Category Archives: Egypt

NEWS: Syria waiting for Bush to go; Egypt critical of Israel Lobby; Israel not planning to reprimand itself for use of cluster bombs

Israel’s Foreign Ministry: Syria feels peace must wait for next U.S. president
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz, December 25, 2007

She Syrian administration is waiting out the Bush presidency, and only intends to enter a serious diplomatic process with Israel when the next United States administration takes over in 2009, according to the Foreign Ministry’s intelligence assessment.

“Damascus is interested in an agreement with Israel, but only according to Syria’s conditions and with American involvement,” Nimrod Barkan, who heads the ministry’s political research department, told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday.

“The Syrian surface-to-surface missile threat has increased in the past year,” he added. “Israel’s deterrence against Syria and Hezbollah still exists and even increased during 2007, but we must watch closely for the possibility that the deterrence could weaken.”

Barkan added that the U.S. twice tried to “open a door for Syria” in 2007, but Damascus failed to meet the administration’s demands regarding its continued involvement in Lebanon. [complete article]

Egypt FM: Pro-Israeli lobby is harming our relations with U.S.
AP, December 26, 2007

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Wednesday accused the Israeli lobby in Washington of straining its relations with the United States by using the issue of smuggling across the Gaza border as an excuse to cut U.S. military aid to Cairo.

The remarks came hours before a scheduled meeting between Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Defense Minister Ehud Barak at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik where they were expected to discuss the cross-border weapons smuggling to Gaza militants.

“The latest months have seen the Israeli lobby’s efforts to harm Egypt’s interests with the (U.S.)Congress,” Aboul Gheit told reporters. “The Israeli lobby inside the Congress was behind some positions adopted by Congress and the Israeli media campaign in the last few months falls within this trend.”

Another senior Egyptian official echoed Aboul Gheit’s comments, accusing Israel of trying to influence U.S. aid to Egypt. He referred to video footage that Israel passed to the United States in which Egyptian soldiers are seen taking part in the weapons smuggling. The official said that this is a “blatant attempt to interfere in internal Egyptian matters,” adding that “in the videos there is nothing” and that “the construction of settlements is very damaging the peace process”. [complete article]

Israel won’t prosecute for use of cluster bombs in Lebanon
By Isabel Kershner, New York Times, December 25, 2007

Israeli military prosecutors announced Monday that they would not press charges over the army’s use of cluster bombs during the war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, actions that had been widely criticized by human rights organizations.

The announcement came as Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams met here Monday evening for the second time since the American-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis, Md.

Cluster bombs are not prohibited in warfare, but their use is criticized because they contain “bomblets” that explode over a wide area and may strike unintended targets. In addition, bomblets that fail to explode become, in effect, land mines that can be detonated by civilians long after fighting has stopped. More than 30 Lebanese are said to have been killed by munitions left behind after the monthlong war in 2006. [complete article]

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ANALYSIS & EDITOR’S COMMENT: The imprint of torture

CIA agents sense shifting support for methods
By Scott Shane, New York Times, December 13, 2007

For six years, Central Intelligence Agency officers have worried that someday the tide of post-Sept. 11 opinion would turn, and their harsh treatment of prisoners from Al Qaeda would be subjected to hostile scrutiny and possible criminal prosecution.

Now that day may have arrived, after years of shifting legal advice, searing criticism from rights groups — and no new terrorist attacks on American soil. [complete article]

See also, CIA chief cites agency lapse on tapes (NYT) and From a critic of tribunals to top judge (NYT).

Editor’s Comment — Suppose that soon after 9/11, at a time when many Americans were fixated on the question, why do they hate us?, we had been presented with part of an answer to that question:

because we let our allies torture them.

If 9/11 itself had widely been seen as, in part, an act of revenge for torture, would we now be having a debate about the wisdom, morality, or effectiveness of the use of torture?

*

On December 4, 1982, at the opening of the trial of three hundred Egyptian Islamists who had been implicated in the plot to assassinate President Anwar Sadat, the Islamists’ spokesman, Ayman Zawahiri (later to become Osama bin Laden’s deputy), said, “Now we want to speak to the world.”

Clips from his statement have often been televised. The image they portray is of a revolutionary Islamist, intent on toppling governments and imposing Sharia law. But the part of Zawahiri’s message to the world that received less attention than it should — especially in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 — related to torture.

In The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright writes:

[As spokesman for the defendants] Zawahiri calls out the names of several prisoners who, he says, died as a result of torture. “So where is democracy?” he shouts. “Where is freedom? Where is human rights? Where is justice? Where is justice? We will never forget! We will never forget!”

Zawahiri’s allegations of torture were later substantiated by forensic medical reports, which noted six injuries in various places on his body resulting from assaults with “a solid instrument.” Zawahiri later testified in a case brought against Intelligence Unit 75, which had conducted the prison interrogations. He was supported by testimony of one the intelligence officers, who confessed that he witnessed Zawahiri in the prison, “his head shaved, his dignity completely humiliated, undergoing all sorts of torture.” The officer went on to say that he had been in the interrogation room when another prisoner was brought into the chamber, chained hand and foot. The interrogators were trying to get Zawahiri to confess his involvement in the Sadat assassination. When the other prisoner said, “How would you expect him to confess when he knows the penalty is death?” Zawahiri replied, “The death penalty is more merciful than torture.” (pp.64-65)

In the name of supporting Egypt’s “stability” and its peace treaty with Israel, the United States has for decades provided billions of dollars in military and economic aid while most of the time choosing to ignore the violent repression for which Egypt is infamous and that U.S. tax dollars continue to enable. The intimate relationship between the U.S. government and the Egyptian torturers has never been lost on the tortured.

Shouldn’t one of the many lessons of 9/11 have been that torture can produce profound hatred and that those who have been tortured do truly never forget? Only a nation intent on making itself impervious to the past could continue to create so many inerasable memories.

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FEATURE: Ikhwan bloggers

Young Brothers in cyberspace
By Marc Lynch, MERIP, Winter, 2007

In September 2007, the Society of Muslim Brothers, Egypt’s largest organized political force, released a draft political party platform to a select group of around 50 Egyptian intellectuals. The response was scathing. Planks such as those advocating formation of a “higher council” of religious scholars with what looked like a legislative role and a ban on a female or Christian head of state triggered an avalanche of complaint from friend and foe alike. For the Brothers’ enemies, the draft platform was a gift from heaven, revealing at last the Islamist organization’s “true face” and justifying the constitutional ban on political parties with a “religious basis,” strengthened by the government in March with the clear purpose of preventing the Brothers from becoming a legal party. As the debate unfolded, however, a novel feature of the Brothers’ “true face” began to emerge: sustained criticism of the platform posted by young Muslim Brothers on their personal blogs. “Is this the platform of a political party or a religious organization?” queried one youthful blogger, ‘Abd al-Mun‘im Mahmoud. The posts, in turn, generated another sharp debate, not only about the platform, but also about what it means to be a member of the Brothers and the limits of public dissent.

These online discussions are a manifestation of a new trend among young Muslim Brothers and a dynamic new force inside the organization. As of the spring of 2007, there were an estimated 150 bloggers in the organization—an impressive number given that less than a year before there had been virtually none. At home in cyberspace, blogging Brothers have more in common with other young Egyptian activists, whether leftist or nationalist, than they do with their less wired peers. Their jibes at the draft platform, along with those of secular commentators, were undoubtedly one reason why the draft party platform was withdrawn for revision in late October (though leaders have said the offending clauses in the platform will not be altered). [complete article]

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OPINION: The West’s silence on Egypt’s assault on human rights

Behind closed doors
By Ibrahim El Houdaiby, The Guardian, November 14, 2007

The justice systems in Britain and the US may not be perfect. But viewed from Egypt, the jurisprudence and transparency that attend the vast majority of trials there are very much to be envied.

In Cairo today, some 40 leading members of the Muslim Brotherhood are facing a secret military tribunal. Thirty sessions have been held so far, while all journalists, reporters and domestic or international human rights observers have been denied access. These members of the country’s most powerful political opposition – which holds about a fifth of the seats in Egypt’s parliament – stand before this tribunal despite civilian courts acquitting them four times of all charges brought by the notorious state security prosecutor, describing them as “fabricated, groundless, and politically motivated”.

They are standing before the tribunal despite a court ruling that found the president’s decision to transfer them to a military tribunal “unconstitutional”, on the basis that they are civilian opposition leaders who should be tried by civilian courts. The treatment of these representatives of the region’s largest Islamist movement, which advocates a moderate, peaceful approach, has been roundly condemned by international human rights organisations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. [complete article]

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ANALYSIS: The shadow of Mubarak’s ghost

An Unanswered Question: Who Follows Mubarak?
By Michael Slackman, New York Times, November 1, 2007

An old joke here goes something like this: President Hosni Mubarak is on his deathbed when an aide comes to his side and says, “Mr. President, aren’t you going to give a farewell speech to the people?” The president opens his eyes and replies: “Really? Why? Where are the people going?”

At three decades, Mr. Mubarak’s tenure is the longest of any president since the ouster of the king in the 1950s. He has served longer than Gamal Abdel Nasser, a pioneer of Arab nationalism, and longer than Anwar el-Sadat, the man who made peace with Israel. He is routinely referred to as Egypt’s modern pharaoh, though usually in a cautious whisper.

Beginning on Friday, Mr. Mubarak’s ruling party, the National Democratic Party, will hold a general assembly. Six thousand, five hundred delegates from Egypt, along with guests from around the world, will gather to talk and listen. They will discuss economic, political and terrorism-related issues. What they will not discuss, party officials said, is succession — arguably, and in many minds, one of the most important issues regarding Egypt’s long-term stability.

Who will come after Mr. Mubarak?

It is a question many people here ask, but as a party official said after a briefing on the assembly, “You will never get the answer you want.” [complete article]

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OPINION: The Israeli intelligence attack on Egypt

War against Egypt in the winter
By Zvi Bar’el, Haaretz, October 28, 2007

The profound frustration because war did not break out with Syria during the summer – although there are some who argue that the summer has not yet ended – is being vented by channeling the anger against another neighbor: Egypt. October is an appropriate month to set upon a state that meticulously adheres to the peace accord it signed with Israel about 30 years ago.

In briefings with Israeli journalists, intelligence officials claim that Egypt wants to see “Israel bleeding.” Perhaps it even aspires to revoke the peace accord or reach an agreement with Hamas to appease the Muslim Brotherhood, the experts suggest in an erudite explanation. In Israel, Egypt serves the role Syria fills in the United States. It is responsible for Hamas’ increased military strength, for the smuggling of weapons via tunnels, for the continued firing of Qassams and for smuggling drugs and women across the border.

Israel is furious that Egypt allowed about 80 Hamas explosive experts – allegedly trained in Iran – to enter the Gaza Strip. As if the Qassams had been waiting for them to arrive. In fact, Egypt represents an excellent culprit because it can also be punished – by freezing U.S. economic assistance, for instance. The purveyors of these intelligence briefings would do well to calm down a bit. Israel itself did not succeed in preventing arms smuggling, even when it controlled every centimeter of Gaza. Tunnels were dug under Israel’s nose and used for smuggling and perpetrating lethal attacks. Israel has yet to repair some sections of the fence along its border with Egypt because the money allocated for this, NIS 200 million, disappeared somewhere. [complete article]

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NEWS: Discontent among Egypt’s workers

Discontent among Egypt’s workers
By Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times, October 27, 2007

President Hosni Mubarak faces discontent from many quarters, but perhaps the most intense criticism resonates from the banners and shaking fists of militant workers who have broken away from government-controlled unions and staged sporadic strikes across the nation.

The Egyptian government frequently muffles free speech and political dissent, but these ragged and often disorganized picket lines present a widening crisis for a president viewed as detached from the working class and unable to lift wages and stem double-digit inflation.

“Mubarak doesn’t care about workers at all anymore,” said Mohammed Shorbagy, who held a Koran in a plastic bag and stood amid litter and lean-tos during a strike last month at the Misr Spinning and Weaving Factory in this Nile Delta city. “Why is the president asleep? We’ve been here for four days and he’s done nothing.” [complete article]

See also, The Militancy of Mahalla al-Kubra (MERIP).

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ANALYSIS: Democracy’s only good when it’s good for America

On human rights, U.S. seems to give Egypt a pass
By Michael Slackman, New York Times, October 16, 2007

Last month, Hisham Kassem, an Egyptian human rights advocate, met with President Bush in Washington when he was flown there for an award granted by the National Endowment for Democracy. Mr. Kassem, the only winner from Egypt, said that Mr. Bush had spoken effusively about promoting democracy to the other recipients, but he did not address the topic when it came to Egypt.

“In comparison with my colleagues from other countries, this was the least of his interests,” Mr. Kassem said.

He and other democracy campaigners in Egypt say that when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meets with Egyptian officials in Sharm el Sheik on Tuesday as part of her preparation for a Middle East peace summit meeting, they expect from her a similar approach to Egyptian human rights and democracy. Even if she does raise the issues, analysts here say, it will have little impact.

That is in sharp contrast to the administration’s aggressive campaign for democracy in 2005 and 2006, which did have an effect and shows shifting American priorities, advocates and analysts say. [complete article]

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NEWS: “Jimmy” Mubarak ready to become next pharaoh

In Egypt, a son is readied for succession
By Ellen Knickmeyer, Washington Post, October 11, 2007

In Egypt, “we didn’t choose Sadat, we didn’t choose Mubarak, and we’re not choosing the next one,” Zakaria Nahla, a 52-year-old salesman of cheap furniture, said in a Cairo market crowded with beeping scooters and veiled women picking through racks of clothes.

Asked if they expected to have any say about Mubarak’s succession, a group of men with their arms full of round loaves of bread answered in unison, “No, no, no.” One underscored the point by wagging a finger and shaking his head.

“We take it as a given” that it will be Gamal Mubarak, said Sayida Amin, 46, a nanny who works for a family in one of Cairo’s wealthier districts. “People don’t know who he is. We only know he’s the president’s son, and he’s imposed on us.” [complete article]

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NEWS & OPINION: Egypt’s struggle for democracy

Cairo moving more aggressively to cripple Muslim Brotherhood
By Ellen Knickmeyer, Washington Post, October 1, 2007

After imprisoning or prodding into exile Egypt’s leading secular opposition activists, the government is using detentions and legal changes to neutralize the country’s last surviving major political movement, the Muslim Brotherhood.

Brotherhood leaders and rights groups contend the government is clearing the stage of opponents in politics, civil society and the news media ahead of the end of the 26-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak, who is 79. Egyptians widely expect the transition to be tense and that Mubarak’s son Gamal will be a top contender. [complete article]

Your best friend hates you
By Ibrahim El Houdaiby, Conflicts Forum, September 30, 2007

Of all the puzzling remarks made by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, naming Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and his regime as one of America’s strongest and most strategic allies in the Middle East is perhaps the most puzzling.

anti-americanism.jpgWhat is strange about the statement is that it portrays one of the strongest proponents of anti-Americanism in the Middle East as one of America’s closest friends. It seems that Ms Rice, just like other senior politicians and decision-makers in America, were fooled by the Egyptian regime’s international facade, which does not reveal its reality. [complete article]

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OPINION: The Muslim Brotherhood is not at odds with its democratic rivals

The Muslim Brotherhood will stand up for all Egyptians
By Ibrahim El Houdaiby, The Forward, September 26, 2007

In her opinion article, [Mona] Eltahawy criticizes the Muslim Brotherhood’s leader, Mohammed Mahdi Akef, for calling her “naked” because she was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt and pants. I could not agree more with her.

Not wearing the hijab, or headscarf, makes a woman unveiled, not naked. I realize how offensive it is to call someone “naked” for not wearing a headscarf, and I find Akef’s comment unjustifiable.

To be clear, I support Akef’s stance on wearing the hijab, and like him view it as a religious obligation. There has been consensus on that among Islamic scholars for centuries.

Yet this has got nothing to do with the Muslim Brotherhood as a political group. While we believe that wearing the hijab is an obligation, we believe it is an individual woman’s choice to uphold it — a choice that the state should not interfere in. [complete article]

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OPINION: Bush’s message to Egyptian democrats — you’re on your own

Forsaking the Egyptian free press
By Jackson Diehl, Washington Post, September 24, 2007

Two years ago, political liberalization in Egypt was at the center of Bush’s attention, and Kassem’s newspaper, al-Masri al-Yom (the Daily Egyptian), was at the forefront of a fragile Cairo Spring. With Mubarak under pressure from Washington, Kassem was able to employ journalists who reported critically on domestic issues and secular liberal columnists whose voices had previously been stifled. Other newspapers soon rushed into the gap, some of them aggressively populist. Taboos on criticism of Mubarak and his family were broken. By this year, the new independent press had captured a quarter of overall newspaper circulation, compared with just 3 percent four years ago.

The free press survived even as Mubarak moved methodically to crush other nascent centers of opposition in the past 18 months, including liberal political parties, a movement of judges seeking greater independence for the courts, and the Muslim Brotherhood. But this month, irritated by press speculation about his failing health, the 79-year-old president turned on the newspapers. First, one of the most fiery independent editors, Ibrahim Eissa of the newspaper al-Dustor, was charged by a state prosecutor with disturbing the peace and, even more absurdly, harming Egypt’s economic interests. A trial date was set for Oct. 1.

Two days later, on Sept. 13, Eissa and three other newspaper editors were hauled into court and sentenced to a year in prison for publishing articles critical of Mubarak; his son and presumed heir, Gamal; and other government officials. It was the biggest single assault on the press in Mubarak’s quarter-century in power and one of the worst blows in years to media freedom in the Arabic-speaking world.

Yet there was no reaction from the State Department or the White House, which Kassem once credited with helping to create the space his newspaper occupied. [complete article]

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OPINION NEWS: Muslim Brotherhood; Egypt’s crackdown on the press

I will stand up for the Muslim Brotherhood
By Mona Eltahawy, The Forward, September 19, 2007

…as that same secular, liberal Egyptian Muslim, I believe I must defend the Brotherhood’s presence on Egypt’s political stage. If I don’t, then I am just as guilty as the regime that has for decades sucked the oxygen out of the body politic — and with Gamal Mubarak being groomed to take over the presidency from his aging father, the regime seems set to rule for another generation.

Besides the state, the Brotherhood is the last man standing in Egypt. We’re down to the state and the mosque. The Muslim Brotherhood must remain on Egypt’s political stage, not least so that its ideas are out in the open and can be challenged.

I was in Egypt in 2005 when the Muslim Brotherhood won 88 seats in parliamentary elections, and I remain unconvinced that the majority of Egyptians would vote for them in free and fair elections. Less than 22% of Egyptians turned out to vote in 2005, which to me says most Egyptians want neither the state nor the mosque. They want a real choice. [complete article]

Egypt extends crackdown to press
By Dan Murphy, Christian Science Monitor, September 18, 2007

Ibrahim Eissa, an Egyptian editor and columnist whose newspaper, Al Dustour, has become a byword for the kind of journalism that courts controversy and attacks government limits on free speech, doesn’t look like a man facing a year in prison.

He’s smiling and almost jolly in his downtown Cairo office as he attacks the verdict against him – for the crime of defaming President Hosni Mubarak – and predicts he’ll lose his appeal.

“If you make the decision to be an opposition journalist here, you have to have the demeanor to carry yourself through all sorts of situations,” he says. “But am I hearing that there’s some kind of deal out there to keep me out of jail? No. The regime has given up on me. The regime is panicking and sees anyone that writes the truth about them as dangerous.” [complete article]

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