Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, April 06, 2012

Fisking part of "The New American Haggadah" (guest post)

I was sent this, and it looks right on target:

Devoted readers of the Forward and other progressive Jews are abuzz with the NEW AMERICAN HAGGADAH, edited by Jonathan Safran Foer and newly (and literally) translated by Nathan Englander. In his ferocious review of Leon Wieseltier takes a swipe at Lemony Snicket’s contribution entitled “Playground,” apparently addressed to the children (or the child in us).

But not even this degree of intellectual lightness can justify the lame improv called “Playground” by the American Jewish writer who calls himself Lemony Snicket. If there is anything innovative about the New American Haggadah, it is the introduction into the Passover literature of this voice—puerile, trivializing, supercilious, calculatingly quirky, painfully unhilarious—a punk in a yarmulke. Here, for example, is his tiresome gloss on the Four Sons:

In addition to all the throw-away dismissals Wieseltier offers, there are still greater insights to be gleaned from this passage about the mind-set of the folks who put this Haggadah together.

Some scholars believe there are four kinds of parents as well.

Scholars is presumably the modern replacement of rabbinic authorities. Fair enough. People learned in the tradition, who take a more secularized approach to the literature, at once knowledgeable and freed from dogmas about “Torah from Sinai”… certainly worth consideration, if not credence. And the notion that one might do an inversion of the 4 children is actually very promising… if done with some depth and wisdom.

Don’t hold your breath.

The Wise Parent is an utter bore. “Listen closely, because you are younger than I am,” says the Wise Parent, “and I will go on and on about Jewish history, based on some foggy memories of my own religious upbringing, as well as an article in a Jewish journal I have recently skimmed.” The Wise Parent must be faced with a small smile of dim interest.

Wow! Given what we know is coming (wicked, simple and doesn’t know to ask), this is the best we’re going to get. What we have here described is not a wise parent, but a superficial fool who mistakes age for wisdom, who has nothing of substance to say but bullshits his way through the situation on the basis of stuff he’s skimmed. In other words, he’s the epitome of the narcissistic secular Jew who had a minimal Jewish education which he maintains by reading “scholars” in journals, and expects to have the respect of his children. Not to get personal here, but could this me Lemony’s dad? And this is the best Lemony can imagine from parents? He’s like Peter Pan, eternally adolescent.

The Wicked Parent tries to cram the story of our liberation into a set of narrow opinions about the world. “The Lord led us out of Egypt,” the Wicked Parent says, “which is why I support a bloodthirsty foreign policy and am tired of certain types of people causing problems.” The Wicked Parent should be told in a firm voice, “With a strong hand God rescued the Jews from bondage, but it was my own clumsy hand that spilled hot soup in your lap.”

Wow again. So the bad parent is the “conservative,” the “hawk” who, having learned the lesson of the Holocaust, does not think that “war is not the answer.” And Lemony, who knows better than the older generation because… because, well he’s sure that if all Jews were liberals and progressives like himself, then there would be no anti-Semitism, has nothing but contempt for the bloodthirsty fool. As for the reference to “tired of certain types causing trouble,” is that a reference to freethinkers (like Lemony?), or to the Alice Rothschilds and Norman Finkelsteins of the world who compare Israel to the Nazis?

The Simple Parent does not grasp the concept of freedom. “There will be no macaroons until you eat all your brisket,” says the Simple Parent, at a dinner honoring the liberation of oppressed peoples. “Also, stop slouching at the table.” In answer to such statements, the Wise Child will roll his eyes in the direction of the ceiling and declare, “Let my people go!”

Now here’s an interesting fumble: mistaking license for freedom. As everyone from the rabbis to Erich Fromm have pointed out, there is no real freedom without discipline, and anyone who thinks that instilling discipline is restricting freedom has no real understanding. Here Lemony plays the role of the single uncle who encourages the kids to be wild, to show contempt for parents, to “let it all hang out.” Why not just say “caca doodoo.” Training the “rebels” of the next generation? Or the self-indulgent narcissists?

The Parent Who Is Unable to Inquire has had too much wine, and should be excused from the table.

Four of a kind – all the parents are contemptible. What a pathetic effort to mirror the Haggadah. And why did Safran Foer include this in his collection? Why didn’t he send it back to Lemony for a major rewrite? Notes Wieseltier:

Is this the cry of a generation? A pitch for Zach Galifianakis? There is something sad about such a fear of adulthood. It is an Egypt of its own.

It’s called never-never land. And if there were any self-condemning statement of a generation raised by largely secular parents who, met with a “generation gap” of their own, produced a host of self-satisfied pygmies, this is it.

If the Haggadah is a monument to memory in all its forms and the chain of transmission from generation to generation, this commentary is a monument to trivialization and breaking that chain.

Hopefully serious and playful liberals/progressives can do a lot better than this.

Morning links

Challah Hu Akbar has done some great work looking at a fake human rights organization set up by the Palestinian Authority in Geneva.

He also has nice photos of Islamic Jihad child abuse.

There was an assassination attempt against a leading anti-Hezbollah Lebanese politician.

I didn't cover the Günter Grass kerfuffle, but you can read about it here. An op-ed here.

Khaled Abu Toameh on the crime of "extending tongues" in Jordan and under the PA.

"Hezbollah has 300 operatives in NYC"

Egypt's top archaeologist who called himself "Indiana Jones" faces charges. He's a real anti-semite.

Taking photos in Jordan, even for a tourist guidebook, is not a smart idea - if you have an Israeli passport.

Everyone has seen Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 classic movie The Ten Commandments. But how many have seen his 1923 silent movie version? Here's the splitting of the sea, very impressive for 1923!

You can see the entire film here. Too bad it glosses over nine of the ten plagues.

Here's the first New York Times (headlined) article about Passover, from 1869:

(h/t Yoel, Samson, Yid With Lid)

Fatah students damage model of Al Aqsa

During the student elections at Bir Zeit University this week, students who support Hamas would carry around a model of the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque at their rallies.

The election was hard fought and there is a lot of bad blood between the two parties. Hamas media are now publishing photos of damage done to at least one of these models, allegedly by Fatah students:

Will there be a fatwa calling for a jihad against Fatah? You never know.

Israeli government and PLO agree: Jews cannot buy property in Hebron (updated)

From AFP:

A Palestinian man suspected of mediating in the contested sale of a house in Hebron to Jewish settlers has been detained, Palestinian security sources told AFP on Thursday.

Israeli security forces on Wednesday evicted a group of settlers from a house in the West Bank city, a day after they were ordered to leave the property.

Six settler families had moved into the property a week ago, claiming they had legally purchased one floor of the building from its Palestinian owners.

Palestinian sources in Hebron said the property belonged to the Abu Rajab family, some of whom live on the first floor of the building, and that it was possible that a member of the family had sold the second floor of the house.

But the buyer was not settlers, rather a Palestinian man originally from the Gaza Strip, who is suspected of acting as a middle-man for Jewish groups involved in buying Palestinian assets, the Palestinian security sources said.

This go-between, who worked for Palestinian national security in Ramallah before retiring, was detained earlier this week by Palestinian security forces, and was being held in Ramallah, the sources said.

They added that the member of the Abu Rajab family believed to have sold the asset to the middle-man had "escaped to Israel."

The Jewish Press has more detail:

At a press conference outside Machpelah House which had been evacuated Wednesday in Hebron, Shlomo Levinger and attorney Doron Nir-Tzvi told reporters that the purchase of Machpelah House had been in the making for some three years. The tenants had planned to patiently await government approval for their purchase of the house from a local Arab.

But the arrest of several Arabs by the Palestinian Authority on suspicion of selling real estate to the Jewish group – a crime which could be punished with death – changed the plan, and the group decided to move in despite the murky prospects of staying.

Knowing full well how hard it would be to establish residency in a newly purchased house—facing a hostile Israeli civil authority whose directive is to strictly limit the growth of the city’s Jewish community, the group of buyers was moving slowly and quietly, through intermediaries and straw men, forever remaining below the radar for three years.

At the press conference, Levinger said they paid four times the value of the house, which has been estimated at around $250 thousand. Earlier in the day, when the Jewish Press asked Levinger to confirm a rumor that they paid half a million dollars for the house, he said, “I wish it would have been that amount.”

The money for the purchase came from donations of Jews from Israel and abroad. “Every week we would travel to meetings in private homes, collecting one shekel after another,” Levinger said. “There were times when we came back with only a few single shekels, other times we’d pick up thousands. We spent days and nights collecting this money, faithfully and lovingly.

“Once the money had been collected, we embarked on the purchase deal. It was a Sysiphian labor. We knew that the Attorney General’s office would be looking everywhere for possible holes in the deal.”

According to Doron Nir-Tzvi, in Judea and Samaria, real estate deals are conducted in an anachronistic fashion, whereby a deal must first be completed before the buyers are permitted to apply for government approval (Heter Iskah). Therefore, once every last T was crossed and I dotted, the buyers planned to wait patiently for their deal to go through.

Sources in the Civil Administration were telling them they couldn’t find faults with the deal, that despite themselves they would end up having to approve it.

But then the PA arrested both straw men who had been carrying out different part of the bargain, followed by the jailing of their family members as well.

At this point, Levinger et al felt that their only recourse was to take possession of the property, or risk losing the deal altogether.

Both Levinger and Nir-Tzvi expressed concern for the jailed Palestinians. Levinger told the Jewish Press earlier that he was urging the Israeli government to demand their release of the Palestinian Authority.

It looks like no one is disputing that a sale occurred and it was legal. The Jews in Hebron say they have full documentation and video of the transaction.

But there are places in the world that Jews are not allowed to buy real estate because they are Jews. For example, Jordan, Saudi Arabia - and the ancient Jewish holy city of Hebron.

UPDATE: From My Right Word's Yisrael Medad in the comments:

I'm going to be an apikores here (while opposing the policy, of course) but to be fair. There is a right to purchase property and there is the right (and privilege) to reside in that property. As far as I know, what the GOI has done, deplorable, yes, is to act to prevent Jews from dwelling in the house that was purchased. The house is in H2. In fact, in last Friday's Haaretz, May 29, in other words 6 full days before the eviction, it was made clear in print that a special permission needed to be obtained from the Defense Ministry. In other words, what Haaretz and Peace Now knew, Shlomo Levinger knew.

The Elder of Ziyon Haggadah still available for free download!

In 2009, I made a Haggadah using various sources from the Internet, with a religious Zionist theme. Since then a couple of thousand people have downloaded it and many used it for their sedarim.

It is suitable for printing. (I suppose it might work well on an iPad, but I don't recommend using it as an e-book for the seder. Especially around the wine.)

Every year I think I'm going to edit it and make it into a real Haggadah for purchase, and every year I'm too busy. Or lazy.

So you can still use it for free!

It is available here.

Passover greetings from the IDF and the Israeli Navy

First, a fairly standard but nice video from the IDF:

But I like this Israeli Navy photo better!

(h/t Israel Embassy Twitter and Ian)

PA Mufti denies there was ever a Jewish Temple!

From the ever-vigilant Palestinian Media Watch (not yet on their site):

PA Mufti Muhammad Hussein on PA TV News:

"They [Jews] want to say or suggest that this place (Temple Mount) was once, according to their claim, a Temple. However, in truth, there never was a Temple in any period, nor was there, at any time, any place of worship for the Jews or others at the Al-Aqsa Mosque site (built on the Temple Mount, 705 CE)."
[PA TV (Fatah), Jan. 5, 2012]

So where exactly did Mohammed tether his magical flying horse again? Ah, the wall of the Farthest Mosque that had not yet been built.

By the way, buried in the Palestinian Authority Central Bureau of Statistics website, we see a timeline of Jerusalem history that includes:

20 AD

Herod allows the return of the Jews and the building of the temple.

The date is obviously wrong, but it still contradicts the Mufti.

So does this PA tourism site:

Macdoni Alexander : The country was under the Persian regime, until Alexander conquered it in 332 B.C. Domination over Orshaleem, fluctuated at the time of his successors; The Batalma and the Sloqs. Population were influenced at the time of Heilinsity with the Greek civilization. The Sloqi king, Antiokhos, the fourth, in (165) B.C. destroyed the Temple and compelled the Jews to convert into Greek idolatry. That resulted in the flare up of the Macabian revolution, and the Jews won the independence of Orshaleem under The Hasmonians regime from 135 B.C to 76 B.c.

These will get scrubbed soon, no doubt.

(h/t Andreas)

Lies about Christian access to Jerusalem during Holy Week

From WaPo:

Because of travel restrictions in past years, the vast majority of Christians living in the West Bank have been stopped at checkpoints and prevented from attending one of the most important religious services of the year. Israeli authorities require permits for entering Jerusalem. Local Christians estimate that only 2,000 — 3,000 permits are provided, despite the overwhelming desire among the 50,000 Palestinian Christians to travel from the West Bank and Gaza for the Easter week celebrations in Jerusalem.

Those who make it across checkpoints and into Israel are still barricaded by numerous walls and other security obstructions. As a result, even many who have permits are unable to make it to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In 2010, a Palestinian colleague of mine at World Vision, who had warm memories as a child of the Holy Fire service, was able to return to the Holy Sepulchre. She described the scene for those able to gain entrance to the church: “The crowd, striving to stay joyful, could still feel the change of what Easter had now become and the dark cloud of checkpoints, police forces, and denial of entry that had obscured the joy of this holiday.”

While the ancient Christian communities around Jerusalem await the miracle of the Holy Fire this week, I pray for another miracle — one that would give full religious freedom to the Christians in the West Bank and Gaza. Holy Week has long been a time of pilgrimage to Jerusalem; Christians have worshiped there since the birth of the church, and these sites are a core aspect of the devotion of Palestinian believers.

From AFP:

Christian Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza need an entry permit, generally freely granted by the Israeli authorities, to attend religious festivals in Jerusalem.

From Times of Israel:

Israel’s ambassador to the United States on Thursday denounced as “libelous” an article that appeared in The Washington Post which claimed that Israel prevents “the vast majority of Christians living in the West Bank” from entering Jerusalem to attend Easter holy week ceremonies.

“It’s a libelous article,” Ambassador Michael Oren said of the piece.

“The army and security services have created a situation where virtually any Christian in the West Bank can visit the Holy Places in Jerusalem on Good Friday and Easter.” He estimated that some 20,000 entry permits had been issued this year.

Officials said only West Bank Christians suspected of posing a security risk were denied permits. They said Israel also annually issues hundreds of permits for the diminishing Christian community in Hamas-controlled Gaza to come to Jerusalem at Easter.

History repeats itself. See my piece from 2010 disproving a Reuters article claiming that the number of Christians visiting Jerusalem during Holy Week has plummeted since Israel controlled Jerusalem. In reality, it has gone way, way up. And that was when Israel only gave out 10,000 permits for Palestinian Christians - half the number given out this year.

And you may want to read my related 2010 article that destroys a lie about access to holy places in Jerusalem under Jordanian rule that was propagated by an Arab who is in no way an extremist - but that doesn't make him less of a liar.

HRW report on discrimination against Roma, Jews in Bosnia

From Human Rights Watch:

Roma, Jews, and other national minorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina remain excluded from participation in national politics 20 years after war began, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Bosnia needs to remove ethnic discrimination against national minorities from its constitution, laws, and public institutions, Human Rights Watch said.

The 62-page report, “Second Class Citizens: Discrimination Against Roma, Jews, and Other National Minorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” highlights discrimination against Roma, Jews, and other national minorities in politics and government. Much of this discrimination stems from Bosnia’s 1995 Constitution, which mandates a system of government based on ethnicity and excludes these groups from high political office. The report also shows the wider impact of discrimination on the daily lives of Roma in accessing housing, education, healthcare, and employment.

HRW definitely uncovers and highlights official discrimination against Bosnia-Herzegovina's minorities.

Their emphasis on Jews in the report is interesting.

There are only 500 Jews in Bosnia now, as opposed to (probably) tens of thousands of Roma and hundreds of thousands of members of other ethnic groups who suffer discrimination. The report even mentions that Jews manage to obtain high-level civil service jobs, although they are hampered from running for political office. So why is HRW emphasizing the comparatively few Jews?

There are two possible explanations.

One is that the Jewish community, although tiny, is well organized so it is easier to get perspective on minority rights by speaking to them. In fact, Jewish community leader Jakob Finci brought a lawsuit complaining about the inability of minorities to run for president. The Jews' cohesion gives them greater visibility.

But I can't help but think that the major reason that Jews are in the title of the report as well as disproportionately featured within was that HRW wanted to get more publicity, and Jews are news. The report barely mentions Albanians and Macedonians, who outnumber Jews by a factor of forty in the country.

This is not to say that the report is not a good exposé on the very real state-mandated discrimination in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Its just that in this case their highlighting of Jews as victims seems a little misplaced, and possibly political.

More evidence of Iran's nuclear weapons program

Circumstantial, but still compelling.

From the end of a Ha'aretz article:

Regarding Syria's WMD aspirations, Clapper indicated that Damascus clandestine nuclear program, one on which it cooperated with North Korea, operated for more than a decade, since the late 1990s and until the 2007 destruction of the "Kibar" reactor.

According to the report, had the reactor not been destroyed – in an action attributed to the Israeli air force – the Syrian plant could have started producing weapons-grade plutonium. The IAEA's investigation of the "Syrian nuclear case" is ongoing.

So the North Koreans helped Syria in their clandestine nuclear weapons program - and there is strong evidence that the North Koreans are helping Iran in their nuclear program as well.

Who thinks that Iran is hiring North Koreans for their expertise in peaceful nuclear technology?

The question isn't if there is a smoking gun proving Iran's goal to produce a nuclear bomb. The question is, what evidence is there that the Iranian nuclear program is not meant for weapons?

PLO condemns efforts to protect Jewish lives at Mount of Olives

Islamist site Quds Media writes:

The Department of Jerusalem Affairs of the Palestine Liberation Organization condemned the planned opening of an occupying Israeli police station in the Mount of Olives tomorrow in the presence of internal security minister and police chief of the occupation in Jerusalem.

The Jerusalem affairs department warned in a statement of the seriousness of this which falls within the planned Israeli settlement of the Judaization of the Mount of Olives east of the Al Aqsa Mosque.

Here's something that happened on the Mount of Olives last week that they didn't condemn:

Last Tuesday, several hours before he was to wed, a young bridegroom wished to say a short prayer at his mother’s grave on Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives. He lost his mother last year and a visit to the cemetery constituted for him her inclusion in his special day. He was driven up by his friend Dror Klein.

As they neared their destination, a bucket of white paint crashed into the front windshield, obscuring Dror’s view. A hail of stones followed.

In minutes some 30 to 40 young Arabs surrounded the vehicle, rocking it menacingly and hurling large rocks, cement blocks and broken pavement fragments at the two.

The bridegroom was dragged out of the car, a boulder was smashed on his head and he was beaten up to the sounds of Alahu Akhbar (God is great). Dror somehow managed to maneuver his Hyundai directly at the attackers. As they momentarily scurried, the bridegroom and his resourceful driver got away by the skin of their teeth.

Dror said the mob had “murderous looks and we began reciting Shema Yisrael” – the prayer Jews say when death seems imminent.

The terse police statement later noted that “light injuries were sustained. The victims were evacuated to Sha’arei Zedek Hospital. The police are trying to track down the perpetrators.”

But the police know exactly where they came from. An Arab boys’ school is positioned directly alongside the road leading to the venerable ancient Jewish cemetery. The majority of incidents originate there. The attackers are generally teenagers and they often prepare ambushes well in advance. The fact that they had paint at the ready, along with arsenals of heavy rocks, betokens unquestionable premeditation.

Moreover, their violence is steadily ramped up to the point where fatalities should surprise no one. For years they stoned vehicles on their way to the second holiest Jewish site in Jerusalem. Gradual escalation has led to actual concerted lynching attempts. This isn’t esoteric information.

Predations occur daily. Headstones are hammered and graves daubed with paint and tar, smeared with human feces, covered in garbage and debris and defaced with hate inscriptions. Even the numerous graves of some of the most famous Jews throughout the generations aren’t spared this deliberate despoilment.

Particularly maddening is the fact that the persistent and exacerbated attacks at the Mount receive minimal resonance in our media.

Several ways exist of putting an immediate and effective end to the daily anti-Jewish assaults. The school can be closed down until ironclad guarantees are obtained that brutality from its grounds would cease forthwith. Any repeat aggression would lead to another closure.

Alternatively, the police can establish a permanent presence on the road to the cemetery both to protect visitors and deter their tormentors. This isn’t rocket science and can be achieved.

To allow unrestrained lawlessness at so sacred a site is what’s fundamentally unthinkable. Mourners should not fear for their lives at any cemetery anywhere in Israel, but all the more so at the most ancient continuously used burial ground anywhere in the world.

The Mount of Olives was already consecrated as the last resting place for Jerusalem’s Jews pre-First Temple days 3,000 years ago. It still serves that purpose. The only break was during the 19 years of Jordanian rule between 1948-1967. Not only were Jews barred entry then (in brazen contravention of armistice treaty obligations), but ancient irreplaceable tombstones were ripped out and used for the construction of roads, army barracks and – underscoring the intent to defile, desecrate and humiliate – as walls and floors of public latrines.

The Jewish return to an indisputably Jewish site is what world opinion and the Arabs now deem as “occupation.”

You will not find a word in Arabic media condemning the daily desecration and attacks at the Mount of Olives. But as soon as the slightest step is taken to prevent such attacks, the PLO - Israel's purported peace partner - is quick to deplore Israel.

Maybe they want to use the gravestones to build more latrines. I'm sure they can find some UN resolution that they can twist to make it sound like it is their sacred right.

China showing new interest in Israel

Here's the summary of a new, very interesting JCPA report:

In recent years, the world has witnessed China’s growing involvement in the international arena – whether through its veto in the UN Security Council, its military conducting anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden and contributing to peacekeeping missions in Africa and the Middle East, buying U.S. and EU debt, or its declaration that the South China Sea is an integral part of China.

In the minds of the Chinese, Jews retain a highly respected status as a people who have survived over the millennia against all odds and have attained achievements that belie their miniscule numbers. The Chinese take great pride in Shanghai’s status as one of the only cities in the world that accepted Jewish refugees during World War II.

In the 12th Five-Year Plan, published in 2011, China’s leadership announced a national intention to raise the country from being the world’s factory to becoming a leading innovator. This new focus led the Chinese to seek the potential contribution of Israel – the “Start-Up Nation.”

Interactions between China and Israel had risen significantly over the years but had remained largely “off the record,” due to the Arab nations’ strong influence on the PRC leadership’s public approach to Israel. In 2011 this began to change. Five formally acknowledged Israel Studies programs were established across China, and in September, China’s most powerful political body – the Communist Party – expressed a formal interest in Israel’s political echelons in a public fashion by participating in the first-ever China-Israel Strategy and Security Symposium at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya.

Despite its close ties with the Arab world, China was caught completely off guard by the Arab Spring. They were devastated by the $20 billion in losses they suffered with the fall of Gaddafi, hammering home their lack of understanding of the Middle East. In their search for accurate and reliable information, leading academics began to seek out Israel, an island of stability whose geographic proximity to the Arab Spring offers unique access.

The entire report is worth reading.

Egypt's MB tell US they are democratic, tell clerics they can legislate Sharia

How the Muslim Brotherhood tries to win over the West:

With PowerPoint presentations and political promises, Egypt's influential Muslim Brotherhood made its US diplomatic debut this week hoping to persuade Washington that the Islamist group is committed to democracy and rule of law.

A delegation from the Freedom and Justice Party, the political wing of the once-banned Islamist movement, has been making the Washington rounds talking to officials and think tank experts about their growing role as Egypt heads toward its presidential election.

"We are here to start building bridges of understanding with the United States," Sondos Asem, a member of the party's foreign relations committee and editor of its official English language website, said at a forum at Georgetown University in Washington.

But at the same time it is making promises to the Salafists, too:

The Muslim Brotherhood's candidate for Egypt's presidency is lobbying hard for support of ultraconservative Muslim clerics, promising them a say over legislation in the future to ensure it is in line with Islamic law, as he tries to rally the divided Islamist vote behind him.

The campaign dealmaking is a sign of how the Brotherhood, which is Egypt's strongest political movement and presents itself to the public as a moderate force, could be pushed into a more hard-line agenda by competition from the ultraconservatives known as Salafis.

Giving Muslim clerics a direct say over legislation would be unprecedented in Egypt. Specifics of the Brotherhood promise, which Salafi clerics said Wednesday the candidate Khairat al-Shater gave them in a backroom meeting, were not known. But any clerical role would certainly raise a backlash from liberal and moderate Egyptians who already fear Islamists will sharply restrict civil rights as they gain political power after the fall last year of President Hosni Mubarak.

It would also damage the image that the Brotherhood itself promoted for the past year, insisting it does not seek a theocracy in Egypt or to quickly implement Sharia.

Shater met for four hours Tuesday night with a panel of Salafi scholars and clerics, called the Jurisprudence Commission for Rights and Reform, trying to win their support.

The discussion focused on "the shape of the state and the implementation of Sharia," the commission said on its Facebook page Wednesday.

"Shater stressed that Sharia is his top and final goal and that he would work on forming a group of religious scholars to help Parliament achieve this goal," the statement read. The commission is an umbrella group of Islamist factions, mostly Salafis, set up after last year's anti-Mubarak uprising.

A Brotherhood spokesman could not immediately confirm the offer and attempts to reach the head of the commission went unsuccessful.

The promise resembled an item in a 2007 political platform by the Brotherhood, when it was still a banned opposition movement. It called for Parliament to consult with a body of clerics on legislation to ensure it aligns with Sharia. The proposal was met with a storm of condemnation at the time, and the Brotherhood backed off of it.

A democracy where the laws are decided and approved by a hand-picked group of unelected clerics? Congratulations, Egypt!

Egypt Independent also makes it sound like Shater is fighting an uphill battle to win the election as the Islamist vote would be split and a liberal candidate might take advantage of that, but I'm very skeptical. In a runoff election, the voting would go the way that the parliamentary elections went, so the MB candidate just has to make it to that point in order to guarantee an Islamist future for Egypt.