The New York Times reports: The Muslim Brotherhood demanded Thursday that Egypt’s military rulers cede control of the government, stepping closer to a long-anticipated confrontation between the ruling generals and the Islamist-dominated Parliament.
In a statement on its Web site and a television interview with one of its senior leaders, the Brotherhood called for the military to allow the replacement of the current prime minister and cabinet with a new coalition government formed by Parliament, which would amount to an immediate handover of power.
The Brotherhood, the formerly outlawed Islamist group, now dominates Parliament. It had previously said it was content to wait until June, when the generals had said they would hand over the power they seized at the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak last year. And signs were accumulating of a general accord between the military and the Brotherhood over the terms of a new constitution expected to be ratified before the handover. The Brotherhood’s shift comes on the eve of the Feb. 11 anniversary of Mr. Mubarak’s downfall, when other activists around the country have called for a general strike to demand the end of military rule — a call the Brotherhood has previously resisted.
But the group is also changing its position at a time when the military-controlled government appears overwhelmed by domestic and foreign crises, including a deadly soccer riot last week followed by five days of violent protests, a standoff with Washington that has imperiled billions of dollars in United States aid and international loans, and an economy teetering on collapse.
“We must start the formation of a coalition government immediately, to deal in particular with the economic situation and the state of lawlessness in this homeland,” Khairat el Shater, deputy to the Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide and one of its most influential figures, said in the online statement, which quoted an interview he gave to Al Jazeera.
Beware of NYTIMES. It too often LIES to peddle Israeli perspectives. A group of Israeli and American JEWISH academics did studies to show how it is unreliably bias by comparing it with Ha’aretz on specific stories. The Republicans’ jungle where money is fangs from its Wall Street jungle big cat benefactors and the rest of us must survive by hiding from corporate predators and profit hunting cannibals so loudly cheered by their candidates for president, should not blind us to the Democrats’ problems with truth. Both sides are hunting for Adelson’s chum change (many $millions) so they too chime in on this Israeli panic whenever Arabs come out of the dark of Pharaoh’s tombs to modernize. Israel wants to dominate the Middle East. It’s greatest competitor is the youthful new leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, most of whom want modernity, not Sharia. And so, FOREVER MORE, we’re going to hear “all the news that’s fit to print” from the paper of record about how MBs are crazy Jihadis, echoing Israel’s fears of Arab modernization and growth because it has always depended on they backward fragmenting and squabbling so Israel can expand. MBs have been patient for almost a century. They now are ready to move, realizing that secular politicians are bandits who lie while the military are bandits who shoot. This is a critical Egyptian issue for most of our aid to Egypt, unlike most of our aid to Israel, is military, not economic and much more is needed for modernizing the economy. Look at how many MB activists are under 50 and modern educated. That tells it all…not the lying NYTimes.
Do not forget that mubaracks Egypt was the second largest recipiant of us “internal security” aid and probably still is for its milatary. As long as the us and illegally occupied Palestine own others milatary the people will continue to fight an uphill battle. The people have to be willing to say no to us aid and go it alone like Cuba Venezuela and other latin american countries. It is a tough row to hoe, but no one ever said liberty and freedom were cheap.