In Libya's Civil War: How to Judge a Declaration as Confused and/or Idiotic?

Qaddafi is gone forever from Libya, Egypt's neighbor to the West.  But the ghosts of destruction through civil war between the Islamists and the Secularists keep on multiplying.  Libya has become a dangerous place for its people and the region, and the world lying to the north, across the Mediterranean.  Militias fighting militias; Qaddafi's nuclear arsenal is gone, but the huge amounts of conventional weapons remain; deadly weapons keep on crossing the Egyptian borders to the east, the Tunisian borders to the west, and to Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM) and beyond to the south, through Chad and Niger.  A real security mess!!

But Egypt, though with a million-man army, both in active service and reserves, feels the jitters.  The Sisi government, with pledges to 93 million Egyptians (a full 25% of all Arabs) of security and stability, cannot close its eyes to its long borders with a militias-run Libya.  The Islamists of Libya are an integral part of the flying Islamist carpet of the Muslim Brotherhood, now banned in Egypt, but keeps on floating from Hamas, east of Suez, to Tripoli, Libya.  A vaunted pan-Islamism, which now calls itself a caliphate in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and a caliphate in northern Nigeria (Boko Haram: "Western education is a sin") in western Africa.

This gathering Islamist storm is already rattling the windows of power in security-conscious Cairo.  Storm windows need to be quickly installed, as Cairo uses its soft power to contain blood-shed in Gaza, and uses its iron fist to annihilate the terrorist "Friends of Jerusalem," a Hamas franchise.

The El-Sisi's one-two punch cannot be of lasting effect without at least some gesticulation in the direction of presently law-less Libya.  This is the heart of the lesson of US air strikes against ISIS in Iraq, US air surveillance together with special forces operations in Syria (the Iraq-Syria borders are gone), and the pilotless drones over Yemen to contain the Al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsular (AQAP) of Al-Awlaki fame (or lack thereof).

Though seemingly regional, this is a global struggle for the defeat of those who claim that God (Allah) has permitted them to claim the entire world, beginning with the Arab/Muslim regions) for Sunni Islam.  The Islamists have anointed themselves as jihadis (soldiers of God), even though the word of God is vastly at odds with those moronic jihadists.  These terrorists, now waging a World War III against civilization, tell the befuddled youth from the U.S., Europe, Asia and Africa: "Come join us and be rewarded by paradise in the hereafter."  But the Quran confronts their thesis of "cooperation for murder," by these words: "You help one another in righteousness and piety, but do not help one another in sin and rancor." (Chapter V, Verse 2).

This confrontation between the secularists (who won in Egypt) and the Islamists (who seem to be winning in Libya, Iraq and Syria) is existential.  It is a zero-sum game, and after the dust of battle settles, only one of the two global factions shall remain standing.  And it shall not be the Islamists, what with their fragmentation, territorial non-contiguity, savagery, and alienation of the vast Muslim masses in 57 States!!

However, on the side of the Islamists, stands idiotic western media, vacillating western leadership, hood-winked non-governmental organizations, and an America which is still looking at the jihadis as reformable, potentially democratic and a counterpoise in the Arab Spring to what the U.S. perceives as a lurch towards military governance. And when America gets really stunned by the Islamists barbarism, such as in the case of the beheading of the American photojournalist James Foley, America gets dressed up as a cop holding a search warrant, knocking on the door of the jihadis, entering their lair (where animals lie down) and solemnly declare: "You have the right to be silent!!"

Come on, America: this is war which is more ferocious than that in Iraq where, in 2003, you suspended the iconic Geneva Conventions of 1949.  It is amazing that you enjoy nearly silently, Egyptian initiatives for peace for the Gazans and the Israelis, yet condemn Cairo for what you miscontstrue as Egyptian intervention in Libya.  What a mockery!!  Washington hits ISIS from the air under the justifiable claim of ISIS being an existential threat to the homeland 10,000 miles to the west.  But looks upon a presumed Egyptian act of self defense a dangerous intervention by Cairo in the Libyan affair.

This is not only double standard.  It is beyond being confused.  It is a sheer self-defeating fantasy:

• The Islamist intervention in Egyptian domestic affairs is on, since the popular unseating of the Islamist reign of terror in Egypt under Morsi from June 2012 to July 2013;
• American media and non-governmental organizations, including Haman Rights Watch, still obtusely describe the elected presidency of El-Sisi as a coup; 
• Simultaneously, the spokeswoman of the U.S. State Department, Mary Harf, in effect declares on August 19, 2014 that President El-Sisi was leading the process for democratization in Egypt, but this would take a long time.  Thanks, Ms. Harf, your assessment of democratization in Egypt has not been invited, unless you wish to eat your words about Egypt a couple of weeks earlier.  At that time you charged Cairo of using U.S. aid to suppress peaceful demonstrations.  In a riposte, the Cairo Foreign Ministry did not mince its words.  It said that your statements reflect total incompetence and ignorance of the facts on the ground in Egypt;
• Compounding these contradictions, are the declarations of "The Friends of Jerusalem" (Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis) that it shall keep on liquidating Egyptian security forces in Sinai because they were the enemies of God through their fealty to El-Sisi -an enemy of God (as per Ansar);
• Now come the American charge that Cairo has placed its airports at the disposal of the air force of United Arab Emirates to attack the Islamists in and around Tripoli.  

Aside from being a non-substantiated charge, let us suppose that it is true: how would it differ in its ultimate effect from U.S. similar and more direct actions elsewhere in Arab lands?  And who gave the U.S. the right to complain that it was not consulted in advance of such actions?  Does the U.S. consult Egypt before it undertakes its justifiable actions against ISIS and similar terrorist organizations?  Is Washington, in its justifiable desire to defeat ISIS, consulting with Cairo on American rumored contracts with Al-Assad and Iran under the theory of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend?"  Not so!!

• Then as "icing on the cake," enters The New York Times of August 26, with the provocative headline on its cover page: "Arab Nations Strike in Libya, Surprising U.S."  The paper's demagogic reporter David Kirkpatrick, supported by his usual coterie ensconced at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (What kind of international peace do they advocate?) pipes in:  In an interview with the New York Public Radio on August 26, that correspondent, in a self-convincing voice, says: "Egyptians lied to the U.S.  This is a cold war between political Islam versus stability.  The military government in Egypt never forgets U.S. backing of Morsi when he came to power."  Thanks, David!!  Apparently you see Cairo always from a faulty lens of an Egypt descending into dictatorship!!
• Now how does Mr. Kirkpatrick reach these conclusions?  And more to the point, how does "one senior American official" perform an acrobatic outstretch in describing the presumed actions by the Emirates and Egypt in the following confused and/or idiotic words:  "We don't see this as a constructive at all."  

Well, the Carnegie people went even beyond these interventionary hallucinatory statements.  A Michele Dunne, a senior associate at the Carnegie, raves from the bottom of a well of fiction when she solemnly declares: Such actions have "proved to be a gigantic impediment to international efforts to resolve any of these crises."  Michele: time for you to take a break from your overworked brain at Starbucks;

• In what seem to be an anticipation by Cairo of these official and non-official American blitz against Cairo's self-defensive measures, President El-Sisi had a completely different version.  Addressing one of his periodic meetings with Egyptian media, he referred to the allegations by the Muslim Brotherhood in regard to Egyptian armed forces involvement in attacks on the Islamist militias in Libya.  The Egyptian President declared that there was no involvement by Egypt "outside of its borders."
• El-Sisi was on point in addressing the issue from an Egyptian sovereignty perspective.  All other foreign declarations were fumings with no tangle effect on the existential battle between the Islamists and the secularists in Arab lands.  It is a combat between those who declare their adversaries "apostates (Takfiris)," a fancy term by the Islamists, and those who declare that "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great) (Tawhidis), a term that says faith is a matter of choice and conscience.  The sword has no place.

It is high time for America to stop acting confused.  The Hamlet persona of "To Be or Not To Be" is not befitting a great power!!  The struggle against terrorism, especially when it raises deceptively the banner of faith (Islam), is globally indivisible.  You are either on the side of humanity and international humanitarian law, or on the side of darkness, amply represented by the flag of ISIS -a flag which amply deserved a recent act of maximum disdain performed in Sweden by two young Egyptian women!!

Honoring Isis, the Egyptian Goddess of Mercy 5000 Years Ago; Dishonoring ISIS of Today as Murderers Without Borders

In Islamic jurisprudence, Jim Foley of New Hampshire is a martyr (a Shaheed).  In memoriam, James Foley; decapitated by ISIS on August 19.

ISIS's very name is a cause for acute revulsion.  The reasons are myriad.  Foremost among these is their vocation.  They are "Murderers Without Borders."  Jim Foley was a photo journalist without borders.  Add to that, ISIS's fanciful assumption of being the resurrected "Caliphate."  A painful joke!!  Under a street thug from Anbar, Iraq, called "Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi."  

On top of that, comes the abuse of the term "ISIS."  It should not be confused with the heroine of ancient Egypt, Queen Isis, the goddess of mercy, and compassion, the loving wife of Osiris, and the celebrated mother of Horus who appears in relief as a falcon.

Osiris/Isis/Horus is the ancient trinity of which the great Egyptologist, Professor James Breasted of Chicago University said in his 5-volume work on ancient Egypt that it presaged the trinity in Christianity.

It was in the 1950's when, as a junior researcher at the UN, I was asked to help find if genocide was ever practiced in ancient Egypt.  At the New York Public Library, I read Breasted's five volumes in search for clues.  I found none, with the exception of two episodes of "secondary genocide:" a siege, and the destruction of wheat fields.  No mass killings of other humans, non-involved civilians.  That was five-thousand years ago, with no national, let alone international conventions, on genocide.  Only the rules of common sense for common humanity.

So from Isis the Queen, to ISIS, the head cutters; from giving life, to decapitation; from the creation of great monuments, to the destruction of temples, churches and mosques; from the belief in great science and engineering on the banks of the Nile, the Tigris and the Euphrates, to the stockpiling of material intended for destruction in the name of God.  An amazing decline in values, an uptick in the elevation of fiction to the level of belief such as jihad in the ISIS fashion.  History does not repeat itself; its gears are pushed in reverse.

The decapitation of Foley is a clear signal for a close look at our interpretation of faith and force.  They don't mix.  ISIS mixes them because it serves the purposes of using the garb of Islam to hide their tools for decapitation of civilization.  They use the rage against the West on the Arab and Muslim streets as leverage; the lack of cohesiveness among the 1.6 billion Muslims as an incubator for breeding brainless future jihadis, ready to proclaim an Islamic People's Republic of Terror.

It is amazing how such vicious Muslim renegades can be thought of as possible negotiating partners!  There are no values, no commitment to law either domestic or international; no feeling for the right of others to their beliefs; and no regard to their own book, the Quran, that murder is a capital sin!!

Holding Foley's severed head with one hand, and the black flag of ISIS with the other, is a gruesome macabre.  On that black flag is the Islamic inscription of "Muhammad, God's Messenger."  Neither Muhammad nor God have anything to do with these animals who are masquerading as humans.  In fact the common blessing in Islam is "In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful."  Where is the ISIS belief in God's graciousness and in God's mercy?

By their deeds, they mock Islam, let alone other creeds.  In non-recognition of their flag, the Quran says: "And now they reject the truth when it reaches them: but soon shall they learn the reality of what they used to mock at" (Chapter 6, verse 5).  The future cannot be on the side of darkness.  ISIS began with 3000 fighters; says it now has 20,000.  But as they lost at the Mosul Dam, so they shall lose what they had gained by stealth, jihadi false propaganda, ransoms, and commandeered resources.  May their loss at the Mosul Dam, thanks to U.S. air strikes and indigenous military footprint on the ground, be the beginning of the end of their farce.

But to defeat them, we first have to go into the ISIS brain.  I needed to find a manifesto, an interpretation of their outlook on jihad.  I needed to read their words to assess their idiocy.  Coming back empty, I looked into the declaration of their cohorts -"Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis," the Gaza-based lunatics.  Here is a summary of a video released in late August urging Egypt's army and police to defect.  Just read and wonder about the voodoo rationale of these transnational non-State actors.

Using the modus operandi of ISIS, that terrorist group whose name translates into "The Friends of Jerusalem," show how they kill members of Egyptian forces in Sinai.  Their leader, Ibrahim Al-Rubaish, taunts his targets by saying: "You have sold your faith for a loaf of bread."  Then he adds: "You have worshipped El-Sisi instead of God.  Do not blame us for killing you only because you pray and fast.  You do not cry for the death of the noble Mujahedeen as you murder them."

"The Friends of Jerusalem," whose terrorism in Sinai has forced Egypt to declare them and their allies, Hamas, a terrorist organization goes on in its video to say: "El-Sisi is standing by his friendship with America.  He would have no chance of survival without your weapons guarding him and obeying his orders.  By doing that, you have disobeyed your Creator and sided with El-Sisi."  Then Al-Rubaish adds: "I have searched the Quran and the Sunna (Muhammad's prenouncements and conduct) and found no justification for you, soldiers and policemen, to put your duties above God's orders.  Your livelihood is in the hands of God, not in the uniform that you are wearing."

This is only a small segment of their heinous propaganda, which proclaims them as the interpreters of Islam.  Disobeying them is made to sound as rejecting God!!  It is a savage psychological warfare aimed at untutored masses and intended for mass panic.  From "The Friends of Jerusalem," to Hamas, to the Brotherhood which gave birth to Hamas, to ISIS -it is one single tapestry but with different colors, woven in hell.  That tapestry hangs together; its elimination needs regional hands and international shock and awe actors.  A piecemeal approach is likely to needlessly prolong the agony.

Against this incredible array of facts against ISIS and similar organizations, it is unbelievable to find American media calling on Egypt to make peace with the Muslim Brotherhood.

On CNN last Sunday, August 17, Fareed Zakaria once more is stuck on his old script.  He proclaims that "the Arab Spring in Egypt has failed to advance the cause of democracy in view of its crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood."  Do the CNN pundits think that bringing Morsi back is possible?  Is disfranchising the huge majority which voted for "El-Sisi Raiisi (my President)" a workable answer?  When Egypt is fighting today for its secular identity, are those talking heads advocating a halt, so that their definition of democracy would prevail?  Have they heard of "The Islamic project," called for by Morsi when he was in power, which was a scheme excluding everyone else except for Morsi's real base -the Muslim Brotherhood?  Shouldn't the rise of ISIS change Zakaria's outlook in view of this game -changing menace?

This week, the Sinai authorities discovered five headless bodies in various parts of that desert province.  The trademark of ISIS is already discernible in Egypt!!

The big question is: In an existential struggle, such as that of Egypt's secularists vs. the Brotherhood and its affiliates, which should come first, classical democracy or classical security?

During America's civil war, President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, together with other provisions of the American Bill of Rights.  The American Union was fighting for its existence.

So is with Egypt of today: The survival of the State's identity within its historic character comes before Mr. Zakaria's definition of what should constitute ultimate freedom.  He is blissfully immune from the politics of Tahrir, and from the aspirations for a better life for 93 million Egyptians.  Zakaria's silence would truly be made of gold for the land of the Nile.

The truth does not exist within the CNN studios.  It only shows its face on the Egyptian street so that a repeat of the James Foley's decapitation would never be attempted in Tahrir Square.  Queen Isis stood for the victory of good over evil.  ISIS stands for evil pure and simple.  May the soul of Jim Foley rest in peace!!  And may the Murderers without Borders receive their punishment from above and from below!!

When Human Rights Watch Turns Its Advocacy Into a Comedy

While riding a Manhattan bus, a headline of a report by Kareem Fahim in The New York Times of August 12 quickly caught my eyes.  It read "Systematic Killings in Egypt are Tied to Leader, Group says."  Emanating from Cairo, it meant by "Leader" President El-Sisi; the "Group" was Human Rights Watch.

I am not usually a speed-reader, but quickly became one, till I stopped at a paragraph before suppressing my laughter.  The paragraph reads: "The report calls for an investigation of Mr. Sisi who was commander of the armed forces at the time, and several other sitting government officials, including Egypt's interior minister."

So Human Rights Watch, a non-governmental organization based in New York City, has, by an act of God, made itself an international criminal court!!  But there is one ICC which is based in the Hague, which came into being by the Rome Charter of 1998, with Egypt acceding to it, and the U.S. rejecting it, even though it had negotiated it.

To my knowledge, the ICC has no subdivisions, no chambers, no branches anywhere!  Nor can the ICC be succeeded by an NGO which, from that report in The New York Times is sitting, without any legal standing, in judgement of a sovereign State -Egypt.  The funny thing is that, as reported, Human Rights Watch  "had conducted a yearlong investigation into violence that followed the military's ouster of former President Mohamed Morsi."  A HA!!  So we are back celebrating on August 14, 2014, the first anniversary of the events leading to Egypt's security forces, backed up by the army, breaking up the Muslim Brotherhood's double sieges at Rabaa and Al-Nahda by force.

Now that Human Rights Watch has completed its one-year long investigation into those momentous events, it now wishes to label El-Sisi and the Minister of Interior and other senior officials as defendants "accused" of "wide-spread and systematic killings of protesters...more than 800 people, and possibility more than 1,000!!

A very tall order by an NGO from whom I have seen no similar reports calling for investigations into Guantanamo, Abu-Ghraib, Helman, Gaza, Yemen, or...  These are large geographical areas where dragnets caught thousands of citizens in their webs to throw them away into a forever-legal limbo combined with degrading torture.  That is where an American NGO should go, and claim jurisdiction over the likes of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and company who still claim that water boarding is not torture!!

OK!!  Let us stay with Human Rights Watch's uninvited focus on post-Arab Spring Egypt which has fought off the Islamists attempts to turn it into an Islamic Emirate.

The Muslim Brotherhood was given a historic chance to rule Egypt under a presidency of their own.  Morsi became President in June 2012, promising inclusiveness, security and development.  Within only 5 months, he proved to be not the president of all Egyptians. Copts, Shias, and secularists were excluded.  During a period of one year, he distinguished himself by "I am above the law" through his "Constitutional Declaration" of November 2012!

Let us ignore for a few moments the report of those false pretenders to universal jurisdiction, the Human Rights Watch.  Let us focus on the "achievements" of the Morsi "one man, one vote, one time" during his incumbency -an incumbency which was terminated by 35 million Egyptians calling on June 30, 2013, not for his head, but for his seat.  The armed forces, under El-Sisi, were only the auxiliaries of that Second Revolution, not its igniters.

Morsi, in a booklet published in Arabic by the Muslim Brotherhood in April 2013, called his program for Egypt "The Islamic Project."  In its introduction his adversaries, the secularists, were attacked as "aiming at causing the public to reject the Islamic/Brotherhood experiment in order to perpetuate the environment of corruption which enabled them to accumulate ill gotten gains." (p.7)  That 24-page booklet went on to cite the tactics of the anti-Morsi opposition.  It listed 13 such tactics, including "the manipulation of the judiciary (tactic #5), "the fomenting of sectarian and ethnic violence" (tactic #6), and the propagation of "civil disobedience (tactic #13) -all of which on p. 8.

Then the Morsi manifesto goes on to respond to the question: "Is President Morsi a weak president or a strong president?"  It answers as follows:  He removed Field Marshall Tantawi: and General Anan; he cashiered the chief of National Intelligence; he dismissed the Attorney General, Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud; and he issued "the Constitutional Declaration" (of November 2012) concentrating all powers in Morsi's hands).  On that achievement, the document cites Morsi as a genius because "although he rescinded that Declaration, he, in practice, preserved it effects." (p. 9)

The manifesto of April 2013 ridicules national secular opponents by name; denigrates Egyptian economic leaders; calls Israel "the Zionist Entity, and ridicules national consensus as destabilizing (pp.10-11)

The Morsi manifesto confronted Egypt with a clear and present danger: from civil war to splitting the country between North and South.  That is not to mention their transparent attempt to ween away the public from its army at a time when the Brotherhood had its militias and Baltagias (thugs) as the enforcers of Islamist rule.  A mere reading of the Islamist constitution of 2012 provides a non-controverted proof: The secularists, including the Christian minority, were pressured to abandon their seats on the Constituent Assembly; and articles agreed for inclusion in the final text were either deleted or re-written Islamicly.  The plebiscite on that defective Constitution attracted only 22% of 53 million eligible voters, and its faked approval was less than 50%.

And when the call to prayer sounded in the parliamentary chamber, for the first time in any Egyptian Parliament since 1936, it was in effect a call to arms between the secularists and the Islamists.  The former had their eyes on Egypt whose monuments were threatened by destruction a la Bamian Buddhist Temples by the Taliban in Afghanistan.  The latter had their eyes on pan-Islamism, where Egypt historically does no belong.

When the Second Revolution of June 30, 2013, erupted, the lines of battle had already been drawn leading within 3 days to the ouster of a hated Islamic regime.  That regime would have found common cause with ISIS on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Iraq and Syria.  The Nile is immune from that sectarian lunacy.

With Morsi's ouster by the will of the masses (the Islamist Constitution contained no provision for presidential recall), the Islamists struck back.  In Sinai, a war by proxy with Hamas, an offshoot of the Brotherhood; in Cairo, guerrilla urban warfare at Rabaa, east of Cairo, and Nahda, west of Cairo.  Two small emirates arose in the capital of Egypt whose 93 million inhabitants constitute 30% of all Arabs from the Atlantic to the Gulf.

Time now to review the urban Islamist rebellion from July 3 to August 14, 2013, the period of the so-called "investigations" by Human Rights Watch -the new self-appointed Trustee over sovereign Egypt.

"The Watch" claims that Egypt's security forces struck on August 14 with a scant warning to the Rabaa demonstrators.  A blatant lie.  The government of Interim President, Counsellor Adly Mansour, pleaded with the occupiers who paralysed life in two major sections of Cairo, for 6 weeks, to leave peacefully.  In New York City, the "Occupy Wall Street" movement was given 15 minutes by the New York Police Department before they were dispersed by well-justified force.

"The Watch" claims that for 12 hours elapsed before the Egyptian security forces allowed the demonstrators a safe exit.  Wrong again.  The guerrilla warfarers were permitted two safe exits publicly and repeatedly announced by the authorities.  The central purpose of the authorities was to effect a peaceful end to a trench warfare by the Brotherhood.

"The Watch"  claims that the demonstrations were "largely peaceful."  Wrong.  In the two emirates of Rabaa and Nahda, weapons were stored; hostages were taken; firearms were used; the first casualty, a police officer, was felled by bullets shot from within the rebellious crowd; street pavements afforded the well-rehearsed fighters plenty of stone-power to lob at the forces of law and order; the so-called "martyrdom" was celebrated; "Down with Egypt" became a battle cry; calls on the members of the police forces and the army to defect were broadcast; and foreign intervention and funding were invited.

"The Watch" claims that the Rabaa stand, the field hospital, and the mosque were torched, "probably by the security forces."  Probably?!  A case of conjecture whose advocate I would not admit to my lectures on the law of evidence.  If you have no proof, zip your mouth!!

"The Watch" again shows how soft its head is on the law of evidence.  It had to admit that "few of the demonstrators were armed;" but its selected evidence asserts that "the police killed hundreds of unarmed demonstrators."  It also had to admit that the demonstrators lobbed Molotov cocktails at the police.  Then it states that it was able to document these episodes in "a few cases."  How few?  And are you professionally capable to reach these vague conclusions on the basis of "hearsay evidence" gathered over one year of the occurrence, and collected from witnessed already biased for being a party to that conflict?  Get Real!!

Egypt has lost nearly 500 army and police personnel, even before declaring your beloved Muslim Brotherhood and its franchise, Hamas, terrorist organizations.  Its public is still under a terrorism alert in the subways and above ground.  Its forces are still confronting the Islamic marauders in Sinai and on the Libyan borders.  Yet at the same time, Egyptian engineers are now rebuilding the Coptic churches destroyed by the Islamists during their reign of terror in upper Egypt.  They are also refurbishing neglected Jewish temples.  Its diplomats are in an overdrive to rescue the Palestinians in Gaza from further death and destruction through the Egyptian cease fire initiative which is being prolonged whenever it comes to its end.

And now Human Rights Watch is calling for an investigation of the country's leadership including the Interior Minister who had nearly lost his life to a drive-by terrorist bomber.  You must be nuts!!

When the State is fighting for its life, security takes priority front and center.  The hundreds who were unfortunately killed at Rabaa and Nahda were put on harm's way by the Brotherhood whose baby organization.  Egypt is a part of the presently-boiling Middle East in regard to which President Obama, in a recent interview on August 8 with Thomas Friedman said: "Our (meaning the U.S.) politics are dysfunctional, and we should heed the terrible divisions in the Middle East as a warning to us: societies don't work if political factions take maximalist positions."

Well said, Mr. President!! Maximalists, like the Brotherhood, Hamas, Jihad, and ISIS, never win.  This is because they demand of their opposing party only one small thing: non-existence!!

So Mr. Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, and Ms. Sara Leah Whitson, Director of its Middle East Division: You were not deported from Egypt when stopped at the Cairo airport on Sunday, August 10.  You cannot be deported if you were not admitted into the country.

And how arrogant can you get to proceed to Cairo after being denied a visa in order to perform another stunt for publicity as you presented yourselves to the airport authorities as "tourists."  You were no tourists.  You were "agent provocateurs" who wished to unfurl your report calling for investigating El-Sisi and others on the basis of an evidence-free report intended to harm, without credible cause, Egypt's standing worldwide.

To repair the damage to your reputation, and in the absence of the status of a super power, I strongly urge you to stay home to take care of the multitude of human rights issues on which you would be luckier in collecting credible evidence.

Unless you claim immunity from reason, it is "The Watch," not Egypt, that has a lot to account for.  Egypt, through its venerated judiciary which was pummelled during the Brotherhood's rule, is capable of handling the events of August 2013.  It has, without your prodding, appointed my friend, Counsellor Fouad Abdel-Monim Riyadh, formerly of the ex-Yugoslavia Tribunal, to head a national commission of inquiry into those events.  So butt out!!  Egypt is not a banana republic.

Your claim to world-wide concern everywhere for human rights rings hollow.  Your "Watch Tower" must have been on vacation during the Bush Jr. administration.  Where were you when John Yoo as counsel for the Department of Justice advised that the Geneva Protocols of 1949 providing for the protection of civilians during times of war are obsolete.  Acting on this advice, the U.S. detained and tortured hundreds of civilians from various Muslim countries.  The highly-placed perpetrators are still at large in the U.S., yet fearing detention if they ventured abroad.

Mr. Ken Roth, also known to me as "Mr. Watchman": I wish I were the attorney for "plaintiff Egypt" in a case against you and your funders in Cairo, a proper venue where the events took place.  The cause of action would have been incitement to violence.  The evidence would have been the limited riots of your "Muslim Brothers" in Egypt this August 14.  Your attorney would have advised non-appearance at that trial.  But in abstentia, I most probably would have secured a favorable verdict.  And under the theory of universal jurisdiction, you would have been a target of detention in any of the members of the League of the Arab States (22 minus Syria -suspended membership, and Qatar -no diplomatic relationship with Egypt for its support of "Brotherhood" terrorism in Egypt).  No statute of limitations.

But wait, here is a tip from this blogger: There is an exit!!  Declare your actions as immunized as "Acts of State," under the official seal of "The People's Republic of Human Rights Watch."  Then the whole world would have joined me in a prolonged and hearty laugh!!

The Distance Between ISIS and Islam: Is Greater Than the Distance Between Mosul and the Moon!!

They call themselves a Caliphate -a successor regime of whom?  Of the Prophet Muhammad?  He defined Islam as "the system where people are not harmed by its word or its hand (action)."  Of the four successors of Muhammad (Abu-Bakr; Omar; Othman, and Ali)?  They advocated learning from Byzantium, Persia, and Egypt.  Muhammad called for searching for knowledge "even in China."  Of the Ottoman Empire?  But that Empire was built on "the Millet" system where all religions were allowed to thrive.

Then it must be a Caliphate of their lunacy, of their insatiable hunger for brute power, of their worship of an age of darkness led by a crazy maniac all dressed in black calling himself "Caliph Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi."  Even Al-Qaeda, of Bin Laden and Al-Zawahri, the criminal perpetrators of 9/11 among other calamities, have cut ISIS loose.

Their faith is in the sword; their mode is blitzkrieg; their joy is in decapitation of their opponents; their "Islam" is a black flag and a stolen Humvee; their advocacy is death to the Christians, the Yazidis, the Shia, the Jews, the Alawites, the unveiled women, the secular governance, and those who do not pay them their ransoms and their "estimated taxes."  Works of art are their enemy; the great mosaics of Church windows and Islamic mosque domes are a threat which is brought down by dynamite; music and dance and cafe social gatherings are sinful; the West and the East should all perish.  They are the new pretenders, the masters of the universe, the holy-inspired throngs with shoulder-carried grenade propellers and Kalashnikov rifles.  National borders, indicative of sovereignty, are to be erased.  Sovereignty resides in Caliph Al-Baghdadi -a street thug from Anbar!!

How do we measure the distance between ISIS and Islam, a distance co-equal to that between their temporary "Mosul" and the Moon?

The only verifiable yardstick is the Quran and the Sunna (the words and conduct of Muhammad).  For these two sources are the primary sources of Sharia (Islamic Law).  And they have so much tarnished Sharia to the point that several States within the American Union have adopted legislation banning its citation as a source of law in their courts!!

On this alone, ISIS has scored a crucial victory for their lunatic interpretations and actions.  They have converted us to their own interpretation of Islam, thus causing us to ingest their poisonous pills.  A historic ISIS contribution to Islamophobia!!

Their lunatic interpretation of the Quran and the Hadith (the traditions of Muhammad), combined with their savagery in the field reflected Islam in their ugly mirror.  Relying on that false image, and suffering from anxiety about national security, the non-Muslim would become hostage to their propaganda.  That ominous trend toward Islamophobia was also propelled by mistaken writings in the west about Islam.  In his several books about Islam, Professor Bernard Lewis of Princeton University falsely asserts that there is a clash between Islam and modernity.  Nonsense!!

The first word in the Quran is "IQRAA" (Read) meaning "Learn."  Thus early Muslims avidly sought knowledge from Persia, Byzantium including Greece, and Egypt.  In their wars, the ransom for a non-Muslim Prisoner of War was a book.  That was the golden age of Islam which criminal gangs like ISIS wish to skip over, rewriting the thought and action parameters of "fundamentalist Islam."  Fundamentalist Islam and reactionary Islamic are very opposite concepts: the former is light and tolerance, the latter is darkness and banishment of "The other!!"  

The primary Islamic method of learning was developed by Al-Azhar which was established by the Shiis in Cairo in 975 AD as a citadel of Islamic learning.  That was the seminar method whereby the student selects the instructor -a method which later travelled from Cairo to Andalusia (Spain) to Germany, to the Sorbonne in Paris, then to Oxford and Cambridge in the U.K. Islam and modernity go hand in hand, Professor Lewis, except in periods of decline such as the present one which we are sure to be transient.

So instead of what they say in televised sports, "let us go to the tape," we say "let us go to the Quran and to Muhammad's tradition, the primary sources of Islamic Jurisprudence."

ISIS (I don't care whether they call it ISIS or IS -both are deceptive appellations) declares that only Sunni Muslims are entitled to existence.  Nobody else as they are the only "believers."  Total idiocy!!  The  primary principle of Islam is Tawheed (the oneness of God) which means direct relationship between the individual and his/her Creator.  There is no middleman.

This concept covers: the elimination of someone declaring the other "an apostate;" the equality between every faith and other faiths; and equality before the law.  In fact, this doctrine accepts "non-faith," as the final judgement is left to God.  The Quran, which in Islamic dogma, is the word of God as revealed to Muhammad, says: "Say, the truth is from your Lord.  Let him who will, believe; and Let him who will, reject!!" (Chapter 18, verse 29)

On diversity and the need to welcome "the other," the Quran says: "Then will God says:"  O Jesus the son of Mary! Recount  My favor to thee and thy mother.  Behold!  I strengthened thee with the holy spirit, so that thou didst speak to the people in childhood and in maturity.  Behold!  I taught thee the Book and wisdom, the Law (the Torah) and the Gospel! and thou healest those born blind, and the lepers by My Leave.  And behold!! Thou bringest forth the dead by My leave."  (Chapter 5, verse 110).

ISIS hypocrisy is challenged forcefully by these Quranic admissions and instructions.  And hypocrisy, in Islamic tradition, is a non-forgivable way of life.  In fact, the Quran devotes an entire chapter of a total of 114 chapters to hypocrisy which ISIS has mastered.  The Quran says: "When the hypocrites come to thee, they say, "we bear witness that thou art indeed His Apostle of God?  Yea, God knoweth that thou art indeed its Apostle, and God beareth witness that the hypocrites are indeed liars." (Chapter 63; verse 1).  Have you heard that Caliph Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi?

But obviously the great pretender "Al-Baghdadi, who is busy killing anybody he could catch, if he is not a ransom-paying Sunni, has no time for such Quranic details!!"  Yet his delegitimation, as a pair of hands dripping with blood, lies in this Quranic statement: "On that account: We ordained for the children of Israel that if any one slew a person -unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land -it would be as if he slew the whole people; and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people." (Chapter 5; verse 32)  On that basis, the air strikes and humanitarian air drops in Kurdistan by the U.S., the U.K. and France, which began as of last Thursday to save the Yazidis, Christians and Kurds, are, under Islamic laws, to be regarded as fully sanctioned and justified.

In all of these arguments, the Quran is not the only yardstick.  It is bolstered by the concept of "Wisdom" (Al-Hikmah), which is equally emphasized under Islamic Law by both the Quran and the traditions of Muhammad.  It is the pillar of ljtihad (the application of reason to the revealed text of the Quran).  Unfortunately, the non-Muslim world has focused on jihad, not on ijtihad.  Even that focus was largely mis-directed.  In Islamic Law, there is no aggressive war; only defensive war for the dual purposes of territorial protection and self-defense, both within national frontiers.  Thus killing of the innocent, as in Mosul or Rakka or in Kurdistan, is totally abhorred by Islam.

Returning to Al-Hikmah (wisdom), we find the Quran saying: "For God hath sent down to thee the Book and Wisdom and taught thee what thou knewest not before, and great is the grace of God unto thee" (Chapter 4, Verse 113).  Herein lies the legal bases of the evolution of Sharia to fit changing circumstances.  Thus when the scholars of Islam say that Sharia is for "all times," they mean that it evolves with time.  Examples follows:
On women, Islamic Law equates between men and women in their respective legal standings.  Islam does not preclude women from the work place.  During the time of Muhammad and of his four successors, women sat at governance meetings, participated in discussions, and even, at times, contradicted Muhammad himself.  On severance of limbs: The practice in Islam, as decreed by the Caliph Omar, in his instructions to the judges, is that the judge should be defendant-oriented.  He himself, upon an admission by a malfeasant that he had committed theft, ordered that person to go away, saying "Your guilt was perpetrated by society which denied you adequate means of livelihood.  On the hijab, the Quran only mentioned "modesty in dress."  On adultery, Islamic Law made it impossible to prove.  For it provided for four persons to perceive penetration (an impossibility).  On Quranic texts, legislated laws are a necessary supplement and modifiers (such as in the laws of inheritance, and in criminal law, and co-education).

As to religious fanaticism, the hallmark of ISIS, the Quran could not be clearer.  It says: "O people of the Book!  Commit no excesses in your religion; nor say of God aught but the truth." (Chapter 4, verse 171).  ISIS cruelty is abhorrent to Islamic Law as based on Islamic legal outlook and practice.  The Quran advises Muhammad to be kind and tolerant.  It says: "It is part of the Mercy of God that dost deal gently with them.  Wert thou severe or harsh, they would have broken away from about thee." (Chapter 3; Verse: 159).

Now behold ISIS, as it decapitates its hapless victims, shrieks "Allahu Akbar!!"  That invocation which they have turned on its head means: "We humans are all equal before God regardless of our beliefs."  Yet they call their fallen "a Shaheed" (martyr).  But the martyr is the victim not the would-be executioner.  The same process of upending Islamic definitions and values manifests itself through their recruitment of foreign fighters.  Islamic Law calls on immigrants to abide by the laws of their newly-adopted countries, as they practice their inherited faith.

When ISIS took over control of the Mosul Dam, the main water regulator and feeder for Iraq downstream, they have engaged in another form of genocide -the tactic of siege through the threat of either flooding or manipulation of water resources.  It was in Iraq, 1400 years ago, when Imam Ali, the fourth Caliph and cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, who upon prevailing over his war adversaries, the ummayads, directed his victorious troops not to withhold access to water for these rebels.  Before their defeat, his adversaries have committed the opposite against that great founder of the Shiism.

May the U.S. air strikes vanquish the new barbarians!!  ISIS has no place either in Islam or on any geographical map.  Their war crimes may, unfortunately, go on for a while.  But their end cannot be in doubt.  Neither their war materiel, nor that ill-gotten wealth, nor their horrific videos by which they are seeking to propagate fear, shall ever, in the long run, insure their existence.

Their prediction of one day hoisting their black flag over the White House is proof of their unprecedented hallucination.  A more assured bet is on a white flag of surrender flying over their black abodes.  Neither God nor humanity are on their side.  Compared to other similar jihadi organizations, ISIS is more distant from being Muslims, let alone human.

The translation of the Quranic quotations cited above are from Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Quran: Text, Translation and Commentary (U.S. edition, 2008).  I teach "Islamic Law and Global Security" at Fordham University School of Law, New York City.

In the Israel/Hamas War of 2014, Facts Were Smothered By Adding Fiction to the Fray!!

• Hamas denies Israel's right to exist.  But regardless of the circumstances of its birth, Israel does exist.  It is a member of the UN; it has peace treaties with both Egypt and Jordan; it is a party to the Oslo Agreements of 1993 in spite of their rejection by Mr. Netanyahu; and it is in negotiations, now stalled, with the Palestinian Authority which is legally the representative of the Palestinian people.
• Israel, as per Mr. Netanyahu, demands of Hamas a quid pro quo.  It calls for "quiet for quiet."  Unworkable.  Since 2007, Israel has besieged Gaza with a ring of steel.  You cannot hold a person's head in a choke hold, cutting off his breathing, then demand of him to stop struggling.  Israel claims that the siege is needed for its own security.  Israel is entitled to its security within its own borders which include neither Gaza nor the West Bank.  History has shown that Israeli security lies solely, not within the framework of its armed might (the 5th biggest army in the world), but in the framework of peace treaties.  The Palestinians have been waiting for one since 1993.  Postponing such contractual arrangement is a postponement of security.
• Since 2006, Hamas has been in rebellion against the Palestinian Authority.  But that authority, though enfeebled by corruption and aimlessness, has been recognized by the UN as an observer State.  Hamas has taken over Gaza by brutal force.  Hamas has opportuned the wave of Palestinian disgust at the corruption of the PLO.  But Hamas is neither a Palestinian government in exile, nor is it a representative of all Gazans, let alone all Palestinians.  And, as it calls itself the Islamic Resistance Movement (Harakat Al-Muqawmah Al-Islamiah), where does this leave the Palestinian Christians who, together with the Syrian and Lebanese Christians, were the founding fathers of Arab nationalism?!
• Israel threatens the Gazans with a return to an Israeli military occupation.  It claims that Sharon's evacuation of that territory has resulted in handing the territory over to Hamas.  But reoccupation of Gaza by Israeli troops is a sure recipe for continuous bloodshed on both sides.  As compared to the West Bank, Gaza is guerrilla warfare territory par excellence.  Its demographic density is its guerrilla "weapon of mass destruction."  Like in the case of Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon, because of the non-defeat of Hezbollah, Sharon, in a wise attempt to save Israeli lives, ordered withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.  It was a tactic of Israeli national expediency; not a gesture of Israeli abandonment of its practices of creeping annexation of Palestinian territories.
• Hamas, in the course of this Ramadan War II (the first was between Egypt and Israel in 1973), has rejected the Egyptian cease-fire initiative. Reason: Hamas was not consulted!!  How cynical!!  If Hamas is truly concerned with the rising cost in Palestinian blood (more than 1400 Palestinians have thus far perished), does it really matter that Cairo did not place a long distance telephone call to Hamas?  That rejection was a transparent search by Hamas for re-recognition by Cairo.  
• For reasons of Egyptian security and secularity, Cairo has declared the Muslim Brotherhood in December 2013 a terrorist organization.  Hamas, as an offshoot of the Brotherhood, thought it expedient to manifest solidarity with its parent organization.  Thus it illogically engaged in terrorist attacks on Egyptian army and police personnel, as well as tourists in Sinai.  A fatal mistake!!  Consequently, post-Brotherhood Egypt is now waging daily defensive actions against Hamas and its poisonous franchises.  It was incumbent upon Egypt, for purely national reasons, to label Hamas also a terror organization.  From the destruction of Hamas tunnels leading from Gaza into Sinai, to near total closure of the Rafah Crossing, Egypt's actions have already cost Hamas half a billion dollars in annual ill-gotten revenues.
• Israel, is reinterpreting those Egyptian defensive actions against Hamas, as "an Israeli/Egyptian siege" of Gaza.  No.  Egypt is not an Israeli ally in besieging Gaza.  Under the UN Anti-Genocide Convention, a siege is a secondary form of genocide.  Egypt is closing its Sinai borders to stanch the flow of murderous operatives into its territory.  Both Hamas and Israel, each for its own reasons, pretend that Egyptian sovereign acts within its borders are complementary to the hideous Israeli siege of Gaza.  Unlike Israel, Egypt is not blocking Gaza seaports and airports.  Nor is Egypt, for example, requiring the registration by Israel of every baby born in Gaza.
• Hamas, in its rejection of the Egyptian cease-fire proposals, demanded that those proposals should also include the re-opening of the Rafah Crossing between Gaza and Egypt at all times.  Hello!!  Can you read?  Egypt has already declared you "an enemy" and "a terrorist organization."  And when you are gasping for air, because of the war with Israel, you are in no position to dictate terms to Cairo.  The violation of Egyptian borders in Sinai by Hamas during the Morsi defunct regime was one of several reasons why the June 30 Egyptian Revolution threw out that pro-Hamas Islamist regime.  Through the Revolutions of January 25, 2011, and June 30, 2013, Egypt has turned secular, nationalistic, internally-bound, and abandoning the unworkable adventures of Arabism of the Nasser to Mubarak period. 
• Egypt has turned away from the hocus-pocus of pan-Arabism and pan-Islamism.  The only "pan" in the Egypt of today is pan-Egyptianism which creates jobs and bestow dignity on the Copts, the Sinai Bedouins, the Nubians, the Shii minority, and the dwellers of the western desert along the Libyan explosive borders.  In summary, Egypt has turned inward, deeming intervention in its internal affairs from any quarters as a hostile infraction.  The Rafah Crossing is not a bridge.  It is a sovereign marker which may be opened by a sovereign Egyptian decision.  Egypt, because of the human catastrophe in Gaza, has decided on two types of openings: entry into Egypt by wounded Palestinians for treatment, and allowing a Hamas representative to be present in Cairo as a member of Abbas delegation for talks on the cease fire.  So please stop spinning!!
• Israel in an act of high-handedness, rejected dealing with the unity government declared by Abbas and Hamas in April 2014.  Its pretext was that no negotiations could be conducted with a government which includes a "terrorist component" meaning Hamas.  This is a legal, political, and diplomatic idiocy.  Though a sovereign State, Israel has no legal capacity to dictate to the Palestinians who should or should not be in their government.  The Netanyahu coalition includes crazies who demand annexation of all Palestinian territories.  Israel's rejection of dealing with the Palestinian unity government is, in effect, a continuation of the Israeli fiction that Israel has no credible negotiating partner.
• Had Netanyahu gotten off his high horse, he might have neutralized the Hamas idiocy of denying Israel's existence.  This Israeli rejectionist front deserves what the great Israeli statesman and Arabist scholar, Abba Eban, had once said about the Palestinians.  Turning his adage around, he might have said: "The Israelis never lose an opportunity to lose an opportunity."  In effect, Israel's refusal to deal with the Palestinian national unity government constitutes another form of siege.
• Hamas, as a movement is hopelessly fractured.  In spite of the blatant obfuscation of its political boss, Khaled Mishaal, in his recent interview with Charlie Rose of CBS and Channel 13 (New York), it is the military wing, not the political wing, which is now calling the murderous shots.  Another Mishaal grand dissimulation during that interview was his response to Rose's question: "Why are you residing in Qatar, and not in Gaza?"  With the emphasis of a well-practised truth-avoider, Mishaal in effect said through an interpreter: "The Palestinians are everywhere in the diaspora." Then later said: "I cannot be admitted to Gaza."  Of course, Khalid, let your people die in Gaza, while you enjoy a privileged life made sweet by petro-wealth!!  Leading from behind is much safer!!
• Neither Qatar (the mouse that keeps on roaring), nor Turkey (with a Prime Minister who fancies himself the new Caliph) can compensate Hamas for its well-deserved loss of Egypt.  Ordogan's insults directed regularly at Israel, and Qatar's gold, channeled habitually to both Hamas and the remnants of the Muslim Brotherhood, cannot replicate Egypt's strategic position bordering Gaza.  And neither Ordogan nor Hamas can bring back to Egypt the ousted Islamist governance.  Regardless of how often Ordogan raises the four fingers of "the Rabaa salute," Morsi's chances of resuming his Islamist rule in Egypt are as great as those of a snowball in the boiling hot desert. 
• As for Israel, none of its present practices in Palestinian territories outside of the green line, unless modified through successful negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, is bound to prevail.  Not its 47 years of military occupation.  Not its military superiority.  Not its inhumane siege of Gaza.  Not its creeping annexation through construction of settlements on lands acquired by force in 1967.  Not its strategic relations with America.  Not its coercive negotiations.  Not its pretense that its forces could legally stay on Palestinian territories following the attainment of a two-State solution.  Not its prowess in the global field of public relations.  Not in its contribution to the transformation of a territorial conflict into a religious-ethnic conflict.  Not even with Mr. Netanyahu's demand for "quiet for quiet," in effect an imperial call for "unconditional surrender."  
• None of these colonial practices, beliefs and utterances could survive as insuring, in the long run, Israel's security.  If no two-State solution can emerge through negotiations, with a fully sovereign State of Palestine, then both the Israelis and the Palestinians are destined to be victims of wars without end.
• Too bad that visionary leaders, like Sadat and Begin, are no more.  They dared to take a leap of faith by concluding a historic peace treaty in 1979.  When Sadat was assassinated by the Islamists in 1981 for that transformative act, Begin marched in his funeral.  But the PLO, under Arafat, marched in the opposite direction by intoning: "May God Bless the Hand that Pulled the Trigger!!"  Had the PLO been blessed by enlightened leadership, responding positively to Sadat's call to the Palestians to join him in reconciliation with Israel in 1978-1979, the Palestinian flag would by now be flying high over the State of Palestine.
• The Palestinian tragedy could be traced to the perennial lack of a unifying iconic leadership.  Throughout the history of the British mandate over Palestine (1920 to 1948), the Yishov (the Jewish community) in Palestine was building for itself state institutions.  At the same time, the tribalised Palestinian Arabs led in multiple directions by feudal landed clans like the Nashashibis and the Husseinis were busily feuding against one another for pre-eminence as "southern Syrians," even during some furtive armed uprisings against the British and Jewish immigration.  The Palestinians have never had either a Mandela for peace, nor a Ho Chi Minh for resistance.
• Another example of the march against history in the unending search for a two-State solution is Netanyahu's present calls for "a Marshal Plan for Gaza!"  Mr. Prime Minister, save your breath!!  When I wrote my Ph.D. thesis at New York University in the 1960s on decolonization, I realized that the colonized, such as the Gazans today under Israeli siege, would never exchange their freedom for butter.  They are not seeking your bread.  They are seeing their very being.
• Would the warlords of Hamas and Israel of today ever come together?  In this I have no doubt.  Their portraits shall forever hang side by side in history's Great Hall of Infamy.  Admission Free!!  There is no exit through adding fiction the the fray!!
• This is habitually the fate of crazy deadenders, ideological maximalists, and deranged theocratic psychopaths.  Their wounds are self-inflicted.  But the wounds which they inflict upon others remain as gaping holes igniting the next genocidal round.