Here Comes A False Turkish Don Quixote Ordogan!!

He is delusional!!  Working hard toward the Turkishization of the Arab Spring, especially in Egypt.  I knew that something was missing:  One finger in his right hand as he raised it in a Rabaa salute!!  And why a Rabaa salute by Sultan Ordogan: an approving nod towards the Muslim Brotherhood as it waged a coup in 2012-2013 against secular Egypt.

Don Quixote saw in Spanish windmills hostile knights to be attacked.  In his mold, Ordogan sees in the Egyptian Revolution of June 30, 2013 a tidal wave drowning his dream of a Caliphate.  Ordogan's problem does not lie within what he does within Turkish borders.  His constant attacks on the New Egypt reflects his being on the wrong side of history.

Our Turkish Don Quixote is welcome to have his palace of 1000 rooms (estimated cost at $750 million); to have his troops welcome Abbas in Ankara in uniforms of 16 stages of the Ottoman Empire; to declare his support for the Palestinian cause.  But Ordogan has no business interfering in the internal affairs of Egypt.  Especially as Egypt transitions to what El-Sisi calls "a strong State."

Having taught in Cairo modern Egyptian history, including Ottoman rule, I find Ordogan woefully lacking in knowledge of why the Ottomans collapsed.  The Empire (and the caliphate with it) did not fall because of its opposition to Jewish settlement in Palestine.  This is what Ordogan told Abbas during that recent state visit.  It collapsed because it became hostage to three evils: internal corruption; oppression of the Arabs and of minorities; and succumbing to the fatwas of ignorant ulamas (scholars).  Those ulamas advised the Sultans that training of the armed forces by non-Muslim trainers was un-Islamic.  The same stupid thesis of Nigeria's Boko Haram (western learning is un-Islamic).

By contrast, Egypt even while under Ottoman suzeranity, welcomed training by non-Muslims.  Thus Egypt twice was on the verge of burying the Ottomans under an Egyptian flag.  Though the Ottomans occupied Egypt as of 1517, Egypt declared its independence from the Turkish yoke twice.  Once in 1769 under the leadership of Ali Bek Al-Kabeer whose sway extended from Yemen to Damascus, passing through Jedda, Mecca and Medina.

The second, opting out of the Empire was in 1840 under Muhammad Ali, whose son, General Ibrahim was about to occupy Constantinople in 1839.  He was forced by England and France to retreat out of fear of a dynamic Egyptian empire replacing "the sick man of Europe" - the Ottoman empire.  As of 1840, Egypt continued to be nominally within Ottomanism.  But Cairo looked upon Constantinople only as a notary public for the selection of the successors of Muhammad Ali.

The Arab rebellion of 1916 against Turkish rule was a water shed in Arab history.  That rebellion was led by the Hashemites, not by Lawrence of Arabia.  By joining the Allies against Turkey during World War I, the Arabs put their aspiration for independence ahead of staying within a nominally Islamic Caliphate.

The Ottomans forced the Arabs to make that historic choice.  For it was the Young Turks who reneged on their treaty of 1912 with the Arabs which called for Ottoman recognition of Arabic as the Arabs national language.  After all, Arabic is the language of the Quran.  This Turkish chauvinism went further amok.  Great Arab national leaders were hung to death in 1915 in Damascus public squares.  That was in addition to the Turkish massacre of Armenians due to unfounded suspicion of collaboration with Russia.

So, Sultan Ordogan, please treat yourself to a refresher course in the history of the Ottoman Empire.  Simply leave the New Egypt alone.  Non-interference in the internal affairs of other States is the best recipe for regional and international peace.  Good fences make good neighbors.

Believe me!!  If you want to parade your honor guard in costumes going back to the 14th century, Egypt might retort by sending you papyri of ancient military Egyptian uniforms going back 7000 years.  Including chariots and charioteers!!  But I doubt that the New Egypt would fall for the trap of Ordogan theatrics.

The Turkish Ministry of Education has decided to introduce the old "Ottoman" language to its educational curriculum.  Egypt, since the discovery of the hieroglyphic language through the Rosetta Stone unearthed in 1801 by the great French archaeologist Champolion, has kept it alive.  Contrary to the purpose of reviving Ottomanism by Ordogan, Egypt values the teaching of hieroglyphic as well as the Coptic language at its universities.  In this respect, Egypt's reason is for culture not for hegemony.

While Egypt is working for the strengthening of its new axis with the Gulf, Turkey's Ordogan is working toward compensating for the European Union refusal to admit Turkey to its membership.  Hence the Ankara alliances with cul de sac pan-Islamic movements.  While the New Egypt was welcomed at all levels during El-Sisi's visit to Kuwait, including unambiguous Kuwaiti statements of support for the new Egypt, Turkey was critical of Egypt's calls on Qatar to account for its funding of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In the context of Egypt's emphasis on internal development, Abdel-Wahab Al-Badr, head of the Kuwait Development Fund noted the following:  "The creation in Egypt of an additional Suez Canal to be inaugurated in August 2015 is expected to turn Egypt into a new Singapore.  80% of world transit trade shall go through Suez."

As the Young Turks cracked the whip against non-Turks in their dying Empire, the oppressed began to exit in droves seeking safe refuge.  To where did they flee?  To secular and tolerant Egypt, the permanent rebel against the Ottoman Caliphate.  In Cairo and Alexandria, the Lebanese Christians set the example.  They launched modern Egyptian journalism, including Al-Ahram, now the official printed medium of the Government.  They issued the great periodical of Al-Resalah.  On Al-Resala's high literature, we were nurtured in high school.  They established the modern theatre, cinema and comedy; made Egyptian songs the lingua franca of the entire Arab world.  And they propelled Arab nationalism on a distinctive secular course.

Thus the loss of the Ottomans was the gain of the Egyptians.  What remained in Egypt from Ottoman days were mere relics: The fez, the titles of Pasha, Bek and Affandi.  More durable are the jokes in Egyptian cafes about Turkish oppression symbolized by "the whip," over-taxing the poor, and empty fanfare.

At Davos (2015), El-Sisi, at that World Economic Forum, spoke poignantly about the New Egypt.  He stressed the national focus on making it a haven for foreign investors.  Reason: virgin possibilities, and legally insuring profit repatriation.  While acknowledging terror as a global menace, he assured his world audience of Egypt's capacity to undertake the twin tasks:  Development and combating terrorism.  

While Sultan Ordogan was on a visit to Somalia, a failed State, his nemesis, the Egyptian President had a mission with a real future impact.  At Davos, El-Sisi was deftly making an apt distinction.  Between faith as a private right, and interpreting faith to the masses, as a communal responsibility. Sadly, Sultan Ordogan chooses not to espouse that distinction.  His Islamism is under attack internally in Turkey.  It is also being challenged externally by his formidable opponent, Gullen.  Gullen is a Turkish Islamic powerhouse residing in Pennsylvania and calling for investigating Ordogan's corrupt practices.

Shouldn't Ordogan, in his foreign policy, give priority to securing Turkey's eastern border against the free movement of foreign jihadis?  By the thousands, those misfits pour via Turkey to join ISIS.  By contrast Egypt's eastern border has become a priority security issue.  A buffer zone has been created in Sinai with the aim of degrading the Friends of Jerusalem and their Hamas cohorts who are declaring Sinai an "ISIS Emirate."

Mind you, Ordogan is not the only aberration on the scene of globalized Islam.  More graphic events are taking place.  From the barbaric, as in the case of ISIS, to the ignorant or malicious, as in the multiple cases of self-declared experts in the Islamic faith.  Here follows some examples of the latter breed.

• Thomas Friedman declares recently in his Op. Ed column in the New York Times that "there is no real Islam."  Tom: There is, especially if you become at least versed in Muslim culture and the Arabic language.
• A so-called security expert on TV channel MSNBC (liberal) appeared on February 17 to make a startling declaration.  On the reputable talk show of Chris Matthews, that security expert has an incredible explanation for ISIS beheadings and immolation.  He declares that "it is important to remember that Islam spread by violence and the sword."  No, Mr. Expert!!  Islam does not recognize "offensive war."  Only self-defense is permissible, as in every other legal tradition.
• In regard to the air bombing by Egypt and the Emirates of ISIS in Libya, CNSNews.com carries a startling report on February 17.  "The United States does not support Egyptian and Emirati air strikes against Islamist militias in Libya."  Amazing!!  On the one hand, how can Egypt and its allies not forcefully respond to the massacre at its western borders of 21 Egyptian Christian citizens?  On the other hand, Washington, D.C. does not dictate Egyptian sovereign decisions, nor has Cairo ever interfered with US drone attacks in Yemen, 15000 miles away from D.C. 
• A statement of condolences was issued on February 17 by the Egyptian Consulate-General in New York.  It reflected Egypt's reasons for national mourning, and added: "We emphasize that that heinous act perpetrated at the hands of terrorism in Libya shall not weaken the unity or the stability of our homeland.  On the contrary.  Such barbarism shall only enhance Egypt's determination to uproot terrorism.

It is gratifying to note that there are also American voices of sanity reflective of a sympathetic understanding of Islam.  Even prior to the assassination of 3 Muslim students in the Carolinas, a well-known cartoonist in Arizona, Steven Benson contributed to the on-going debate on Islam and global security in a very impacting cartoon.  In the Arizona Republic, Mr. Benson published two frames: One with ISIS operatives clad in black, with swords raised; the other with anti-Afro-American Ku Klux Klan (KKK) clad in white with burning crosses.  The captions reflected the whole debate objectively through comparison.  Benson wrote: "ISIS is to Islam what these guys are to Christianity."

So please, Don Quixote Ordogan: Feel free to raise your hand in "the Rabaa salute" (four fingers) anytime you wish.  It reminds us not only of the defunct Muslim Brotherhood.  It also reminds us of the Nazi salute.  The only difference is that the Nazi salute kept the five fingers of the raised hand together.  In your Rabaa salute, I am puzzled as to where you hid the missing finger.  

You too, Sultan Ordogan is among the latest and meanest aberrations in the enduring Islamic faith.

Looking for ISIS Enablers? Find Some of Them Among Egyptian Editors

Ironically, some of Egypt's editorialists are in effect ISIS enablers.  Whether through malice or ignorance, they advocate a Cairo surrender!!  On the top of the great Muhammad Ali's Mosque, they, in effect, are advocating that El-Sisi should hoist an impossibility -a white flag.  The army which dared cross the Suez Canal in 1973 to destroy the Bar Lev Line and reclaim Sinai from Israeli occupation is not likely to heed Egypt's editorialists.

The attacks in northern Sinai by Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis (Friends of Jerusalem) may go on for a while.  Their terror warfare, though resulting on January 29 in massacring 30 army personnel and civilians, may go on for a while.  But with each passing day, Egypt's huge military establishment learns from experience.  Its response to the friends of ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood is becoming more sophisticated.

The pointed advocacy for surrender to global terror is in fact causing massive retaliation, especially through a widening the territorial buffer.  Hamas is bottled up in Gaza, and its calls for a Rafah Crossing bonanza are no more than exhalations of desperation.  You cannot hurt Egypt and, at the same time, issue deceiving proclamations of a Gazan-Egyptian brotherhood.

That crossing might one day be a bridge between Egypt and an independent State of Palestine.  For now, Hamas is no more than an Islamist rebellion against a putative State of Palestine.  Perhaps one day it shall submit to commonality with Egypt in recognition of a State of Israel.  You cannot deny, as Hamas Charter does, "the right of any Jew to an inch of Palestine," and call yourself a credible member of the international community.  Hamas should learn the basics.

Now to Egypt's editorialists -its adversaries from within.

• A genius by the name of Dr. Mahmoud Khalil mocks his country's renewal of the emergency law in northern Sinai for another 3 months.  That professor at the Faculty of Public Information of the prestigious Cairo University is stupidly sarcastic without cause.  He claims, through his empty suit, that "the military attacks (by Ansar) proves the inability of the present authorities to deal with the situation in Sinai."
• In his column (WATANTAN) of January 31, in Al-Watan newspaper, he sounds nearly gleeful.  From his comfort zone in Cairo, he opines more blatant imbecilities.  "Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis which carried the operation at Karm Al-Qawadees (northern Sinai) has augmented its lethal power many folds, while the opposing security forces have a diminishing prowess."
• Professor Khalil: Do yourself and Egypt a favor: learn the art of evidence!!  Have you counted?  Or does your measure rest on the mere ability to remotely explode a car laden with explosives, or sacrifice an ignorant suicide bomber?  Have you ever learnt anything from the ample lessons of terror warfare?  Apparently none!!

So you go on to call on the Egyptian government to abandon its legitimate warfare, come out from its fox holes with hands raised in the air, an declare, to quote your comic phrase: "We are a failure!!"  You should abandon your classroom and come out confessing your abject failure to even comprehend, let alone to "teach," a new generation of holders of degrees in public information degrees.

Turning now to Fahmy Howedy, an Islamist writer in Al-Shorooq of January 31.  He, apparently without any previous experience in military intelligence, boldly states: "What happened in Al-Arish, clearly points to significant failure in the gathering of military intelligence."  Sir!!  On what basis have you formed that judgement?  On the basis of its mere happening?

Have you ever been in Sinai?  I don't mean the pleasure spots of Sharm El-Sheikh, Taba and Hurgada.  I mean through the dunes and crevices of a vast province where trees have surrendered their existence to parched rocky hideaways.  I was there.  Several times.  So was my son collecting Sinai plants to discover their medicinal values -a report by a then 16-year old, now deposited with Cornell University.

If you, Mr. Howedy, wants to be an expert in desert warfare (which I personally gained as a UN officer in Algeria during its brutal war of independence) go to the scene.  Get some sands in your boots.  Get a few lessons on Bedouin life, on tribal disconnects, on the sacrifices of our desert troops, on psychological warfare.  Only then could you come back to us.  Proclaiming that "the measure of competence is the ability to sabotage an operation before its happening."  And you call this editorial wisdom?

Then in the language of a defeatist, Mr. Howedy, the Islamist guru of Al-Shoraaq, goes on saying: "Have the measures taken in Sinai diminished the threat of terrorism or enhanced it?  The operations undertaken by Ansar are performed with a high level of professionalism while the counter operations are rudimentary and are attributed by the government to the Muslim Brotherhood."

Mr. Howedy: Is that what your pearls of wisdom are all about?  Well, if you call raids by Apache helicopters, and the unremitting pursuit of terrorism in Asian Egypt rudimentary, this forces me to call you a simpleton!!  The term is defined as "foolish; gullible; a half-witted person."  The terror operations chain of custody couldn't be clearer -from the Muslim Brotherhood to Hamas to Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis to ISIS.  If you, Mr. Editorialist, cannot make that linkage, it is not surprising that the Brotherhood cells in Egypt and abroad draw comfort from your editorials.  So does Qatar, Turkey, Al-Jazeera TV, and the sheet called Al-Quds Al-Arabi, especially that of February 2.

Now to our editorialists as cartoonists.  Helmy Al-Tooni glorifies in the creation of a cartoon in the newspaper Al-Tahrir of February 1.  The cartoon by that Nasserite artist depicts Egypt as a bride in her wedding gown; flowers held tightly by her right arm; tears streaming her lovely youthful face; pyramids in the background.  An arrow has struck her heart.  With blood streaming, she bemoans the Egyptian leadership's presumed failure to protect, Bride Egypt, says: "Whoever married me must be able to protect me!!"

In support of this fallacy, another grossly misleading argument is advanced.  Another editorialist by the name of Assem Hanafi makes a fanciful claim: "The Muslim Brotherhood is armed with a domestically-manufactured bombs which they are at liberty to explode at any time, and at any place."

With this deluge of non-thinking editorializing by well-known writers within Egypt is it any wonder that that defeatism has infected foreign correspondents?  David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times, who is pre-disposed to constant attacks against the elected President of Egypt, El-Sisi, pushes the envelope even further.  On January 30, he, together with Merna Thomas, proclaims  to the world a habitual epitaph for Egypt's ability to confront terrorism.

In a lead paragraph, they both assert a misleading fantasy.  The Sinai terror operations are made to be unlike what is happening all over the world.  Those operations, they preach, are "prompting fears that the Egyptian government's campaign of home demolitions, curfews and sweeping arrests has failed to choke off a budding insurgency there!!"  Then they quote from their already predisposed habitual sources.

From Khalil Al-Anani of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies -a so-called expert in extremism, they produce a quotation.  Al-Anani says: "The insurgency is getting stronger and stronger, and the government's strategy is a failure."  And from Tamara Cofman Wittes, Director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, another defeatist is quoted.  She opines that: "It is clear that this extremely coercive approach is not working."  

I wonder what Ms. Wittes, a former deputy assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs is comparing the defensive/offensive Egyptian measures to.  With the existence in the U.S. of 50,000 private security firms?  With the uncontrolled gun possession in the U.S. of 300 million had guns, a gun per person in America?  With the unremitting U.S. campaigns in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Iraq and through the U.S. Africa military command?

Where has objective measuring of the advance in global counter-terrorism gone?  Apparently nowhere.  Except for a false focus on Egypt which is fighting on two broad fronts: Terrorism and the economy.

The icing on the cake should now be reserved to David Hearst.

In the World Post he surpasses all the above-cited doom-sayers.  He, as if through a bull-horn, shouts: "Egypt is more unstable than ever, with full-scale military operations in the Sinai and mass protests around the country that never seem to die down."  Last time I checked, I found unfortunately that the "mass protests in that never seen to die down," are in his own backyard: In Furgeson, Missouri.  Incredible.

Shouldn't the likes of Kirkpatrick, Al-Anani, Wittes and Hearst spend sometime learning that their doomsday chants about the New Egypt are akin to mere sound echo at the Grand Canyon?  The ABC of wisdom in today's international strategic studies is to shun combat predictions and to keep the U.S. safe from the unintended consequences of intrusiveness in the internal affairs of other States.

This is especially poignant when it comes to the New Egypt.  Post-Islamist Egypt has charted a course toward "The Strong State."  No room for an Islamization by the defunct Muslim Brotherhood.  Give it a rest, folks: Morsi.  This is in spite of an unfortunate reception accorded recently by the U.S. State Department to his acolytes, calling themselves the "Egyptian Revolutionary Council."

Those in D.C. who accorded that group a false sense of recognition should wake up to the realities of a possible Cairo - D.C. rapprochment.  On this point, let us cite the New York Times.

Written by David Brooks, a conservative with Republican party leanings, he, under the title of "Being Who We Are," says:

"The Middle East is not a chessboard we have the power to manipulate.  It is a generational drama in which we can only play our role.  It is a drama over ideas, a contest between forces of jihadism and the forces of pluralism.  We can't know how this drama will play out, and we can't direct it.  We can only promote pluralism -steadily, consistently, simply."

Well said Mr. Brooks.  From the Islamic reign of terror in Egypt, under the Morsi regime, a great lesson has been learnt.  The Muslim Brotherhood, a determined adversary of pluralism, was given a historic chance which they miserably squandered.  ISIS, their related organization, declared through The Friends of Beit Al-Maqdis, Sinai as an ISIS Emirate.  How brain dead can you get!!

Once more, we see the devilish features of ISIS and its new franchises clearly in the mirror of assassinating the Jordanian pilot and the two Japanese hostages.  These features inspire this invocation addressed to all those who predict failure of the efforts of Egypt in Sinai and other related combat activities against ISIS waged at present by the international coalition.  

Our invocation is: May those who predict failure in the elimination of Jihadism everywhere have their heads examined, their voices stilled, their ink running dry, and their predictions proving as false as their pitiful understanding of this global war of values!!

In this information warfare, the primitiveness of Egyptian editors is staggering.

How Satanic!! A Massacre in Paris Masquerades As Islamic!!

How can that be?!  A pair of desperadoes, French citizens of Algerian dissent, with Kalashnikov rifles massacre 12 co-citizens on January 7, claiming vengeance for Islam!!  What Islam are they mouthing?  And how can January 7, 2015 be different from 9/11?  Except in the number of martyred fatalities!!

The despicable crime against "Charlie Hebdo," a satirist magazine which I have never seen, caused the bullets to ricochet!!  As stones skipping on water in a pond, the ricochet has hit Islam itself!!  There is no faith on the face of this earth that can cover this naked aggression against humanity.

Massacres of any type are acts of madness.  They are extra-judicial; collective punishment; crime against humanity!!  Charlie Hebdo is the face of humanity.  The offending brothers are the face of real evil!!

From the Armenian massacre by the Ottoman Turks during World War I; to the Jewish massacre by the Nazis during World War II; to the Shii and Kurdish massacres by Saddam!!  Three faiths united by a common bond: death for believing, though faith is non-negotiable!!  In each of these cases, a fictitious high ground is claimed by the perpetrators.  Clear illustration of the toxic combination of faith and politics, producing neither faith nor politics which are defined as "the art of the possible."

Again to "Charlie Hebdo:" Cartoons are not cartridges.  They are cartouches which included Charles De Gaulle, Jesus Christ, and the Prophet Muhammad.  They did nothing to change a belief, not even by one inch!!  The rules of war in Islamic law call for "proportionality."  A gun in the hand of an assassin who is not even a warrior is not the same as a pencil in the hand of a cartoonist. 

The ignominy has not been brought upon Islam and its Prophet by those murdered journalists.  But the Kalashnikov guns have caused anxious questioning about the faith of 1.5 billion Muslims.  In true Islamic parlance: "only God Protects Faith."  Instead, infamy has been again brought upon the term "Muslim."  Confirming the saying by the late Egyptian philosopher, Abbas Mahmoud El-Akkad.  "No imperialism has hurt Islam more than by the hands of its ignorant adherents."

That ignorance lies like sleeping or in active cancer cells in the various crevices which hold nearly hidden truths:

• In Sharia (Islamic Law) the martyr is not the suicide bomber.  It is his victim: an uninvolved civilian;
• In Islamic tradition, an immigrant must respect the laws of his new abode.   His new abode cannot be the arena for his practices;
• In real governance, faith and the State cannot be interchangeable.  Faith is a choice; governance is an organized mechanism for communal life;
• In Sharia, there is no proslytization; no missionary endeavours; no in your face conversion;
• In Islamic Law, there are the Quran, the Sunna, and ijtihad (reason where the text is absent or unclear).  In ijtihad, there is a special jurisprudence: "Fiqh Al-Maslaha" (public interest);
• By definition, "Sharia is for everywhere and every place."  Here lies a total misunderstanding.  This does not mean imposition.  It means adjustment in application to suit changing circumstances;
• It is legally wrong to have several states in America banning lawyers like me from citing Sharia in their courts as a source of law.  The ban is unconstitutional.  But the blame from that Islamophobia lies at the door of jihadism;
• By tradition, Muhammed laughed in his councils at the joviality of drunken Arabs;
• In Islamic Law, an "infidel" does not mean a "non-Muslim;" it means a person without values;
• In Islamic jurisprudence, no one has the authority to declare others as "apostates;" that judgement belongs only to the Creator; no room for an ISIS or other jihadi scum; no middleman, no broker, no commission in terms of a religious credit;
• In Islam, the term "Holy War" does not exist.  Jihad is an internal self-improvement and self-defense of territory and faith in case of external aggression.  The State, not free lancers, has the monopoly on the use of force.

Might I also have been in the cross-hairs of those depraved assassins?  Possibly!!  Well; my recently republished novel in Arab is entitled "An Impostor In the Village."  It was originally authored and published in 1948 in Cairo.  Its republication in 2014 has an Arab Spring reason.  The novel's message is that the manipulation of faith for sordid ends produces catastrophic results.  Thus by implication, the novel depicts the conduct of the Muslim Brotherhood in the two Egyptian Revolutions: January 25, 2011, and June 30, 2013. 

In both cases, while the Brotherhood was misunderstood in America as a legitimate opposition, its advocacy and practice of terrorism forced El-Sisi Administration to declare them a terrorist cabal.  Secularism won over the Islamists because Egypt of 100 million has a secular and Muslim/Coptic DNA without which the country is non-recognizable.

In its historic document of August 2011, Al-Azhar, that Cairo citadel of more than 1000 years of moderate Islamic learning, responded to the ongoing confrontation everywhere between secularism and religionism (excessive religious zeal).  One of its eleven principles, all cosponsored by the Egyptian Coptic Church, declared in effect: "Islam does not recognize a State based solely on religion."  This explains why El-Sisi on January 1, chose Al-Azhar as his pulpit from which to call for "a religious revolution."

The killers at Charlie Hebdo cried "Allahu Akbar!!"  Their war cry belied the huge distance between them and Sharia.  For that term, "God is Great," means only one thing: We are all equal, in the eyes of God, regardless of our faith or non-faith.  They missed that crevice.  And hit the wrong target.

The real Muslims in the Charlie tragedy are the French police officer, Ahmed, a Muslim.  Executed outside of the scene of the murder en masse, on a Paris pavement as he laid injured, but representing the valor of his professions.  His execution recalled to mind a young Indian Muslim girl, Noor Enayat Khan, a French heroine of World War II.  Dropped behind Nazi lines in occupied France to coordinate Morse Code signals in aid of the Resistance, she, a Sufi, was executed in 1944 in a Nazi concentration camp.  Both Noor and Ahmed are the face of true Islam.  So is the Muslim who helped hide jews inside a non-functioning freezer from massacre by a cohort of the assassins at Hebdo at that Kosher deli at the outskirts of Paris.

In Algeria, in the early 1960s, I saw amity between the FLN and the French army outside Oran.  De Gaulle has sanctioned my entry into Algeria as UN Porte Parole (spokesman) toward the end of that war for Algerian independence.  I was a UN junior officer, an Egyptian who spoke French.  De Gaulle hated Nasser, but welcomed French-speaking Egyptians.  There, east of Oujda and in Tlemcen, I saw Algerian and French combatants become brothers.  That was the age of Houari Boumedienne, not the age of the bottom of the barrel, the evil brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi.

Pity the conflicting reactions from the Muslim world to the Charlie Hebdo massacre.  It pains me to translate into English those condemnations into Arabic.  Following the Paris massacre, Sarkosi, former French President, admonished against "mixing between that crime and French Muslims" (5 million of them; 8% of France's population).  Rouhani of Iran blamed the crime on Islamophobia encouraged by France.  "President Rouhani: Blaming the victim for the commission of the crime is like blaming the woman victim of rape for the violation of her womanhood."

The guiding light for the assassins at Charlie Hebdo is Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi -the false Caliph of ISIS, a thug from Anbar, Iraq.  The guiding light for the real Muslims, a vast majority, is Salah El-Din.  "Saladin" in the midst of war welcomed St. Francis of Asisi as a peace-maker between the Muslims forces and their crusading adversary.

France welcomed Muslims to its territory, including the parents of those assassins.  Citizenship is a bestowed right, not an inherent right.  Its violation is an act of treachery.  That violation is not redeemable by self-help: individuals assuming the mantle of avengers.

"Muhammed: We have avenged you, Messenger of God" -yelled one of the two killers of 10 French journalists and two police officers.  Guess what -Mr. Blood-on-Your-Hands: Muhammad and his Ummah (community) would never sanction your massacre masquerading as Islamic.  For it is pure Satanic!!

I am a professor of Islamic jurisprudence at a Jesuit law school in New York City -Fordham University School of Law.  My father, a graduate of Al-Azhar in Cairo, introduced me properly to the Prophet Muhammad.  From my specialization I conclude the following: To Muhammmed, terrorism would have been a denial of Allah -the God of all.

In the Quran, it is said in the name of Muhammad, addressing his community: "Say: 'I am only a mortal like you; it is revealed to me that your God is One God' (Chapter 18;verse 110).  This is the essence of "Tawheed" (the onness of God).  This universalizing principle unites faiths of all types together.  It is like a golden thread that keeps a necklace of pearls together.  From the smallest to the biggest adorning the neck of every human being.

The first word in the Quran is "IQRA" -whose surface meaning is "READ;" but its comprehensive meaning is "LEARN."  The problem with the villains of January 7 is that they live in a bubble of ignorance.

Their like-minded terrorists in Nigeria, who have just massacred 2000 in one incursion, adopted the name of "Boko Haram" (western learning is un-Islamic.)  By contrast the Prophet Muhammad urged his community to seek education -"even in China," his farthest point from Arabia.

While the Ottoman Empire avoided non-Muslim trainers, thus hastening its collapse, Egypt under Muhammad Ali (the founder of modern Egypt: 1805 -1849) nearly occupied Constantinople in 1839/1840.  Reason: French training in every field, from the army to archeology, since the days of Napoleon in Egypt as of 1798!!  

When Khomeini was chased out of his sanctuary in Iraq by Saddam as urged by the Shah after 1975, his refuge was in France.  It could, therefore, be safely said that the Islamic revolution in Iran, a shii majority country, was launched from France, the mother of "the freedom of speech" (liberte de l'expression).

Nearly a hundred years before Khomeini's Islamic revolution, France was the birthplace of even a more pervasive Islamic movement.  Led by two of the greatest reformers, Jamal El-Din Al-Afghani and Muhammad Abdu, who were united in Paris, it aimed at Islamic modernization.  

Upon his return from Paris to Alexandria, well before his death in 1905, Sheikh Muhmmad Abdu was greeted at the pier by a group of reporters.  He was asked "How did you find the West?"  His answer fully reflected the values of France's protection of personal liberties.  Akin to what Islam calls for, though ignored in the practice by most countries of the Muslim world.  His words eternalized by the ages, especially in this age of chaos were: "I found Islam there, and the Muslims here!!"  An emphasis on value as compared to superficial belonging.

Now that we all are "Charlie Hebdo," and you, the three assassins, have already reached hell, use your hotline with a sizzling message.  Text jihadis everywhere: "Your end is near.  The pen is mightier than the Kalashnikovs!!"  A lasting advice from "Charlie's Angels" who are now rushing to get a copy of the million copies of the incredible "Hebdo!!"

Your satanic acts in which 17 innocent victims were martyred made Paris on January 11 the capital of the world.  At that one-million person rally, the Muslims marched with signs declaring "Not In My Name!!"  NOT IN MY NAME EITHER!!

After 6 Months of El-Sisi Presidency - An Egyptian Version of "Yes - We Can!!"

It was one of the highlights of my ten-days of stay in Egypt in December.  Guest of Hajj Yousri Nagy and his family.  The inauguration of the Passenger's Terminal of the Hurghada Airport on the Red Sea.  An iconic event celebrating the return of the Egyptian spirit of patriotism and the desire to excel.  After all, the inheritors of the land of the Pharaohs were saying, in response to an El-Sisi impromptu speech, "Yes - We Can."

Egypt is, after all, a land of symbolism.  Its edifices convey an uninterrupted recorded history of 7000 years.  From the Pyramids and the Sphinx, to the Hanging Coptic Church where the Holy Family hid from persecution.  From the Muhammad Ali Mosque, a symbol of an Egypt moving ahead of a dying Ottoman Empire, to the new Suez Canal where water is expected to flow this February, creating two Suez Canals -each a one-way global waterway.

It is a confident Egypt, in search of a new age of progress through science and technology, in search of 13 million tourists a year, in search of pivoting to the East to end vestiges of dependency on the West, and in search of assertive secularism over the non-content Islamism of the Brotherhood which dupes its adherents by the fiction of being a Muslim Brotherhood.

Throughout this 10-day period of stay in Cairo, I was able to discern tangible evidence of the framework of the New Egypt after only six months of El-Sisi presidency.  No -I am not in anybody's pay!!

"Tahya Misr" (Long Live Egypt) is the new motto which reflects a post-revolutionary focus on Egypt itself.  No more ideological preoccupation with non-Egyptian issues under an inarticulate banner of "Arab nationalism."

With the Egyptian economy in a sorrowful state, coupled with terroristic attacks targeting Sinai, Egypt is forging an eastern axis with Saudi Arabia, other Gulf States (all sources of generous capital infusions eclipsing any US aid), plus Jordan.

That axis has a central global mission: combating ISIS and other barbaric marauders.  It requires coordination with Cairo, an Arab wing of the Anti-ISIS international coalition.  Hence a twenty-one gun salute greeted El-Sisi this December upon his arrival at the Amman airport.  Units of the proud Jordanian Arab army strutted to the tunes of bagpipes as El-Sisi and King Abdulla II saluted.

In mid December, a two-day conference sponsored by "Dar Al-Tahrir" and publicised under El-Sisi name, was organized as "The Anti-Terrorism Conference."  It was addressed by Egyptian Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab who declared that "those who seek to transfer their terror trade to Egypt shall fail.  For Egyptian culture, and all shades of Egyptian public opinion, confront terrorism through a culture of religious moderation and of total support of the army and the police as they daily combat that scourge."

The broad representation at that conference of the Cabinet at the ministerial level was indicative of the variety of official contributions to that globalized the historic task of terrorism containment.  The ministers of interior, energy, supply, religious affairs, communication, local development, culture, oil, transitional justice, and the presidential advisor on national security.

The conference targeted five fronts through which anti-terrorism should be tackled.  Aside from the military blunt instrument, there are other tasks: improvement of public services; continuation of Al-Azhar's efforts to rebut the misguided notions of extremists; bettering the advocacy of religious tolerance through mosques and churches; revamping the educational curricula at all levels; and monitoring groups and associations which advocate exclusion.

More anti-terrorism conferences: This time by joint co-sponsorship by Al-Azhar and the Coptic church.  Headed by the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Dr. El-Tayib, and Pope Toadros, their respected voices were raised to stress that there is absolutely no conflict between Islam and Christianity.  The conferees denounced the mixing between the barbarism of terrorism and Islam, a faith of moderation and tolerance.  While terrorism, the conference noted, seeks the expulsion of Copts from their homeland, Islam does not decree jihad except for self-defense and repelling aggression against faith and country.  Its exercise is the monopoly of governments, not of free-lancers.  In this regard, there is no difference between ISIS, Al-Qaeda, the Friends of Jerusalem, and the Muslim Brotherhood.  They are all links in the same satanic chain.

Now the thrust of external Egyptian foreign policy beyond the Arab homeland is in the direction of containment of Turkish Islamism, as exercised imperially by Ordogan.  This seems to be the knob of Egyptian focus on the Mediterranean, which is marked by espousal of Athens, Nicosia, Italy and France.  An epitome of diversification when seen through the Egyptian "NACH OST" (thrust toward the East).  Witness the forthcoming visit by Putin to Cairo.

As a tenet of this diversification of the New Egypt's foreign policy is the sidelining of Ordogan of Turkey as a delusional master of an uncertain destiny.  It is a quiet assault on the neo-Ottomanism which sees the Muslim Brotherhood as a loyal opposition.  Only idiots may assess the blood-thirsty Brotherhood as a democratizing force.

Aside from the big picture, the new normal, the New Egypt is forging ahead:

• The Giza Zoo is full of visitors, especially entire families;
• The trains are running; the buses are again crowded;
• Thousands of customers are crowding little shops selling produce, fruits, as well as housewares, all made in Egypt;
• Syrians are not herded into refugee camps, but are fully integrated within a welcoming Egyptian society;
• Restaurants are busy serving all types of cuisine;
• Tourists are back, with some of them taking pictures through their apps even with President El-Sisi;
• International conferences are being held in Cairo and elsewhere;
• The name of a Copt recently martyred by terror gangs in Sinai Kyrollos is now given to, a primary school in the province of Sharkia where the 29th Pharaonic family held sway in Tal Basta -a mere 3 miles from my village -Kanayat.

Conclusion: El-Sisi summed up the surge of new energy in the New Egypt: "The era of regimes is gone.  The era of 'The Egyptian State' has begun."

Christmas Letter No. Two: How and Why Has Egyptophobe Michelle Dunne Gotten the Reputation of the Carnegie Endowment Undonne?

This is the second and final Christmas Letter addressed to Michelle Dunne from ELIFAS (El-Ayouty Institute For Arab Spring Studies).  ELIFAS is a truly biased and self-funded organization in New York City.  We are biased in favor of justice globally speaking, especially towards Egypt, the Arab homeland and Islam as a force of moderation.  These three entities have been the favorite targets of three American inter-related phobias.  These phobias are the result of the U.S. taking a sharp turn to the right as of 9/11, of America losing every war since World War II, and of the rise of China and India.

Devoting this Christmas Letter No. Two to an "analysis of Dunne's so-called scholarly writings" requires an ideological preface.  Here it is:

• The growth of international law has been largely the consequence of the growth of human rights since the Nuremberg and the Tokyo military trials of 1945 and 1946;
• In the train of that growth, came the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.  On its heels came the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and two UN Conventions on Civil and Political Rights; and on Economic and Social Rights in the mid 1960s.  Africa's independence movements of the early 1960s gave an additional push.
• In consequence, and largely as a reflection of the Holocaust tragedy of the late 1930s and early 1940s, two theories of international law were born: the Human Rights Law (largely affecting individuals) and the International Humanitarian Law (affecting larger groups).  Together, these theories gave States some right to intervene in the internal affairs of other States where violations of human rights were perceived.
• These important developments stood largely inactionable due to the rise of the non-State actor, especially with regard to the illegal occupation by Israel of Palestinian territories beyond the line of demarcation of June 4, 1967.
• Yet three terms remained lacking of consensual definitions in the legal dictionary: Democracy; Aggression; and Terrorism.  The absence of translations into Western languages of the languages of the East, such as Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, and Pashtu expanded the area of darkness about Eastern/Western understanding.  In these domains, the UN and other international regional organizations stood nearly motionless: they were inter-state systems facing almost leaderless mass movements of non-State actors unbound by the conventional legal strictures.  The catastrophe of 9/11 was only but one example of State paralysis of action in a globalized context.
• At that juncture, non-governmental organizations dealing with human rights issues generally took the wrong jump.  Organizations like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Human Rights First, the Carter Center, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace began to meddle in the internal affairs of sovereign States.  This is while ignoring, perhaps for funding reasons, the infractions of human rights by States in which they are chartered.  
• Hence the under-reporting on Guantanamo, the destruction of Habeas Corpus jurisdiction (every person has the right to his/her day in court to question the legality of their detention); forcible renditions; the torture practices by the CIA; the military commissions replacing regular U.S. Article III Federal Courts; detentions for years without either charges or release; and the downgrading, under Bush II administration of the Geneva Conventions as obsolete.
• Rationale: The so-called "War on Terror" needed new tools.  Coercive interrogation, guilt by association, and claims of the need for total U.S. security became parts of the U.S. arsenal.  That arsenal included killing of U.S. citizens abroad in an extra-judicial manner, and floating hostility toward Islam and Muslims.

Enters the likes of Michelle Dunne; David Kirkpatrick; Fareed Zakaria; Tom Friedman; Michelle Bachman; Sara Palin; Ted Cruz; and the rest of the party of war, the Republicans.  Ironically, they saw victories in the destruction of Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan by an unrelenting military machine.  The Islamophobic side seems to be left as the preserve of Fox News and Bill Maher.  Books began appearing such as that by Sam Harris attacking Islam as a bundle of crazy ideas.

Through such a crowd of ignoramuses, the jihadis, including ISIS, won in two ways:  Their criminal interpretation of Islam became an accepted norm; and America's embroilment in wars in Muslim countries, sanctions on countries like Egypt became the best jihadi tool for recruitment and funding.

Against that lengthy, yet general background, we begin to examine Michelle Dunne's writings as reflecting her untoward intervention in internal Egyptian sovereign affairs.  This has been behind the transparent veil of concern for human rights.  The following is an illustration of Dunne's half-baked scholarship and holier than thou attitude.

In a Carnegie article dated September 22, 2014, entitled, "Syria in Crisis - What Egypt Can and Cannot Do Against the Islamic State" she posits the following imbecilities:

• "Many assume that Cairo will have a significant military rule to play in the fight against the Islamic State."  Then disparagingly, Dunne goes on to say: "Kerry recently bolstered the impression of Egypt's 'critical role' by including Cairo in his tour of the region, by touting Egyptian Sunni Muslim institutions as key to the ideological fight against extremism, and by stressing the importance of defeating extremism in the Sinai."
• Dunne is dead wrong about all the above because: (1) Cairo's role in the anti-ISIS coalition is bifurcated into (a) combatting Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis on national territory; (b) resonating to Al-Azhar's huge impact for more than 1000 years throughout the Muslim world in attacking the criminal jihadi interpretation of Sharia; (2) Dunne gives the impression that she knows what is needed to be done better than the U.S. Secretary of State; (3) Dunne looks myopically at Egypt, with its 100 million inhabitants as a marginal factor in the global war on terror; and (4) Dunne stupidly and cavalierly discounts the role of fighting jihadi criminal ideology by the precepts of Islamic jurisprudence.

Furthermore, she treats Egypt as if its contributions to the U.S. -led anti-ISIS coalition were to be taken for granted.  Egypt, Ms. Dunne, is not a vassal State beholden to Washington, D.C.

Michelle offhandedly posits the following: "Expedited Suez Canal transits for warships for which the U.S. government pays a handsome premium are routine features of the bilateral relationship."  In the same paragraph, she does not lose the opportunity to tarnish the legality of El-Sisi administration calling it again and again the result of "Egypt's July 2013 military coup that ousted then president Mohammad Morsi."

Attacking Al-Azhar and the Mufti of Egypt, Dunne, with her crooked pen dripping of Egyptophobia, describes these iconic personalities as "complicit" in the ouster of the heinous Islamic rule of 2012-2013.  Michelle Dunne unthinkingly speculates as follows: "Egyptians and other Sunni Muslims susceptible to recruitment by the Islamic State are unlikely to pay heed to statements by the grand sheikh of Al-Azhar, Ahmed el-Tayeb or the grand mufti, Shawki Allam; many consider them to be no more than civil servants who put out a government-sanctioned brand of Islam."

Dunne's total ignorance on that score is plainly manifest in: (1) Her non-recognition of the return of Al-Azhar under the secular Constitution of 2014 to its prior status of independence; (2) Her non-recognition of the Al-Azhar's seminal document, co-authored with the Coptic Church in August 2011.  In that document of 11 principles, is included "the non-recognition of a State based solely on religion;" (3) Her stupidity in the heinous assumption that in Islam there is "government-sanctioned brand of Islam."  Michelle, as a presumed scholar, does not seem to know that Sharia everywhere is based on the Quran, the Sunna, and ijtihad. 

Egyptophobe Dunne ends up her diatribe in that poorly argued article made up of a mix of contradictions, by the following: "The political repression and human rights abuses associated with this crackdown, which are on a scale not seen in Egypt's modern history are a recipe for breeding recruits to Islamist militancy and ideologies such as that of the Islamic State."

Yes, Ms. Dunne: Right, Right, Right: Egypt by ousting a hated Islamist regime, has ensured the emergence of ISIS!!  Not the U.S. disbanding of the Iraqi army; not the U.S. contribution to sectarianism in Iraq through hugging the Sunni Sahwas one time, and casting them aside the next time; not by Obama's announcement of red lines in Syria then backing down under the pressures of a dysfunctional U.S. Congress.

It is all Egypt's fault!!  Your stupid arguments reveal the shallowness of your presumed scholarship, and the surface commitment by a discredited Carnegie Endowment to a proper engagement with the U.S.  Please remember again that Egypt is not a U.S. colony, but a sovereign State whose roots go back 10,000 years -40 times the age of the establishment of the U.S. which largely still treats Obama as a racial figure fit for demonization.

Now to another example of garbage emanating from the hateful pen of Michelle Dunne.  Co-authoring in the Wall Street Journal of Nov. 4, 2014, an article with Frederic Wehrey, she emblazoned it with the title of "3 Risks of U.S. Cooperation With Arab Allies Against Islamic State."  Dunne knows it all.  The rest of us in the Arab and Muslim worlds are non-thinking dummies!!

So just mention the word "Egypt" once, and the hate enzymes start oozing out of Dunne's pores!!  As if she is a pre-programmed hate machine.  To her, every act of Arab cooperation with the US is either suspect or futile.  The zone of hate now envelopes her in a trance of Arabophobia.  Thus in her "3 Risks" piece (only 3 Michelle?) she asserts that "while U.S. cooperation with Arab allies against Islamic State and other terrorist groups is essential, it is also problematic."  Real funny: she seems to treat the mirage of the so-called Islamic State as real!!

But Michelle: This is how alliances work.  They are not a fusion.  They are arrangements among sovereigns.  Leave it to Dunne.  She knows better.  Thus with regard to the Arabs, with whom America is deeply involved, regardless of the likes and dislikes of Michelle Dunne, she arrogantly says: "As they compete for influence, some are enacting repressive policies that fuel the extremism that they purport to fight..."  Again Arab security measures, not the espousal by the US authorities and media of the cause of Islamists, are to blame!!  For good measure, she adds: "And in the rush to build support from Arab partners, the U.S. is largely ignoring these policies."

Michelle's idea of inter-State relationships is terribly at odds with the way international comity works: cooperation in one area does not translate into submissiveness in other areas.  Otherwise it is colonialism all over again.  Just look at the rocky relationship between the UK and the European Union.

But Dunne's recipe -a recipe for increased US isolation in the Arab Middle East takes in a very confusing element.  She manifests her patent confusion about the meaning and content of terms when she proclaims haughtily that: "By focusing on winning the battle against ISIS, the U.S. will (WILL) lose the war against extremism."  Is there a difference?  

Please explain Ms. Dunne.  And she does: "America's counter-terrorism focus with Arab States reduces its leverage, and bandwidth, to advance reforms that would address the root causes of radicalization."  Oh, I got it.  Michelle, while shifting her arguments, is advocating that the U.S. should imperially take upon itself the task of intervention in the internal affairs of Arab States.  Are you nuts?!

This is aside from the plain facts of the tragedy of decline in the U.S. style and manner of democracy: Dollars buy Congressional seats; redrawal of congressional districts to curtail minority participation; and obstacles placed by several States in the path of one person one vote through ID requirements.  There is an Arab proverb which says: "You cannot offer what you don't have."

More laughable idiocies from the Carnegie's Michelle Dunne.

In Al-Jazeera, Dunne on Nov. 4, 2014, states without any credible evidence that: "The question is whether the scorched earth methods practised by Sisi and his government are helping to build legitimacy among the Egyptian population, including in economically disadvantaged areas such as north Sinai, the Western Desert, and upper Egypt."  El-Sisi does not need to build legitimacy.  He won the Presidency against Sabbahi in 2014 through the ballot box.

No end to her hysteria; no end to her venom!!  But for the record, she and her likes among the Egyptophobes and the Arabophobes must realize that: 

(1) US wars of choice in both Afghanistan and Iraq as of 2002/2003 have spawned criminal ideologies by jihadis who wished the Americans ill in order to get even;

(2) Total denial by the US of human rights on the field of battle and in detention camps such as Pagram and Abu Ghraib and force feeding in Guantanamo has super-charged millions of Muslims with hate for the U.S. and its institutions;

(3) American reliance on military means in the Middle East and Central Asia, without any meaningful attempt to understand Islam, in both its religious and cultural aspects, have compounded the task of many governments in the area with regard to containment of jihadism;

(4) The so-called human rights organizations have tried but failed to jump over the fence of sovereignties under the guise of protecting human rights;
(5) The recent Egyptian law on regulation of public demonstrations is much less stringent than its US equivalent; just remember "Occupy Wall Street;"

(6) It is patently stupid to measure the transition of the Arab Middle East from brute dictatorships which America supported for years with the same measures used in the US.

(7) In the U.S., we have a former Vice President, Dick Cheney, who is so insane that he still believes that water boarding is humane!!

Michelle: Bark as you must!!  As far as Egypt is concerned, your hate shall topple neither the pyramids, nor the sphinx.  Nor shall it bring your beloved Islamists back.  For I have just returned from Cairo after watching El-Sisi in Hurgada, calling movingly for "A Strong Egyptian State."  So Buzz Off.

Lady!!  You NEED A Psychiatrist Real Fast!!

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."

For How Long Can the Arabs Continue To Blame "The Others" For THEIR Retardation?

Time for the Arabs to get up from their easy chairs, look in the mirror and say: "We too are to blame!!"  Self-criticism is a virtue, a sign of maturity, and the point at which the Arab World would begin to own its future.

Yes, we know!!  The Sykes-Picot secret agreement between Britain and France during World War I was a huge betrayal to Arab nationhood and independence.  Colonization of Syria and Lebanon by France; Iraq and Palestine and Jordan by Great Britain; Balfour Declaration for the creation of a national home for the Jews in a part of Palestine; and a free hand in the Gulf for the Union Jack.

Prior to these national calamities, visited upon the Arab homeland nearly a hundred years ago, was the continuation of British occupation of Egypt and the Sudan; Italian hegemony over Libya, and French protectorates over most of the Maghreb, west of Tripoli.

During those dark ages, the Arabs were humiliated; their national leaders were exiled, killed, or imprisoned; their language, the language of the Quran, was given secondary importance in the curriculum. Arab culture was denigrated; national uprisings were put down ferociously as if they were crimes against humanity.  From ages of glory, to ages of western imperialism and in your face ascendancy!!

But that was more than a hundred years ago.  Yes the Wilsonian "right to self-determination" remained mere ink on worthless paper.  But by the end of World War II, an earlier Arab Spring of national liberation changed nearly everything.  By 1962, with Algeria's independence, which I witnessed as UN spokesman, the Arabs, with the exception of the Palestinians, became masters of their own houses, or shall we say palaces.

However, who replaced the western colonialists?  Arab dictators!!  Inter-Arab Cold War!!  Swinging from alliances with either the West or the East!!  Or being non-aligned!!  Politics became the sport of an indecisive elite.  But the street and the mosque were left to religion largely defined as mere rituals not as renewal of values especially "the acceptance of the other." 

Armies marched proudly, but on parade grounds, except when enforcing the will of the dictator.  Education became largely costless but also worthless.  The press became mere gossip sheets, or poor translations of how the developed world perceived us.  Gender inequality found its support in the misunderstanding of Sharia (Islamic Law).  Oil made the Gulf rich in liquidity, but did not create truly industrial societies.  Federations were fabricated from the top, and quickly dissolved through either inter-dictator piques or through putsches.

The Baath party was born, so was the Muslim Brotherhood.  The one became secular fascism, the other became religious fascism.  Nascent democracies became a tool to paper over one-party rule.  College degrees could not qualify the holder for jobs.

The League of Arab States (LAS) was trumpeted, but remained a mere talk show.  Membership in the UN Security Council, though it continued to be "The Great Hall of Deadlocks," became a phony badge of national prestige!!

Qaddafi called Libya "The Great Popular Socialist Jamahiryah;" Saddam thought Kuwait was his to take by force, and Arafat rushed to hug him as an Arab gesture of solidarity.  How Machiavellian!!  The Sudan fragmented.  Israeli settlerism in territories allotted to an Arab State remained largely immune from condemnation as flouting international law.

With the 40's, the 50's, the 60's and the 70's gone, came over the Arab world, the dark cloud of militant Islamism.  The great content of Islam was replaced by the disturbing context of "Islam Is the Answer."  Images without substance.

Al-Qaradawi assumed in Qatar the mantles of the great Gamal El-Deen Al-Afghani, Muhammad Abdo and Rasheed Ridha.  His fatwas were sought as if emanating from a great oracle or from the great Al-Azhar in Cairo.  The Khomeini Revolution of 1979 attempted exportation.  But deservedly failed, except -except for making the veil and the long beard Islamic requirements.

That was the first wave.  The second wave (waves always overlap) was jihadism born of Al-Qaeda's rise in consequence of the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan.  And from pin-pricks to the catastrophic 9/11.  Don't laugh, but some Arabs blames it on the CIA.  And from here Islamophobia reared its head, especially in America and Europe.  A boon for jihadism which grew out of ignorance of Islam by the West.  It also grew out of the Muslims ignorance of the continuous evolution of Islamic Law in the direction of "The Maslaha Jurisprudence." (The Laws of Communal Interest).

The third wave was the Arab Spring.  A rumbling earthquake.  It began, but seemingly without and end.  Its ugliest form is the Syrian civil war.  A family of dictatorship, the Assads, which would rather pulverize Syria as a structure, and annihilate its population, than relinquish its ill-gotten throne.  Yet its most promising form is Egypt and Tunisia.  This is where the battle between secularism and Islamism has been decided by popular vote in favor of secularism and inclusiveness.

Throughout all the above, one could see that the Arabs, since the early 1960s, have chosen their twisted paths toward tomorrow.  "The Others" had virtually no hand in fashioning it.

• "The Others" did not cause developmental retardation;
• They did not bring one dictator after the other to the seat of power;
• They did not wreck the educational system;
• They did not enhance corruption in public life; for corruption is invariably locally manufactured;
• They did not dictate to the judiciary;
• They did not write the rubbish which is daily published under the name of "thoughtful analysis;"
• They did not degrade TV shows to their present level of superficial pastime;
• They did not cause the young and the restless to want to die crossing the Mediterranean in search of a future; and 
• They did not even anticipate the Arab Spring with its popular calls for Dignity, Development, and Democracy.

It was the Arabs who, by and large, have mismanaged their affairs:

• They have looked upon their oil wealth as a non-ending bonanza;
• They have lagged in the creation of their own defense industry;
• They have condemned terrorism but stopped short of creating powerful indigenous anti-jihadi structures;
• Their Sunnis have looked upon their Shiis as non-Muslims;
• Their only Shii State, Iraq, has bungled its relationship with its Sunni population to the point of the latter opting for joining Satanic ISIS as a means of revenge;
• Libya has become a State of militias; Sudan continues to fragment beyond the loss of the South; Yemen is in the grip of a combination of tribalism and Houthis revival; the great Sahara in both Libya and Algeria have become a prime source of jihadi military hardware; Qatar is closer in foreign policy to Turkey than it is to Saudi Arabia, the largest stakeholder in the Gulf Cooperation Council; Dubai has become more of a western implantation than an Arab enclave; and the Palestinians are still in search of national unity under a dysfunctional leadership which is expert in corruption; and Islamic Law is still unlearnt by the majority of Muslims.

For how long can the Arabs continue to blame "the others" for their retardation?  For as long as they do not see their reality in the mirror and decide to become "the new India": hundreds of languages and ethnicities; a democracy deemed to be the largest in the non-Western world; a tradition imbued with technology; and leaders who are proud to see their vehicles in outer space.

India even had a Muslim president, a Sikh Prime Minister, and a Catholic woman born in Italy as head of the former governing party, the Congress Party which the Wafd party in Egypt tried to emulate!!

Let the Arabs compare between India and Pakistan: sky above, and turmoil below.  This is the magic of forgetting the colonial past and espousing diversity.  When are the Arabs going to learn that: "Salvation comes from within?!"