How and Why Has Egyptophobe Michelle Dunne Gotten the Reputation of the Carnegie Endowment Undonne?

This is the first of two Christmas letters to Michelle Dunne.  Its title is "The Contrived Drama a the Cairo Airport."  She, the queen of that drama, is reputed to be a diplomat and a scholar in the pay of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  I am the founder of "ELIFAS - El-Ayouty Institute for Arab Spring Studies" and in the pay of myself.

Before I present the non-controverted facts, Dunne and El-Ayouty share in two values: Love for the U.S. as citizens; interest in Egypt with Dunne as the ideological attacker, and I, a "one man platoon," as a defender of my other and older nationality -an Egyptian who came to America as a Fulbright 62 years ago.

I served America well through teaching since 1954.  She serves America not so well through attempting, not to bring Egypt and America closer, but to drive them apart, by casting unmitigated doubts on the Egyptian Revolution as a failure.  Dunne's motivation for her Egyptophobia is unclear to me.  The only clarity is that a scholar and a diplomat are soldiers for peace.  From the facts below, she comes across as a stalwart for hate.

Ms. Dunne was invited to speak at the 15th Anniversary of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs (ECFA) in Cairo in mid-December.  ECFA, which I represented at the UN from 2002 till recently this year, is a prestigious NGO.  It brings together the best Egyptian minds in diplomacy, academia, business, politics and the arts under one umbrella.  I was in Cairo at the celebration time.  But could not attend because of a nasty bout of cold.  However, I came to know about the Michelle Dunne saga from ECFA's top echelons, and from the media which carried mostly Dunne's view of what she was subjected to upon arriving at the Cairo Airport.

From my investigations, the following picture emerged:

• Opposition within ECFA to inviting Dunne was based on her persistent attacks on the legitimacy of El-Sisi's assumption of powers as President.  Casting doubts by Dunne in that direction is baseless.  Thirty-five million Egyptians congregated on June 30, 2013 in every square clamoring for Morsi's ouster.  His Islamic iron fist and the Brotherhoodization of Egypt were about to plunge Egypt of 100 million population, both Muslims and Copts, in a Libyan/Yemeni style civil war.  It was a popular recall of a hated Islamist regime, an appeal for the rescue by the national cohesive Egyptian army, not unlike 1958's uprising in France which brought DeGaulle to power.

States in transition are traditionally sensitive to outside intervention, even if that intervention is by the so-called "Global Think Tank" -the motto of Dunne's paymaster, the Carnegie Endowment.  Yet the ECFA leadership won the day over those who opposed Dunne's participation.  The leadership said, "Let her come so that we might reason with her."  If I had a say in the matter, I would have joined the opposition.  Ideologues like Michelle Dunne are beyond reasoning.  Like Amtrak, they run on iron rails, not a Greyhound bus navigating the bumps and taking alternative back roads.

Dunne was advised by ECFA to pay for her air travel and secure her visa.  ECFA was to house her, together with other invitees from abroad, at the Conrad Hilton, a 5-star, by the great Nile River in Cairo.  Dunne submitted her passport to the Egyptian Counsular section of the Embassy in D.C. for the purpose of a visa.  But quickly withdrew it before any official response was made.  Why?  I don't know.  But she did, and opted to travel to the country which she, from her writings, considers a dictatorship, only because she says so.

Arriving in Cairo late at night, Dunne presented herself to Passport Control at the Cairo International Airport (Terminal 3).  Her request was for "a tourist visa," while the purpose of her travel was "business."  By checking her name on their "No Admission" list, Michelle Dunne's name was emblazoned, and her admission was denied.

Was that a contrived move by Dunne to prove to the world that Egypt was in the grip of a dictatorship, and that she was justified in her Egyptophobia?  I truly don't know.  But as an international defense attorney, I would be foolish to discard it, though I am not generally a believer in conspiracies.

So here I must say in this First of Two Christmas Letters to Michelle Dunne: Had you left your passport at the D.C. Egyptian Consulate, you would have been warned that you were not welcome to enter Egypt.  That unvisa'ed trip and the obfuscation in your application at the Cairo Airport for a "tourist visa" cascaded into what followed.

Undoubtedly, it fed you with the Egyptophobe nourishment which you, from your writings and other utterances seem to crave.  Addiction to hate is a real malaise, though you pretend to work for "international peace."

Midnight of Dec. 14/Dec. 15 at the Cairo International Airport is not an opportune time for negotiation with the security services of Egypt.  This is a country at war with terrorism and other myriad opponents, and lifting of "the non-admission" status is a lengthy process.

You called the U.S. Embassy in Cairo -no help.  You called another soul mate of yours -another Egyptophobe, David Kirkpatrick, reporter of the New York Times in Cairo -no help, except for a commitment to persevere in calling the elected El-Sisi administration a coup.  I am certain that you called others as well, especially in the U.S., at around 5:00 pm Eastern Standard Time.

Lots of empathy for you, Michelle, from those helpless quarters.  But still "no admission."  Mind you, as a presumed scholar and a diplomat, you should know that legally "no admission" is not detention.  But for enhancing the dramatic effect of what you, by your unreasonable actions, had brought upon yourself, you allowed yourself to call it "detention."  Even a cup of tea in a private salon offered to you by the Airport Security Officers out of sheer Egyptian kindness to your unresolved dilemma, was described as "isolation, intimidation."  How ridiculous!!

Then your veil of victimhood fell off.  Ambassador Shalaby, the able, gentle and scholarly Executive Director of ECFA, having been informed while in bed at or about 1:00 AM of your dilemma, called top officials to allow you to enter even for one day.  He regretted that he was unsuccessful, and that ECFA had not known about your being on a "no admission" list.

Calling you through a teleconference while you sat waiting for a plane to fly you out of Egypt, your haughty response was truly imperial.  You told him in effect that "I came in the hope of changing my mind about Egypt.  Now I am confirmed in my views about Egypt!!"

A threat, combined with arrogance and ingrained malicious intention about Egypt -one third of the Arab population!!  So please go ahead with your theatrical threats.  You and the entire "think tank" of the Carnegie shall not move the New Egypt one inch from the march to its own drummers -its secular society.  Rivers of your ink shall not change the color of the Nile water, because, in your fantasy, you ignore the following realities:

• A visa is a recognition of the validity of a passport, issued by the proper officials of the country which the bearer wishes to enter;
• A visa is a product of a State sovereignty whose denial is known in international law as "a protective principle" with respect to certain conduct outside of its territory by persons, like you Michelle Dunne, not of its nationals;
• According to international law, the U.S. cannot interfere with the laws of another sovereign regarding conduct occurring within that other sovereign's territory; and
• The New Egypt, unlike the pre-El-Sisi era, is not going to be supinely the tool of other powers.

As an example, the U.S. has denied the entry of Professor Tariq Ramadan to the U.S. 3 years ago, following his application to the U.S. Embassy in London for an American visa.  That world renowned professor of Islamic Studies at the Faculty of Theology at Oxford, was responding to an invitation to speak at Stanford University.  Though a nephew of Hassan El-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, and based in Geneva, he has never engaged in anti-US or anti-Western activities to warrant that senseless denial.  Le Monde Diplomatique has said about him: "Ramadan has started to pave out the road to reform and changes in the understanding of Islam in Muslim communities in the West."  I have assigned his book entitled "Islam and the Arab Awakening" to my graduate seminar at Fordham University School of Law, New York City where I teach a course entitled "Islamic Law and Global Security."

Everyone took that visa denial in stride.  But not the omnipotent Michelle Dunne of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace!  She is UBER ALLES!!

• David Kirkpatrick, Dunne's cohort in Egyptophobia, wrote two pieces on the Dunne's seemingly pre-fabricated victimhood.  The title of the first article in The New York Times was "Egypt Denies Entry to American Scholar Critical of Its Government."  In it he refers to recent Dunne's writings by saying: "Ms. Dunne has pointedly criticized Egypt's attempts to carry out what she called 'draconian' restrictions on nongovernmental organizations as well as its "harassment and intimidation of activists."
• Thanks, David!!  You are a Prince in the mold of Prince Vlad!!  I hope that you have enjoyed reading about your lack of ethics in reporting in Media Ethics, by Rhonda Roland Sheaver, dated Dec. 18.  Media Ethics investigations revealed, among many other lapses of ethics, that you lied about the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Shawki Allam.  You, a lying weasel, featured him as "defending forced evacuation of families from Sinai."  Mr. Kirkpatrick: you did not even contact Dr. Allam.  You seem to ignore the fact that in Sinai, Egypt is at war with terrorism.
• Its action in Sinai does not even come close to Roosevelt's brutal herding of US citizens of Japanese descent in 1941 in horrible concentration camps after Pearl Harbor.  
• Media Ethics proved by statistics that 12 of your stories relied in 38 anonymous sources; that nearly half named no sources interviewed by the Times; and that your lopsided stories quoted 15 critics of Egypt's government and a single Sisi supporter.  40 of your stories, Kirkpatrick, quote the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, of Cairo, a well funded attacker of Egypt's actions against Islamist marauders in Sinai and elsewhere.
• Shame on you and on other Egyptophobes like Dunne for calling Egypt's Grand Mufti "a lackey for the Egyptian government."  And that the Mufti's ruling was "the latest attempt by the government of President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to invoke interpretations of Islam for its own legitimacy."
• Confirmed ignoramuses like you and Michelle reflect a disgusting mix of Egyptophobia, Arabophobia and Islamophobia.  All wrapped into one.  An Egyptian version of Islam, exists only in your deranged approach to public reporting.

Returning to Dunne: The Carnegie entire board published an editorial in The New York Times of Dec. 15 entitled: "Egypt's Latest Outrage."  In it, that Board for international peace called American approval of $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt contradictory.  Why?  Because that aid, which is treaty-based, and in line with Egypt's performing in the global war on terror, was claimed by Carnegie as supporting the continuation by El-Sisi Government of repressing "Egyptian citizens" and of "harassing foreigners like Ms. Dunne."  No wonder that Cairo is pivoting to the East!!

Yet the Carnegie endowment of Michelle Dunne falsely claims that it continues to be "dedicated to advancing cooperation between nations and promoting active international engagement by the United States"  YA SALAM!!  Equivalent in Arabic to "Oh My God!!"  Give it up Carnegie: your fig leaf has fallen and the visuals are far from appealing.

Through Dunne and others like her, the Carnegie does not deserve the title of "The Global Think Tank."  In reality, and with reference to Dunne, you have become, at least in respect to the New Egypt "THE GLOBAL STINK TANK."

Await Christmas Letter No. Two to Dunne on "Analysis of Dunne's So-Called Scholarly Writings."