The Goring of America's Governance By Trump's Bullying Arrogance!!

What a super weird phenomenon. That out of control bully called Donald J. Trump!! The more he lies, the more he is believed by his public which glorifies under-education. And the greater the manifestations of his shallowness in all matters, domestic or foreign, the louder he shouts "Make America Great Again."

Trump has positions on every issue. But what he adopts today, he changes tomorrow. When called on the flip flops, he assures his audiences that the reporting is to blame. Or he hires voices, civil and military, to explain the absence of coherence. They call such hired guns surrogates. A surrogate is a substitute, a deputy. Originally referring to the grantor of a marriage license. But that surrogateship is subject to unpredictable firing. So the surrogates, when boxed in by a media question, have found a firewall. They respond: "Ask him."

Donald Trump's vocabulary is rotative. His verbiage galaxy gravitates to a non-changing vocabulary. The words "disaster," "terrible," "stupid," "crooked," "dishonest," "liar," "hell," "trust me," "sit down," "get him out," "phony," and "loser," gush out constantly from his mouth. With lips pierced forward, and hands gesturing, and a face dripping of bullying arrogance.

His journey of 16 months in presidential politics has proved disastrous for this only super power, called the United States. Like a raging bull charging in all directions, he has gored both the union and the concept of "State." A practiced con man for two decades as a real estate tycoon turned entertainer, he has sensed an opening for coveting the "oval office." To Trump, governing and deal-making have the same modus operandi. So he proclaims to rapturous applause that "no body can make deals like Trump."

But America has a complex system. Many governments, from a municipal water authority to the state legislature, in every one of the fifty states. With a federal government of limited and enumerated powers. And with delicate checks and balances prescribed in the Constitution. And with an electoral system where voting for a president does not automatically elect that president. There is an electoral college, changing demographics, varying state rules for validating the right to vote, and a competition limited largely to the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.

Yes there is a durable Constitution which has survived unscathed for 240 years, which a defined yet overlapping jurisdictions for the three branches of government -Congress, the Executive, and the Judiciary. But the definition of "a person" has now been enlarged by a Supreme Court decision (in the case of Citizens United) to consider money as also endowed with a voice. Under the elastic theory of the freedom of expression. Thus donations to candidates for office are regarded, by that unhappy decision, as a variant of "freedom of expression." On top of all of that, the Second Amendment to the Constitution grants everyone the right to bear arms.

Yet America's governance is not akin to a Trump deal for running a casino or building a "Trump Tower." The Donald does not see it that way.

For him "Make America Great Again" is like another project where success depends on being a super-tough negotiator. Ready to bamboozle the other side by either staring them down, walking out of the room, or offering enticements which may not be kept.

This Trumpism has created a cancerous lack of trust by the average citizen in how America is run. An issue which I now predict, whether Trump wins or loses the presidency, shall contaminate faith in America's institutions. The bond of trust between the government and the governed has been impaired. Not necessarily for all time. That instinctive faith in America's exceptionalism, equality before the law, and the generational advancement towards a continuum of improvement, is fading.

Born to wealth, Trump has been a life-long practitioner of using others as temporary tools. His upbringing has never led to feeling the pain of the downtrodden. His real estate dealings, largely dependent on gaming the system of taxation and finance, are not conductive to giving. But to taking, under the guise of giving. His chances for military service, community service, volunteering for involvement with society for uplifting purposes, were either avoided or evaded. Not thought of as worthy of his time.

Trump's time has come to ride a wave of American unease about globalization, immigration, job outsourcing out of America, and the shrinkage of the whites demographics. By 2030, the whites shall be 45% of the entire population. Having a black president in the White House forced the racial issue to the surface. Or to the belief that if a black man can be president, "so can I," a wealthy white deal-maker.

"I alone can fix it" is a Trump campaign slogan. Not conducive to learning from the experts. In fact, intended to downgrade experience in favor of "gut feeling." Politicians embedded in Congress, practicing the art of political longevity, gave a bad name to "politician," "political correctness," "the ways of Washington," and "business as usual." A circular argument: "If I am not doing well, the government is responsible." So shrinking government, while despising it, has become the lifeblood of the Trump corpus of non-ideas for combative conservatism.

Topping all of this, is the fear from jihadism, which has splintered. Causing the conventional ways of defense and offense to become irrelevant. One single terrorist act anywhere stokes the fires of rage, helplessness, and the need for brutalizing responses.

So for month after month after month, Trump has been at it. Goring the American system to satisfy the political circus. A circus which he has been found to respond to his need for self-adoration -narcissism. Thus arose the populist call for change -any change. Trump's disconnected thoughts have been broadcast nearly constantly. Had Trump been forced to pay for that free publicity, the cost would have been $2 Billions.

The truth of the matter is that there is no end to the range of the Trumpist rage. He strikes in every direction. Here follow selections. Limited here to the Executive, described by Trump's wayward movement as rigged and broken.

• About President Obama as a citizen: He is illegitimate. Why Donald? He is probably born out of the U.S. Trump has thus acknowledged to be the profane author of "the Birther Movement." In spite of his recent admission to the contrary as a price for gaining Afro-American support.
• About Obama's professional credentials: Trump claims that Obama's education at Harvard may be untrue.
• About Obama's record as President: "Weak;" "the worst President in the history of America."
• About Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State: "If elected to the presidency, she will be the continuation of the disastrous Obama years."
• On Hillary's fitness for the Oval Office: "She has a poor judgment;" "influenced by donations by the millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation;" "a liar;" "exposed our national security to danger through her emails on a personal server." For Trump, it is always "Crooked Hillary."
• On Hillary's advisors: "She brought in Huma Abidin, possibly a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, to guide her decision-making."
• On Founding ISIS: "Obama and Hillary founded ISIS."
• How about Secretary of State, John Kerry?: Donald claims that he would make better deals than John Kerry. "Kerry left the negotiations room where the Iran nuclear deal was being negotiated to ride a bicycle." A characterization by a lunatic with zero experience in foreign affairs.
• On foreign affairs: "Wouldn't be nice to bring Russia in with us to fight ISIS?;" "Putin of Russia is a better president than Obama. He is strong; ours is indecisive." "I'll nullify the Iran nuclear deal on day one of my presidency."
• On military matters: Donald would replace the present generals by "my own generals;" "I'll make our military so strong that nobody would dare mess with us;" "Why do we have nuclear arms if we don't use them?;" "NATO is obsolete."
• On terrorism: Trump arrogantly claims to know more about ISIS "than the Generals." He claims to have a secret plan to deal with ISIS. A charlatan who avoided by subterfuge any form of military service, or for this matter, any national service.

And on and on, Trump projects "the tough guy" image. Without the benefit of any facts. Yet his blatant racism regarding blacks, Muslims, Latino has gone on for a year and a half unchecked. Nicholas Kristof, in a column in the New York Times of September 8, 2016, sums up the idiocy of Trumpism. Such an admirable summation is difficult to ignore quoting from with elaboration:

• "Whether in his youth, in his business career or in his personal life, Trump's story is that of a shallow egoist who uses those around him;"
• "He made a mess of his personal life and has been repeatedly accused of racism, of cheating people, of lying, of stiffing charities;"
• "His life is a vacuum of principle, and he never seems to have stood up for anything larger than himself;" and
• "Over seven decades, there's one continuing theme to his life story: This is a narcissist who has no core. The lights are on, but no one's home."

The Republican party, the party of Lincoln, has largely been hijacked by that con man, Donald J. Trump. What remains has been badly splintered. This election for US president is undoubtedly the most important in our lifetime.

Those in America who feel either angry, left behind, or disadvantaged, are flocking to the banner of Trumpism. If elected to the Oval office, the consequences for America and the world cannot be predicted. The only prediction is that the trust between the citizen in the US and his or her government is, as of now, shaken to its roots. "The system must be changed" has been a Trump advocacy. "Trust Me," Trump keeps on repeating. Though his whole history is a tattered record of lying and cheating.

Serious damage has also been visited upon the quality of political discourse. Expletives have been liberally used. Incitement to violence by Trump against his detractors has become common place.

We now have a debased language, expressing misfacts, propagated through his Nazi-like rallies, proclaiming the end of the American orderly system of governance. A reminder of the pre-Nazi Weimar Republic. In favor of "America First," dressed up in a racist vestments, brandishing the fear of "soon we shall have no country."

In all certainty, that bully, win or lose, shall benefit. If he loses, as I pray he would, Trump will relaunch his biggest "reality show." Blaming that loss on conspiracies. And if he wins, the consequences cannot be but ominous.

Mr. Trump: Here are reasons for my assessment: Your lying about your contacts with Russia for personal gain; your appearance on the Kremlin TV to denigrate Obama, and American foreign policy; your threat to nullify American defense commitments and trade agreements; your boasting about readiness to use nuclear arms against European allies; and your insane claim to single-handedly "Make America Great Again."

Furthermore, you have:

• Called for packing the U.S. Supreme Court with judges who will tilt that institution further to the right;
• Mocked the disabled, falsely claimed seeing Muslims celebrating in New Jersey the criminal destruction of the World Trade Center; denigrated women for their menstrual period;
• Attacked the media for fact-checking, and for calling you on your barrage of lies;
• Tweeted obscenities and was convulsively rattled for getting opposing tweets in return;
• Fabricated your health record by claiming that you are the healthiest person who have ever run for office; though refusing to divulge a credible health record;
• Insinuated that those with guns might remove Hillary from the scene;
• Thought that Saddam and Qaddafi should have stayed in place to fight terrorism;
• Continuously calling for an American grab of Arab oil fields by the force of arms;
• Called for punishing women for seeking abortion;
• Declared as a policy priority the deportation of eleven million undocumented immigrants now living in the U.S.;
• Called for arming Japan, Saudi Arabia and South Korea with nuclear weapons;
• Advocated the legality of water boarding as a means of extracting confessions from terrorist suspects;
• Insisted on calling criminal jihadists "Islamic terrorists," though they, by their crimes, have opted out of Islam. Even when such criminal acts are committed by American citizens who happen to claim being Muslims;
• Kept on calling or insinuating that President Obama is "a closet Muslim." Which is patently an Islamophobic lie. Mr. Trump: Islam is a faith not a disease. What drips from your mouth in regard to Islam is what ISIS loves to exploit.

It was a Muslim immigrant (Mr. Khizr Khan) who had lost his son, a US army officer killed in a battle in Iraq, who publicly impugned your credentials as a patriot. On national TV, he challenged you on two main fronts: Your knowledge deficit regarding the U.S. Constitution, and your moral deficit regarding sacrificing for your country.

Holding aloft a copy of the U.S. Constitution, Mr. Khan intoned: "Have you even read the U.S. Constitution?" Then slammed you down on your narcissism, saying "Have you ever sacrificed anything or anyone?" 

Your retort manifested your ignorance of the meaning of sacrifice. For you responded by parading your record as a builder. Khan meant nation-building. You, being alien to community giving, thought of hiring labor to construct "Trump Towers" as sacrifice for your nation. What an imbecile!!

Khan lost his son in the war on Iraq. Your sons from 3 marriages stand safe in shiny suits, ready to inherit your ill-gotten gains. Reason to support the return by America to compulsory military service. Might be a factor in slowing down congressional penchant for endless wars.

You are still adamantly refusing to divulge your tax returns, raising suspicions about whether you have even paid any taxes since 2008. Justifiable suspicions as you bragged about gaming the system and exploiting loopholes.

Your so-called charitable foundation is a means of enriching your "deplorable" self, causing the New York Attorney General to begin investigating it. And the case against the fraud called "Trump University" is going forward. Regardless of your racist attacks on the federal judge who presides over it. Calling that judge biased because of "his Mexican ancestry."

Sir, how can you expect this electorate to believe in your oft-repeated call on the public "Believe Me."  It is a steep climb for anyone, but your own core crowd of "America Firsters," to believe in you as a possible occupant of the Oval office. 

You, Donald Trump, has received last week a dishonorable mention on the world stage. It was issued by none other than the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Prince Zeid Raad Al-Hussein of Jordan. He slammed you down as among the politicians who "peddle fear to exploit economic hardship and social tension."

Another deeply negative assessment of you, Mr. Trump, was voiced in emails by General Colin Powell of the U.S. Without mincing his words, he described you as "a national disgrace and an international pariah."

In the same vein, the US Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) responded to Trump's racism. Honoring in Washington, D.C. both Obama and Hillary Clinton on September 17, the CBC spokesmen let loose on Trump all kinds of epithets. Called him "a racist," "a bigot," a "fraud." It was payback time for Trump's constant humiliation of America's first black president.

At that ceremony telecast on CNN internationally, Obama urged black voters to give him a befitting send-off. "Vote for the continuation of my legacy," he urged his audience -meaning voting for Hillary. The symbiotic relationship between Trump and the "Alt Right" (extreme right) would undoubtedly, in a Trump presidency, destroy the Obama legacy.

That call for American "national action now" (Obama's words at that farewell ceremony) reverberated south of the border, and north of the border.

In Mexico, Trump's call for a wall along the southern border was met with derision. In his lunatic characterization of the Mexicans as "rapists" and "drug dealers," he was advocating an ideology of hate "of the other." That Trump wall "should be paid for by Mexico," he hallucinated publicly. The proud Mexicans poured on their president torrents of criticism for inviting Donald to Mexico City. Combining those attacks with laughter as they called on crazy Trump to "Come and Get it!!"

In Canada, while I was in Toronto this past August, I raised this question at formal dinners. "What would Canada do if Trump occupied the Oval Office?" Their confident answer was: "We shall welcome American immigrants into our midst to help Canada keep on building!!"

Mr. Trump: Calling you "unfit for the presidency" is an understatement. You, a prospective war criminal and a war lord, pose a clear and present danger to America and the world; might ignite either endless wars or a civil war in this great land; and make America not "Great Again," but an America ruled by a gun-toting mobocracy. 

Concluding by a statement unambiguously disqualifying Trump from the occupancy of the Oval Office. Uttered by Jennifer Granholm, the former Governor of the State of Michigan. Said she: "Trump is a con man. Completely unacceptable. Trying now to con America into believing that he can be President!!"

Ask Not What's Wrong With Islam - Ask What's Wrong With Its Understanding!!

Bernard Lowis was dead wrong by asking: "What Went Wrong With Islam." So was his disciple, the Somali Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an Islamophobe whose last of four books is entitled: "Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now." Both of them, in my view as a specialist in Islam, have missed a central fact. Islam, as a faith, is constantly self-renewing through interpretation.

This is called "The Tafseer (interpretation) Jurisdiction." Thus between the two unalterable bases for Islamic Law (Sharia), namely the Quran, and the Hadith (the latter for the ascertainable utterances and conduct of the Prophet Muhammad), stands Tafseer.

In other words, Tafseer, otherwise meaning ijtihad (the application of common sense to the text) is akin to the soft tissue between the vertebrae of Islam's backbone. That soft tissue prevents the pain of one bone colliding with another.

Tafseer, an element in the formulation of fatwas (a non-binding opinion on a matter of religion), functions also if there is no text. It is called "The Non-Text Jurisdiction." It is an extrapolation of a rule from precedent.

To illustrate: If I am asked: "What would a Muslim astronaut in outer space face while praying?" My response would be "His Mecca is where his capsule rotates." Now where do I base my fatwa on? Outer space is its own universe. Not unlike the vast desert of the Empty Quarter in southern Arabia, on a cloudy day, with no compass to point to Mecca. That astronaut, let us call him Ali (meaning the ever-high) and his co-religious Ahmed (another name for Muhammad) stand in the same footing. With no shoes, but with faith.

Understanding Islam should begin by the realization of the following facts about Islamic practice: Islam equates between all faiths; no one has the authority to call another "an apostate;" gender equality is ensured; the law of inheritance is supplemented by legislation; ritual and human transactions are separate one from another; "modesty" in female appearance does not necessarily mean a "niqab"

It also calls for the realization that: jihad is self-defense and self-policing against debased urges; and the Caliphates ended 1400 years ago with the bloody termination of the reign of Ali Ibn Abi Taleb, Muhammad's cousin.

As to the vocabulary of Islam and its law (Sharia), the following words and terms do not even exist: "sword;" "holy war." The word "Muslim" does not refer only to adherents of Islam. It denotes any human being who submits his/her will to that of the Creator. And "Allahu Akbar," is not a battle cry. It means "all humans are equal before the One Creator."

In Islam, judges are to be defendant-oriented; adultery is made impossible to prove. (It requires four witnesses to be present); and women have the same rights and obligations as those for men. Self-sacrifice is abhorred; all places of worship are to be protected and revered; dictatorships should be toppled; and worship should be made easier, not an oppression chore.

Above all, intent is a basic determinant of culpability; corruption is to be tackled by both law and improved life conditions; and dialogue is a means to clearing up misunderstandings.

There is no Sunni Islam and Shii Islam. There is one faith, with a variety of contrasting practices; the State authority should be respected; and local laws should be the norm for regulating the conduct of Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Contrast the above list which I have kept to bare essentials with the following modes of departure by Muslims. And of incomprehension by non-Muslims:

• Does jihad mean the killing of the innocent or of the non-Muslim? Of course not.
• Are these crimes against humanity to be funded by the so-called charitable foundations in the Muslim world? No!! Aiding and abetting the commission of a crime makes the supporter complicit in perpetrating those heinous crimes.
• Doesn't the Quran state in Chapter V/32: "We prescribed to the children of Israel that whoever kills a soul, unless it be for retaliation or because of spreading corruption on earth, it would be as if he had killed all mankind ...?" It does.
• Is retaliation or evaluation of corruption a justification for any Muslim to take the law in his/her hand for the purpose of injuring another? No. This is called "self-help," not sanctioned by any law unless the person is cornered at their home and has no duty to retreat.
• Is murderous jihadism justified by past colonial maladministration? No. Decolonization, UN membership, and bilateral treaties have all put an end to the prolongation of these past grievances. And acceptance of foreign aid puts an end to the myth that there is no statute of limitations to those past misdeeds.
• In light of the above, there is no "collective punishment" in Islam as a faith, or in Sharia (Islamic Law) as a legal system. Back to the Quran: "God does not impose on any soul a burden greater than it can bear; it receives every good that it earns, and it suffers every evil that it earns..." (Chapter II/286).
• More on point: "While He is the Lord of all things, every soul is accountable for itself; no bearer of burdens bears the burden of another..." (Chapter VI/164).

There is an urgent need to reform the thinking of Muslims about their own faith. Anecdotal evidence shows that the majority of Muslims have not read the 114 Chapters (Suras) of the Quran. I am not boasting, but I am stating a personal fact. I have read those chapters nineteen times. I am now on reading number 20. The more you read, the more you discover. And this discovery is aided by the vast spectrum of interpretations.

But the context of my readings is already framed by one Islamic adage: "God desires ease for you and not hardship." (Chapter II/185) The theme of "ease" is repeated in the Quran 39 times. No mention of theocracy. No mention of a caliphate -a human invention, not a religiously mandated system of governance. 

In the Quran, I found no reference to virgins awaiting in heaven those who kill themselves or others. Found no reference to proselytization. But found the need for explanation (DAWA). DAWA for harmonious interaction among all humans. So is it by sword that some marauding Muslims advocate for their faith? Here I let the Quran answer those misguided thugs: "Call mankind to the way of your Lord with wisdom and sound advice..." (Chapter XVI/125).

Even Muhammad was admonished in the Quran to steer away from arrogance in his call for faith. The Quran asserts as follows: "It was by God's Mercy that you were kind to them; had you been harsh and hard of heart, they would have dispersed from around you... And consult them in the matter, and when you reach a decision, place your trust in God..." (Chapter III/159).

On the other hand, the non-Muslim world should also reform its outlook on Islam and Sharia. It takes two to tango!! Unwittingly, that sector of humanity has unwittingly adopted the jihadi interpretation of Islam and its values as mouthed by the enemies of humanity. Evidence here abounds. Examples:

• that Islam is a faith of the sword;
• that the war on terror should be waged by a ban on Muslim immigrants;
• that the niqab is mandated by the Islamic faith;
• that the stoning for adultery, and the beheadings, and the severence of limbs, are all within the judicial sentencing mandated by Islam;
• that Muslims understand only force to cause them to submit;
• that dictatorship is the way of Islamic governance;
• that Sharia is meant to be spread world-wide to replace legislation;
• that Islamization is a global blueprint;
• that the Muslim world supports, outwardly or inwardly terrorism; and 
• that western knowledge and teaching are non-Islamic.

All of the above is utter nonsense. Islamophobia is caused by both ignorant Muslims and ignorant non-Muslims. The two sides seem to be spoiling for endless war. It is not going to happen. But anxiety about it have caused 38 States of the 50 American States either to ban Sharia or its mention in their courts.

Books authored by ex-Muslims, like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, stand for those non-sensical misconceptions. On the dust jacket of her book "Heretic," she posits provocative questions, basically of the red herring type. She says "When a Muslim see you reading this book and says, 'I am offended, my feelings are hurt,' your reply should be: 'What matters more? Your sacred text? Or the life of this book's author?'"

Ayaan: those who threaten you for your book have not read their book (the Qura). Neither have you, as you selectively picked certain verses from the Quran. Selections which have not been encapsulated into legislation. Except in retrograde theocracies, or in your unhappy land where Somali tribal experiences are the norm. Like genital mutilation which you suffered.

Sharia does not enter that dark realm of genital mutilation. And modern legislation in countries like Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon, Turkey, has criminalized it. A prime example of correcting by man-made law the tribal seepage in monotheism. In your country of birth, women enslavement is common. But you have found undeserved fame for falsely claiming that the face of the Muslim world can only be seen through one narrow and ancient window. That of Somalia which is now a horribly failed State.

In the social sciences, including law, we always say that faith is non-negotiable. But Hirsi does not seem to comprehend that basic axiom. One of her calls is for the need to re-write the Quran!! Well, Ayaan, were you to ever fathom the meaning of faith, you might realize that Islam's dogma is premised upon one central belief: The Quran is the word of God. Therefore you need, if you ever could, to ask God (in Arabic, Allah) to produce your desired "amendments." If you succed, give me a call!!

My dwelling on the perception gap between the Muslim and the non-Muslim worlds does not encompass the entire problem. For perceptions are expressed in words in various languages.

Here we have a real dilemma. The Muslim world at the mass level does not converse or read or write in Chinese, English, French, Russian, or Spanish. These, in addition to Arabic, are the UN-official languages. The reverse is true regarding non-Muslims in regard to Arabic.

Closing the gap needs a global linguistic remedy. 9/11 was hugely condemned by the Muslim world. Yet that condemnation did not register. On the contrary, it was misconstrued. Considered silence translated into a quiet approval.

All the above is not an advocacy for Islam. It is an advocacy for overcoming the ills of this age of rage, symbolized by Trumpism, and by its reaction to jihadism through a redirection of the global conversation regardnig faith and governance.

Mixing faith with governance has proved to be a combustible mix. Each of them should be observed as separate. With governance looking upon faith as a system of values, not a blue print for regulating human affairs. 

The hereafter should be left to the hereafter. Meaning: live and let live. And if you can't, then "Get a Life!!"

Not by Walls But by Integration - Canada Builds a Strong Nation

These are reflections on my 64th annual anniversary. It was on August 27, 1952 that I sailed from Alexandria, Egypt, as a Fulbright scholar to New York City, my first journey outside of the land of the Nile.  A journey by sea of 21 days aboard the Ex Cambion of the then famed American Lines.

Born to an Islamic scholar, and a mother who traced her lineage to Imam Al-Hassan Ibn Imam Ali, the cousin of the prophet Muhammad, I turned to my turbaned father seeking one last advice before boarding that beautiful vessel. In his ear, I whispered: "How should I live in America, and how to maintain my classic Arabic language?"

His answer was: "Live as they live." As to classic Arabic, I shall mail to you a copy of the speeches of Imam Ali Ibn Abi-Taleb. Entitled "The Path To Eloquence." It is, after the Quran, the highest form of the Arabic language.

That fatherly counsel held me in good stead for 64 years in North America. It liberated me from the strictures of my life in Egypt, and opened the door to my initial UN employment- chief of the Arabic Language Section, UN radio. I married a Catholic wife, still my beloved spouse for 46 years, and became an honorary member, since 1974, of a Jewish reform temple, in Great Neck, Long Island. And after early retirement from the UN, I now, aside from law practice, teach "Islamic Law and Global Security" at Fordham University. A Jesuit institution, I am also adjunct professor at St. Francis College.

Thus, in America, I kept on observing my Azhari father’s advice: "live as they live" a part of the American model of "the melting pot,"  the fusion of several cultures within the pot of Americanism. Not a bad model for a nation of immigrants to whose flag I swore allegiance. This is although it does not recognize my duality of citizenship, both Egyptian and American. To me, no conflict. You can be a brother and a cousin at the same time.

Yet, my abhorrence of the alarming statements of an ignoramus like Donald Trump calling for a Muslim ban and a wall against Latin immigration, inspired me to look at the Canadian model of "integration," not of " fusion." A model akin to the UN system which allows all employees to travel to their countries of origin. The rationale is simple: observe the UN Charter through service to the entire membership, but keep your civilisation roots intact. Put in other words, integrate your culture within the broader context of multiplicity.

This is the essence of Canadian nation-building. Not by walls and nativism/ chauvinism. But by the creation of a two-way cultural highway: from the country of origin to Canada, and from Canada, the values of harmonious diversity.

These are not mere empty words about the higher-value Canadian model. It is a model reflected fully in government deeds and the public square realities. Both fitting neatly the alphabet of globalization in this puzzling age of rage. No dysfunctional Trumpist ideology of faith tests, Nazi-like reliance on vigilantism, no cozying up to strong-arm dictatorships.

Just witness Canada’s welcome of new comers from areas like Syria and Iraq. Witness Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at Canadian airports. Putting warm jackets on the backs of immigrant children. Watch him dance at a Philippino cultural festival. On August 20, that young and photogenic P.M.. whose father I served at the UN, being enthusiastically welcomed in Toronto at the "Taste of Manila."  The Toronto Star reported on the chants of onlookers "Justin, Justin." Declared the PM that differences were a source of strength that makes communities stronger.

Or watch the arrivals at the Lester Pearson airport in Toronto, standing by the curbside at Terminial One of Air Canada. And observe the greeters and the greeted: Somalis, Syrian, Bangladeshis and others. A tower of Babylon, speaking happily in a multitude of languages, hugging each other outwardly, and hugging the Canadian model of integration under their colorful shirts, Sikh turbans, or Muslim veils.

Or observe the provincial and federal support of non-governmental organizations engaged in the on-going Canadian enterprise of integration at all levels. Bolstored by free education, health insurance, and freedom of expression.

And when a cultural hurdle arises, the Canadians have no hesitation to seek advice. Such as when some Syrian refugees balked at eating Canadian food. Reason: an ill-placed fear that utensils were used in eating pork products, a culinary prohibition in Islam. So I was asked to provide an opinion (a fatwa-like explanation). In response, I wrote that water was a purifier. Washing those utensils made them wholesome. Veracious eating began in earnest. The Canadian model of nation-building through integration also has a substantial security side-effect. It is countering the lunatic ideology of Jihadisim. Confronting, and eventually decimating the likes of ISIS and Boko Haram, are not by the force of arms alone. Ideology is an in dispensable supportive weapon. For Islamic Law (Sharia) properly defines "Allahu Akbar" not as a battle cry.  Its legal meaning is "all humans are equal before God, regardless of faith."

A true reflection of the Canadian model in an all-encompassing secular sense!! It is not by walls but by integration, Canada builds a strong nation.

Wahhabism Is A Crushing Burden on Islam and the Kingdom

It began in the 19th century as a reform movement in Najd, central Arabia. By the late 20th century, Wahhabism has degenerated into a police theocracy. A near co-ruler of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The great founder of the Kingdom, Abdel-Aziz Al-Saud, with an eye on legitimating his family's authority over a kingdom of 5 parts, reached an agreement with Al El-Sheikh, the descendants of Abdel-Wahhab, the reformist founder of Wahhabism. The Saudis would rule the new State; Al El-Sheikh would oversee religious affairs.

The Saudi family kept its bargain, including funding Wahhabism. The Wahhabis kept on interpreting Islam narrowly, and their authority expansively. What began as Islamic reform praised by Sheikh Al-Azhar, Muhammad Abdoh, ended up by a monstrous creature for whom Al-Azhar of today feels the jitters.

When 9/11 happened, the majority of the criminal attackers of America were Saudi nationals. Leading to intensive concern abroad about the dangers of Wahhabism. Several books reflected global unease. Including an important book by Natana Delong-Bas, entitled Wahhabism Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad (Oxford University Press, 2004).

Like other sources, this book raises a central question. "How can contemporary extremists like Osama Bin Laden (a Saudi) use Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's ideology to justify global jihad?" (page 227). The founder of Wahhabism, in his writings, never made jihad an individual burden. He stressed the legal justifications of who is to carry out jihad, under what circumstances, and for what purposes.

The departure of his successors from that narrow and restrictive interpretation of jihad (self-policing and the right to national self-defense within your own national borders) created an atmosphere and circumstances contributing to world-wide Islamophobia. Wahhabism did not create ISIS. But it availed it of an incubator in which its poisonous ideology grew. Threatening Islam and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia itself.

Of course, it is ridiculous for the U.S. Congress to adopt legislation enabling the families of the victims of 9/11 to sue the government of Saudi Arabia for reparations. This is a legal monstrosity. There is no way an attorney of any of these families could produce probative proof that officials of the Kingdom conspired with the criminals of 9/11 to strike. I was tempted to offer my services as a defense attorney to deflate such outrageous claims. But I curbed my enthusiasm.

This issue of official Saudi culpability is expected to go nowhere. But it does not mitigate the burden by which Wahhabism is dragging Islam and the ruling family into unpredictable directions. That is because Wahhabism is caricaturing the faith of 1.7 billion Muslims. Causing idiots like Donald Trump to call for a ban on the entry of Muslims to America; stimulating the rise of the European Right against immigrants; and causing all Muslims in the diaspora to always remain on the defensive.

A case in point regarding the degenerative Wahhabi interpretation of Islam is the case against the Saudi preacher Ahmed Al-Ghamdi. Fully exposed in a lengthy article in the New York Times of July 11, 2016. Authored by Ben Hubbard, a staff reporter (and a Christian) writing from Jidda under the title of "Secrets of the Kingdom: Into the Heart of Wahhabism."

I shall track his main findings, in order to offer a rebuttal based on Islamic Law to the responses which that fair-minded journalist has uncovered for a global audience. From the contrast between what Ben Hubbard was told, and the rules of Islamic jurisprudence which I teach as a law professor in New York City, the reader might perceive the gulf between Sharia and Wahhabi interpretation of Sharia.

As we embark on this comparison, let us note that Islamic Law derives from the Quran, the authenticated traditions of the Prophet Muhammad in word and conduct, and ijtihad (the application of common sense by Islamic experts to issues where there is no text). In addition, Islamic Law is modifiable or supplemented by legislation, man-made law.

The lack of understanding of this mix has led 38 states of the 50 American states to ban in their State Courts the mere mention of Sharia. This legal error by these states stems directly from Wahhabi practises or advocacy through their supported Madrasas and other institutions throughout the world.

A further damage inflicted by Wahhabis had led the US to ban the importation of copies of the Quran from abroad into the US. A retaliation measure against Saudi ban of the importation of the Bible into the Kingdom.

Wahhabism has also led to the banning of the construction of minarets in Switzerland, and protests by American communities against the construction of mosques. They also caused infiltrating police informants in American mosques to monitor sermons, and the institution by American Congressman Peter King of congressional hearings on Muslim cooperation with the FBI and other law enforcement agents. Thus Wahhabism is a main source for the world politics of fear from Islam. It created a mythical linkage between  Islam as a faith, and jihadism as global terror.

Now to the Ghamdi case. Ahmed Qassim al-Ghamdi has worked most of his adult life for the Saudi Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, a wahhabi religious police organization. Now he is in self-imposed retirement. No job, fearing the threat of torture for daring to evolve away from Wahhabism into a thinking human being questioning their flagrant interpretation of Islam.

A top member of the Saudi religious establishment, Sheikh Saleh Al-Luhaidan addressed the Ghamdi matter. As if instructing the State on how to handle Ghamdi's progressive views, he issued this threat publicly: "There is no doubt that this man is bad. It is necessary for the State to assign someone to summon and torture him." A Khomeini style call for violence against a Muslim scholar, Ghamdi, who, through resort to the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad, is perceived as an apostate.

Backing up this threat for daring to stand up for a distorted Wahhabism, another Saudi religious leader described Ghamdi as "troubled and confused;" and "he is not really a Sheikh," though he has a doctorate in Sharia.

Yet here is a host of indicators on the fact that it is the religious Wahhabi establishment, the State within the State, which is troubled and confused:

• The non-admission of the existence of "Wahhabism." For them, that term is called "true Islam." A form of takfirism (apostasy) in reverse. As if the rest of the Muslim world, which does not follow their practices is on the wrong path;
• Flowing from this draconian non-recognition of any other religious practices are consequences including the suppression of Shiism in Saudi Arabia; the adoption of the non-Islamic term of "infidel" as descriptive of the entire non-Muslim sphere of humanity; and the unislamic attempts to proselytize world-wide;
• Forbidding the mixing between men and women unless they are related by marriage or blood. The Arabic term for gender mixing in Wahhabism is "ikhtilat." The wall between men and women is thus built in the workplace, in schools, in restaurants, in nearly every sphere of human activity beyond the walled homes of family life;
• This form of gender-based apartheid has led, among other things, to the denial of women rights. A full black cover from head to toe, except for slits for seeing. Prohibition of car driving. Non-travel without husband's permission;
• That is not all. There are also the arranged or enforced marriages, including for girls not yet of age. Ban on wearing make-up, unless unseen in public. Unequal pay. Non-access to courts except through male representations. In spite of that regime of anti-female total darkness, the Wahhabis bold-facedly dispute the obvious. They deny that Saudi women are deprived from basic human rights;
• Restrictions on commercial activities. These include the enforced closure of shops during the times of prayers; the regulation of display of a panoply of women clothing in shops;
• The awful textbooks for grade school children, instructing them from their tender years that: Christmas and Thanksgiving are forbidden; celebration of birthdays is to be avoided; music, dance, and such arts are "haram," meaning religiously forbidden; 
• Jihad, they claim, is the calling of every Muslim; and Islam, if not observed in the Wahhabi manner, would unravel, leading to the destruction of society.

All of the above, and more, are a close-minded interpretation of Islamic Law as derived from the Quran and the Sunna. Selective and desert-bound deduction by the descendants of the family of Al-Sheikh.

Turning now to the criminal justice system in Wahhabi-land, requiring a direct nexus to the Quran, the Prophet's tradition, and ijtihad, we now stand on booby trapped grounds. A booby trap is an explosive device designed to be triggered when an unsuspecting victim touches or disturbs a seemingly harmless object.

So it is with the case of public beheadings, cutting off of limbs, public flogging, and stoning for suspected adultery. All forms of corporal punishment said to be prescribed as Huddud Al-Allah (God's limitations, meaning criminal sanctions decreed in the Quran). A whole construction that suffers, even when on point, from the exclusion of: Modifiers provided by secular legislation; a rich history of Sharia which is premised upon being pro-defendant; and the practice of the Enlightened Caliphs (the first four successors of the Prophet Muhammad).

Number Two of these, namely, Omar, refused to accept the admission of a malfeasant who committed theft. And the Quran itself which made proving adultery impossible. For it called for four witnesses actually perceiving the act of penetration. Then you have the all inclusive Islamic adage of "pardon," or forgiveness by an authority, and even by the blood relatives of a murder victim.

The deep dungeon in which wahhabism has descended is their denial of the great label attached to Sharia since the inception of Islam. That label is: "Sharia Is Fit For Every Time and Every Place."

How? Due to its adaptability to changing circumstances. Evolution is the heart of survival. When Amre Ibn El-As invaded Egypt in the 7th century during the reign of Caliph Omar, he was armed with Omar's instructions not to interfere with Christian Orthodox practices of the Coptic population, to safeguard their churches and property, and not to force Islam upon them.

And that is "the True Islam," not as defined by the wahhabis, whose "charitable contributions" have funded jihadism, and whose restrictive ways of life have contributed to Islamophobia world-wide.

Countering the heavy damage perpetrated by wahhabism as a cult, the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, and Al-Qaeda and ISIS as criminal gangs whose crimes could be last seen in Nice, France, on July 14, 2016, the call came from Egypt for "A Religious Revolution." Al-Azhar was put in charge. And before El-Sisi assumed Egypt's presidency, the secular Constitution of 2014 was very vocal on these issues.

Article 2 of that Constitution which supplanted the Islamist Constitution of 2012 of the Morsi dark era, stipulated: "Sharia is the principal source of legislation." It is a call for "broad construction." This is because it does not provide for Sharia to be the only source of legislation. And it provides for the common sense construction that legislation cannot nullify general principles of the Quran.

This is bolstered by Article 3 whose language tracks that of Article 2. Article 3 states that "the principles of legislation for Egyptian Christians and Jews regarding their personal status (i.e. family law, inheritance, and the like) and their choice of spiritual leaders derive from their own religious practices." A constitutional recognition of the sanctity of Judaism and Christianity. You don't see the face of wahhabism in such provisions in the Constitution of Egypt which is home to one third of all Arabs.

Such Egyptian constitutional pillars are the foundation on which rests the Religious Revolution, now spearheaded by the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Dr. Ahmed Al-Taiyeb, a graduate of the Sorbonne.

Here follows the ideology of that Revolution which runs counter Jihadism and counter Wahhabism:

• In Abuja, Nigeria, in March 2016, he declares: "We believe that all revealed religions are from God." That ignoring this faith in all faiths has produced "the poisonous fruit of hate for Islam among the adherents of other religions." That "Islam, in the language of the Quran, is a term which does not refer to a particular faith. It is the name common to a collective faith which has been advocated by all prophets." That the Quran has stated: "We gave him (Jesus) the Scripture in which was guidance and light, and confirming what was before it of the Torah, and a guidance and an admonition for the pious." (Chapter V, Verse 46).

Later in March (March 22), the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar stood before the Bundestag in Berlin, to press on with the ideology of "the Religious Revolution." 

Quoting him, he declared: "It is not true what is said about Islam as a religion of combat. The term 'sword' was not mentioned even once in the Quran." That jihad includes "every effort designed to serve the needs of the community." That Muslims living in Europe "should become a part of the European fabric." That women in Islamic Law are "a full partner with men in rights and obligations... Islam is not the cause for marginalization of women. Her marginalization is the result of adhering to decrepit customs having nothing to do with Islam."

Then in May, 2016, on the eve of Ramadan, a holy month made bloody by jihadism in Muslim countries (Turkey, Bangladesh and Iraq), Al-Azhar Rector declared in Paris: "It is wrong for some who pretend to speak in the name of Islam on Muslims to distance themselves from the Europeans." 

Then he advocated for "positive integration," whereby Muslims in Europe should espouse their new societies. Here he cited the Charter of Medina issued by the Prophet Muhammad. Calling it "the first constitution known to mankind," it advocated for equality before the law in rights and obligations for all citizens regardless of diversity of faith or ethnicity.

Where is Wahhabism from these universal principles of Islam advocated by the Rector of Al-Azhar which was established more than 1000 years ago? No where.

• No where when the religious police in Saudi Arabia knocks on doors of the homes of citizens to check upon their daily life;
• No where in the plethora of religious fatwas (religious opinions) calling for the death of Micky Mouse;
• No where in the Wahhabi opposition to King Abdullah University of Science and Technology because women are allowed to study with men on the same campus;
• No where when a fatwa is issued by a demented cleric declaring false eyelashes for women to be sinful;
• No where where another crazy fatwa is issued against "all you can eat buffets;"
• No where when the "Council of Grand Islamic Scholars" is allowed to issue anti-social decrees in Saudi Arabia making the exit of the citizens to countries abroad a respite from a suffocating atmosphere of enforced and retrograde conformity.

In all of this, one has to distinguish between Saudi Arabia as a State, and Saudi Arabia as Wahhabi land.

But Wahhabism, as a near cult, is a crushing burden, not only on Islam. But also on the Kingdom itself. For how can Saudi Arabia, with its unlimited potential for growth and prosperity, could catch up  with a world, including America, which is now exploring Jupiter?

Ghamdi is now in the center of a tsunami for daring to discover the simple truth about Muslim society during the time of the Prophet of Islam: Namely that ikhtilat (mixing men with women) was common. Women set at the Prophet's councils and even disagreed with him at times.

Now here is an advice for Wahhabism, whose excesses are now being partially curtailed by the State. If the form of woman's body causes you to be excited, don't get a fatwa. Get a psychiatrist. You need help. And cancel that travel ticket to Thailand and the Philippines. You may get venereal diseases resulting from undercover search for sexual pleasure. A false assumption of an appearance of virtue is a sin in Islam.

But it is OK for you to travel to Cairo, where belly dancing is an integral part of public entertainment. Gyrating on the same soil where Shajarat Al-Durr (The Tree of Pearls), a beautiful woman ruled over Egypt in the 13th century. The Seventh Crusade ended with her diplomatic dealings as a Muslim queen, with her counterpart, a Christian queen.

In their own peculiar ways, the Wahhabis have tribalized Islam. Thus it is out of the question for them to understand "The New Normal." Meaning, in this context, what David Brooks, in the New York Times of July 15 eloquently posited. He said: "Morality is not based on loyalty to people close to (you). It is based on a universal equality for all humans everywhere."

This is the core of Islam. Its primary source, the Quran, begins most of its verses by addressing itself to "the people" (Nas). All the people. All of humanity. Not only the segment which calls itself "Muslim."

It explains what Sheikh Mummad Abdoh, the great Islamic reformer of the 19th/20th centuries told the Egyptian reporters upon his return to Alexandria from Paris. Asked "How did you find the West?" His iconic answer was: "In the West, I found Islam. But here in the East, I find only Muslims." 

For in France, now the target of several major terrorist attacks within the last 18 months, counting the massacre in Nice on Bastille Day, has been the welcoming incubator of Islamic reform. Its liberties gave it the oxygen which it sorely lacks in its birthplace.


Note: We now begin work on my next book on the New Egypt: "The New Egypt: From Chaos to the Strong State (2014-2016)." It shall mainly consist of the blog postings over the period covered by the book. Additional material which did not appear in the blog postings will be included. Looking forward to resuming later on.

Crazy Mid-Summer Night Dreams, For An Egyptian Court On Tiran and Sanafir

This is hard to believe. An Egyptian administrative Court, within the Council of State, sitting in Cairo. Ruling on June 21, 2016 that an agreement between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, signed in Cairo in April, was null and void. Under that agreement, Egypt is to return those Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia.

That judgment is riven by so many legal errors that it resembles mid-summer night dreams. These include:

• It regards the entire Egyptian population as "the plaintiff;"
• The presumed defendants are Egypt's President, its Prime Minister, and its Ministers for Defense, Foreign Affairs, and Interior;
• Its jurisdiction cannot be established except by destruction of the separation of powers;
• Its evidence is based on hearsay produced by publicity and educational material;
• It defaults the defendant for not producing material withheld because of the Court's over-reach beyond justiciable limits;
• It appoints itself as the voice and conscience of nearly 100 million Egyptians, none of whom has ever been consulted about the appointment of those judges.

If legal writing is an art which I teach at times in American law schools, this Court, by its writing, seems to be begging for some basic training. Aside from the offending shortcomings summed up supra, the Court is bereft of linking between the issue and the law. In legal briefs, we call it the rule, the analysis, and the conclusion. For short, we call it the IRAC method (Issue, Rule, Analysis, and Conclusion).

Thus my heaviest task in preparing this writing was not what I want to say or how I would say it. It was reading through 15 printed pages sent to me online courtesy of a friend who differs with me in this matter. That is because as I plowed through the Court's judgment in this case (consolidated from two cases), my task of making sense of the Court's words was made more exacting by the absence of legal common sense in that text.

From the text below, the reader may find why the Court's reasoning is circular. Meaning to say this matter is such and such because it is such and such.

In other words, the Court begged the central issue in dispute (who is sovereign over Tiran and Sanafir), by failure to provide proof. That is even if we overlook that the issue in this case cannot be justiciable. Because it is an issue of sovereignty interlaced with politics. Thus unfit for Court adjudication.

Now here is a summary of the documented facts:

• In consequence of Israel's expansion southward in the Negev, the port Umm Rashrash was occupied and renamed Eilat. Opposite the Jordanian port of Aqaba;
• With Israel now with an Aqaba Gulf seaport, Saudi Arabia feared for the security of two of its islands (Tiran and Sanafir). They are a part of several Saudi islands lying immediately south of the Saudi mainland, but had no military protection;
• So following a visit to Cairo by the Kingdom's founder, King Abdel-Aziz Al-Saud to Egypt in 1949, a Saudi request was addressed to Egypt in 1950 to provide protection for these outposts at the southern entrance of the Gulf of Aqaba;
• Egypt's positive response was immediate. Its Prime Minister Nasha Pasha directed his Defense Minister, Haidar Pasha, to comply with that Saudi request.
• An agreement was signed by the two Arab sister States in 1950. Designating Egypt as the administrator of that sovereign territory until further notice. In that agreement, Cairo was fully cognizant of its own defense needs in the Gulf, opposite eastward of its Ras Nusrani, north east of Sharm El-Sheikh;
• Notwithstanding Israeli protestations against "Egyptian occupation" of those Saudi Islands, Egypt repeatedly declared at the UN that its presence on these two islands was by written agreement with the Saudi sovereign. I was a witness to the last such assertion by Ambassador Muhammad Awad Al-Koni in May 1967. I was near where he sat in the UN Security Council chamber as he invoked that 1950 agreement;
• Now with Egypt and Israel beholden to the 1979 Peace Treaty, and with Egypt and Saudi Arabia in military partnership fighting terrorism, and with Saudi military power in the 21st century vastly augmented, Riyadh called on Egypt to end its administration over the islands. Hence the agreement signed in Cairo in April 2016. It also included the construction of a land link (King Salman bridge) between the two countries, over the Gulf waters.
• From the attached international Swiss map, you could see the boundary in the Gulf between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, with its eastern side enclosing Tiran and Sanafir, as Saudi territory, and its western side tracking the shape of Sinai as Egyptian territory.

Facts are facts. There is no Egyptian territorial sell-out to Riyadh; no conspiracies engaged in by President El-Sisi and his government which symbolizes the re-establishment of "The Strong State;" no surprises on the Egyptian public in the process of concluding international agreements with all comers as normal business to help in the ongoing task of reconstruction; and following upon an Arab summit decision to create a "unified Arab military force" to keep the Arab homeland safe from terrorism.

Examining the Court judgment of June 21, 2016, in the light of the foregoing facts, it is astounding to find so many legal faults in the Court's ruling.

• The Court asserting its jurisdiction in a matter in which the April 2016 agreement belongs to another branch, called "Parliament;"
• The submission by plaintiffs whose standing before any Court anywhere must be predicated upon each one of them being personally injured by that agreement. Not one of them could make that assertion, and the Court did not call for the necessity of that element required for case filing;
• The mixing by the Court between the notion of occupation by agreement for defense and administrative reasons, and of the notion of sovereignty.
• That confusion led the Court to take the introduction to the two islands of customs, police, defense support, quarantine, mail service... etc as indicators of sovereignty;
• That the refusal of the purported defendant to submit to a Court lacking subject matter jurisdiction as indication of culpability is simply a gross legal error. The burden is on the plaintiff to prove its case; the defendant is never called upon to assist the plaintiff's allegations. 
• It is laughable to read in the Court's decision: "The defendant government has hidden behind silence to buttress its opposition to these hearings by the Court;"
• The faulty interpretation by Court of the law of treaties, of the Law of the Sea, and of the exclusive jurisdiction of the Executive in foreign affairs, is truly alarming.

Going beyond these litigation procedural points, we cross over to some general statements made by the Court in support of its arrogated jurisdiction:

• The call by the Court for a national plebiscite on the April 2016 agreement. Under what authority did that Court base that call?
• Invoking Article 51 of the 2014 Constitution which provides for "respect of human dignity." Where is the violation of "human dignity" in that agreement?
• The Court's ridiculous interpretation of "sovereignty" as "flexible" whereby "its scope gets narrower in democracies and broader in dictatorships." The Court should have known that sovereignty is non-changeable as it is inheres perpetually in the people. "Governments" change; "people" are permanent. Ironically the Court contradicts itself as it states correctly this principle in a different part of its judgment.
• The clear implication of that "flexible definition" of sovereignty by the Court is to characterize El-Sisi regime as less than democratic. An indication of the politicization of the Court's decision. The role of the judiciary in civil law countries like Egypt is to apply the law, not to create judge-made law, as in countries adhering to English common law principles.
• The Court characterizes the issue of "Tiran and Sanafir" as "a national dispute." It sees in the opposition to Saudi sovereignty on Tiran and Sanafir a matter of near civil war dispute, requiring the intervention of a low ranking administrative Court!!
• It cites Article 151 of the 2014 Constitution. The article provides for the roles of the executive and the legislature in the making of international treaties. I fail to see how does this article help this Court in asserting its jurisdiction. Those provisions are silent on any judicial role in the process;
• The Court, as if absent-mindedly, also cites article 190 of the Constitution, stating that: "The legality of this treaty (of April, 2016) is within the jurisdiction of this Court." Sadly for the Court, the Article provides for issues within the competence of the Council of State, within whose structure this Court lies. But the wording of that Article relates only to administrative disputes. It has nothing to do with the issue at hand which the Court in its own judgment characterized it as "an international treaty."

What a wonderful mid-summer night dream for an administrative Court which, in this matter, has lost its way!! Only to wake up to the nightmare of reality of proper adjudication, anchored in a proper jurisdiction, invoked by an injured plaintiff, using probative evidence.

For those who claim those islands for Egypt should attempt to respond to the following questions:

• Would Egypt sign an agreement in 1950 with Saudi Arabia on administering Egyptian islands?
• Would President El-Sisi, a former Minister of Defense, and now Commander in Chief, conspire with Saudi Arabia to cede Egyptian territory regardless of his oath of office?
• Hasn't Egypt administered Gaza on behalf of a future Palestine from 1949 to 1967 to protect it from absorption by Israel -a situation parallel in purpose to the administration of Tiran and Sanafir?
• Weren't your voices muted when Morsi, during his disastrous one-year rule as President, gave the nod to Hamas to emigrate into Sinai, and to Sudan to claim the Egyptian triangle of Halayeb and Shalatin on the Red Sea?
• In your zeal for respect for the 2014 Constitution, is it legal to resort to an Egyptian Court in order to nullify the agreement on Tiran and Sanafir, a matter which qualifies for review by parliament?
• Have the plaintiffs in this case which is wrongly decided by that administrative Court, substituted for the entire Egyptian population in a bogus claim of injury to their dignity by the agreement of April 2016?
• Would those so-called plaintiffs have dared to launch any such challenge during the military dictatorships stretching from 1952 to 2011? Or is the new "freedom of expression" an abused license enabling you to dump daily on the presently constitutional and secular government?

You can scratch your head for convincing answers to these questions. Because you should know that for winning a legal argument, you should have the law and the facts on your side. Your deep throated screams aimed at proving treachery by El-Sisi and his government are nothing but whistling in the wind!!

Before that Egyptian Administrative Court, your cause of action should have been inadmissible. It lacked every element qualifying it for filing. It suffered from being framed as a conspiracy against Egypt's territorial integrity. Against the very regime whose leader, El-Sisi, has saved Egypt from civil war.

It is with some humor that I take note of the Court resorting to primary school textbooks and related atlases which refer to Egyptian sovereignty over Tiran and Sanafir. If that is part of the evidence, the defendant should have no worry about the final outcome!!

• An opinion writer by the name of Abdel-Nasser Salameh advances in the newspaper "Al-Masri Al-Yom" of June 30, an interesting theory. He claims, against any sane logic, that: "There is a fact which we should admit, and of which we should be ashamed. We have, for the first time in human history, a precedent. A State goes to the judiciary to assert that its land (Tiran and Sanafir) is not Egyptian territory."
• How idiotic!! That writer seeks not only to assert the truth of his conviction without advancing any evidence. He also goes to the incredible limit of denying the defendant, the Government, the right to rebut the accusations levelled against it by those who went to the judiciary to raise false claims.
• Calling that sort of articles "public information" serves as indicating the depth of ignorance of the primary principle of litigation: An adversarial claim brought before a competent Court by a proper plaintiff against a proper defendant regarding a proper cause of action.
• All these elements are totally absent in this case. Thus one wonders whether this controversy stems from pure ignorance of the facts, or from a structural ideological bias against whatever El-Sisi presidency might do or not do. This wonderment arises from the stupid accusation by some Egyptian journalists against the Government being complicit with Parliament in perpetuating poverty!! (Ashraf El-Barbari in Al-Shorooq of June 30). How further insane can you get?!

The Egyptian public has paid scant attention to this contrived dispute. Its attention was on Eid Al-Fitr and the results of graduation from high school. With the Eid Al-Fitr now over, public attention shall quickly pivot to the urgent task of institution-building. Rebuilding a broken educational system, a dysfunctional public information system, and a national commitment to win the twin wars against terrorism and poverty.

Faulting the judgment in the islands case is not to disparage the great Egyptian judiciary. One faulty judgment is not an adequate measure by which we measure that third co-equal branch of the Egyptian government. We find fault with that judgment and with those who support it, because we, as Arab students of the law, are the legal inheritors of the principle: "The burden of proof is on the plaintiff." [Al-Bayennato Aala Mun Idaa] A principle passed on by Ali Ibn Abi Taleb, 1400 years ago, to Caliph Omar Ibn Al-Khattab. The second successor of the Prophet Muhammad. Omar wisely integrated it in his famous judicial declaration.

Ruling Should Have Been For the Presumed Defendant - The Government of Egypt. Through the Court's Refusal to Consider That Case For Being Nothing More Than Vexatious Litigation.

Lookouts On Islam: Either The Summit of Muhammad Ali, or The Gutter of Omar Mateen

ISIS is not the only source of subversion of Islam. Of equal lethality are citizens of non-Muslim societies who act on ISIS inspiration to murder their co-citizens. In the name of Islam. A stab in the back for environments which ensured for them freedom of faith. Only, as in Orlando, or San Bernardino, or Fort Hood, to kill in cold blood their protectors.

The choice for lookouts on Islam is immensely stark. It is either from the summit of Muhammad Ali, a world champion, or the gutter of Omar Mateen who killed and maimed more than a hundred of his neighbors at a night club in Florida.

In the world of US presidential campaigning, the choice of lookouts on Islam begins with the summit of Obama. Refusing to label such massacre "Islamic terrorism." And ends with the abyss of Republican presumptive presidential nominee, Trump. Clamoring for walling out all Muslims from entering the US. In the squalor of his ignorance, Trump should know that the creation of fortress America is the very hope of the evil-doers, free at the gates, gaining from American immobility for inflicting maximum harm.

Returning to the comparison between how Muhammad Ali viewed Islam, and how that Orlando thug clothed his criminality in an ISIS garb.

Let us here again recall the meaning of the term "Muslim." In Islamic Law, it is not restricted to the adherents of Islam. It applies to any human being, regardless of any faith, who practices what I could here term: "the subsidiarity of will. The human will is subsidiary to the will of the Creator." The term "infidel" does not mean "non-Muslim." It means a person who has no values. Nor is the term "hold war" an Islamic term. Nor is the expression "killing for the sake of God." Nor is "Allahu Akbar," used by terrorist morons as a battle cry. It is a pledge to the equality of all humans in the eyes of God.

Muhammad Ali, the Afro-American convert, lived that creed of universality. At his funeral on Friday, June 10, held at Louisville, Kentucky, leaders of every faith eulogized him. In him, they had a lookout at the summit. Prayers were read from the palette of every faith which Ali had honored. As in the best traditions of Islamic Law, all of those faiths were his paths to an inner truth.

In the Quran, Ali's conduct conformed to this verse from the Quran: "Indeed God has bought from believers their lives and their wealth, that they shall have the Gardens... a pledge from God made in the Torah, in the Bible, and in the Quran. And who is more true in fulfilling His covenant than God..." (Chapter IX, verse 111).

By contrast, Omar Mateen, the Orlando mass killer, made his pledge, not to Islam, but to ISIS, the proverbial subverter of Islam. Mateen had called 911 to proclaim his allegiance (Baiaa) to ISIS. That was before he, on June 12, stormed that night club to kill in fulfillment of their pledge.

One criminal act, in fact the worst act of mass shooting on US soil in history was soon the occasion for Donald Trump to "appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism." Using an oxymoron expression "Islamic terrorism." A vicious linkage between Islam as faith, and terrorism as criminality of which the Muslim world is still the largest target. What compounds Trump's insensitivity is opportuning a massive human tragedy for sordid electioneering ends.

While Ali saw in himself a citizen of America and the world, Mateen saw himself an adherent of a mythical caliphate, soon to be thrown in the dust bin of history.

It is saddening to recall my interviewing of Ali at the UN for the UN Radio during my service for the world organization. His wit, his humor, his cascading torrents of adjectives, were power in action. All within the summitry of his belief in universality.

It is no wonder that Ali's widow, Lonnie, said that "Muhammad indicated that when the end came for him, he wanted to use his life and his death as a teaching moment." And it was.

As for Noor, Mateen's wife, she is said to have driven him to his Orlando target, armed for the kill. Purported to have pleaded with him not to harm anyone. By contrast, Muhammad Ali sought in his new faith, a connection to humanity. As for Omar, he had told his co-workers that he thought martyrdom. None of the Islamic Law standards for martyrdom applied to him.

In Islam, only self-defense is the core of permissible war. It is combat that stops at the borders of an Islamic State under attack. It is also the vehicle for negotiating peace with the adversary, once that adversary is inclined toward peace negotiations. The Quran provides for this rule of post-conflict resolution. "But if they incline to peace, then incline to it, and trust in God. Indeed He is the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing." (Chapter VIII, verse 6).

But for Mateen, the pretender to martyrdom, the Quran stops him far away from his goal. It says: "We prescribed to the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul, unless it be for retaliation or because of spreading corruption on earth, it would be as if he had killed all mankind. And whoever saves a life, it would be as if he had saved the life of all mankind." (Chapter V, verse 32).

And where is Mateen from that gentle giant Muhammad Ali?! Mateen's former wife, Ms. Yusufiy had married him in a ceremony in a Florida courthouse in 2009. Following the Orlando massacre, she made revelations about him to the authorities. Referring to an incident of domestic abuse, she said: "He almost killed me. Because he started choking me. And I somehow got out of it and I tried to tackle him."

Where is Mateen from the tradition of the Prophet Muhammad who admonished: "Do not be bad news for your household." The moral here is that your household had nothing to do with whatever bad happened to you outside of your home. So don't even dare return home and take your anger on them.

And aside from attitudes, Islamic Law sees only gender equality. For it has to be read as supplemented by legislated law. Having elevated women from being a mere chattel, and decreed the abandonment of female infanticide, it made marriage a contract. A contract which ensured for the wife economic independence through an agreed dowry in arrears in case of divorce.

It is unfortunate that wahhabism, through enforced separation of women from male public life, had distorted those rules. By his oppressive behavior as a husband, Mateen adhered to rules which do not exist in either Islamic jurisprudence, or Islamic practices.

What a contrast between a world champion who saw in his adopted faith the common bonds between humans everywhere, and a world scumbag, who prided himself on living the gutter values of ISIS. Eulogies for Ali gushed forth on June 10 from a priest, an imam, a rabbi, a monk, former President Clinton, and an indigenous American Indian chief, and a famous comedian.

Through his heinous mass murder, Mateen united the whole world in his condemnation. Even the UN Security Council issued on June 14 a statement of condemnation, proposed by the US, and joined by Russian and Egypt.

Ali's coffin traveled through 20 miles of Louisville, cheered, saluted by thousands of people chanting his name: Ali, Ali, Ali. Ali had scripted his funeral as he had scripted his life. Saw in his leave-taking from this world a chance befitting the inclusiveness of his faith.

From the lookout on Islam through the summit of Muhammad Ali, it is difficult to transition to the lookout on Islam from the gutter of Omar Mateen. For the latter gloried in the debauchery of mass murder in the name of ISIS. An occasion for uniting the fractured Islamophobic tendencies in the US.

As is guaranteed by the US constitution, freedom of faith is a basic precept in Islamic Law. The Quran states:"Say, 'O people, surely there has come to you the truth from your Lord. Whoever is guided, is guided only for his own soul. And whoever goes astray, he is astray only for his soul, and I (meaning the Prophet Muhammad) am not a trustee over you.'" (Chapter II, verse 108).

These are the spiritual links between faith, every kind of faith, and human conduct. Epitomized at its best by Muhammad Ali whose faith was a bridge across all continents!!

Assessing An Act of Gargantuan Leadership: Saving Egypt Three Years Ago From A Seismic Civil War

That was a one historic act by El-Sisi, responding to 35 million voices calling on June 30, 2013 for deliverance. From every public square in that pivotal country, called Egypt, the chant against Morsi and the Brotherhood to leave was thunderous. But it needed a protective mechanism. The only mechanism was the national army.

But the chant of "IRHAL" (Begone!!) had a constitutional reason. The Islamic Constitution of 2012 was drafted by Brotherhood hands. The liberals, including the Copts, were forced out of the drafting. No provision was there in that document allowing for recalling the President. A Brotherhood overreach meant to last, but was destined to collapse.

Deposing Morsi was not planned. It was the result of the obduracy of an ideologically-fossilized organization, the Muslim Brotherhood. Such a group does not understand the art of political compromise. From June 30, 2013 to July 3, 2013, the national conversation begun by El-Sisi, as Minister of Defense, to have the process of choosing a President begun again, went nowhere.

The Brotherhood Guidance Bureau, the actual ruler of Egypt, was determined to fight back and keep a sham process going on. Legitimacy (Shariyah) for the Islamists was above practicality -a practical compromise, advocated by El-Sisi to avert civil war.

The Brotherhood's claim rang hollow. The contest for the presidency between Morsi, the Brotherhood's second choice for office after El-Shatter was disqualified, and General Shafiq produced a doubtful result. 51% for Morsi, 49% for Shafiq was a non-verifiable statistic. And the choice of President preceded the drafting of a constitution. Talk about putting the cart before the horse!!

Prior to the plebiscite on that defective constitution, where Coptic rights to citizenship parity were nowhere, Morsi had declared himself to be above the Constitution. A determined dictatorship in the making. Morsi was another name for Mussolini. That fascist formula was then taken one step further. A parliament dissolved by the Supreme Constitutional Court on a technicality was ordered by the President to reconvene.

The agenda of that reconvened Parliament was one item to be enacted in 20 minutes. An enactment that delegated to the Executive (the President) legislative powers. An anomaly that alarmed a nation which since 1923 had luxuriated prior to the Nasser coup of 1952 in constitutional democracy. 80 years of practice, which anteceded the Brotherhood's birth in 1928.

With the collapse of El-Sisi-led negotiations, the threat of civil war loomed as a certainty. Morsi had to go; a road map in which the liberal leadership of Egypt concurred, including the Coptic Church, was at hand; a transitional government was formed; an interim president, Judge Adly Mansour, chief of the harassed Supreme Constitutional Court, was installed; and preparations for the redrafting of a new and secular Constitution began in earnest.

In all of this, there was no coup by El-Sisi. The process meant the undoing of the Brotherhood's coup which followed installing Morsi as President. The core problem of that Islamic presidency was complex: The Brotherhood regarded Egypt as a spring board to a mythical Islamic State; force was the first option in dealing with Ethiopia; Sinai was to be the hinterland for Hamas; The copts and the shiis were smitten into submission. Turkey and Qatar were eager funders for the new Islamic order in Cairo; and a wahhabi-like theocracy was seen as Egypt of the future!!

These were all realities of the one-year rule by the Brotherhood. A year which also saw in the Islamic Republic of Iran a role model. So parallel security forces were formed: from a replica of the Revolutionary Guards, to the militias patterned along the lines of the Iranian Basig, created by Khomeini. How could such developments escape the attention of the proud non-sectarian huge Egyptian army?

With the corrective revolution of June 30, 2013, came the physical proof of the Brotherhood's determination to collapse the national will. The occupation by unruly and gangs of street roughs trained in urban warfare occupying the Cairo squares of Rabaa and Al-Nahdha.

Weddings were performed, so was the storing of armaments. Bread was baked, and calls for soldiers and policemen to defect were issued. Foreign intervention was urged, and a mighty propaganda machine was put to work on a Brotherhood signal!! The two squares in the heart of Cairo were declared Islamic emirates.

And I was told that the Brotherhood would never leave!! Without heeding the lesson of refusing to compromise from June 30 to July 3, their tactic was that the Rabaa and Al-Nahda rebellions would spark a conflagration. The enemy of the Islamists was, and continues to be the June 30 Revolution. So for six weeks, the entreaties by the Government for peaceful disbanding were responded to by more violence. God was believed to be on the side of collapsing the modern secular State. It was a suicidal belief. Spun out of the inherent hypocrisy of using faith for the ends of unjust power.

It was not a conflict between two opponents, with each of them holding to values common to historic Egypt. It was the onset of a conflagration of existential proportions for the very soul of Egypt. With the Brotherhood aiming at the upending of a secular Egypt, and the majority of the population aiming at continuity. Egypt's DNA has never carried theocratic chromosomes. Nor has that DNA ever carried in it the germ of civil war. This has always been a cohesive and inclusive society.

For since 7000 years, the State produced the faith, not the faith the State; the Pyramids representing the lofty stability of the State cast their huge shadow on the temples below; even the army was a State-creation, unlike in Israel, for example, where the army created the State.

Thus in the fight for the soul of Egypt, the views of a noisy minority were no more than an echo chamber within the Guidance Bureau,the Islamic Politburo. Whereas the security forces, as of July 3, 2013 were reflective of Egypt's DNA. With only the megaphones of the Brotherhood globally blaring nonsense about phony legitimacy, the Egyptian street, whose only protection from a fascist putsch was the national army, was asserting its sovereign primacy.

El-Sisi's assumption of the presidency was not through the armed forces. As universally witnessed, it was through the ballot boxes.

Let us now peer into the Brotherhood's ideology. In one word, their "ideology" translates into "hypocrisy." For they are not about "faith;" they are about "power;" dressed up as "faith." For evidence, here are examples:

• In 1947, they murdered in cold blood, Egypt's Prime Minister, Al-Nokrashi Pasha. An act precipitating the Government of Abdel-Hadi murdering their Supreme Guide and Founder, Hassan El-Banna in 1948 in Cairo;
• Having infiltrated the officers corps of the Egyptian armed forces, they played a crucial role in the Nasser coup of 1952. Nasser had used them, and in return, they thought that they could use him. With Nasser having the bigger and more disciplined guns on his side, he outfoxed the Brotherhood. Manipulated the so-called Alexandria assassination attempt on his life in 1954. A golden occasion, whether true or contrived, to ban them.
• Treachery, deceit and cunning beget the same. What goes in at one end, comes out of the other end. With the hanging of Sayed Qutb, the spiritual father of terrorism in the name of Islam, in the mid 1960s the Brotherhood laid low, focusing on social work. It was its means for grass-roots infiltration. 
• But never abandoning its core values represented by its logo: Two swords, framing the Quran, with the words "And Prepare" (Wa Aaedou). The first Quranic words for the verse beginning with: "And prepare for them with whatever force you can..." (Chapter 5/Verse 60).
• In that combative logo,defining Muslims into "we and the others," is a departure from Islamic jurisprudence. A system based on Quran, Muhammad's tradition, and ijtihad (interpretation), with the emphasis on TAWHEED - God is One. As the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Dr. Ahmed Al-Taiyeb had declared last May in Germany, Nigeria and France: "A Muslim means any human being of whatever faith who makes his will subservient to God's will."
• No wonder that the Brotherhood's celebration in June 2012 of Morsi's taking the oath of office as President (for the third time) at Cairo University, gave Dr. Al-Taiyeb a back seat. Al-Taiyeb walked away from that deliberate humiliation.
• And no wonder that Muhammad Ali, the great boxing champion and an Afro-American, was eulogized on June 10 by an array of leaders of every faith on earth. For Ali the convert held bibles which he purchased close to his bosom. Both Muhammad Ali and Ahmed Al-Taiyeb are on the same side of an Islam as the expression of faith in a Creator for all of humanity. An Islam which stands on the world stage respected for tolerance, not feared for terrorism.

That is the litmus test which the Brotherhood could never pass. Claiming victim-hood at both Rabaa and Al-Nahdha in consequence of that rebellion against the Egypt of Adly Mansour as of August 14, 2013 reflects only one face. The face of hypocrisy.

From all indications, both Rabaa and Al-Nahda represented a counter-revolution which sought self-sacrifice. A tenet of the Brotherhood's Charter. That Charter proclaims: "Death for the Sake of Allah is our most cherished aspiration." Its secondary mission is an invitation for foreign intervention.

The Quran implicates the Brotherhood in bringing about that bloodshed upon itself and upon Egypt's security forces. "Whatever good comes to you, it is from God. And whatever misfortune befalls you, it is your own doing..." (Chapter IV, Verse 79).

Now fast forward to El-Sisi's reign, and a cursory review of its accomplishments in a country saved by him from civil war:

With the secular Constitution approved, then promulgated in 2014, presidential elections followed. The result was a first for the New Egypt: El-Sisi became the first President in the history of modern Egypt to be voted for the highest office through fair, open, and scrupulously-monitored elections. The man who is now embodying the true DNA, of his country.

The oldest nation on earth was now ready for rebuilding from the bottom up. That is in spite of an economic decline, and two wars on terrorism going on in Sinai and at the Libyan borders.

• A second Suez Canal;
• Rebuilding the naval forces through the purchase of French aircraft carriers. While keeping an American excess of armed vehicles flowing at no cost to combat terrorism. Armored vehicles shielding troops from roadside bombs; A total of 762 such vehicles called MRAP, which stands for mine-resistant, ambush-protected;
• Reclaiming 1.5 million acres from the Egyptian desert, while ensuring an adequate supply of surface and underground water;
• Returning Egypt to the African Union, and to its natural allies and sources of emergency funding in the Gulf;
• Ensuring energy sufficiency through German technology, and the return to atomic programs for peaceful purposes through Russian know-how;
• Pursuit of the new Religious Revolution through Al-Azhar, and the banning of the preachers of hate and anti-coptism through laws. Meaningful presidential participation in celebrations at the Coptic St. Mark's Cathedral at Abbasiya, Cairo;
• Declaring the reconstruction of a new administrative capital, east of Cairo;
• The utilization of the "Tahiya Misr Fund" in new zoning for roads, housing, refuse removal, bridges, and grain silos;
• Revamping the creaky educational and health systems;
• Resorting to summitry and presidential visits to newly emerging mega economies, to rebuild tourism, and to borrow from the east its new techniques for mass transfer to the 21st century; 
• Refocusing on Egypt, while avoiding intervention in the affairs of sister Arab States, shunning the old interventionist propaganda line of "Egypt knows best!!"
• Involving the Italians and the Americans in harnessing the natural gas discoveries; 
• And harnessing the huge demographics in the arduous task of national production.

Let us hear El-Sisi advocating his presidential line of thought.

In a TV interview with Osama Kamal of the Egyptian TV, he produces his own report card. With characteristic humility, he speaks of: "We" as a collective leadership: (my translation from the Arabic).

• "Exerting before June 30 all efforts at reconciling between the Rulers and Society. Efforts emanating from fears of a rupture between the State and the people;"
• "The evil-doers are those who intentionally aim at hurting Egypt. Whether the Egyptian people or the Egyptian State;"
• "The Egyptian people know who are the practitioners of evil, internally and externally;"
• "For as long as the Egyptian people are united, we experience no fear. We only experience anxiety if the Egyptian public does not act as one;"
• "What goes on now is nothing more than futile attempts to destroy the State from within;"
• "I did not agonize over whether to compete for the presidency of Egypt. But there were measures which had to be in place prior to my taking that step;"
• "My goal remains to protect the State from collapse. If this shall be my only achievement, I would see in it a great mission accomplished;"
• "Today we have State institutions, a Constitution, mechanisms, and a State in the process of being restored with a renewed spirit."

This is a theory of confidence, expressed in an understated manner. A manner that harks back to the early Arab literature which uses the diminutive as a style of describing the huge.

Here we note:

• The Sinai terror, exaggerated in the press internally and externally as a force determining Egypt of the future. That is in spite of the fact that terror space is confined to 2% to 3% of the Sinai land mass between Gaza and El-Arish;
• That there exists in the Arab region a vacuum. Forcing Egypt to act. For what objective? El-Sisi says it best in that TV interview: "We must be able to effect a balance, not aiming at neither hidden agendas or coveting land or wealth. Our only agenda is to repel those who aim at harming us or our neighbors."
• That the Egyptian press of today has a zero role in public education. Its focus confuses between "the freedom of expression," and "the freedom for malicious rendering of the news." Offering daily admonition to El-Sisi regarding their own perception of what should and should not be done. The depth of their shame is to be measured by their calling the islands of Tiran and Sanafir a territorial Saudi grab.

No wonder that the world press of today has pivoted in a new direction. Their main headlines are: "Doom and Gloom Merchants Wrong Again." So wrote Linda S. Heard of Gulf News after a recent visit to Egypt.

As Egypt enters this phase of accelerated reconstruction, confidence-building trends multiply:

• In the rejection of the neo-imperialism of foreign non-governmental organizations like "Amnesty International." Trying to measure the status of freedom of expression in Egypt with the same yardstick applicable to western States which did not suffer the ravages of the Arab Spring;
• The rise of many indigenous NGOs. Examples: "Naebat Qademat" (women legislators in the making), headed by Dr. Nahid Shaker. And the "Organization for Constitutional Protection," headed by Amre Moussa;
• The rise of the movement for local administrations, decentralized for quick response on the ground:
• The responsiveness to the Coptic Church, while calling for revamping the archaic laws impeding church construction and repairs;
• The emphasis on projects where there exists a direct relationship between cost and benefit and a time budget for completion;
• Bringing up the rear of Egypt's geographic surface, for far too long neglected, like Sinai, Nubia, and the huge western Egyptian dessert;
• The realignment of foreign relations in order to better serve the parity of sovereignty among States, the possible revision of the Charter of the League of Arab States; and 
• Adherence to the laws for public demonstrations within its promulgated provisions, the respect for judicial independence, and for women empowerment. 

This is a challenging process of rebirth of the oldest State on earth. A process wearing proudly and visibly an ANKH -a key-like ancient Egyptian cross as a symbol for an enduring life and generative energy. A country worth saving from civil war, by historic leaders like El-Sisi. A leader for whom tomorrow starts today!!

On behalf of history, Thank you CC!! Your Egypt is no Syria!!