Islam is not only a faith.  It is also a civilization.  Thirdly: the gossipy Egyptian media which live on entertaining anecdotes, non-substantiated assumptions, unrealistic conjectures, and name-calling.  Journalism, which is popularly called everywhere "the Fourth Authority" (after the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary authorities), today wields neither authority nor credibility.  It hardly plays any role in public education and civic awareness.

In fairness to the slow march of history in revolutionary Egypt, there are glimmers of hope enticing foreign investment to return to Egypt.  The Ministry of Electricity and Energy has recently announced that the Russian energy company, Russatom, has offered Egypt the construction of the first nuclear energy station for the production of electricity.  The Russian contractor would pay 85% of the cost, production would begin in 2020, Egypt would repay its debt 5 years beginning in 2025, and Russatom would involve other non-Russian companies in the project.

And from the west, General Electric of the US signed on November 18 a contract with Carbon, an Egyptian holding company in the amount of $500 million.  The contract calls for the construction in Ain Al-Sukhnah (Red Sea area) of a petro-chemical consortium.  Signed in Cairo, in the presence of Mounir Fakhry Abdel-Noor, Egypt's Minister for Trade and Industry, the petro-chemical complex, once in production, is expected to provide 3000 jobs and an annual return of $6 Billion.  Funding will come from the Korean Import-Export Bank.

In addition, the tax system is being reformed in various ways including the imposition of a Value Added Tax (VAT).  This is the difference between production cost and the sale price, and it replaces the sales tax which is difficult to account and collect.

Above all, a new Constitution is being readied for a plebiscite later this year, with parliamentary elections followed by presidential elections slated for 2014.  And from various indicators, the Egyptian military does not evince an appetite for returning Egypt to military rule.  Sixty years of that rule which occasioned the rise of the masses in Tahrir were enough.

What about the Nile water?  It never ceases to surprise me that we seem to forget that there are two niles feeding the main Nile: The Blue Nile from Ethiopia, with which Egypt and the Sudan are trying to negotiate an amicable division of water intake, and the White Nile from the Great Lakes in Uganda which feeds the main Nile from August to March, but at a lower quantity and slower water flow.

Prior to the Sudan civil war between North and South, the Sudan (my first appointment in 1948 as a teacher was in Jabal Awliya, south of Khartoum), Egypt and France were actively removing the obstructions (the Sudd) from the White Nile in what is now South Sudan.  The goal was to dramatically increase the water flow for the riparian States and even feed Saudi Arabia with fresh water pumped through a pipeline under the Red Sea.  That great project called "the Jonglei Canal" has been halted by that tragic Sudanese civil war.

The three countries, South Sudan, Sudan and Egypt should go back to it.  Like the ad in the LIRR says: "Are you exploring new frontiers for your next future venture?"  If so, just look at your feet.  Water wealth lies under them.  Its longevity is greater and more durable and more environmental friendly than fossil wealth.  The great deserts are cultivable, the human resources are plentiful, and Nile irrigation has been perfected for thousands of years.

So, Egypt, look to the future.  The fences advocated by Lolfi El-Sayed Pasha did not mean isolation.  He, in his wisdom as an educator, meant prioritization and well-targeted interaction with Egypt's neighbors.  Mere ideology and sloganeering have never built bridges, schools, bakeries or hospitals.  They built fantasies and acrimony.  Egypt's next venture should have a workable motto: "Building Egypt!!"  It is the most important priority for the New Egypt.  It is the authentic jihad!!

Have I just mentioned Jihad?  Yes!!  Having done that, let me in conclusion turn to the question of Islamic jurisprudence in the context of "Building Egypt."  Dealing with those two intertwined matters, Islamic Law and rebuilding the new Egypt, we need to revise certain terms in our dictionary.  Using the question and answer method, I put the following terms under the microscope of realities.

• Is it an act of jihad to assassinate 12 Egyptian soldiers in Sinai on Wednesday, November 20, 2013 by suicidal attackers as the victims were on their way to rest and recreation?  No!! Jihad is self-internalization for the purpose of purification.  Only in cases of external aggression against national territory does jihad turn to self-defense.
• Can the perpetrators and their co-conspirators be called Muslims?  No!!  Islam is a faith which recognizes every kind of belief, especially Judaism and Christianity.  The term means the submission by the individual to the will of the Creator.
• If that is the case, then why, with the Muslim Brotherhood being implicated in acts of terror, is it entitled to be called "Muslim"?  The Brotherhood has used the term "Muslim" as a "burka" (a veil) to legitimate its anti-Islamic acts.  A real term for them is "The Anti-Muslim Brotherhood."
• Isn't depicting them as Anti-Muslim an extreme measure?  No.  Their actions leave us no option but to call a spade a spade.  They have made of Islam a State.  Islam is a community, not a State.  They have resorted to TAKFIRISM whereby they deny the faith and the existence of their opponents of all stripes whether, Muslims, Copts, Shiis, Hindus, Jews and many others.  They don't believe in the nation-State.  They believe in pan-Islamism, which limits its protective shield to Sunnis who espouse the crazy notion of paradise as the reward for killing the innocent as happened in 9/11.
• Is Hamas in Gaza implicated in TAKFIRISM as an ideology which justifies terrorism?  Absolutely.  The Anti-Muslim Brotherhood is the womb from which Hamas was born.  The proof of Hamas' idiocy is their denial that the Jews have any right over even one inch of Palestinian territory.
• In view of these perceptions, ideologies and actions is Egypt's engagement in the destruction of the tunnels linking Gaza to Sinai justifiable?  Of course.  The Hamas Gaza tunnels represent an underground invasion of Egypt which grossly infringe upon Egyptian sovereignty in Sinai through smuggling terrorists, goods including fuel, drugs, and even items of luxury.
• But what can the Gazans do when they are at present besieged by Israel from all sides?  This is not Egypt's problem.  It is a Palestinian problem which can be mitigated, if not resolved, by the following measures:

• Hamas renunciation of terror; acceptance of the Palestinian National Authority in Ramallah as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people; recognition of Israel's right to peaceful existence with a future sovereign State of Palestine; and ceasing to interfere in Egyptian internal affairs.  Hamas has the key to liberate Gaza from its present misery.  But Hamas does not believe in reason.  As an organization, it believes in the non-Islamic concept of endless conflict.

Due to my travels in Egypt, please expect the next blog at the 2nd half of December.

The Idea of an US-Muslim Brotherhood Connection Has Multiple Roots -Some True, Some False

"The Americans have sold out on the Brotherhood," proclaims an Egyptian pundit, Osama Al-Ghozali Harb in the daily Al-Ahram, Egypt's official newspaper.  On a different page of the same newspaper, another opinion-maker, Farouk Goweda states: "Washington has no right to weep in distress for the return of Russia to Egypt."  As to the head of the Cairo Center for Human Rights, Bahi Eldin Hassan, he, in the Egyptian daily Al-Shorook, posits a final conclusion: "The U.S. will ally itself with whoever is the ruler in Egypt."

What is this all about?  It is about the controversy raging in Egypt for sometime between two ideological factions.  On the one hand, there are the secularists whose thesis is that that U.S. favors the Muslim Brotherhood.  On the other hand, there are the Islamists whose political doctrine is that the US favors whoever rules in Egypt.  Both theses have multiple roots, some of which are true, and some are false.

The basic fact is that neither the secularists nor the Islamists fully understand the making of US foreign policy.  The U.S. has been overwhelmed by the sudden arrival of the Arab Spring in late 2010 and early 2011.  Its anchors in Tunisia and in Egypt, President Ben Aly and Mubarak were ousted by the Arab square, and not by army coups.  The sudden change of fortunes in both Tunis and Cairo, and later in Sana (Yemen), and in Tripoli (Libya) stunned the hierarchy of US decision-making.  What made those changes more problematic for Washington, D.C. is that they are largely leaderless and fluid.

Those troubling characteristics were well expressed by one of the moguls of U.S. foreign policy.  Richard Haass, the President of the Council on Foreign Relations stated in his recently published book, Foreign Policy Begins At Home, the following: "Ousting authoritarian regimes was one thing; replacing them with something demonstratebly and enduringly better, quite another.  Talk of an Arab Spring came to be replaced with the more neutral phrase 'Arab upheavals." (p.13) Haass, who, among other important US policy posts, was Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. Department of State, knows his stuff.

The fog surrounding the present direction of U.S. foreign policy, including hugging in Egypt either the Brotherhood or the Secularists is expected to last until 2016.  By that time, the Obama tenure at the White House shall be over.  His presidency in general, has "pivoted" the U.S. foreign policy focus away from the Middle East in favor of East Asia.  American democracy has been hobbled by the gridlock between Democrats and Republicans in Congress.  The Republicans were able to shut down the federal government in Washington, D.C. for 16 days earlier this Fall.  The civil war in Syria is expected to morph into a Sunni-Shii war over whose future America will have no role; and Afghanistan is expected to slip back into Taliban's chaos.

In the midst of all these expectations, the U.S. national interest dictates a largely hands-off policy towards the secularist-Islamist split in Egypt.  America is largely becoming guarded by a U.S.-centric foreign policy.  Obama has repeatedly declared, with the present sluggish economic recovery in mind, that nation-building should be nation-building in the U.S.  Richard Haass sums up Obama's case on the cover of his book above-cited.  His words resonate with the majority of the U.S. public: "The Case for Putting America's House in Order."

Noting the shallow analysis in the Egyptian press, especially with regard to an US-Muslim Brotherhood connection, one finds the two Egyptian adversarial camps resorting either to imagery or imagination.  Al-Ahram cites what Mr. Harb calls "the perfect US synchronization of its policies with the Brotherhood's Islamist rule under Morsi."  Here he cites Secretary Kerry's visit to Cairo on February 28 of this year during which he asserts that Kerry tried to convince the secularists not to boycott the elections.  From that alleged episode, the writer claims that ousting Morsi has angered the U.S.

It is true that Washington, D.C. bared its teeth at the ouster of Morsi.  And it is true that Ambassador Patterson, formerly based in Cairo, had contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood both before and during the Morsi regime.  And it is well-known that the US, in response to the Morsi ouster, imposed limited and largely symbolic sanctions against Egypt's military.  A quarter of a billion dollars of military aid were withheld; advanced military equipment was denied; joint military exercises were suspended.

But to read in the these measures grimaces of affection from the U.S. to the Brotherhood is to misread the U.S. political mind.  It also obscures the changing nature of US foreign policy toward Egypt which had been given by Obama a vague category.  He called Egypt a "non-ally," whatever this means.

There are essential facts which frame U.S. foreign policy-making.  Primary among these is that Congress is a co-maker of that foreign policy.  The senate votes on funding and treaty-making.  Its "advice and consent" is required with regard to Presidential recommendations of U.S. officials appointments described by Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution as "Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls."  The Senate, when opposed to any Presidential nomination by the Executive branch, has put "consent" above "advice."  Right now, Lindsey Graham, a southern senator, is blocking two important Obama nominees.  There is also the power of impeachment of the President which is shared by both houses of Congress.  

At present, the Democrats are ascendant in the Senate; the Republicans in the House -a perfect recipe for frequent gridlocks.  It has never been a secret that most Republicans in Congress still regard Obama an anomaly.  As a black man, Obama has become a target for frequent challenges including "was he born in the US?"; "Is he a closet Muslim?" -a reflection of islamaphobia.

We have also seen how brutalizing Congressional hearings of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was.  The Benghazi attack on the U.S. Consulate in 2012, which resulted in the death of the American Ambassador together with other American personnel, was used by Obama haters as an occasion for humiliating the woman who might run for President in 2016.

From the above, which is a cursory presentation of the complexity of U.S. foreign policy-making, one can discern the superficiality of defining the U.S. outlook on the Muslim Brotherhood as either amorous or hostile.  National U.S. interest is the ultimate defining factor, if at times confused, in the relationship between Washington, D.C. and Cairo.

Of course there is in the U.S., in regard to any national issue including international relations, a cacophony of voices.  This feature alone can account for at least some measure of confusion in Cairo as regards where the U.S. stands from various Egyptian actors including the Brotherhood.

After everything is said and done, Washington did not characterize the ouster of Morsi as "a coup."  That would have been a true indication of "America loves the Brotherhood."  And Secretary Kerry's brief visit to Cairo earlier this month, including calling on Field Marshal El-Sisi on the very day of opening the Morsi trial on November 4, generated a remark by Kerry that Egypt was marching toward democracy.  An indicator which caused the shrill voices of the Brotherhood to be raised invoking God's wrath on America.

This was a strategic remark by the Secretary of State whose country is still grappling with a clearer differentiation between "a revolution," and "a coup."  That is not surprising.  Each term has lots of consequences, but vague definitions.  A Professor at New York University Law School, Burt Neuborne, who specializes in civil liberties, called democracy in the U.S. "so dysfunctional that no rational person would choose it." (The New York Times, Sunday Review, November 10, 2013, page 2).

Hopefully the remarks by Professor Neuborne in The New York Times may slow down the barrage of attacks on the status of the post-Morsi transitional government by Mr. David Kirkpatrick, correspondent of the same newspaper in Cairo.  Kirkpatrick invariably puts his opinions ahead of his reports.

Egypt's opinion-makers are also divided on the interpretation of the U.S.-Muslim Brotherhood connection.  Those who see that connection as a permanent tilt in favor of the Brotherhood have also their detractors.  In Al-Ahram, Farouk Gowedah claims that the U.S. has manifested animus toward Egypt as a result of the June 30 Revolution which ousted Morsi.  Another opinion-maker cited-above, Osama Ghazali Harb, rebuts, also in Al-Ahram, the theory of enmity, though he describes the Muslim Brotherhood as "America's historical friends."  This is while Fahmi Howedi of Al-Shorooq, rejects such claims by saying: "U.S. support of the Brotherhood is a lie propagated by the enemies (secularists) of the Brotherhood."

The cacophony of voices emanating from Washington has at least a degree of objective analysis of U.S. national interest.  Unfortunately the Cairo cacophony of voices, with claims of U.S. love or U.S. hate for the Brotherhood, does not take objectivity into account.  In international relations, there is neither love nor hate.  There is only national interest.  It is the heart of the spirit of all times, known by the Germans in one word: "ZEITGEIST."

One of my specialties is interpretation.  It is my primary tool whereby intangible concepts are given tangible expression.  Thus it is incumbent upon me to add another complicating factor in the controversy surrounding the U.S.-Brotherhood connection.  There exists a gulf of a conceptual nature between the U.S. outlook on democracy and what that outlook signals to both the Brotherhood and its opponents.

The term "democracy" has never received a consensual definition across the globe.  America looks upon the ballot box as a legitimator.  But all Arab Spring uprisings regard the same box as a possible manipulator.  To Arab Spring countries, balloting is the beginning of the process; to the U.S. political mind, it is the definitive end of the process of democratization.  America looks upon opposition in a given country as a pre-ordained feature of free expression; the Arab uprisings look upon opposition largely as counter-revolutionary.

America has not broadly experienced internal opposition with a gun, except in limited cases like that of the Black Panthers; anarchists such as Timothy McVey of Colorado; and the Neo-Nazi gun-toting desperadoes.  But the bulk of Egyptians see in the Brotherhood, a propagator of pan-Islamism, not and advocate of Egyptian nationalism. 

The gulf between America and Egypt in regard to dealing with the Brotherhood is made more enduring because of the dearth of effective interpretation of Arabic into comprehensible American/English terms.

Under no circumstances should ideology be permitted to pose for analysis.  There has never been, nor shall ever be, love between America and the Muslim Brotherhood.  America is constitutionally wedded to separation between church and State.  The Brotherhood sees the mosque and the Presidential Palace as interchangeable.  Their motto includes the phrase: "The Quran is our Constitution" -a permanent denial of man-made legislation, which is counter to the essence of islamic jurisprudence.  For one long dreary year, the Brotherhood, through Morsi, tried to put that deadender ideology into effect.  But by July 3, the public in Egypt put an end to that strange Brotherhood venture.

The Muslim Brotherhood Shifts the Blame for Their Predicament of Exclusion to Higher Authority

In psychology there is a principle called "sublimation."  It is the human capacity, positively oriented, to turn a negative into a positive.  An example of sublimation is to draw a lesson for the future from a bad occurrence.

However this simple attitude of going forward after a bad fall seems to be beyond the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.  The Second Egyptian Revolution of June 30, 2013 which put an end to their Islamist regime of Morsi as of July 3, should have been an objective lesson to the Brotherhood in how to behave in the future.  This would have been both sublime and sublimation.  But the Brotherhood has, since those historic reversals which chased them out of both governing and of the affection of the majority of public opinion in Egypt, shifted the blame to a higher authority.

They, through their writings, though remorseful, are not blaming themselves for those happenings.  They are saying that it was "God's will," meaning that their crisis has been pre-destined, that it was not their doing, but God's inflicted wounds.  Why?  The spokesman of the Brotherhood argue in their mouth piece, their daily newspaper "Al-Hurriah Wa Al-Adalah" (Freedom  and Justice) that God Almighty is testing them for purposes of purification.

If this is the essential lesson which they learnt from a populist revolution staged by secular Egypt against turning the country into an Islamic Emirates, then their ability to reform themselves is severely limited.  Their journey in the wilderness of being banned promises to be prolonged.

In the view of their publicists, the tragedy of the Brotherhood in Egypt resulted from "the force of destiny."  Their educational oracle, Dr. Muhammad Wahdan, suggests that "There is no need for either worry or anxiety.  For everything is in God's hands."  This blatant shift of responsibility of the Brotherhood's downfall to the heavens above is bolstered by several of their vocal leaders and supporters.

Among those is Ahmed Al-Muhammady.  He forcefully places certain verses from the Quran in the present mold of distancing the Brotherhood from the factors for their downfall.  Truly amazing!! So from the Quran Chapter XI, he quotes verses 9 and 10 as follows: (Translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali:

"If we give man a taste of mercy from ourselves, and then withdraw it from him, behold!  He is in despair and (falls into) blasphemy.  But if we give him a taste of (Our) favours after adversity has touched him, he is sure to say: 'All evil has departed from me.  Behold! He falls into exultation and pride.'"

In a vain attempt to shore up the sagging morale of the Brotherhood the trial of several of its leadership including Morsi began on November 4, Mr. Muhammady urges patience.  He looks at his fragged-up crystal ball, then sees hope of a quick Brotherhood's return to power.  His words are: "Over centuries of human history, the period of crisis was always much shorter than the period of return to empowerment."

This mindset of defeat as a harbinger of ultimate victory is reflected in what a female supporter of the Brotherhood urges in the Brotherhood's daily.  Fatima Abdulla, assuming a role of a cheerleader, says: "Each Brotherhood member should implant in himself a feeling of dignity.  He should wage jihad for the victory of what is right and for the glory of God's word.  This is for God, not for the Egyptian public, the majority of whom evokes in us rage whenever we see them or hear them opposing us... The Brotherhood have opted for the path of jihad... The merciful God has chosen them to worship him and has empowered them to govern."

Well, Ms. Fatima Abdullah:  Your Islamist regime came to power through the ballot not through an act of God, and was forced out of power through streetocracy which the Morsi regime has alienated by its imposition of Islamization.

And by the way, it is one thing not to learn from one's mistakes, destructive as this could be.  It is another to say that "I do not have to learn anything because whatever mistakes were presumed to have been committed were not my doing but were ordained by God."  Unfortunately your resort to the Quran to justify your neutrality is not justifiable.

On this point, here, for the benefit of the Brotherhood, are two quotations from a total of eight verses which admonish owning up to one's mistakes:

"To them came their apostles with clear signs.  It is not God who wrongs them, but they wrong their own souls." (Chapter IX, Verse 70).  And we have provided for you. (But they rebelled).  To us they did no harm, but they harmed their own souls." (Chapter X, Verse 57).

From these verses (ayas), selected from eight verses located in several chapters (suras), emerges a sacred rebuttal to the Brotherhood's artful blame-shifting away from themselves.  The Quran assigns the blame for self-inflicted wounds to those who caused themselves that harm.

There is also Omar, the second Caliph after Muhammad who, in his appointment of a judge, issued in the appointment commission the following words which adorn most of the courtrooms in the Arab World:

"The return to the path of truth is better than going down the path of falsehood."

Teaching Islamic jurisprudence at Fordham University School of Law in New York City, I have found myself impressed by Islam's emphasis on the roles of intent and of free will in either damage avoidance or damage causation.  It was not Heaven, but a deliberate Islamist coup against the January 25 Revolution, which ignited the secularists to strike back on June 30, 2013.

How can the Egyptian public regain confidence in the Muslim Brotherhood as a trusted partner in the reconstruction of the new Egypt, if, after the Brotherhood's tragic failure in governance, the Brotherhood is also manifesting its failure in understanding what inclusive Islam stands for?

The Brotherhood's epic failure resulted from misinterpreting the role of the ballot box in the democratic process.  The ballot box is only a point of entry.  That electoral victory does not provide the victor with a license to subvert the national Egyptian program into an "Islamic program" whose contents, objectives, and ideology are all alien to secular Egypt.

By excluding others in the name of Heaven, the Brotherhood is offending both Heaven and Earth.

The So-Called "Friends of Jerusalem" Are Friends of Neither Egypt, Nor of Islam, Nor of International Law, Nor of Peace

Like the global outlaws, called Al-Qaeda, and their franchises using Islam as a cover for their crimes against humanity, the "Friends of Jerusalem" have unfurled in Egypt a black flag.  They call it the flag of "jihad" -a term in Islam which is globally misunderstood.  The "FOJ," to use initials in reference to that cabal, openly brag about committing numerous heinous crimes committed recently all over Egypt.  They are gleeful about the mayhem they are perpetrating in the name of God.

FOJ now admits to attempting to assassinate Egypt's Minister of Interior; killing army and police personnel in Sinai; burning down Coptic (Christian) churches and private businesses; paralyzing mass transit whether by rail to upper Egypt or by cars and buses in urban areas.  Further they promise more of the same, because they believe that this is their express way to paradise.  Only an Islamic regime, in their image, can be legitimate.  Thus, to them and to their allies in the Muslim Brotherhood, a country which is not ruled by their own fossilized interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence, is a country to be conquered, a body politic to be subdued, a rulership to be delegitimized.

Judging by an analysis of the connotations of that term, their ideological resort to jihad is totally idiotic.  The Friends of Jerusalem, acting out of total ignorance of what jihad means, do not comprehend that, legally, jihad is reserved for the defense of the homeland against foreign occupation and external aggression.

In that jurisprudential context, it is a duty.  But, guided by Al-Qaeda's principles, the FOJ extends the notion of jihad to activities categorically prohibited under Sharia.  Islamic Law prohibits the coerced propagation of any faith, including Islam; it disavows Al-Qaeda's presumptions about rescuing the West from its "ignorance" (jahiliah); it totally negates the terroristic attempts to call non-Muslims "infidels."

Islamic Law does not permit any human being to evaluate the faith of another human being.  Why? Because Islam insists on the privacy and directness of relationships between man/woman and their Creator.  In effect, Sharia tells any intermediary between the human being and the Creator "Butt Out!!"

We have seen the catastrophic consequences of 9/11.  How can the wilful and criminal attacks on 3000 civilians in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania be considered justifiable?  Those martyred victims did nothing offensive to merit that horrible fate.  They, including hundreds of Muslims, did nothing except go on that fateful morning to earn their livelihood.

The jihad of the Friends of Jerusalem and like criminally-minded organizations had the disastrous effect of instilling hostility between the States so affected and mainstream Islam.  The primary issue here is confusing the concept of jihad and the concept of combat (Qital).  Jihad is a non-changing legal concept of self-defense, guaranteed by natural law, customary law and conventional law.  By contrast, combat (Qital) is a transitory event which arises at times out of the exigencies of the necessities an organized State.  Only the State, not non-state actors such as FOJ, has the monopoly of resorting to arms.

Even the Prophet Muhammad, while in Mecca at the beginning of his mission, together with his companions, waged for 13 years "peaceful jihad" against his tormentors.  Their jihad consisted of patience, endurance, advice, and ultimately immigration (Hijrah) to Medina.  Even in Medina, which marked the beginning of the formation of the Islamic community (in Islam "community" and "State" are two different things),  Muhammad resorted to combat (Qital) but only in self-defense.

In Islam, there is no aggressive war, and war is both defensive and proportional.  Alas, these are values lost on the criminal gangs of Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, AQIM (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghrab), the Nusra and the Friends of Jerusalem.  The long-term danger of such criminal gangs, which prey on the ignorance of the illiterate masses of what Islam stands for, is this: the adverse effects on the freedom of belief held by non-Muslims, and the propelling of Muslims into fanaticism, including suicide (the destruction of self -totally prohibited under Sharia).

The great Egyptian poet, Ahmed Shawki, nicknamed "The Prince of Poets" summed up the difference between jihad and Qital in one famous verse:

"War is not everday's vehicle,

and blood is not to be sanctified at every episode" (my translation from the classical Arabic).

That exquisite verse justifies in full measure the anti-colonial struggle in Libya under the Sanusis against Italian occupation; in Algeria under Abdel-Qader against French colonialism; in Morocco under Abdel-Kareem Al-Khattabi also against French occupation; in the Sudan under the Mahdi against Anglo-Egyptian suppression of national and tribal aspirations; and in Egypt under the leadership of the Scholars of Al-Azhar against Napoleon.  This is a partial list of instances of where jihad is justifiable under Islamic Law which clearly militates against unjust authority whether external or internal.

The advocacy of the Friends of Jerusalem is fueled not only by common mass ignorance.  It is backed up by books like that by an Egyptian by the name of Magdy Ahmed Hassanain.  In historically cosmopolitan Egypt (nicknamed "The World's Mother"), religious fanaticism is heading toward one final destination called "Station Failure."

In his book, published in Arabic in Cairo in 2003, under the provocative title of "Jihad: The Nation's Vocation," Magdy Ahmed Hassanain, in 383 pages, totally upends the legal interpretation of jihad.  In its egregious assumptions and fanciful conclusions, Hassanain's writing evokes the spirit of "Mein Kampf" (in German: My Struggle), authored by Hitler in the 1930's, and read by me in Arabic in the 1940s.  I have little doubt that Hassanain's advocacy shall lead to the same cataclysmic failures produced by Naziism on the world stage.

As head of the "New Labor Party," Magdy Ahmed Hassanain advocates in his newspaper "Al-Shaab Al-Jadeed" (The New People), a unique compromise with the present secular transitional government of Egypt.  That is total surrender to the Islamists!!  Thus he calls for the immediate arrest and execution of Field Marshall El-Sisi, the Defense Minister and Deputy Prime Minister (who, at the urging of 35 million Egyptians led the unseating of the Islamist regime of Morsi.)

Calling El-Sisi "a pimp," he forthes at the mouth when he yells across the pages of his rag that "without El-Sisi's immediate arrest, summary trial and execution, Egyptian society shall see no peace."  Now Hassanain, this champion of false jihad and permanent war against all non-Muslims, is the subject of a subpoena issued against him by the General Prosecutor investigating Hassanain's out of sight accusations against Egypt's Military Intelligence.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel which secular Egypt is successfully traversing at present in spite of "The Friends of Jerusalem," Hassanain, and other advocates of endless conflict for no rational end.