By: Ashraf Ramelah
Voice of the Copts

Egyptians Protest

Egypt’s President Morsi spoke to the Egyptian people for two hours and 40 minutes Wednesday evening (June 26) demonstrating his deep resolve to keep his power and position at all cost. Predictably, his speech held little wisdom in recognizing his differences or his willingness to work toward rectifying them through compromise. Instead, the ruler of Egypt veiled his eyes to the real needs of his fellow countrymen and their pursuit of freedom and human rights.

Referring to his executive office as a “regime” and exploiting the Taquiya (deception) principle of Islamic doctrine, Morsi claimed that Egypt’s new constitution is a democratic draft (“We succeeded in writing a democratic constitution”) and pleaded with the country to honor its sovereignty. Deception by a leader is always harmful, but Morsi seems to believe his own lies, which is even more troubling. Suffering from both denial and delusion, Morsi’s mind appears to be unsound.

Speaking from his podium in the Egyptian Center for Conferences to a packed house of admirers, Morsi sounded much like an Islamic preacher addressing worshipers but, later in his speech, tempered his tone using language more like the political-religious leadership he is. This shift of method and terminology by a true Islamist illustrates a classic mixture of political aims colored with Allah-fearing sentiments to capture sympathy and agreement from listeners. The majority in the room stood up cheering and applauding for Morsi with slogans favoring the president at various times throughout his speech especially when Morsi attacked his opponents, rivals and critics.

Morsi used this singular occasion, intended for calming the Egyptian people before June 30th and urging reserve and respect, to instead name names of sitting judges who he claims to have witnessed committing fraud. A day after hearing Morsi’s comments, the judges promised to initiate a lawsuit against him for defamation of character. Morsi also pointed his finger at the few courageous journalists in Egypt openly critical of his government saying, “This is wrong, this is not acceptable.” Morsi boasted of Egypt’s free press forgetting to mention that he ousted 150 journalists early in his term and replaced them with his loyal followers.

A paranoid Morsi recalled an incident at the beginning of this year when one Egyptian TV journalist interviewed Ahmed Shafiq, former Prime Minister under Mubarak and Morsi’s opponent in the 2011 presidential election (also former military now living outside Egypt). Morsi accused the reporter and Shafiq, Morsi’s foe, of having malice for the country and inciting threats against his Presidency in a conspiratorial plot to destabilize Egypt. Morsi considers Shafiq an enemy and wants to keep him close.

Protecting a weakening and shaken regime, Morsi waxed encouragingly to his Muslim Brotherhood supporters and their militia and condemning Egyptian freedom-fighters with this statement, “one year’s enough to let the people do what they want.” As he continued to reprimand Egypt’s political dissenters he added a self-congratulatory rant about his clean record at sentencing no one to prison. However, this must have served as a reminder to his audience of his own incarceration and current fugitive status well known already to the Tamarud (Rebel) movement ready to dethrone him.

In his 11th hour attempt to assuage the opinions of millions who malign his year in office and oppose further opportunity for him to bring Egypt to ruin, Morsi stressed peaceful demonstrations as part of Egypt’s democratic society hoping to deter violence from demonstrators who already proclaim non-violence. With this, Morsi’s goal was to maintain the imbalance of forces lining up for a potential clash as an armed and ready militia now has his back. Less than 24 hours later, the Tamarud response to all this was to employ a symbolic gesture – applying padlocks and chains to the gates of official government buildings and ministerial offices and sealing them with a stamp stating, “Closed by revolutionaries.” Tamarud activists request as well that government employees abstain from work and join them in acts of “civil disobedience.”

Underestimating freedom-fighters as naïve, Morsi blamed the former Mubarak regime for his failures. He added that the burden of Egypt’s huge debt inherited by him created an obstacle for him to go forward with his plan. But he has never spelled out a plan to the people and never completed his list of actions presented earlier to do in his first one hundred days of office – things like cleaning the streets of garbage and supplying ample electricity. In fact, Morsi used this very speech to call upon all Egyptians to conserve Egypt’s electricity in their daily habits — a bleak prospect for citizens already stretched to their limits.

Juggling sarcasm and threats with mockery and attempts to cajole, Morsi’s hypocrisy was the glue that held his speech together. While praising law enforcement he emphasized his role as their Commander-in-Chief but didn’t bother to announce the formation of an Islamic religious police force in progress that will function independent of the state police. Morsi boasted that all Egyptians are equal under the law. However, Copts, Baha’i, Shia Muslims and other non-Muslims have very few rights compared to Sunni Muslims and suffer oppression, discrimination and persecution on a regular basis.

In a speech directed to his fellow Egyptians and not targeted to heads of foreign states, Morsi took a moment to thank the Prince of Qatar for doing so much. This is the equivalent of President Obama stopping in the middle of a State of the Union speech and thanking his major campaign donor for getting him elected.

In essence, Morsi’s speech constituted a major challenge to the will of the Egyptian people who will respond on June 30th, the President’s one-year anniversary.

Arlene from Israel

Secretary of State Kerry is convinced that it’s necessary to make progress with negotiations before September, when the UN convenes for the new season. Otherwise, goes his reasoning, Abbas will go to the UN with more unilateral plans.

Well, sorry about that. Israel cannot negotiate by herself, or concede what should not be conceded, to stop Abbas’s UN shenanigans.

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Earlier in June, Kerry addressed the American Jewish Committee Global Forum in Washington, and explained to his Jewish audience how serious the consequences would be if no deal were to be reached:

“Think about what could happen next door. The Palestinian Authority has committed itself to a policy of nonviolence. … Up until recently, not one Israeli died from anything that happened from the West Bank until there was a settler killed about a month ago.

“But if that experiment is allowed to fail, ask yourselves: What will replace it? What will happen if the Palestinian economy implodes, if the Palestinian Security Forces dissolve, if the Palestinian Authority fails? … The failure of the moderate Palestinian leadership could very well invite the rise of the very thing that we want to avoid: the same extremism in the West Bank that we have seen in Gaza or from southern Lebanon.”

http://www.timesofisrael.com/abdullah-tells-kerry-israels-actions-undermining-peace/

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Lest someone take Kerry at his word, I must respond to his seriously faulty arguments:

The PA has NOT committed itself to a policy of nonviolence. Low scale terrorism — in the form of such actions as lethal rock throwing — takes place almost every day. Such terrorism has been on the upswing for some time now.

While the IDF, acting nightly in PA areas, stops major terrorist acts from taking place — arresting terrorists who are planning attacks, confiscating weapons, etc. The case is precisely the opposite of what Kerry describes. Were the IDF no long to operate in those areas because of an Israeli pullback, then we would see more terrorism. It depends on our ability to act, not on PA good will.

What is more, the PA leadership is most decidedly NOT moderate. That leadership celebrates jihadists as heroes, utilizes textbooks that do not recognize the legitimacy of Israel, and in Arabic actively promotes the notion that all of the land from the river to the sea belongs to them. Moderate, my foot.

See Khaled Abu Toameh’s “Palestinians: ‘No Jews Allowed,” on the issue of Palestinian Arab moderation:

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3783/palestinians-no-jews-allowed

As to the implosion of the economy — what we are looking at here is enormous corruption among the leaders of the PA, a corruption that prevents a viable economy from developing and has generated a welfare mentality (the PA eternally supported by other nations). Establishment of an independent Palestinian Arab state would not substantially change this, and its leaders would still have their hands out.

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There has been a series of reports indicating that Abbas would be willing to meet Netanyahu just once, informally — not in the framework of first negotiations, but without those pre-conditions, to discuss the negotiations. It is believed — and has been widely reported — that he was planning to tell the world that he was willing, but that Netanyahu was not cooperative when they met. From there, he would throw up his hands and take himself to the UN.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=4763

It’s not going to happen. Netanyahu says he is willing (eager?? — see more below) for real negotiations that lead somewhere but will not participate in one-time game playing.

And even Kerry has voiced suspicions about Abbas’s intentions.

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Kerry’s first stop was Amman, where he met yesterday with King Abdullah. I want to cut the king some slack, because I know he is playing a game that involves his self-preservation. And yet, I am mightily irked when I read that he told Kerry that Israel was the stumbling block.

But at least according to Barak Ravid of Haaretz, US pressure on the PA has increased considerably, as Kerry now says that the Obama administration sees Abbas as the recalcitrant party.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/under-pressure-from-kerry-abbas-softens-preconditions-for-peace-talks.premium-1.531999

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Kerry was here for a dinner meeting with Netanyahu last night, met for lunch with Abbas in Amman, and may return here after Shabbat. There have been no official pronouncements as yet but Kerry is apparently planning a press conference Motzei Shabbat (after Shabbat).

Netanyahu’s statements — that Israel does not want a “binational state,” and that a peace agreement is necessary to avoid this, if required security can be achieved — have left a lot of people scratching their heads in confusion with regard to his true position. Is he serious, or still playing that game?

http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/PM-Israel-doesnt-want-to-become-bi-national-state-but-must-be-able-to-defend-itself-318032

There are analysts who see him as having genuinely moved left. But, at the very same time, protests from within the Likud party suggest movement right — and even, as some see it, the possibility of a Likud split down the road. There is, as well, the stance of Habayit Hayehudi head Naftali Bennett, that the two- state solution is dead, indicating a broader dissent within the coalition. The advent of Shabbat does not allow me to discuss this at length now.

What is clear is that Netanyahu could not, by himself, control the outcome, in the highly unlikely event that negotiations proceeded — his clout within his party has diminished. But I suggest here that we cannot totally discount the possibility, however slight, that the prime minister, knowing full well that his government would not support an agreement that requires major relinquishment of land, feels emboldened in publicly embracing “peace negotiations.”

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See an Israel Hayom interview of Aayan Hirsi Ali — who has renounced the Islamic religion in which she was raised — that touches on the question of peace negotiations (emphasis added):

“From the perspective of the Arab leaders, reaching a two-state solution is to betray God, the Koran, the hadith and the tradition of Islam.

“…Islam is an Orthopraxy, Islam has a goal. So if you are a true Muslim, you must fight for that goal. You can achieve a temporary peace or truce, but it is not ultimate, not everlasting. It is not just about the territory. Because the territory does not belong to the people; it belongs to God. So for a Palestinian leader — even if he is secular, even an atheist — to leave the negotiating room with the announcement of a two-state solution would mean that he would be killed the minute he walks out.

“…Europeans and Americans — and I do not refer merely to the leadership, but to people in general — when they have a problem, they think there must be some kind of compromise on the table. What they cannot accept is that one party would say ‘the only rational outcome is our complete victory.’ If you put aside the Israeli-Palestinian situation, you see components of this culture in the events in Syria, in Lebanon. You’ve seen it with Mubarak. There is a winner and there is a loser.”

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=10309

If only…if only Western leaders would remove their blinders and understand this reality.