Mondoweiss Online Newsletter

NOVANEWS

• I know you all fear that our fervor is waning. It is not

• Wael Ghonim addresses the crowd at Tahrir Square

• Our Cairo twitter feed

• Orthodoxy: Re Egypt, House Foreign Affairs Committee will hear two Israel lobbyists and one other rightwinger, no Arab-Americans

• Yes but what should we tell the goyim?

• Eric Cantor’s brother is backer of illegal settlements in West Bank

• ‘If the Times had known that Bronner’s son was in the Israeli army, he would not have been allowed to be Jerusalem bureau chief…’

• Ongoing disgrace: ‘Washington Post’ neocon columnist tells U.S. generals to ‘hush up [about Palestine] and fight’

• Qatar is said to be big investor in West Bank settlement industry

• What planet are they on? Which century? Israeli parliamentarians toil against ‘mixed race’ couples

I know you all fear that our fervor is waning. It is not

Feb 09, 2011

Ahmed Moor

 

Almost universally, everyone I’ve spoken to who isn’t in Egypt over the past few days has expressed a concern that the revolutionary fervor here is waning. I am happy to report that isn’t what I’ve been witnessing. But a few new developments both here and internationally are worth discussing.

News that economic activity was returning to Cairo appeared to suggest that the protesters had begun to grow weary. That isn’t what I’ve observed. Yesterday, more people participated in the Tahrir demonstration than at any other time in the past 16 days. What surprised me was the number of first-time demonstrators who showed up. I don’t doubt that the Ghonim interview touched a lot of people and encouraged them to participate (and many hope he’ll lead the movement). But, I also think that increased food and cash security alleviated the sense of siege that persisted for much of last week. For instance, food and water were very difficult to come by in downtown Cairo on Friday and Saturday. Yesterday, I was offered food and drinks at pretty short and regular intervals. I think that that security positively impacted energy levels and turnout.

It bears remembering that millions of Caireans subsist on a day-to-day basis. These people are very vulnerable in a frozen economy and their sacrifice has been disproportionately large because of that. This is their revolution, and they’re present in very large numbers, but they need to survive. The economic activity they engage in is qualitatively and quantitatively different from the kinds of heavyweight activity that the country’s oligarchs engage in; theirs is a “shadow” economy. So I’m not too worried that the NDP elite will recover from the stock market’s extreme devaluation or from short-term drops in foreign direct investment because shops are reopening.

Finally, I worried that very acute economic suffering would cause segments of society – some people only have access to state media – to turn on the demonstrators. Renewed economic activity has helped to prevent that conflict from materializing. There are reports of discontent in areas where tourism is an economic mainstay, but that’s unavoidable.

What also seems to be unavoidable is the recent (a week old?) linkage that’s arisen between the labor rights movement and the democracy movement. I don’t know enough to comment about the unions here, but they’ve struggled a great deal since the IMF 1990s when crony neoliberal privatization dismantled the Nasserist state. Today, thousands of workers are striking around the country; Al Jazeera reports that there are six thousand striking workers in Cairo alone. Their work stoppages are further weakening the state’s coercive apparatus.

The short period of being pleasantly surprised by the statements coming from the White House has ended. What I’m having trouble figuring out isn’t “What happened?” but “Why did anyone bother making principled statements to begin with?” Washington’s squishy fangs and slope-headedness on Suleiman and torture in general did allow the New York Times to list Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE as Mubarak’s cohorts in tyranny. So that’s good, I guess.

Besides being nauseating, Washington’s serial vacillation has exposed demonstrators to more danger. Where some country in the Great Liberal West may have struck a strongly independent and pro-democracy chord – America’s superficiality has served to co-opt them all. Today, it appears that the demonstrators are largely on their own. I think most of them have known that all along.

In any case, the most hopeful signals are being issued by Germany, which is offering to “treat” Mubarak for an indefinite period of time. It’s hard not to notice the echoes of Farouk here; the demonstrators have been comparing Mubarak to him for the past two weeks (Sadat is highly regarded by some for his performance in 1973). Mubarak has managed to somersault backwards over Sadat and Nasser to squat in Farouk’s decadence – a serious achievement. I think that will be his legacy.

 
     

Wael Ghonim addresses the crowd at Tahrir Square

Feb 09, 2011

Seham

 

 

Wael Ghonim embraces the mother of slain blogger Khaled Said.

and other news from the Egyptian revolution:

Developments
Free our detainees
Yes Wael Ghonim was released but what about those hundreds in fact thousands who were detained since January 28,2011.  This is a small list made and updated frequently by the names of the missing protesters and activists. Human rights activists and lawyers are working on lists across the country to present it to the prosecutor general , of course the human rights organizations were raided in the past weeks by security forces. Here is a Facebook group dedicated to our detainees : Free Egypt’s detainees.
http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/2011/02/free-our-detainees.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EgyptianChronicles+%28Egyptian+chronicles%29 Egypt ‘frees political prisoners’
Thirty-four prisoners reportedly freed in move seen as part of reforms pledged by embattled government.
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2011/02/201128153142101446.html
#Jan25 Alexandria’s Torture Chambers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liKu8DTOZOc&feature=player_embedded 
Abu Ghraib Egyptian style
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZkxpA_KREs&feature=player_embedded 
Egypt hospitals ‘told to downplay protest deaths’
Human Rights Watch says government-controlled health services in Egypt have been pressured into playing down the number of casualties during anti-government protests.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/09/3133668.htm?section=justin
Egypt: Investigate Arrests of Activists, Journalists
(Cairo) – The Egyptian government should order military police, army officers, and State Security Investigations officers to cease arresting journalists, activists, and protesters arbitrarily, Human Rights Watch said today.
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/02/09/egypt-investigate-arrests-activists-journalists
Egypt: Statements From Protesters Detained by Army
Army officers and military police arbitrarily detained at least 119 people since the army took up positions in Egyptian cities and towns on the night of January 28, 2011, and in at least five cases tortured them. What follows are accounts from two protesters interviewed by Human Rights Watch.
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/02/08/egypt-statements-protesters-detained-army
Egypt: Documented Death Toll From Protests Tops 300
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4d52408d2.html
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood rejects ‘religious state,’ won’t seek presidency
Representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt said the opposition group would work to promote democracy and does not intend to field a candidate for the presidency, CNN reported Wednesday. “The Muslim Brotherhood are not seeking power,” a member of the group’s media office, Mohammed Morsi, said at a news conference.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/egypts-muslim-brotherhood-rejects-religious-state/
Egypt VP: Protests must end soon
A day after offering sweeping concessions, Omar Suleiman expresses impatience with burgeoning pro-democracy protests.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/201128225410121154.html
The WH criticize Egyptian VP
Omar Suleiman, the Egyptian Vice president, has been criticized by the White House for making remarks about Egypt was ‘not ready for democracy’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifoGKoJONnQ&feature=youtube_gdata 
Americans support the Egyptian protesters
A new Gallup poll shows that the overwhelming majority of Americans are sympathetic to the pro-democracy protesters.  Gallup is out with a new national poll on Americans’ views of the pro-democracy protests in Egypt. The results show that fear-mongering by some in the media about a post-Mubarak Egypt has apparently not taken hold, with huge majorities expressing sympathy for the protesters: Overall, are you sympathetic or unsympathetic to the protestors in Egypt who have called for a change in the government? Very sympathetic 42 | Somewhat sympathetic 40 | Somewhat unsympathetic 6 | Very unsympathetic 5 | No opinion 6.  So 82 percent of Americans are sympathetic to the protesters. Among those who are “following the situation in Egypt very or somewhat closely,” that number actually goes up slightly, to 87 percent. The irony here, of course, is that Americans are on the side of protesters fighting a regime that the U.S. government has been propping up for decades.  And it’s an open question whether public opinion in the U.S. will have an impact on the Obama administration’s Egypt policy, which has notably shifted in the past few days away from calls for immediate change. The rest of the poll is here (.pdf).
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/02/08/poll_americans_support_egyptians/index.html 
US denies involvement in Cairo hit-and-run
CAIRO — The US embassy in Cairo on Tuesday denied its staff were behind the wheel of what appeared to be an official vehicle that mowed down dozens of protesters in a high-speed hit-and-run captured on video.  “We have seen a video that alleges a US diplomatic vehicle was involved in a hit-and-run incident that injured dozens in Cairo. We are certain that no embassy employees or diplomats were involved in this incident,” it said.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/us-denies-cairo-hit-and-run/
U.S. lawmakers now back Egypt aid
Key members of Congress ease their threat to cut foreign aid to Cairo, as consensus grows that the U.S. needs to maintain leverage with Egypt’s military. Influential U.S. lawmakers have eased their threats to cut aid to Egypt, reflecting a growing consensus in Washington for preserving U.S. leverage with Egypt’s powerful military amid the country’s civil upheaval.
http://feeds.latimes.com/%7Er/latimes/middleeast/%7E3/CUWaABVa-HA/la-fg-egypt-aid-20110209,0,1114167.story 
Israel spending extra $1.5m a day after Egypt gas line explosion
Electric Corporation costs rise in the aftermath of the Sinai pipeline bomb.
http://english.themarker.com/israel-spending-extra-1-5m-a-day-after-egypt-gas-line-explosion-1.342133?localLinksEnabled=false 
Erdogan: Israel Must Not Interfere in Egypt’s Matters
Turkish Prime Minsiter called on the Zionist entity not to interfere in the Egyptian issues, as Egypt commented on Erdogan’s remarks on the protest in the Arab country.  Speaking to a group of reporters at the opening of a “friendship bridge” between Turkey and Syria, Erdogan said on Monday that “Israel must under no circumstance interfere” in what is happening in Egypt, Turkish daily Huriyyet reported.  Erdogan said he had made this point to US President Barack Obama and Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, adding that they should intervene to stop Israel should it be “inclined to meddle in Egypt in a last-ditch effort to try and turn the tide against the anti-Mubarak demonstrators,” the daily reported.
http://www.almanar.com.lb/english/adetails.php?eid=1503&cid=22&fromval=1&frid=22&seccatid=55&s1=1 
UK to Israel: Tone down ‘belligerent’ language
British Foreign Secretary Hague urges Israel to soften negative approach in wake of Egypt uprising, warns that Mideast peace process is in danger of ‘losing further momentum and becoming a casualty of uncertainty in the region’.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4025922,00.html 
More on Frank Wisner and Patton Boggs | Michael Tomasky
More details on Wisner’s possible conflict of interest, but it’s the least of the challenges facing the Obama administration. As I indicated yesterday, the idea that just because diplomat Frank Wisner worked for the Patton Boggs law firm, that didn’t necessarily mean that he was personally involved in working on matters related to Egypt. Now comes this from Justin Elliott in Salon…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2011/feb/08/egypt-obama-administration 
Media Suppression and Repression
Shooting the Messenger: Egyptian Journalist Shot Dead by Sniper While Covering Cairo Protests
The only journalist known to have been killed during the Egyptian uprising was honored Monday in Cairo. Ahmed Mohamed Mahmoud was a reporter for the state-owned newspaper Al Ta’awun. He was shot on January 28 when he tried to use his phone to film riot police as they fired tear gas canisters at protesters. He spent a week in the hospital before he died on February 4. On Monday, journalists, family and friends held a symbolic funeral in Cairo, marching from the Journalists’ Syndicate to Tahrir Square holding an empty coffin. We speak to Al Jazeera English producer and writer Laila Al-Arian, who has just returned from Cairo, where she interviewed Mahmoud’s widow. [includes rush transcript]
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/8/shooting_the_messenger_egyptian_journalist_shot 
2 Detained Reporters Saw Police’s Methods
CAIRO — We had been detained by Egyptian authorities, handed over to the country’s dreaded Mukhabarat, the secret police, and interrogated. They left us all night in a cold room, on hard orange plastic stools, under fluorescent lights. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/weekinreview/06held.html?_r=1
Detained Al Jazeera Journalist: “[The Military] Viewed So Many of Us as Prisoners of War. Our Hands were Tied Behind Our Back with Cables. Our Eyes were Blindfolded.”
Ayman Mohyeldin, the Cairo bureau chief for Al Jazeera English, was detained by Egyptian police and held for seven hours. Inside the jail, Mohyeldin witnessed rampant police abuse. “We saw the military slap detainees, we saw them kick detainees, we saw them punch them,” Mohyeldin said. “One of the soldiers that I was observing had with him a small Taser gun.” He also talks about how the Mubarak regime has attempted to silence Al Jazeera. Despite its journalists being arrested and threatened, its offices set on fire and its satellite system cut off, Al Jazeera’s news coverage of the popular uprising has been unchallenged by other news outlets and is battling Egypt’s pro-Mubarak TV outlets for delivering truth to Egyptians. “I think Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera English have something important to offer. They’re offering the viewers around the world a context that may sometimes be missing from a lot of Western and foreign media,” Mohyeldin says, who was detained by security forces for questioning on Sunday. “More importantly, they’re offering the viewers a view of this country that I think is very hard to get in the absence of less and less media. So, if they were to take Al Jazeera off the air and silence us completely, it would be a great disservice to humanity, and particularly to information.” [includes rush transcript]
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/8/silencing_al_jazeera_recently_detained_cairo 
Journalist: Egypt’s police treating us like ‘prisoners or war’
Al Jazeera’s Cairo bureau chief Ayman Mohyeldin said Monday that he was blindfolded, handcuffed and taken in to custody by Egyptian military police the previous day. He was released after nine hours in detention. Mohyeldin told the network Monday that he and other detainees were treated like “prisoners of war.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/journalist-egypts-police-treating-prisoners-war/ 
Egyptian media figures denounce state-media coverage of uprising 
More than 500 of Egyptian media professionals issued a statement denouncing state-run media coverage of the youth-led uprising staged since 25 January calling for Mubarak’s resignation.
http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/news/egyptian-media-figures-denounce-state-media-coverage-uprising
Hazards of reporting from Egypt
Al Jazeera’s online producer recalls the many perils he faced while reporting from the country in upheaval.
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/02/201128184630458723.html
Egyptian state TV
Egyptian state TV currently not showing mass demonstrations in the capital.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SszZDDkGp-I&feature=youtube_gdata 
Nilesat lifts Al-Jazeera ban
CAIRO — (Ma’an) – The Egyptian satellite company Nilesat lifted Wednesday morning a ban on Al-Jazeera and Al-Jazeera Live, giving the Qatar-based channels access to the same bands widths they had used before the restrictions, Reuters reported.  In the two days following the outbreak of protests at the end of January, the Egyptian Ministry of Information had given directives to Nilesat to drop Al-Jazeera signals in Egypt, and later on across the Middle East.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=358380
Protests/Protesters/Attacks Against Them & Eyewitness Accounts
Wael Ghonim addresses thousands in Tahrir Square – video
Thousands of demonstrators in Cairo’s Tahrir Square gave a hero’s welcome to a Google executive and activist who has become a symbol of the country’s anti-government movement
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2011/feb/09/wael-ghonim-tahrir-square-video
Freed Google executive arrives at Cairo protest
CAIRO – Freed Egypt activist Wael Ghonim arrived at the epicentre of anti-regime protests in Cairo on Tuesday where he was welcomed as a hero by the crowd of hundreds of thousands.  The crowd surged towards him, many weeping, clapping and shouting: “Long live Egypt, long live Egypt!”  The young executive at Google was released on Monday after security services snatched him from the street 12 days ago and has been hailed as a hero of the revolt against President Hosni Mubarak.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/freed-google-executive-arrives-cairo-protest/ 
Ghonim hugging Khaled Said’s mum
http://twitpic.com/3xrs3e
Egypt’s New Hero: Can Geek-Activist Wael Ghonim Overthrow Mubarak?

Wael Ghonim is talkative and confident, just like many in the new generation of Arabs out to change their world — and prosper in it — by way of technology. He has pointed out that Norway, so much smaller than the Mideast in population, had more indigenous language content on the web. There was so much room to grow. “We live in a digital age, and it is important that the Arab world takes advantage of this new medium,” Ghonim told an Abu Dhabi paper.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2047006,00.html#ixzz1DQLyBoB8

Rural Egyptians add voices to demand for change
NILE DELTA, Egypt, Feb 9 (Reuters) – Beyond Tahrir Square, beyond the boundaries of the sprawling capital, beyond even the provincial cities where protesters joined the call to topple President Hosni Mubarak, rural Egypt is restless for change.
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/rural-egyptians-add-voices-to-demand-for-change
Egypt protesters gain ground
Labour unions stage country-wide strikes and pro-democracy supporters extend demonstrations to the parliament buildings.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/201129103224329921.html
Live interview with Egyptian protester
Al Jazeera speaks to Mona Seif, one of the protesters gathered infront of the parliament building in the Egyptian capital Cairo, calling for a dissolution of the assembly:

Scenes from Egypt’s Parliament: Closed for Business
Two protesters scale the main gate at Egypt’s parliament building on Tuesday night, erecting a sign that says: “Sorry.. Closed until the downfall of the regime.” Hundreds of protesters began gathering at the parliament building as a result of the overflow crowd in central Cairo’s Tahrir Square, and to expand the reach of the demonstrations.

Scenes from Egypt’s Parliament: Blanket Convoy
A group of around 60 protesters silently walk a convoy of blankets through the streets from Tahrir Square to Egypt’s parliament to supply the newly established protest there. As onlookers applaud, they ask for quiet to hide their movements.

Scenes from Egypt’s Parliament: Sit In Begins
Hundreds of protesters began moving on Tuesday night from central Cairo’s Tahrir Square several blocks southwest to the Egypt’s lower house of parliament, the People’s Assembly or Maglis al-Shaab. Protesters seemed ready to begin a long, Tahrir-style sit-in.

Protest in Egypt Takes a Turn as Workers Go on Strike
Pressure intensified on President Hosni Mubarak on Wednesday, as local media reported widespread labor unrest after protesters called for workers to go on strike.
http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=432c90481df0e2bccf256f9c22f2e636
Youth continue to flock to Tahrir
Many of the people in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Tuesday were there for the first time. Jacky Rowland reports now on the newcomers swelling the ranks of the pro-democracy movement.

Egypt Burning
The story of five days in January when the people of Egypt broke through a barrier of fear and rose in revolt.
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/2011/02/2011267047178387.html
Egypt protests remain strong
Demonstrations enter sixteenth day, following the largest gathering so far in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/20112941258340509.html 
Live blog Feb 9 – Egypt protests
From our Doha headquarters, we keep you constantly updated on Egypt, with reporting from Al Jazeera staff.
http://english.aljazeera.net/http://blogs.aljazeera.net/node/3566 
Protesters insist Mubarak must go
Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, has been meeting the foreign minister for the United Arab Emirates and announced a roadmap for changes. Mubarak set up three different committees to tackle the changes, but for the protesters in Tahrir Square [Liberation Square] it is not enough. The protesters want the president and the government to go now, they want free elections, and a whole new beginning. Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher reports.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cmAuwTlVcE&feature=youtube_gdata 
#Jan25 Reaches to the new valley
We are paying a lot of attention to Al Tahrir and the main cities in Egypt and forget that the revolution is spreading through the country and how the regime is cracking it.  News reports came yesterday that there was a huge uprising in the New valley governorate , yes the New Valley’s biggest city or rather oasis Kharga witnessed protests that were cracked violently.  At least 3 were confirmedly killed while hundreds were injured yesterday and today there are reports as well that there was a massacre at the New valley prison in Kharga. The injured were transferred to Asuit governorate as far as I read. 
http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/2011/02/jan25-reaches-to-new-valley.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EgyptianChronicles+%28Egyptian+chronicles%29
Egypt protests draw biggest crowd yet
CAIRO – Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators flooded Cairo’s iconic Tahrir Square and towns across Egypt on Tuesday, in the biggest show of defiance to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak since the revolt began.  In Cairo, the immense crowd hailed as a hero a charismatic cyberactivist and Google executive whose Facebook site helped kickstart the protest movement on January 25 and who has since been detained and held blindfolded for 12 days.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/egypt-protests-draw-biggest-crowd/

Strikes Wave Reaches to Suez canal
The strikes wave in Egypt has reached to Suez canal today , over 6000 service workers from the cities of Suez, Port Said and Ismailia began an open ended sit at the company HQ. Now I want to clarify something , these are not the navigation guides , these are the service workers still if the strike reaches to the navigation guides than the Suez canal will be paralyzed technically. Despite working in the most profitable company in Egypt the workers are suffering poor wages and extremely bad , I can’t imagine it , I can’t comprehend it. By the way I read that today NPR correspondent was arrested for couple of hours in his way to Suez today before he was released.
http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/2011/02/strikes-wave-reaches-to-suez-canal.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EgyptianChronicles+%28Egyptian+chronicles%29 

Protests in Mansoura
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJkkg11ELpk&feature=player_embedded
Egyptian Revolution – Fine Egyptian Youth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnV05jTVmWo&feature=player_embedded 
Marching from Manyal to downtown Cairo to join the revolutionaries in Tahrir, the university professors stopped at the parliament gate, and kept shouting: Batel! Batel! (Illegitimate! Illegitimate!)…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nXVOIsd8tQ&feature=player_embedded 
http://www.arabawy.org/2011/02/09/uni-profs/
Protesters move to occupy parliament gate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZRpjtw_Lq8&feature=player_embedded
Protesters attack police stations in several provinces
http://www.arabawy.org/2011/02/09/jan25-protesters-attack-police-stations-in-several-provinces/
Egyptian university professors marched today from Manyal to Tahrir Square, in support of the revolution, before entering the square, they started chanting: “Hey Mubarak, you are a pilot, so from where did you get those $70 billions?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un6R_hpHrSI&feature=player_embedded 
http://www.arabawy.org/2011/02/09/march-2/
http://www.arabawy.org/2011/02/09/profs-3/ 
http://www.arabawy.org/2011/02/09/march-profs/
http://www.arabawy.org/2011/02/09/citizens-profs/ 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHhWcIOBFYM&feature=player_embedded
http://www.arabawy.org/2011/02/09/profs-march-2/ 
#Jan25 University professors march on Tahrir Square
http://www.arabawy.org/2011/02/09/profs-2/
Great pictures from Tahrir Square
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/2/8/942194/-Tahrir
The Tahrir revolutionaries welcome the arrival of new groups of protesters to the square…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG_8tWlpu7E&feature=player_embedded
http://www.arabawy.org/2011/02/09/jan25-22/ 
Protesters chanting in Tahrir Square: The people want the president to be tried…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWB4-2g951Q&feature=player_embedded 
http://www.arabawy.org/2011/02/09/tahrir-22/
#Jan25 Giza garbage collectors stage protests
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rlmd43SiYFQ&feature=player_embedded 
Protester carrying a white shroud, written on it: “Victory or Martyrdom.”
http://www.arabawy.org/2011/02/08/victory-or-martyrdom/ 
“The Heroes are the Ones in the Street”: Google Exec and Facebook Activist Wael Ghonim on His Release After 12 Days in Egyptian Jail
Twelve days after being snatched from the streets of Cairo, Wael Ghonim was released Monday from secret detention. He is being hailed as a hero by the pro-democracy movement for administrating a Facebook page key to organizing Egypt’s unprecedented pro-democracy uprising. In his first interview after being released, Ghonim told Egyptian TV, “I never put my live in danger while I was typing away on the internet. The heroes are the ones in the streets. This revolution belongs to the internet youth.” [includes rush transcript]
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/8/the_heroes_are_the_ones_in 
Alaa Abdel Fattah phone interview
Alaa Abdel fattah, an activist and a blogger. Speaks to Al Jazeera about the conditions in Tahrir Square.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uMhrNTKa48&feature=youtube_gdata
Mona Seif: ‘The mood is amazing’
It’s difficult not to be moved by the hope and enthusiasm in Egyptian activist Mona Seif’s voice as she speaks to Al Jazeera English at 4am on Wednesday from outside Cairo’s parliament building. Protestors gathered there on Tuesday and called for a dissolution of the assembly as well as for Hosni Mubarak to step down immediately.
http://pulsemedia.org/2011/02/09/mona-seif-the-mood-is-amazing/ 
Interview with Hossam el-Hamalawy
Hossam el-Hamalawy is a member of the organization Revolutionary Socialists as well as of the Center for Socialist Studies in Cairo.  A journalist and blogger, he is one of the “cyberguerrilla” youth at the heart of the revolutions underway in the Arab world.  While constantly occupying Tahrir Square, he seeks to regularly disseminate alternative information to the whole world, via his blog, his Twitter account, and his Facebook page.  He agreed to answer some of our questions by phone on Sunday, 6 February.  We hope we will be able to hear his views on the mobilization soon again in the coming days. . . .
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/hamalawy080211.html 
“People Are Determined to Stay Until Mubarak Leaves”: Democracy Now!’s Sharif Abdel Kouddous Reports in Cairo on Day 15 of the Egyptian Pro-Democracy Protests
The pro-democracy protests in Egypt have entered their third week as demonstrators are holding another massive protest in Tahrir Square. While Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is refusing to resign, the German magazine Der Spiegel is reporting that preparations are underway for him to possibly leave Egypt and visit Germany for an “extended medical check-up.” Human Rights Watch is reporting 297 people have died over the past two weeks of protests, an estimate far higher than the Egyptian government has acknowledged. [includes rush transcript]
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/8/people_are_determined_to_stay_until 
Asmaa Mahfouz & the YouTube Video that Helped Spark the Egyptian Uprising
Three weeks ago today, 26-year-old Egyptian activist Asmaa Mahfouz posted a video online urging people to protest the “corrupt government” of Hosni Mubarak by rallying in Tahrir Square on January 25. Her moving call ultimately helped inspire Egypt’s uprising. “I, a girl, am going down to Tahrir Square, and I will stand alone. And I’ll hold up a banner. Perhaps people will show some honor,” Mahfouz said. “Don’t think you can be safe anymore. None of us are. Come down with us and demand your rights, my rights, your family’s rights. I am going down on January 25th and will say no to corruption, no to this regime.” [includes rush transcript]
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/8/asmaa_mahfouz_the_youtube_video_that 
Videos of women protestors and other recommended Egypt sources, Jesse Bacon
One of my sources sends the following recommendation for on-the-ground reports from Egypt. Here are three of the many women of the Egyptian Revolution – that will counter some of those images of passive Muslim women. Change in the Middle East is being pushed forward by women like Mona, Asma, Sarah, etc., too, and they are not few. There are many more women who are actively shaping the revolution,  who are blogging, twittering, writing, vlogging etc. about it here, and who have been working for years for this change, but here are three for now:  Asma is said to have triggered this revolution through her vlog – which is not that she is the source of  it. Either way, it’s a strong video.
http://theonlydemocracy.org/2011/02/videos-of-women-protestors-and-other-recommended-egypt-sources/
World Solidarity 
Solidarity with Egypt from Argentina
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrCZaSbQL3Q 
Egypt: Demonstration in solidarity – Saturday 12 February: Trafalgar Square 12 noon to 2pm
Stand in solidarity with the people of Egypt and the wider Middle East and North Africa in their demands for an end to repression, for their freedom, their basic human rights, and immediate democratic reform. And stand in defiance against all those who try to suppress the growing movement of people standing up for their rights, and for decent work, facing down injustice and offering hope for a better world. Called by Amnesty International and Trade Union Congress.
http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com/2011/02/egypt-demonstration-in-solidarity_7126.html 
Dublin City council passes motion in support of Egyptian revolution
This Council declares its total solidarity with the heroic democracy protesters of Egypt, and especially with those currently occupying Tahrir (Liberation) Square. It strongly supports their demands: for the immediate removal of the dictator, Hosni Mubarak, from his office as President; for the repeal of the anti-democratic Emergency Law (which since 1981 has given the notorious State Security Forces the right to detain people without charge or trial); for the dismantling of the whole Mubarak regime of murder torture and corruption; for full freedom of the press and genuine democratic elections. This Council resolves to refuse all collaboration with the illegitimate Mubarak Government or its agents .
http://donalmacfhearraigh.wordpress.com/2011/02/08/dublin-city-council-passes-motion-in-support-of-egyptian-revolution/ 
Leave : A poem by Farouk Goweida
Egyptian poet and journalist Farouk Goweida wrote a wonder poem called ‘ Leave’ demanding Mubarak to Mubarak ASAP. Goweida was one summoned to state security because of a poem he wrote. He was among the few in the official media that exposed corruption and wrote about how our land was stolen by corrupted businessmen and how Sinai was left neglected. This poem in Arabic and I will not be able to translate it in the current time. “Via : Ahmed Naguib
http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/2011/02/leave-poem-by-farouk-goweida.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EgyptianChronicles+%28Egyptian+chronicles%29 
Friends of the Dictator/Terrified of Democracy
Allies Press U.S. to Go Slow on Egypt
Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have each repeatedly pressed the United States not to cut loose Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, too hastily, or to throw its weight behind the democracy movement in a way that could further destabilize the region, diplomats say. One Middle Eastern envoy said that on a single day, he spent 12 hours on the phone with American officials. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/09/world/middleeast/09diplomacy.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=global-home&adxnnlx=1297228535-Vqhc+0+DNhB4Z7joekUV4g
LF slams March 8 Egypt rally as political move
BEIRUT: The Lebanese Forces said in a statement Tuesday that a March 8 coalition rally Monday that was organized in support of Egyptian anti-government protesters was aimed at destabilizing Egypt in favor of a regional agenda.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=124734 
Israel plans to wall off Egypt
Israel is set to put up an electronic security barrier on the border with Egypt as the anti-Tel Aviv sentiment is on the rise in the North African nation. 
http://www.presstv.com/detail/164260.html
Israel prepares for Arab democracy
As the protests in Egypt continue, its neighbour Israel is keeping a close eye on developments. It’s worried about its old ally, President Hosni Mubarak – but could be eyeing up a new friend in his deputy, Omar Suleiman. Al Jazeera’s Tony Birtley has more from Jerusalem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxhlYd0v1q0&feature=youtube_gdata 
Israel’s defenders oppose Egyptian democracy (out of concern for Egypt of course), Adam Horowitz
Today’s letters to the editor in the New York Times represent the wide swath of the US public that is behind the protesters in Egypt (82% according to a new Gallap poll). Of the five letters that were published, four of them call on the Obama adminstration to stand with the protesters and warn that “the United States is proving to be on the wrong side of history.”
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/02/israels-defenders-oppose-egyptian-democracy-out-of-concern-for-egypt-of-course.html
French premier vacationed in Egypt before protests
Premier Francois Fillon says he took a vacation partly paid for by Egypt’s authorities. He is the second Cabinet member to draw fire over ties with a besieged Arab government. France’s prime minister acknowledged Tuesday that he took a family vacation in Egypt partly paid for by Egyptian authorities shortly before the uprising erupted last month against President Hosni Mubarak.
http://feeds.latimes.com/%7Er/latimes/middleeast/%7E3/NExrbxDUn6c/la-fg-egypt-france-20110209,0,4346174.story 
Tamer Hosny Epic Fail
There was a time when I thought Tamer Hosny’s songs come straight from the heart, deep down from the gut, but now I know for fact that Tamer is full of shit and lots of hot air. Tamer Hosny never believed a word of this song. About growing up in Egypt and taking reading classes, building the Aswan dam, waging the 73 war, and so on. He also sings for the armed forces–the same army he dodged and went to jail for forging armed services documents. He is still upbeat and he the the go to guy if you want to party….but when it comes to taking a stand, do not bother for he is a fool.
http://www.kabobfest.com/2011/02/10623.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+kabobfest%2FGrillMe+%28KABOBfest%29
Amr Adeeb repelled from Tahrir
Yesterday, the sensationalist buffoon, Amr Adeeb, who almost ignited a war between Egypt and Algeria over a football match, who always rallied to the defense of Mubarak and the regime, tried to show up in Tahrir Square, in an opportunist move. He was expelled immediately by the revolutionaries in Tahrir…  And on behalf of the Egyptian people, I’d like to apologize to our Algerian brothers and sisters for all the filth Adeeb said about the Algerian nation last November. 
http://www.arabawy.org/2011/02/09/fuck_amr-adeeb/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA4BZ8pFuiM&feature=player_embedded
As’as Abukhalil’s Commentary
The Egyptian Army: also known as the surrenderers
“Although many of the protesters, foreign governments, and analysts have concentrated on the personality of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, those surrounding the embattled president, who make up the wider Egyptian regime, have made sure the state’s viability was never in question. This is because the country’s central institution, the military, which historically has influenced policy and commands near-monopolistic economic interests, has never balked. … Despite the fact that a general with a megaphone stated his solidarity with the protesters while other protesters painted “Down to Mubarak” on tanks across central Cairo, no acts of organizational fragmentation or dissent within the chain of command have occurred. … The military’s rank and file, who are deployed on the streets, became part of a different regime strategy. There is no doubt that solidarities developed between protesters and soldiers as fellow citizens, but the army’s aloof neutrality underscores that its role on the sidelines was intentional. This was prominently on display when the “pro-Mubarak” demonstrators attacked antigovernment protesters in Tahrir on February 2. That the siege of a major city square took place over the course of 16 hours, leaving 13 dead and more than 1,200 wounded, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Health, suggests that the military’s orders were conceived to cast its officers as potential saviors from the brutal violence.  This containment strategy has worked. By politically encircling the protesters, the regime prevented the conflict from extending beyond its grasp. With the protesters caught between regime-engineered violence and regime-manufactured safety, the cabinet generals remained firmly in control of the situation…. This latest adaptation of autocracy in the Arab world is more honest than its previous incarnations. Before the uprising in Egypt began, the military ruled from behind the curtain while elites, represented by public relations firms and buoyed by snappy slogans, initiated neoliberal economic policies throughout Egypt. In this latest rendering, with Suleiman at the helm, the state’s objective of restoring a structure of rule by military managers is not even concealed. This sort of “orderly transition” in post-Mubarak Egypt is more likely to usher in a return to the repressive status quo than an era of widening popular participation.”
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/02/egyptian-army-also-known-as.html 
Sons of…Zayid
“Mubarak met the Emirati minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan — brother to the current Emirati president, Abu Dhabi’s emir Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahayan — at the presidential palace in Cairo, an AFP journalist saw.”
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/02/sons-ofzayid.html
Bahraini dictator
Fawzi sent me this: “The bahraini dictator is blatant in his piblic support for mubarak, every day he is either calling him or sending him an envoy or somthing, he is sweating with Feb 14 approaching“.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/02/bahraini-dictator.html
Comparing Lebanese and Egyptian protesters
Amer sent me this: “And [Egyptian protesters are] more authentic and individualistic and natural, they do not attempt to perform for the West as much as the Lebanese. They are also less organized and directed, unlike both sides in Lebanon, they do not do north korean tricks and draw images and flags with their bodies. But make no mistake, the westernized middle class is the same everywhere.”
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/02/comparing-lebanese-and-egyptian.html
Why this Obama administration is destined to make a fateful mistake in its Middle East policies
Up to the Carter administration, there were Middle East experts in government who could weigh in with their assessment of US interests in the Middle East, free of the considerations of what is good for Israel and its wars and massacres.  It is fair to say that this is one of the most major challenges for the US in the region since WWII but there is not a single Middle East expert in the government who can give an assessment of US interests without being obsessed with “what is good for Israel” here.  This is why the Israeli calculations are dominating the crisis decision-making at the White House, and the tone and substance of rhetoric.  I mean, with people like Feltman and Shapiro (one at State and another at NSC–and both are Zionist fanatics), there is no Richard Parker or Richard Murphy or William Quandt or Gary Sick to offer an assessment of what is at stake for the US in this crisis.  This is why the Obama ministration is following the script of Israeli best wishes–which could prove soon to be disastrous for the US.  I remember on Sep. 11, I kept thinking without any realization about James Forrestal.  I kept thinking of his warnings back in 1948.  So there is not a single expert around Obama who can dare to offer an evaluation of the situation from outside the Zionist framework.  Not one.  You can argue that the Zionist lobby’s biggest success since Reagan administration is to monopolize all appointments on the Middle East in the two main branches of government.  But Israel’s best wishes could be horrific for the US.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-this-obama-administration-is.html 
Thomas Friedman has landed
The guy, who does not know Arabic, landed in Egypt, and within few hours of his arrival he is offering generalizations and conclusions about the motives of the protesters.  After a few hours of arriving, he reassures his Zionist friends that there is no Israel mentioned.  Well, yes: the chants don’t mention Israel: EVEN IF YOU DONT UNDERSTAND THE LANGUAGE.  And when the chants talk about Mubarak being “an agent”, who are they talking about? Sweden?
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/02/thomas-friedman-has-landed.html 
Friedman, again
One more thing about that superficial and simplistic columnist.  If you read his description of Tahrir Square today, you would get the impression that he is talking about people out on a picnic.  As if there is no political goal of the gathering.  But then again: with his shallow mind, he can turn Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind into a silly catch phrase (that makes no sense).
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/02/friedman-again.html 
Friedman on the Nile
Mohannad sent me this: “Reading today’s NYT piece by Friedman, I was struck by a statement attributed to protest signs:  There are signs everywhere asking about Mubarak, a former Air Force chief. Questions such as: “Hey Mr. Pilot, where did you get that $17 billion?” I have not come across the figure $17 billion anywhere. I think that the Arabic illiterate Friedman mistook 17 for 70. Don’t you reckon?”
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/02/friedman-on-nile.html 
Translate this for Thomas Friedman
From Tahrir Square:  The lower sign says: “Let Israel benefit you.”
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/02/translate-this-for-thomas-friedman.html
Friedman on the Nile: shallow as usual
First, why does he leave from his dispatches from the Middle East that he can’t order a Falafil sandwich without using the services for interpretors? Why, Mr. Friedman?  Secondly, he has been in Egypt for a mere day, and is already confidently informing you about what the Egyptian people want and feel (and yesterday, his interpretor made a mistake in the figure of $70 billion (he reported $17).  But he is only obsessed with how this will affect Israel, and said:  “They are not inspired by “down with” America or Israel.”  Oh, they are. They are chanting daily against US and Israel and are referring to Mubarak and Sulayman as “agents” of Israel and US.  But maybe your interpretor was having sandwich. 
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/02/friedman-on-nile-shallow-as-usual.html
The opportunists
“But Mr Mubarak was dealt a significant setback as the state-controlled Al-Ahram, Egypt’s second oldest newspaper and one of the most famous media publications in the Middle East, abandoned its long-standing position of slavish support for the regime.  In a front-page leader, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Osama Saraya hailed the “nobility” of what he described as a “revolution” and demanded that the government embark of irreversible constitutional and legislative changes.”  Saraya is one of those untalented people who have no chance of rising in an institution that prizes merit and qualification.  He has been under pressures from the staff of Al-Ahram to distance himself, and once the regime is overthrown, he won’t be writing or leading for sure, unless it is in a `Umar Sulayman republic.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/02/opportunists.html 
boils down
“Ever since the Egyptian uprising began on 25 January, the United States government and the Washington establishment that rationalizes its policies have been scared to death of “losing Egypt.” What they fear losing is a regime that has consistently ignored the rights and well-being of its people in order to plunder the country and enrich the few who control it, and that has done America’s bidding, especially supporting Israel in its oppression and wars against the Palestinians and other Arabs.” 
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/02/boils-down.html
Democracy in the Arab world
When Zionists in the US and Israel mention “democracy in the Arab world,” they really mean “peace with Israel.”  A country is then democratic to the extent to which it has peace with Israel, and anti-democratic if it opposes peace with Israel.  That is their (il)logic.  Thus, Anwar Sadat was a democrat at the height of his dictatorial rule. 
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/02/democracy-in-arab-world.html 
The chief of the secret police, as a democrat
“A week after the Obama administration demanded a swift transition to a post-Mubarak era, it has dampened the sense of urgency and aligned itself with power-brokers such as new Vice President Omar Suleiman, who are urging a more stable, if much slower, move to real democracy.”  Who wrote this? Suleiman himself told ABC News that Egypt is not ready for democracy and yet this article is ascribing to him what he himself does not ascribe to himself.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/02/chief-of-secret-police-as-democrat.html 
The counter-revolution has set in
“Vice President Omar Suleiman of Egypt says he does not think it is time to lift the 30-year-old emergency law that has been used to suppress and imprison opposition leaders. He does not think President Hosni Mubarak needs to resign before his term ends in September. And he does not think his country is yet ready for democracy.  But, considering it lacks better options, the United States has strongly backed him to play the pivotal role in a still uncertain transition process in Egypt.”
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/02/counter-revolution-has-set-in.html 
Look at this trash
“What will become of Israel if Mubarak falls?“.  Let me assure you that we don’t care what will become of Israel, and let me assure you that people of the region only harbor ill will toward the Zionist usurping entity.  PS When the Soviet Union was collapsing, imagine if newspaper were to publish articles saying: what will become of the PLO? What will become of Syria? They would have never allowed such line.  But as I told the crowd at UC, Davis yesterday: don’t forget the element of racism in how Western people look at Egypt. 
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/02/look-at-this-trash.html
Israel advises Obama on Egypt
“Israeli officials, who have long viewed Mr. Mubarak and Mr. Suleiman as stabilizing influences in a dangerous region, have made clear to the administration that they support evolution rather than revolution in Egypt. They believe it is important to make changes within the system rather than change the system first and hope stability can be maintained, a senior Israeli official said.”  The views of bunch of Israeli occupiers mean more in Washington, DC than the views of 85 million Egyptians.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/02/israel-advises-obama-on-egypt.html
Psychological analysis of Mubarak
So Aljazeera Arabic has an Egyptian psychiatrist on hand to analyze Mubarak.  He has been on for a few days.  Let me summarize his findings: Mubarak is a nut case and should be committed somewhere outside of Egypt.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/02/psychological-analysis-of-mubarak.html
Analysis/Op-ed
Inside Story -Solving Egypt’s economic crisis
The ongoing political crisis is leaving Egypt’s economy in jeopardy. How much more can the country’s economy take? And what needs to be done to solve the long-running economic crisis once and for all?

Nasrallah exposes Israel’s Egypt plot
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah threw his weight fully behind the Egyptian popular uprising Monday, saying the youths trying to topple President Hosni Mubarak would change the face of the region.  Addressing a rally in Beirut in “Support of the Egyptian People’s Revolution” organized by the Lebanese national parties, Nasrallah said he wished he could be among the demonstrators in one of the the squares taken over by youthful Egyptians in Cairo and other cities in the largest Arab country. “I wish I could be one of those demonstrators because I’m eager if I could to present my blood and soul for Egypt,” he said.  Addressing Egyptians, Nasrallah said: “As friends and brothers, we want to express our belief, our feelings and aspirations. Our belief is that what you are doing is very great and it is one of the most important milestones in the history of the Umma [Muslim nation]. Your movement and victory will fully change the region’s face, especially Palestine, in favor of all our peoples. You are fighting the battle of Arab dignity which was humiliated by some of its rulers over decades.”
http://womenme.wordpress.com/nasrallah-exposes-israels-egypt-plot/ 
Robert Fisk: Week 3, day 16, and with every passing hour, the regime digs in deeper
Blood turns brown with age. Revolutions do not. Vile rags now hang in a corner of the square, the last clothes worn by the martyrs of Tahrir: a doctor, a lawyer among them, a young woman, their pictures strewn above the crowds, the fabric of the T-shirts and trousers stained the colour of mud. But yesterday, the people honoured their dead in their tens of thousands for the largest protest march ever against President Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorship, a sweating, pushing, shouting, weeping, joyful people, impatient, fearful that the world may forget their courage and their sacrifice. It took three hours to force our way into the square, two hours to plunge through a sea of human bodies to leave. High above us, a ghastly photomontage flapped in the wind: Hosni Mubarak’s head superimposed upon the terrible picture of Saddam Hussein with a noose round his neck.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-week-3-day-16-and-with-every-passing-hour-the-regime-digs-in-deeper-2208625.html 
Don’t listen to those animals
Don’t listen to those animals who ask of you to turn back! If we retreat, we wont return to our homes. That animal Hosni Mobarak and his dirty regime won’t stop. believe me, what happened in Khan Said, could happen to us 1000 times fold. The whole world is with us. The white house asked Hosni to get off the throne. Hosni is a slave to the White House and Obama. He will leave, believe me. Friday is Friday of departure. we are dying anyway, our brothers drown on their way escaping to Greece, they dying on the street… at least we can regain our dignity. You don’t know what its like on the street. People can smell the essence of dignity. Everyone go out and shout : Hosni Mubarak Leave! he must leave the country. we must make history. this never happened before where we took out a dog like Hosni. Lets make this a habit, so that the next president knows what we are capable of. this is our future, this is our children’s future!
http://egypt.alive.in/2011/02/03/dont-listen-to-those-animals/
If you defend a corrupted system, then you’re corrupted
Peace be upon you. I would like to dedicate my message to every hypocrite, every corrupt, or I do not know exactly how to describe them, all those is really touched by the president, and salutes the president. I would like to tell them I tell each one that if you defend a corrupt system, then you’re corrupt yourself. For each one who asks the president for forgiveness, I say that you are a hypocrite, and you don’t care about your people.
http://egypt.alive.in/2011/02/08/if-you-defend-a-corrupted-system-then-youre-corrupted/
Non-Negotiable
The naysayers who had been suggesting (or, in some cases, hoping) that the protests in Egypt were running out of steam have been proven wrong, once again, by the Egyptian people. By some accounts, the crowds in Midan Tahrir today were the largest yet — “hundreds of thousands,” according to the Guardian’s live reports — and many of those protesting today were coming out onto the streets for the first time. As I write this, protests continue in front of the Parliament building, with the possibility of a sit-in there; one tweet, from an Al-Jazeera producer, reported that a protester had “climbed on the front gate of parliament to put up a sign saying ‘closed until the downfall of the regime.’” Thousands gathered to demonstrate in Alexandria, there were protests in Ismailia, Assiut, El Mahalla El-Kubra, and Suez, and more demonstrations and strikes were scattered across the country, including a strike and sit-in by 6,000 employees of the Suez Canal Authority and a walk-out and threatened strike by thousands of Telecom Egypt employees, among other labor protests.
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/589/non-negotiable 
Whither Egypt?, Gilbert Achcar and Farooq Sulehria
To help explain the thrilling developments in Egypt, Farooq Sulehria interviewed leading Arab scholar-activist Gilbert Achcar on February 4.
http://www.zcommunications.org/whither-egypt-by-gilbert-achcar 
Day of Departure, Day of Reckoning, Jeremy Salt – Ankara
The news that Omar Sulaiman had a hot line to the Israeli government, that he was Israel’s choice as president, even over Mubarak, and that he invited Israel to invade Sinai if it thought it could stop arms smuggling to Gaza, should surprise noone, but these revelations from the Wikileaks cables underline the rottenness of the Egyptian regime and the need to replace it without delay and without qualification.
http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16631 
Statement from Cairo University’s Faculty of Law Around Legal and Constitutional Solutions to Meet the Needs of the Peoples Revolution
[Arabic statement and translation originally appeared on “Liberty for Egypt” blog] Statement from Cairo University- faculty of law  –Issued from the discussion forum held on 7/2/2011 around legal and constitutional solutions to meet the needs of the Peoples revolution.  On Monday the 7th of February 2011 the professors of the faculty of law at Cairo university  met  and after many fruitful discussions and thorough analysis of the parameters of  constitutional thought and what is best for our country in order for  it to  correspond with  the  great leap & the  revolution of the Youth of the Nation which has both been welcomed  and backed by  many communities within the nation , presented to the nation from a pure conscience  and in reaction to the  new developments that have affected the  entire nation’s  sentiments . Presented here to the great Egyptian nation are the results which the forum has reached in regards to what must be done for the good of the nation at this historical juncture in our beloved country.
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/585/statement-from-cairo-universitys-faculty-of-law-around-legal-and-constitutional-solutions-to-meet-the-needs-of-the-peoples-revolution
Don’t cry for me, Suleiman, Pepe Escobar
The Egyptian street revolution proves that the ghastly “Arab exception” concept – that dictatorship and hardcore repression are intrinsic to the Arab world – was always a manufactured consensus. It’s a no-brainer, between Washington-supported Omar “Sheik al-Torture” Suleiman and the protesters, who’s on the right side of history.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MB10Ak01.html
Egypt uprising has its roots in a mill town
El Mahalla el Kubra has long worried the Mubarak government. And the city’s dogged labor leaders now want more than just better working conditions. The revolt shaking Cairo didn’t start in Cairo. It began in this city of textile mills and choking pollution set amid the cotton and vegetable fields of the Nile Delta.
http://feeds.latimes.com/%7Er/latimes/middleeast/%7E3/plo2JOfP99c/la-fg-egypt-mahallah-20110209,0,4302496.story 
Regaining Momentum 
Until today the earthshaking Egyptian revolution appeared to be losing momentum. Regime propaganda, repeated on state TV and in Saudi-owned regional media, appeared to be convincing significant sections of the population that the protests were responsible for diminished security (although it was the regime that freed violent criminals and pulled police off the streets) and economic destabilisation (although it was the regime again which closed the internet, halted the trains, and dealt perhaps a long-term blow to tourism by encouraging mobs to attack foreigners). As 40% of Egyptians rely on daily wages for survival, success of regime propaganda in this area could fatally undermine the revolution.
http://pulsemedia.org/2011/02/08/regaining-momentum/
Egypt’s Youth Will Not Be Silenced, Amy Goodman
“In memoriam, Christoph Probst, Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl” reads the banner at the top of Kareem Amer’s popular Egyptian dissident blog. “Beheaded on Feb. 22, 1943, for daring to say no to Hitler, and yes to freedom and justice for all.” The young blogger’s banner recalls the courageous group of anti-Nazi pamphleteers who called themselves the White Rose Collective. They secretly produced and distributed six pamphlets denouncing Nazi atrocities, proclaiming, in one, “We will not be silent.” Sophie and her brother Hans Scholl were captured by the Nazis, tried, convicted and beheaded.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/egypts_youth_will_not_be_silenced_20110208/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Truthdig+Truthdig%3A+Drilling+Beneath+the+Headlines&utm_content=Twitter 
Lauren E. Bohn, “Interview with Nawal El Saadawi: ‘I Feel As If I’m Twenty'”
Q. How do you feel right now? A. I feel great. I feel as if I’m born. This is the dream of my life, as if this is my day, you know, because I was dreaming of this, as I was oppressed all my life, all my life, as a writer, as a doctor, as a woman, as a human being, all my life, from King Farouk to now, Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak. So, for me, it’s . . . as if I’m 20 years old. I’m not tired. On ordinary days I’m tired, but now I stay there [in Tahrir Square], ten hours every day almost, speaking and shouting and discussing, I come back here, I continue, I never stop talking. Then I sleep four hours, or five, and then I’m up again. I’m never tired.
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/bohn090211.html
Why Egypt’s Progressives Win
On 6 February 2011, Egypt’s hastily appointed Vice President Omar Suleiman invited in the old guard or what we could call the Businessmen’s Wing of the Muslim Brothers into a stately meeting in the polished rosewood Cabinet Chamber of Mubarak’s Presidential Palace. The aim of their tea party was to discuss some kind of accord that would end the national uprising and restore “normalcy.” When news of the meeting broke, expressions of delight and terror tore through the blogosphere. Was the nightmare scenario of both the political left and right about to be realized? Would the US/Israel surrogate Suleiman merge his military-police apparatus with the power of the more conservative branch of the old Islamist social movement?  Hearing the news, Iran’s Supreme Leader sent his congratulations. And America’s Glen Beck and John McCain ranted with glee about world wars and the inevitable rise of the Cosmic Caliphate.
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/586/why-egypts-progressives-win 
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood & the Demonstrations: Fact vs. Fiction
Since the start of mass popular protests by Egyptians against their country’s autocratic government, headed by the aging president Hosni Mubarak and his new vice president, Omar Suleiman, a great deal of attention has been paid to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun). Attention on the opposition movement has been particularly heavy and skewed in the United States where pundits from both the left and the right breathlessly claim that the Brotherhood is poised to take over Egypt in a repeat of what happened in 1979-1980 in Iran and erroneously tie the Egyptian movement to Usama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda Central. Much of this analysis is based on fallacies and conjecture rather than fact.
http://www.juancole.com/2011/02/anzalone-the-muslim-brotherhood-myth.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+juancole%2Fymbn+%28Informed+Comment%29
The Egyptian mirror, Glenn Greenwald
One of the most revealing journalistic genres is the effort by establishment media outlets to explain to their American audiences why Those Other Countries — usually in the Middle East — are so bad and awful and plagued by severe political and societal corruption (see here and here for examples).  This morning, The New York Times has a classic entry, as it unironically details how Egypt is a cesspool of oligarchical favoritism and self-dealing.  The article focuses on Ahmed Ezz, a close friend of Hosni Mubarak’s son who has exploited his political connections to corner much of the nation’s steel market, triggering growing resentment by the public.  Along the way, we learn several disturbing things about Egypt, including this…
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/02/07/egypt/index.html
Mubarak’s only option is to leave, Rami G. Khouri
Hosni Mubarak is still there? The world seems nearly plastered over with signs telling him in no uncertain terms to leave, and yet he refuses to listen. He is refusing to listen to the people still thronging Tahrir (Liberation) Square.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=17&article_id=124710 
On confronting old Arab men with guns, Rami G. Khouri
The historic developments on the streets of Egypt in the past two weeks appeared in recent days to reflect the modern Arab tradition of the enduring incumbency of men with guns.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=124711
CrossTalk on Egypt: Power to People? (ft. Tariq Ali)
In this edition of Peter Lavelle’s CrossTalk, he and his guests discuss and question the ultimate effectiveness of exporting and also limiting democracy due to geopolitical interests.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8nyeOAdqAQ&feature=player_embedded
‘We just want the rights you have’ (Why isn’t the U.S. listening?), Felice Gelman
Back in the U.S. after an amazing front row seat in Cairo at the Egyptian revolution, I have had to translate my point of view from the street to the news stream. But I can’t help being informed by what I saw in the streets of Cairo and in Tahrir Square. It’s a parallel world out here, with mainstream media coverage of Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman as the U.S.-approved man for the transition to democracy. Clearly an amazingly versatile politician, Suleiman — Egypt’s chief torturer and leading advocate of autocracy — has morphed into a bridgebuilder to the opposition. It must be time and distance that lets the press and the White House propose this with a straight face. It certainly isn’t flying in Tahrir Square where the pro-democracy forces are adamant they will stay until Mubarak leaves. One chant was, “We won’t go until you go.”
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/02/we-just-want-the-rights-you-have-why-isnt-the-u-s-listening.html 
Walid Zafar: Double Standards And Democracies 
Although conservatives are split on whether to support Mubarak, many are echoing Kirkpatrick’s old mantra about the two kinds of dictatorships: the ones we can tolerate and the ones we can’t.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/walid-zafar/double-standards-and-demo_b_818775.html
It’s Not About Islam, Stupid!
Since the flight of Tunisia’s Ben Ali on January 14th, there has apparently been a breakthrough in the imaginary of the possible in the Arab world.  I was in Egypt at the time, and reeling as everyone seemed to be from the bombing of the Coptic church in Alexandria, attention soon became fixed on Tunisia, and a moment of national unity in reaction to the tragic event in Alexandria, soon developed into a movement of national unity that dared to conceive of and act toward an alternative to their own regime. Like many others, I have also been riveted to coverage of the demonstrations that Tunisia’s revolution inspired in Egypt, a revolution that remained on message rather than devolving into a mess. A revolution moreover whose message is one of a real national and democratic unity, and a determination to oppose a regime that not only does not represent Egyptians, but has served its own and external interests.
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/590/its-not-about-islam-stupid 
Conflict and Opportunity in Post-Mubarak Egypt, BRIAN M. DOWNING
Hosni Mubarak’s thirty-year rule in Egypt is nearing an end and though the denouement of events there is still unclear, the new polity is almost certainly to be shaped by the military institutions and popular sentiments. This is causing considerable dismay in Jerusalem and Washington. National security institutions tend to think in worst-case scenarios, but recent events in Egypt present opportunities for the long sought after solution to the Palestinian problem.
http://www.counterpunch.com/downing02082011.html 
Suleiman and the Muslim Brotherhood, RON JACOBS
While the drama of revolution plays out across Egypt, the capitols of former and current western imperial powers are abuzz with activity.  Much of this activity is focused on preventing the success of the Egyptian uprising by replacing the man Hosni Mubarak with another agent of those powers.  The top name in the hat at this time appears to be Egypt’s torture chief and recently appointed vice president Omar Suleiman.  As most observers of the region know (and as has been reported in media around the world) Suleiman’s history includes assisting in renditions, torture and operating the Egyptian internal security apparatus.
http://www.counterpunch.com/jacobs02082011.html 
The Egypt Endgame, TARECQ M. AMER
In an attempt to win people to its side, or at least distance them from the Nile Uprising that has made its symbolic home in Tahrir Square, the Egyptian government has promised a 15% increase in the salaries of all public sector employees.  This, of course, is merely the latest gesture of change offered by the ruling regime and follows far more dramatic events, including the removal of high profile political types from the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), not the least of which being Mubarak himself; discussion with certain members of the opposition; and condemnations of violent acts against the protesters themselves over the last two weeks.  It is not terribly likely that these moves by the government will strike many of the Egyptian people as being even remotely sincere.  Over the past thirty years of his reign, Mubarak has promised change and followed up on nothing.  The pay raises, however, are a craftier policy move, one that is undoubtedly intended to show an immediate change in the regime’s course of action.  All in all, this is the other side of despotic rule, the side that would feign abhorrence towards the fullness of its own brutality and offer paltry fixes to the much deeper problems that lurk just at the surface.
http://www.counterpunch.com/amer02082011.html 
Egypt’s popular revolution will change the world | Peter Hallward
In discovering their power to determine their future, north Africa’s protesters have already opened a new age in world history. In one of his last published essays, written in 1798, the philosopher Immanuel Kant reflected on the impact of the continuing revolution in France. Kant himself was no Jacobin, and opposed extra-legal change as a matter of principle. He conceded that the future course of the revolution’s pursuit of liberty and equality “may be so filled with misery and atrocities that no right-thinking person would ever decide to make the same experiment again, at such a price”. Regardless of its immediate political consequences, however, Kant could at least see that the universal “sympathy bordering on enthusiasm” solicited by the spectacle of the revolution was itself a telling indication of its eventual significance. Whatever might happen next, the event was already “too intimately interwoven with the interests of humanity and too widespread in its influence upon all parts of the world for nations not to be reminded of it when favourable circumstances present themselves, and to rise up and make renewed attempts of the same kind”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/09/egypt-north-africa-revolution
Tunisia and Egypt Ripples Felt Throughout Arab World
Gulf leaders hear rumblings of dissent
The rare protest rally on Saturday in Saudi’s capital came a week after Saudi activists launched a Facebook page demanding more jobs and political accountability in the world’s biggest oil exporter. Calls on social media sites also have gone out for protests next week in Bahrain and next month in Kuwait — the two Gulf nations with the most active and organized political opposition.  Even the United Arab Emirates — with almost no public voice in decision-making — is urging for new faces on a 40-member government advisory panel in a bid to show a response to the upheavals that began in December in Tunisia and now grip Egypt.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110208/ap_on_hi_te/ml_gulf_next_protests
update on Bahrain
A comrade in Bahrain sent me this: “Dear Asa’ad (please do not quote name). You are aware that there have been mass calls for protest on 14 February in Bahrain. We have turned a day that is supposed to celebrate the ‘imposed’ constitution into a ‘day of wrath’. The government is on high alert and is extremely paranoid. Bahrain TV has non-stop propoganda and cheesy songs about ‘King’ Hamad (his imposed constitution changed Bahrain from a ‘state’ to a ‘kingdom’ and elevated our little man from ’emir’ to ‘king’). Well the Bahrainis have had enough of their trickery and lies. And we are expecting a speech on the 12th in which he announces some ‘concessions’ like the release of political prisoners. He also just announced more subsidies, paid out of more national debt (which means our kids will end up paying because they will be introducing taxes soon). I am sure this will not be enough to appease the street. In their pathetic attempts to stave off the protests. Our buffoon foreign minister has called the Qatari Ambassador – presumably to ask the Qataris to ask Aljazeera to not cover the Bahraini protests. Aljazeera was kicked out of Bahrain last year. Also BBC correspondants have been harassed in the past. This is a call for journalists to try their best to send undercover reporters to Bahrain on 14.   In other news, the Head of the National Security Agency has been to Egypt to visit his counterpart, the head of security in Egypt – presumably to get a lesson or two on managing (or not managing) the protests. I really hope we won’t see camels unleashed on us. I can vouch that there is no party behind this movement, it is completely grassroot, with both sunni and shia activists. There has been a marked step change in the rhetoric on the street and it is much more nationalistic.  Aljazeera and all other media MUST send reporters to Bahrain immediately. There has been some coverage so far(see below)”
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/02/update-on-bahrain.html
Bahrain cyber-activists urge ‘revolt’
DUBAI – A Facebook page urging “revolt” in Bahrain replicating similar calls elsewhere in the Arab world had by Tuesday amassed more than 6,000 “likes” on the social networking site.  “This is your chance to open the door for political and standard of living reforms, especially with the changes going on now in the Middle East. We will all chant ‘The people want to reform the regime’ on February 14,” a post said.  Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have played a major role in a wave of protests around the Arab world — fanned by poverty and unemployment — that have grown into revolts in Tunisia and Egypt.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/bahrain-cyberactivists-urge-revolt/ 
Egypt-Inspired Protests Across Middle East Meet Violent Clampdown
(New York) – Governments in the Arab world have violently dispersed demonstrations apparently inspired by or in solidarity with Egypt’s democracy protesters and have detained some of the organizers, Human Rights Watch said today.
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/02/08/egypt-inspired-protests-across-middle-east-meet-violent-clampdown 
Libyan writer detained following protest call
A Libyan writer and political commentator arrested last week and accused of a driving offence appears to have been targeted for calling for peaceful protests in the country, says Amnesty International.  A Libyan writer and political commentator arrested last week and accused of a driving offence appears to have been targeted for calling for peaceful protests in the country, Amnesty International has said.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/libyan-writer-detained-following-protest-call-2011-02-08 
And now Libya
Farag, a comrade from Libya sent me this: “Protests are scheduled for Feb. 17 in Libya around the country…..get this…there is a rumor floating around that Gadhafi said he will join in the protest because he is “one of the people”.  The website below has some links and articles regarding the protests….. made the website for libyan dissidents living abroad.  The website also has a “mixtape” of north african musicians (rappers – don’t know if you’re a fan) available for free download…my personal favorite song – Ta7ya Tunis by El General…. I would love if you can get your readers to scour the internet looking for information on the Feb. 17 protest….news/media/internet are heavily censored in libya (more than egypt was), and information is slow to get out….also if there’s anyway to send the information about it into libya would be greatly appreciated….the more we can get these regimes to shake and crumble the better off the world will be…”
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/02/and-now-libya.html
Iraqis Enthused by Egypt Protests
But despite anger over ineffective government, there’s little sign of them emulating the North African revolts.
http://iwpr.net/report-news/iraqis-enthused-egypt-protests
Moody’s downgrades Jordan’s outlook to “negative” over unrest
AMMAN, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) — Credit rating agency Moody’s Investors Service on Tuesday downgraded the outlook on Jordan’s Ba2 foreign currency government bond rating to “negative” from ” stable” due to recent political tensions in the country.  Moody’s said the rating reflected higher fiscal and economic downside risks related to the ongoing turmoil in Jordan and its neighboring countries.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-02/09/c_13723227.htm 
Interview with Hamas spokesman about Egypt revolution, Jesse Bacon
Ashley Bates continues her excellent reporting by interviewing Hamas spokesman Ahmed Youssef. The story is an interesting variant of the “Is it good for Israel?” that we have been subjected to such a barrage of. While obviously I don’t support Hamas’s views or their actions, I think that too often they are ignored and that leads to US policy based on ignorance. It is interesting to read them during revolution in Egypt, one where the American reaction has been so dominated by fears of the Muslim Brotherhood, which Hamas is in some ways a descendant. (Though unlike Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood does not have an armed wing.)
http://theonlydemocracy.org/2011/02/interview-with-hamas-spokesman-about-egypt-revolution/ 
Revolution is an export Tunisia can be proud of
I am not a big fan of Tunisia’s Prime Minister Mohammad Ghannouchi. Yet, I very much appreciated some of what Ghannouchi had to say last Friday, 4 February 2011, to journalist Piers Morgan on his new CNN show. Nouri Gana comments for The Electronic Intifada.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11785.shtml?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+electronicIntifadaPalestine+%28Electronic+Intifada+%3A+Palestine+News%29 
Arab revolts bad news for al Qaeda
IF the popular revolts spread across the Middle East, they could strike a catastrophic blow to violent ideology of al Qaeda that have long preached that peaceful protest is useless in the face of autocracy.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2011%5C02%5C07%5Cstory_7-2-2011_pg4_10 
The west clings on to the old Arab order at its peril | Rageh Omaar
Arabs across the region are ready for life after the autocrats. If the west remains reticent, they will look elsewhere for support. The protests in Cairo are now in their third week, and despite everything that has happened in the furious, violent yet ultimately hopeful 15 days in the Egyptian capital, the bond between President Mubarak’s regime and his western allies, the US in particular, appears if anything to be strengthening.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/feb/08/arab-order-west-rageh-omaar

 
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Our Cairo twitter feed

Feb 09, 2011

Philip Weiss

 

The latest from Cairo on Twitter:

   
     

Orthodoxy: Re Egypt, House Foreign Affairs Committee will hear two Israel lobbyists and one other rightwinger, no Arab-Americans

Feb 09, 2011

Philip Weiss

 

This morning and tomorrow the House committee on Foreign Affairs is holding hearings on Egypt. The committee is now chaired by Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, an Israel hardliner. But the ranking minority member, Howard Berman, presumably had a hand in this too. The two Israel lobbyists are Robert Satloff of the thinktank started by AIPAC and Elliott Abrams (a Jewish nationalist who has written that Jews must stand apart from any society they are in except Israel). The other rightwinger is Craner, who works for a Republican institute and I’m told has the usual Israel fervor.

Bear in mind that this morning on National Public Radio (yes the liberal media) Elliott Abrams was given a lot of air time, to support the Egyptian democracy movement because it would make Egyptian support for Israel stronger. I am still waiting for an NPR report that questions whether Israel is a democracy and questions whether the so-called peace process that Egypt has been a party to for 30 years has done anything to ameliorate Palestinian rightslessness. It has not.   

The announcement:

The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs on Wednesday and Thursday of this week will host a two-part full committee hearing entitled “Recent Developments in Egypt and Lebanon: Implications for U.S. Policy and Allies in the Broader Middle East.”

Part I When: Wednesday, February 9, 2011 10:00 A.M. (Immediately following the 10:00 A.M. Organizational Meeting)

Where: 2170 Rayburn House Office Building Who: The Honorable Elliott Abrams Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies Council on Foreign Relations The Honorable Lorne Craner President International Republican Institute (Former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor) Dr. Robert Satloff Executive Director The Washington Institute for Near East Policy Part II * When: Thursday, February 10, 2011 10:30AM Where: 2170 Rayburn House Office Building Who: The Honorable James B Steinberg Deputy Secretary U.S. Department of State

     

Yes but what should we tell the goyim?

Feb 09, 2011

Philip Weiss

 

Daniel Gordis in the Jerusalem Post last week:

DOMESTICALLY, TOO, we are doing ourselves enormous harm. Something ugly and dangerous is bubbling to the surface of society, endangering the very democracy and decency that have rightly been the very source of our pride for decades. There is a move for an investigation of the funding of left-wing groups…

Rabbis urge Jews not to sell or rent property to Arabs, effectively making rabid racism a rabbinically-sanctioned position, and rabbis’ wives follow suit, warning parents to distance their children from Arabs. (Just imagine a rabbi in the US saying that same thing about African-Americans!)

Recent polls show that one-third of Jewish Israelis oppose giving equal civil rights to Israeli Arabs, and in the modern religious community the rate is double.

Gordis writing in the New York Times this morning, “A Friendship of Values, not Convenience”:

But the threat of chaos, and even Islamist rule, might have a silver lining. It is all the more obvious that there is only one country in the region that has the same values as America: Israel. If America reacts to recent events by increasing its support for those who share its values, it could reassure a suddenly surrounded Israe..

It’s astonishing that this is his second op-ed in the Times in the space of months. A man who believes the settlements may be “wise.” A Zionist who left America for Israel, an anti-integrationist. Where is Steve Walt? Where is Rebecca Vilkomerson?

 
     

Eric Cantor’s brother is backer of illegal settlements in West Bank

Feb 09, 2011

Philip Weiss

 

From Allison Hoffman’s profile in Tablet of Eric Cantor, majority leader, the highest-ranking Jewish elected public official in American history.

Cantor’s older brother, Stuart, is on the board of the congregation and of Richmond’s sole Jewish day school; in 2002, Stuart and his wife, Joan, also helped sponsor the annual dinner of the One Israel Fund, which provides aid for Jewish families living in the West Bank.

Imagine the hue and cry if some politician’s brother was supporting Hamas? Or imagine if a high Pentagon official had helped start a group called One Jerusalem. Wait, that happened: Doug Feith, the guy who planned the Iraq war. And no one cared then either!

 
     

‘If the Times had known that Bronner’s son was in the Israeli army, he would not have been allowed to be Jerusalem bureau chief…’

Feb 09, 2011

Philip Weiss

 

The other day the New York Times ran a favorable piece about the surging non-Zionist Jewish group, Jewish Voice for Peace. Today the following clarification appears after the article:

After this article was published, editors learned that one of the two writers, Daniel Ming, had been active in pro-Palestinian rallies. Such involvement in a public cause related to The Times’s news coverage is at odds with the paper’s journalistic standards; if editors had known of Mr. Ming’s activities, he would not have been allowed to write the article.

From the Vassar College newspaper a year ago. Sounds like the same guy:

In 2008, Ming was the recipient of a Tannenbaum Peace Fellowship and spent the summer after his sophomore year working with a Jordanian Catholic priest who develops interfaith relationships between Muslim and Christian communities in the country. During his time in Jordan, Ming took time off to visit the West Bank where he toured the area with an anti-occupation group called Stop the Wall.

My headline refers to the fact that the NYT’s Jerusalem Bureau Chief, Ethan Bronner, who is married to an Israeli, has a son in the Israeli army. When it broke the news last year, Electronic Intifada said that it was a conflict of interest; and the newspaper’s public editor concurred; he said that Bronner should be reassigned to some other beat. The Times’s executive editor, Bill Keller, has kept Bronner in Jerusalem, presumably hoping that the issue dies down and no one says anything about it.

 
     

Ongoing disgrace: ‘Washington Post’ neocon columnist tells U.S. generals to ‘hush up [about Palestine] and fight’

Feb 09, 2011

Philip Weiss

 

Yesterday the Jerusalem Post reported that in Israel, former National security adviser General Jim Jones said that Israel/Palestine is the heart of the problem in the Middle East. That’s the linkage idea.

“I’m of the belief that had God appeared in front of President Obama in 2009 and said if he could do one thing on the face of the planet, and one thing only, to make the world a better place and give people more hope and opportunity for the future, I would venture that it would have something to do with finding the two-state solution to the Middle East.” Speaking to reporters after addressing the conference, Jones said Israel’s dispute with the Palestinians was the “knot that is at the center of mass.”

Jennifer Rubin, the neoconservative blogger at the Washington Post, writes:

Nevertheless, to American ears at the conference the recitation of the mantra that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the region’s central problem seemed decidedly off-key when Egypt is suffering an eruption, Tunisia has thrown off the shackles of its despot and Iran is on the offense in Lebanon, Gaza and elsewhere. It also puts Gen. David Petraeus’s comments along the same lines in context. One suspects that the upper echelons of the military are steeped in the brew of “Israel is the key to the region’s problems” conventional wisdom. In that regard, one is tempted to advise a great many generals and admirals to hush up and fight.

 
     

Qatar is said to be big investor in West Bank settlement industry

Feb 09, 2011

Kate

 

and other news from Today in Palestine:

IOA confiscates 800 more dunums of Palestinian farmland
AL-KHALIL, (PIC) 8 Feb — The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) informed Palestinian farmers that 800 dunums of their cultivated land in Nuba village west of Al-Khalil would be confiscated. Village sources told the PIC that Israeli occupation forces delivered the notices to the farmers, adding that the decision allowed the farmers to contest it with the civil administration within 45 days. The sources said that the farmland is owned by members of three families and was seized because of its proximity to the racist, separation wall.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz
Israeli settlers chase Palestinian children after Israeli military fails to provide escort
8 Feb – Operation Dove & Christian Peacemaker Teams. …Shortly after the schoolchildren and [CPT] volunteers set out on the path towards Tuba and Maghayir al-Abeed villages, Israeli settlers, two of whom were masked, emerged from the grouping of trees which encompasses Havat Ma’on and began moving towards the children. Upon seeing the settlers, the children turned and sprinted to distance themselves from the settlers. Several children began crying and screaming in fear as they ran away from the settlers, one young girl began shaking uncontrollably as soon as she stopped running from the settlers.
http://palsolidarity.org/2011/02/16603/
Annoyed by call to prayer, East Jerusalem settlers appeal to police
Jerusalem — The Israeli police plan to limit the volume of calls to prayer issued from the mosques in Shu’fat refugee camp and the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ras al-Khamees, responding to complaints from illegal East Jerusalem settlements. 
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9528&Itemid=49
Fayyad demands intervention to stop settler violence
International pressure must be brought to bear on Israeli settlers in the West Bank to halt their use of violence and constant harassment of Palestinians, premier Salam Fayyad said Monday. Speaking with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Navi Pillary, who is on an official visit to Palestine, Fayyad blamed the Israeli government for “terrorist acts” committed by settlers, and cited the shooting deaths of two teens in January. 
During Pillary’s visit, Fayyad accompanied him to the Jerusalem-area village of Beit Iksa, stuck in a no-man’s-land within the Green Line but trapped on the Israeli side of the separation wall, next to the Ramot Allon settlement. In the village, Fayyad and the UN official visited Sabri Ghareib, whose home is surrounded with a barbed-wire fence, in which Israeli forces installed an electronic gate which opens to allow the family members in and out of their village. 
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=357960
Rightists call Spanish FM ‘anti-Semite’
Trinidad Jiménez greeted by dozens of angry right-wing activists during visit to Hebron. Jewish settlers say European Union supporting renovation of Palestinian neighborhood aimed at blocking Jews’ access to Cave of Patriarchs … The discussed neighborhood is located in H2 area which is under Palestinian administrative control but where Israel maintains military presence. The renovation work, estimated at €50 million (about $68 million), began about half a year ago. some 1,500 people live in the neighborhood, and 3,000 Palestinians are expected to live there when the restoration is complete.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4025656,00.html
Incursions / Violence
Teen injured in Beit Ummar
HEBRON (Ma’an) — An 18-year-old was hit four times with rubber-coated bullets shot by Israeli forces in the southern West Bank town of Hebron Tuesday afternoon, local officials said, sending the teen to hospital. Local popular committee activist Muhammad Awad said Israeli troops entered the town shortly before noon, apparently to conduct an arrest raid. The troops were searching one home when the teen, identified as Shadi Ahmad Ekhlayel, walked past the scene. Awad said that Ekhlayel did not know that he had entered an area where military activity was taking place, but was shot four times in the back, neck and hands. 
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=358040
Israeli troops raid northern Gaza
GAZA (ABNA) – Israeli occupation forces (IOF) advanced 500 meters into the northern Gaza Strip near Beit Lahia town amidst intensified firing, a local source reported. The IOF soldiers in six armored vehicles escorted four bulldozers and took position north of Beit Lahia, the source added. He said that the bulldozers leveled citizens’ land in the area while the soldiers were firing to protect the operation. Medical sources said that no casualties were reported
http://abna.ir/data.asp?lang=3&id=224992
Detention
IOF troops round up seven West Bankers
JENIN, (PIC) 8 Feb — Israeli occupation forces (IOF) detained seven Palestinians in various West Bank areas at dawn Tuesday, press reports said. They added that the IOF soldiers, mounting armored vehicles, raided several areas in the West Bank and searched homes before apprehending the seven men.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7Spd%2fyA8rEVxm%2fiw3Zehp1B%2fS4L1utF7YSPEA1%2bW%2bc3mzWwAlLAQBMSpz1VyGjwrhyu34MwN5cVmZ%2bhF7y9x0jEwiZ2tgWM4IEFE022VWl0g%3d
In their own words: A report on the situation facing Palestinian children detained in East Jerusalem
Defence of Children International — Palestine Section – In three out of the 13 cases (13%), the children report being shown, or asked to sign, documents written in Hebrew, which is not the children’s mother tongue. “The interrogator then handed me a piece of paper written in Hebrew. ‘Write down your name’, he said, and I did. (I.M. – 12 years – Al Mascobiyya Interrogation Centre, Jerusalem)”
http://www.dci-pal.org/English/Doc/Press/EASTJERUSALEM_JANUARY2011.pdf
UN human rights commissioner to visit relatives of Palestinian prisoners
GAZA, (PIC) 8 Feb — Navi Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, is to visit the Gaza Strip on Thursday to meet with relatives of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, the support the prisoners organization announced on Monday. It described in a statement the visit as an opportunity to explain the suffering of those prisoners in Israeli detention.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?x
Siege
Egypt unrest cuts fuel lifeline to Gaza
Gaza is facing acute fuel shortages as smuggled diesel and petrol supplies from Egypt are rapidly running out … Long queues of cars, motorcycles and people on foot carrying containers have formed at gas stations.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/08/egypt-unrest-cuts-gaza-fuel
Dutch want more exports from Gaza
Foreign affairs minister Uri Rosenthal asked Israel to extend export possibilities from the Gaza Strip during a visit to Jerusalem on Monday. At the moment, tomatoes, strawberries and carnations can be exported from the territory but Rosenthal wants this list extended, reports news agency ANP. He also wants the import ban on building material lifted.
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2011/02/dutch_want_more_exports_from_g.php
RI to build cardiac center in Gaza
Jakarta Post – The government will build a cardiac center at Al-Syifa Hospital in North Gaza, Palestine. Health Minister Endang Sedyaningsih said that the center would be funded by a Rp 20 billion (US$2.24 million) grant from the Indonesian government to the Gaza community through Islamic Development Bank). Endang said the government gave the money to Al-Syifa Hospital after its initial plan to build a hospital in Gaza was stymied by land acquisition difficulties.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/02/08/ri-build-cardiac-center-gaza.html
Single Gaza crossing opens
A single Gaza crossing was opened Tuesday for the transfer of 140-150 truckloads of aid and commercial goods. The second operational crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip was closed, as UN officials say wheat reserves continue to rise, but remain at only half what they should be.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=357963
Reprisals
Reports: 2 rounds of projectiles hit Negev
Israeli media reported two separate rounds of projectiles landing in the Negev desert Tuesday, one near the Gaza border and a second in the Western Negev, damaging several cars. The Israeli news sites Ynet and Ma’ariv reported the incidents at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. respectively. In a statement, the Al-Quds Brigades said their fighters launched a mortar shell toward an Israeli military zone east of Beit Hanoun. The brigades, affiliated with the Islamic Jihad, said Israeli fuel tankers were the target of the attack. 
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=358057
Egyptian uprising and Palestine
Egyptian regime change hope for Gaza
RAMALLAH (IRIN) 8 Feb – Possible regime change in Egypt, sparked by mass popular protests against President Hosni Mubarak since 25 January, could usher in a new leadership not as committed to maintaining the Gaza blockade, observers say. Opening Rafah, the sole border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, to allow humanitarian supplies to enter Gaza could have an immediate impact on the livelihoods of 1.5 million Palestinians living there, according to UN agencies and officials from the Hamas-led government.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=357883
Refugees
Refuge and return / Lamya Hussain
“Where would you like to go?” asks a taxi driver a little older than my father, his thick Lebanese accent I barely understand. I reply politely, “Off the airport road to Bourj al-Barajneh.” “The refugee camp? No, I don’t go there,” he replies. Not understanding how to respond, I nod and keep waiting for a taxi that will agree to take me.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11778.shtml
UK gives aid to Palestinians refugees in Lebanon
The UK on Monday announced a contribution of £1.5 million to UNRWA to assist Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. The UK development agency DFID said the funding would help the UN agency for Palestinian refugees to provide medical supplies to over a thousand families and ensure shelter for 3,500 families. Over 425,000 Palestinian refugees are registered with UNRWA in Lebanon, and many were displaced again in 2007 during internal fighting in the country in 2007.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=357774
Politics / Diplomacy
PLO, Egypt blast Quartet statement
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — PLO official Yasser Abed Rabbo told Kuwait news agency KUNA Monday that the latest Quartet statement on the peace process was “regretful” and fell short of the Palestinians’ expectations. The statement, which focused on getting sides back to the negotiating table as an “imperative” for regional stability, did not mention Israel’s failure to stop settlement construction on Palestinian lands, an issue PLO negotiators say remains the stumbling block to a return to talks. 
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=357943
Jordan’s deputy speaker criticises Abbas and Fateh leadership over their possession of Jordanian nationality
MEMO  8 Feb -The Deputy Chairman of Jordan’s Council of Representatives, Atef al-Tarawneh al-Naqab, has revealed that a number Palestinian officials and members of the negotiating team have been granted Jordanian nationality and national identity numbers at a time when nationality is being withdrawn from Jordanian citizens themselves based on claims of support for the Palestinian people and their need for a state.
http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/news/middle-east/2032-jordans-deputy-speaker-criticises-abbas-and-fateh-leadership-over-their-possession-of-jordanian-nationality
Erekat: Qatar holds investments in settlements
Chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat threatened Monday to expose official documents about investments he said proved that Qatar holds in companies that operate in illegal Israeli West Bank settlements. More than 24% of the biggest Israeli companies in the Qarne Shomron settlement, located in the northern West Bank district of Qalqiliya, rely on Qatari investments worth millions of US dollars, said Erekat.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=357990
PA cabinet calls elections for July 9
RAMALLAH (AFP) — The Palestinian Authority cabinet decided on Tuesday to hold local elections on July 9, in what will be the first time voters have gone to the polls since 2006. It will mark the second attempt to hold a municipal vote, after July 17, 2010 elections were called off only weeks before they were scheduled to take place … Hamas on Tuesday reiterated its refusal to participate in polls run by the Ramallah-based authority,
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=358098
Abu Yousef: Israeli intransigence main barrier to talks
While the Egyptian uprising would impact the peace process, Israeli intransigence remained the chief obstacle to negotiations, PLO official Wassel Abu Yousef said Sunday. Abu Yousef said Egypt played a major role in negotiations, but that it was Israel’s continued refusal to stop settlement building that caused the deadlock in talks. 
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=357866
PA secretary-general slams Egypt’s protesters as ‘suspicious alliance’
RAMALLAH, (PIC) [Hamas site] — Secretary-general of the Palestinian authority (PA) Attayeb Abdulrahim launched a scathing attack on the popular uprising in Egypt, describing what the protesters are doing as a “suspicious alliance” against the stability of the Egyptian regime.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Q
Media bias
‘NYT’ says two-state solution should be saved by building 25-mile tunnel so that Israelis don’t have to see Palestinians traveling to Gaza
The New York Times Magazine has afforded Bernard Avishai a number of pages in its forthcoming issue to try and resuscitate two-state solution ideas of three years ago … My mind reeled when I read this. Can a person really offer such an idea in good conscience as a concession to the Palestinians? I’m not phobic, but the idea of traveling 25 miles under the desert to see my grandmother– wow! And let us be clear, this is all a form of gerrymandering; so that privileged people get to hold on to their Jewish democracy while the fragmented parts of Palestine are somehow unified.
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/02/nyt-says-two-state-solution-should-be-saved-by-building-25-mile-tunnel-so-that-israelis-dont-have-to-see-palestinians-traveling-to-gaza.html
Tom Friedman can’t praise Egyptians without insulting Palestinians
8 Feb – Generally speaking, Friedman’s column in today’s New York Times is relatively harmless … as far as it goes isn’t bad — until the ever-present tendency to render Israel’s occupation of Palestine invisible rears its ugly head: “You almost never hear the word “Israel,” and the pictures of “martyrs” plastered around the square are something rarely seen in the Arab world — Egyptians who died fighting for their own freedom not against Israel.” (emphasis added) …for Friedman, it’s simply impossible that Palestinians fighting against the occupation of their country are fighting for their own freedom as well.  
http://thefastertimes.com/politicalmedia/2011/02/08/tom-friedman-cant-praise-egyptians-without-insulting-palestinians/
Other news
‘Troops reassured me as I went into labor’
Shirin Muhammad Salamin, 27, recounts positive experience of giving birth to baby boy in military ambulance with help of IDF soldiers [How lucky she is that she encountered some humane soldiers – some other Palestinian mothers haven’t been so fortunate, as recounted here: Targeting Palestinian mothers “Since the beginning of Al-Aqsa intifada in 2000 and till 2006 at least 69 Palestinian women gave birth at Israeli checkpoints in front of Israeli soldiers. This led to 35 miscarriages and the death of five mothers:”]
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4025375,00.html
First private equity company launched in West Bank
Ramallah- The first Palestinian private equity company with an initial closing capital of 60 million dollars was launched in the West Bank on Tuesday, according to its founder and main investor Palestinian-American businessman Bashar Masri.
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/366347,company-launched-west-bank.html
Israel
Court orders government to accommodate East Jerusalem schoolchildren
The High Court of Justice has given the government five years to find enough classroom space for East Jerusalem children, or it will have to pay private schools to take care of the matter … Some 40,000 out of nearly 80,000 school-age children in question are registered in the public-school system; the rest study in private schools or do not attend school at all. It is estimated that 9,000 children are not registered at all, whether publicly or privately. 
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/court-orders-government-to-accommodate-east-jerusalem-school-children-1.341917
Peres forms high-tech coalition to integrate Arabs, haredim into workforce
The coalition will be setting up a designated website, to be jointly operated by the nonprofit organization Kav Mashve, which helps job-seekers find work.
http://english.themarker.com/peres-forms-high-tech-coalition-to-integrate-arabs-haredim-into-workforce-1.341931
MKs clash on assimilation in Israel
Knesset debates mixed couples on first ever Jewish Identity Day, prompting accusations of racism
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4025788,00.html
Rabbi Lior supporters protest arrest warrant
Some 1,000 people demonstrated outside the home of Rabbi Dov Lior in Kiryat Arba on Tuesday in protest of the arrest warrant issued against him for suspected incitement. On Monday, police issued the warrant over the rabbi’s refusal to be questioned in relation to the foreword he wrote for the book “The King’s Torah” which calls for the murder of non-Jews. 
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4025488,00.html
Knesset committee approves ‘Bishara Bill’
Eight MKs vote in favor of law revoking wages, pension of lawmakers who have failed to report to police or trial … If approved, the bill will revoke different payments former Balad Chairman Azmi Bishara is entitled to from the State Treasury, including his pension rights. Bishara fled Israel in the midst of an investigation into suspicions that he transferred information to Hezbollah during the Second Lebanon War.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4025621,00.html
IDF says enlisting hackers
IDF Spokesman Avi Benayahu said Tuesday that the army is currently in the process of enlisting “new media fighters”. Benayahu told a panel on the subject of “the digital medium as strategic weapon” that the army was searching for “little hackers who were born and raised online”.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4025751,00.html
IDF: Combat motivation breaking records
Rate of teens seeking combat service rose by more than 10% since 2007. Estimated 80% of eligible youths express desire to serve in field units in March enlistment round
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4025657,00.html
Sharp drop in asylum seekers entering Israel from Egypt
In the last months of 2010, an average of one thousand asylum seekers entered Israel in any given month, but in the month of January, data shows that only 400 asylum seekers entered Israel. The reason for the drop in numbers is partly explained by the acceleration of construction work on a fence on the border with Egypt … Despite Shani’s claim that the low figures have no relation to the unrest in Egypt, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak gave instructions to accelerate the construction of the fence on the Egyptian border due to the crisis in Egypt. 
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/sharp-drop-in-asylum-seekers-entering-israel-from-egypt-1.342034
Analysis / Opinion
Rawabi implicates PA in Zionist project / Uri Davis
As the Convener of the Fatah Revolutionary Council Committee on Resistance to the Settlements, the Apartheid Wall and the Ethnic Cleansing it is my responsibility to ensure that damage already done in the construction of Rawabi city is minimized. My concern hinges on the acceptance of a donation of thousands of tree saplings from the Jewish National Fund by Rawabi city developers, planted on lands sequestered by the Palestinian Authority from neighboring villages, for a private and commercial venture … On 15 November 2009, Abbas signed the decree, taking approximately 1,537 dunum of lands from the neighboring village of Ajjul, 122 dunum from Attara and 118 dunum from Abwin. 
[Davis describes himself as “a Palestinian Hebrew national of Jewish origin, anti-Zionist, registered as Muslim and a citizen of an apartheid state – the State of Israel.”]
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=358002
The Promise: powerful TV drama at its best / Harriet Sherwood
Peter Kosminsky’s 4-part series on mandate-era Palestine and modern-day Israel is vivid, harrowing and utterly compelling … Among the most striking scenes are the house demolitions: Jewish homes destroyed by British forces in the 1940s; Palestinian homes crushed by the Israeli army in modern times.The unbearable scenes of Jewish victims of and refugees from the Holocaust are countered by distressing scenes of the Palestinian nakba during the bloody birth of the state of Israel.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/view-from-jerusalem-with-harriet-sherwood/2011/feb/07/israel-palestinian-territories
I love my country / Noam Raz
Op-ed: IDF soldier who serves as B’Tselem official explains why he criticizes Israel … When I research an incident for B’Tselem, I feel bad whichever way I turn it. I am full of sympathy for the civilian or civilians, usually Palestinians, who have been harmed by actions of Israel’s security forces or other authorities. Yet I also think about the soldiers – those young men sent out on the psychologically destructive mission of policing a civilian population, and end up acting badly or committing outright criminal offenses. Don’t get me wrong – under no circumstance can I accept or justify soldiers destroying property, beating, degrading and abusing persons or shooting them for no reason.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4022620,00.html
Iraq
Monday: 2 Iraqis killed, 15 wounded
At least two Iraqis were killed and 15 more were wounded in new violence mostly in and around the capital. A bomb exploded near the Iraqiya offices in Baquba and wounded three people, including two security guards. Two government workers were wounded in a bombing in Taji. In Mosul, two policemen were wounded during a roadside blast. A pair of bombs in Iskandariya killed a policeman and a woman. Two other personnel were wounded…
http://original.antiwar.com/updates/2011/02/07/monday-2-iraqis-killed-15-wounded-3/
Amnesty: Torture routine in Iraqi prisons
BAGHDAD (AFP) – Iraq operates secret prisons and routinely tortures prisoners to extract confessions that are used to convict them, Amnesty International said in a report released on Tuesday. An estimated 30,000 men and women remain in custody in Iraq, some in secret facilities operated by the ministries of defence and interior, the London-based rights watchdog said in the report, titled “Broken Bodies, Broken Minds.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110208/wl_mideast_afp/iraqrightsprisonsamnesty
Iraq hikes duties as Arab state battle inflation
BAGHDAD (AFP) – As other Arab states scramble to prevent Egypt- and Tunisia-style uprisings sparked in part by rising prices, Iraq is going its own way by raising tariffs on a range of goods from bottled water to bayonets.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110208/wl_mideast_afp/iraqeconomytrade
Refugees forced back to a still-violent Iraq, prompting criticism of European policy
Baghdad – Working with American media, Ali Jassim Mohammad became used to documenting the misery of Iraqis caught in war. And then he became one of them, in a tale that stretches from Baghdad to Sweden and back, and underscores the growing problem of European nations deporting Iraqi refugees to a homeland still wracked by violence.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20110207/wl_csm/354359
US Marine gets 6 years for Iraq contracts fraud
WASHINGTON (AFP) – A US Marine captain was sentenced to six years in federal prison for conspiring with his wife to skim nearly $1.7 million from government contracts in Iraq.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110208/pl_afp/usiraqmilitaryfraudtrialprison
Donald Rumsfeld book admits ‘misstatements’ over WMD sites
Former US defence secretary’s memoirs express regret for saying ‘stuff happens’ over Iraq war — [He] admits in his memoirs that he made a mistake in claiming that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction sites round Baghdad and Tikrit, one of the main justifications for launching the Iraq invasion.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/08/donald-rumsfeld-book-misstatements-wmd
Other Mideast / Arab world (see Mondoweiss.net for compilations of Egypt news)
Lebanese PM on final stretch of cabinet formation
BEIRUT (AFP) — Lebanese prime minister designate Najib Mikati is soon to complete his cabinet, which will include the Hezbollah-led camp and technocrats but exclude the pro-West wing, an official said Tuesday. “Prime minister Mikati hopes to finalize his consultations and form the government this week,” the official, who is close to the premier, told AFP on condition of anonymity.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=358166
Tunisia calls in army reservists to stem unrest
8 Feb – Tunisia’s fragile interim government has called in military reservists to contain a fresh wave of violence as it races to organise the country’s first free elections.
http://www.uruknet.info/?new=74750
Jordan tribes threaten revolution over country’s Palestinian Queen Rania
(Reuters) 8 Feb – Hard-line nationalist East Bankers take issue with both Queen Rania’s Palestinian background and her highly visible role in the country’s male-dominated society.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/jordan-tribes-threaten-revolution-over-country-s-palestinian-queen-rania-1.342072
Iran cleric: Filtering the Internet is un-Islamic
Mehdi Hadavi Tehrani, a cleric in the city of Qom, said web filters can block useful scientific and Islamic sites because words such as sex are flagged.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/iran-cleric-filtering-the-internet-is-un-islamic-1.342053
Damascus Jews restore synagogues as Syria seeks secular image
Albert Cameo, leader of what remains of the Jewish community in Syria, says he’s trying to fulfill an obligation to his religious heritage. The 70-year-old is organizing the restoration of a synagogue called Al-Raqi in the old Jewish quarter of Damascus built during the Ottoman Empire about 400 years ago. The project, which began in December, will be completed this month as part of a plan to restore 10 synagogues with the backing of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and funding from Syrian Jews. 
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-06/damascus-jews-restore-synagogues-as-syria-seeks-secular-image.html
WikiLeaks [See here for more WikiLeaks files at Telegraph site]
DAS Danin and DASD Kimmett discuss Gaza smuggling with ISA chief Diskin
(Nov 2007) …Diskin shared that sources among the smugglers have told the ISA that Egypt permits their activities as long as they do not result in terror attacks within Egyptian territory. This shows that they can crack down on the smugglers if they have the will, said Diskin, but the fact is that they prefer to use Gaza and Israel as a safety valve for extremists in Egypt.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wikileaks-files/egypt-wikileaks-cables/8309335/DAS-DANIN-AND-DASD-KIMMITT-DISCUSS-GAZA-SMUGGLING-WITH-ISA-CHIEF-DISKIN.html
U.K., U.S. 
‘David Cameron’s speech was all about Muslims and terrorism’
Mohammed Shafiq, CEO of Britain’s Ramadhan Foundation, discusses the British PM’s speech on the failure of multiculturalism … “I was deeply disappointed in the prime minister, who made allegations that tar a whole community. Who is he talking about? Muslims in Britain by and large are integrated and oppose terrorism in the U.K. and anywhere else in the world just like any other Brits…”
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/david-cameron-s-speech-was-all-about-muslims-and-terrorism-1.341935
IDF spokesman visited UK incognito for fear of targeting by pro-Palestinian protesters
(Reuters) Israel concerned over U.K. laws allowing private citizens to secure arrest warrants for visiting foreign officials they accuse of war crimes.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/idf-spokesman-visited-u-k-incognito-for-fear-of-targeting-by-pro-palestinian-protesters-1.342080?localLinksEnabled=false
Activist: Palestinian trips had no link to terror
CHICAGO (AP) — Four months after the FBI raided homes of anti-war activists in the Midwest, a Palestinian-American named in the probe is calling it a “witch hunt” and insisting in a series of interviews with The Associated Press that he has never given money to terrorist groups. Hatem Abudayyeh, head of an activist network in Chicago that deals in immigration and discrimination issues, says the trips he helped coordinate to the Palestinian territories were fact-finding and educational visits hosted by a women’s organization and that he knew of no links to groups that could be considered involved in terrorism. The federal government has divulged almost nothing about the focus of the probe, which included subpoenas demanding Abudayyeh and 22 other activists from Chicago, Minneapolis and Grand Rapids, Mich., appear before a grand jury.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110208/ap_on_re_us/us_fbi_raids_terrorism
Clash looms over extending surveillance methods
WASHINGTON (Reuters) 8 Feb – The Obama administration on Tuesday urged Congress to extend for nearly three years key powers to track terrorism suspects, setting up a possible clash with Senate Republicans who have urged making them permanent.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110208/pl_nm/us_usa_security_surveillance

 
     

What planet are they on? Which century? Israeli parliamentarians toil against ‘mixed race’ couples

Feb 09, 2011

Philip Weiss

 

From Yedioth

Tzipi Hotovely (Likud), who chairs the Knesset’s Committee on the Status of Women, led the debate held on the first ever Jewish Identity Day. She claimed that the only way to prevent assimilation is through education, in which the state is not investing enough.

“The assimilation struggle reaches headlines through stories of Jewish women marrying Muslims, but it’s important to remember that this phenomenon is much broader. Over 92,000 families living in Israel are of mixed race,” said Hotovely. “We need programs to teach young girls in high school about Jewish identity.”

MK Michael Ben Ari (National Union) added: “The obstacle standing in our way is the legitimization of assimilation. No one sees assimilations as the downfall of the Israeli people. Golda Meir once said that a Jew who marries a non-Jew joins the six million.”