Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, July 03, 2013

Libyan cleric "We don't want women's soccer! We want more floggings!"

Well, floggings would get better ratings.

Following are excerpts from a Friday sermon delivered by Sheik Salem Jaber, in Benghazi, Libya, which aired on Libya Al-Hurra TV on June 7, 2013:

Salem Jaber: Every day, I hope to hear on TV that from now on, anybody who drinks wine will receive 40 or 80 lashes, or that a fornicator – male or female – will receive 100 lashes, in accordance with the explicit word of the Koran.

So it came as a surprise to me to hear the news that a sports team was being established at the university. Is it for youth who are failing in their studies? Or is it for outstanding youth? No, it is for neither. Tall, young, and beautiful girls were picked for the team. Just what our country needed... A woman's soccer team.

Is this what our country needs? What about Islamic universities? What about Islamic punishments? What about judges? What about rights and duties? What about the fear of Allah? What about implementing the punishments decreed by Allah?

Whose daughters are these? Are they the daughters of Jews, of Christians, or of Zoroastrians? Are they the daughters of heretics? Of Communists? It is written in their fathers' ID cards that they are Muslim.

But today, these girls are exposing their heads. Is this to be allowed? In a few months' time, they will be exposing their legs. The day they joined [the soccer team], exposing what should be hidden, these girls sold out their honor, and soiled the honor of their families with the filth of nudity and shamelessness.

I take that back. The ratings for nude and shameless women's soccer, populated exclusively by "tall, young, and beautiful girls," would go through the roof!

Hamas investigates itself, finds itself innocent

From Ma'an:

An inquiry committee tasked to investigate the death of a member of Islamic Jihad during a shootout with Hamas police on Tuesday acquitted the officers on any wrongdoing.

Hamas' interior ministry commissioned the inquiry last week following the death of Raed Qassim Jundeyeih, a member of Islamic Jihad's militant wing, the Al-Quds Brigades, who died after being shot by Hamas police officers.

The inquiry concluded that there was shooting from both police officers and Jundeyeih, and that police were firing warning shots and did not intend to kill or injure him.

It is likely that Jundeyeih was killed by a stray bullet, the report said.

CSI:Hamas has solved another case!

Morsi critic goes crazy in TV studio (video) (UPDATE - Translation)

This video is making the rounds on Arabic websites. It shows lawyer and political activist Ihab al-Kholi commenting during the anti-Morsi demonstrations and becoming more and more agitated as he screams at the top of his lungs about how evil the Egyptian president is, as the hostess of the show tries to calm him down worried that he will have a stroke (Updated - here is now MEMRI's version with translation):

Some of the stuff he is blaming Morsi for? His closeness to America - and Israel! He railed against Morsi's diplomatic letters to Israel's president that put him in hot water in Egypt.

Hate for Israel and Jews is a given, no matter who is in office in Egypt.

(Apparently, so is sexual assault of women - but the latter, unlike the former, gets attention from HRW.)

Can Islam be reformed? (Daniel Pipes)

This is a very thought-provoking article by Daniel Pipes, behind Commentary's paywall but also on his website. Here are excerpts:

My argument has two parts. First, the essentialist position of many analysts is wrong; and second, a reformed Islam can emerge.

To state that Islam can never change is to assert that the Koran and Hadith, which constitute the religion's core, must always be understood in the same way. But to articulate this position is to reveal its error, for nothing human abides forever. Everything, including the reading of sacred texts, changes over time. Everything has a history. And everything has a future that will be unlike its past.

Only by failing to account for human nature and by ignoring more than a millennium of actual changes in the Koran's interpretation can one claim that the Koran has been understood identically over time. Changes have applied in such matters as jihad<>, slavery, usury<>, the principle of "no compulsion in religion," and the role of women. Moreover, the many important interpreters of Islam over the past 1,400 years—ash-Shafi'i, al-Ghazali, Ibn Taymiya, Rumi, Shah Waliullah, and Ruhollah Khomeini come to mind—disagreed deeply among themselves about the content of the message of Islam.

However central the Koran and Hadith may be, they are not the totality of the Muslim experience; the accumulated experience of Muslim peoples from Morocco to Indonesia and beyond matters no less. To dwell on Islam's scriptures is akin to interpreting the United States solely through the lens of the Constitution; ignoring the country's history would lead to a distorted understanding.

Put differently, medieval Muslim civilization excelled and today's Muslims lag behind<> in nearly every index of achievement. But if things can get worse, they can also get better. Likewise, in my own career, I witnessed Islamism rise from minimal beginnings when I entered the field in 1969 to the great powers it enjoys today; if Islamism can thus grow, it can also decline.

Key to Islam's role in public life is Sharia and the many untenable demands it makes on Muslims. Running a government with the minimal taxes permitted by Sharia has proved to be unsustainable; and how can one run a financial system without charging interest? A penal system that requires four men to view an adulterous act in flagrante delicto is impractical. Sharia's prohibition on warfare against fellow Muslims is impossible for all to live up to; indeed, roughly three-quarters of all warfare waged by Muslims has been directed against other Muslims. Likewise, the insistence on perpetual jihad against non-Muslims demands too much.

To get around these and other unrealistic demands, premodern Muslims developed certain legal fig leaves that allowed for the relaxation of Islamic provisions without directly violating them. Jurists came up with hiyal (tricks) and other means by which the letter of the law could be fulfilled while negating its spirit. For example, various mechanisms were developed to live in harmony with non-Muslim states. There is also the double sale (bai al-inah) of an item, which permits the purchaser to pay a disguised form of interest. Wars against fellow Muslims were renamed jihad....

While the medieval synthesis worked over the centuries, it never overcame a fundamental weakness: It is not comprehensively rooted in or derived from the foundational, constitutional texts of Islam. Based on compromises and half measures, it always remained vulnerable to challenge by purists. Indeed, premodern Muslim history featured many such challenges, including the Almohad movement in 12th-century North Africa and the Wahhabi movement in 18th-century Arabia. In each case, purist efforts eventually subsided and the medieval synthesis reasserted itself, only to be challenged anew by purists. This alternation between pragmatism and purism characterizes Muslim history, contributing to its instability.

...If Islamism is to be defeated, anti-Islamist Muslims must develop an alternative vision of Islam and explanation for what it means to be a Muslim. In doing so, they can draw on the past, especially the reform efforts from the span of 1850 to1950, to develop a "modern synthesis" comparable to the medieval model. This synthesis would choose among Shari precepts and render Islam compatible with modern values. It would accept gender equality, coexist peacefully with unbelievers, and reject the aspiration of a universal caliphate, among other steps.

Here, Islam can profitably be compared with the two other major monotheistic religions. A half millennium ago, Jews, Christians, and Muslims all broadly agreed that enforced labor was acceptable and that paying interest on borrowed money was not. Eventually, after bitter and protracted debates, Jews and Christians changed their minds on these two issues; today, no Jewish or Christian voices endorse slavery or condemn the payment of reasonable interest on loans.

Among Muslims, however, these debates have only begun....

Reformist Muslims must do better than their medieval predecessors and ground their interpretation in both scripture and the sensibilities of the age. For Muslims to modernize their religion they must emulate their fellow monotheists and adapt their religion with regard to slavery and interest, the treatment of women, the right to leave Islam, legal procedure, and much else. When a reformed, modern Islam emerges it will no longer endorse unequal female rights, the dhimmi status, jihad, or suicide terrorism, nor will it require the death penalty for adultery, breaches of family honor, blasphemy, and apostasy.

Already in this young century, a few positive signs in this direction can be discerned. Note some developments concerning women:

Saudi Arabia's Shura Council has responded to rising public outrage over child marriages by setting the age of majority at 18. Though this doesn't end child marriages, it moves toward abolishing the practice.

Turkish clerics have agreed to let menstruating women attend mosque and pray next to men.

The Iranian government has nearly banned the stoning of convicted adulterers.

Women in Iran have won broader rights to sue their husbands for divorce.

A conference of Muslim scholars in Egypt deemed clitoridectomies contrary to Islam and, in fact, punishable.

A key Indian Muslim institution, Darul Uloom Deoband, issued a fatwa against polygamy.

The Saudi government abolished jizya (the practice of enforcing a poll tax on non-Muslims).

An Iranian court ordered the family of a murdered Christian to receive the same compensation as that of a Muslim victim.

Scholars meeting at the International Islamic Fiqh Academy in Sharjah have started to debate and challenge the call for apostates to be executed.

Pipes' ideas for helping these changes occur seem a bit too simplistic to me - he advocates Muslim reformers find a way within Islam to implement their ideas, and non-Muslims should "support" the reformers, whatever that means.

In general, though, I believe that outside pressure can and does have an effect on Islam.

To me, the key is to take advantage of the honor/shame mindset and continually shame the Muslims into increasing human rights. The examples that Pipes gives of slowly increasing human rights for women in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, for example, is only happening because Muslims were embarrassed to be seen as backwards by the West. On the flip side, the reason that there has been a rise in Islamism lately is because Muslims were shamed by the idea that they weren't adhering to the religion properly enough by the radicals. In both cases, it is shame that is the driving factor.

Similarly, it was only twelve years ago that Al Jazeera was making Bin Laden into a hero; that changed over time as the network wanted to be accepted as a proper new outlet worldwide. It simply was too ashamed to keep the same editorial position while seeking the approval of the West.

Pipes shows how Islam can reform itself given enough incentive. I think that using shame is the most effective leverage the West has to change Islam today. Unfortunately, it is a lever that many Westerners are too frightened to pull, because of fears of acting like elitists. This needs to change. Human rights applies to all humans and giving a free pass to some because they say their religious beliefs trump those rights does no one any favors.

(h/t MtTB)

Four Israeli universities ranked in the top 100 worldwide

In the latest Center for World University Rankings, four Israeli universities make it to the top 100.

Hebrew University is ranked #21, Weizmann Institute #33, Tel Aviv U #57 and Technion #66.

The US has 57 of the top 100 schools, followed by England and Japan (6 each), France (5), and Israel and Canada (4 each).

Muslim Brotherhood losing it

Here's a fascinating tweet from the Muslim Brotherhood's official account:

Reports of imminent massacre awaiting supporters of Prez #Morsi sitting-in in #Rabaa Adawya Sq at dawn, planned by police using armed thugs

Not a massacre - an "imminent massacre."

But even more interesting is how the MB is now painting the police as its enemy, and spinning conspiracy theories of a massive plot against it.

Reading the English Ikhwanweb site feels like reading Syrian press websites: spinning stories of all opponents as being anti-democratic and terrorists, and making it sound like there are far more supporters of the regime than there are opponents. See, for example, this article that tries to make it sound like millions of people rallied for Morsi Tuesday while not even mentioning the anti-Mosri rallies on Sunday (There were pro-Morsi rallies, but not in the millions.)

Clearly, they are feeling the heat, and like all despots, they lash out at their opponents rather than try to look like real leaders.

By the way, the pressure on the Brotherhood isn't only coming from the left, but also from the more extremist Islamist Salafis - the MB's coalition partners! Even they called for new elections, indicating both that they believe that the current government is a sinking ship and that they think that they can do better than they did in the last election!

So, just as during the last Egyptian revolution, don't automatically assume that the secularists will automatically win. The next election might end up worse than the last one!

Paris museum takes down "art" that glorified terrorists (update - not correct)

Last month I mentioned that a Paris museum was exhibiting pro-terrorist "art". Protests were planned outside the museum.

The protests worked, and the museum has seemingly closed the show, which was supposed to run until September 1. The sign on the door says it was closed "due to circumstances beyond our control."

From Europe-Israel:

At the initiative of Europe Israel joined by France-Israel, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the JDL, 400 people demonstrated this afternoon [June 30] in front of the Paris museum Jeu de Paume against an exhibition showing the thugs who praised Palestinian terrorists, such as those who blow themselves up in Israeli schools and buses, as "martyrs."

The reference to the terrorists as "martyrs" by the "artist"was what changed this exhibition from an objective view of the reality of how many Palestinian Arabs give terrorists rock-star status into an exhibit that supports that viewpoint itself.

(h/t Irene)

UPDATE: I believe I misunderstood the door sign; I thought it said the exhibit was closed as of June 30 but it really says it was only closed that day. As far as I know, it is still there, and more demonstrations are planned.

7/02 Links Part 2: European Hate Roundup, India & Israel Growing Partnership and R.F.K in Israel

From Ian:

The Untold Truth: 150 Million Europeans Hate Israel

In a thought-provoking new book, Demonizing Israel and the Jews, Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld, a board member of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, posits that today, well over 150 million Europeans believe that Israel is exterminating the Palestinians. This current widespread demonic view of Israel is a new mutation of the diabolical beliefs about Jews which many held in the Middle Ages, and those promoted more recently by the Nazis and their allies.

Why is the left so blinkered to Islamic extremism?

In the past decade or so some progressives have found themselves - either through political expediency or something worse - on the side of the far-right.
Some have intentionally thrown in their lot with what any politically astute person would recognise as fascism, while others have simply been unwilling to acknowledge that fanatical movements don’t always comprise of white skinheads with bad tattoos and football shirts.
The result, as the report notes, has been an anti-war movement working enthusiastically with those advocating the murder of homosexuals, a left-wing Mayor of London embracing a man who said Adolf Hitler had been sent by Allah to punish the Jews, and a group set up ostensibly to oppose fascism warmly welcoming religious fascists into its own ranks.

Israel upbraids Dutch over ‘preposterous’ Mideast report

A Dutch report on the Middle East conflict that paints Israel as the sole aggressor drew a harsher-than-normal response from Jerusalem recently, in a challenge to its traditionally close ties with the Netherlands.
The report, published in March by the Advisory Council on International Affairs, has also been harshly criticized by pro-Israeli Dutch politicians, who charge that it is full of factual errors and unfairly biased in favor of the Palestinians. Among other shortcomings, critics bemoan that the report, entitled “Between Words and Deeds: Prospects for a sustainable peace in the Middle East,” calls for sanctions against Israel because of settlements yet advocates talking to Hamas and omits any reference to Palestinian terrorism.

Leaked Foreign Office e-mail implies British government collaboration with Israel boycott groups

To add to the concerns, the FCO's desk officer in question, Oliver Fairlamb, is known to promote anti-Israel imagery on his Facebook page. He is a member of the group "YES' to strike action to safeguard teachers pensions" on Facebook too, and his 'cover photo' on the social networking site is an image of what is believed to be a Palestinian town with graffiti on the walls that states, "We won't leave our home" alongside Palestinian flags.
Paul Charney, the Chairman for Britain's Zionist Federation told The Commentator: "I am perturbed that the FCO have had dialogue with groups that call for boycotts against the only stable democracy in the Middle East. Boycotting Israel undermines universal liberal rights and bilateral trade. It usually serves to politicise personal agendas and ends up punishing the wrong people. We call on William Hague to put a stop to these communications and draw a firm line in the sand. The government must be clearer in its rejection of boycotts especially those that unfairly single out Israel."

Church of Scotland’s chutzpah debases interfaith trust

It was Christians who sought interfaith dialogue in the aftermath of World War II, when they realized Christendom’s contribution to the anti-Semitism that powered the Holocaust. Decades of fruitful dialogue were based on principles of mutual respect and genuine understanding of the core beliefs and self-definition of the other. COS and its ilk, however, have understood nothing about the centrality of Israel in Jewish life, or about the 3,500-year connection of the People of the Book to its Torah.
COS’s brazen plunging of a dagger into interfaith understanding does not improve the lot of a single Palestinian.

Ex-Israeli suffers VIDEO

A former Israeli tennis player and her wife have been the victims of an anti-Semitic attack in their own home in a suburb of Antwerp, Belgium. Police have refused to accept a complaint against those who made the attack. anti-Semitic abuse in Belgium (h/t Zvi)
Previously covered by EOZ: Here

400 Demonstrate in Paris Against Suicide Bomber Exhibit

Some 400 people took to the streets of Paris on Sunday afternoon in front of the Jeu de Paume museum to demonstrate against a photo exhibition which seeks to glorify Palestinian Authority Arab suicide bombers who characterize themselves as ‘’freedom fighters,’’ as well as showcasing “those who lost their lives in fighting the occupation”, the European Jewish Press (EJP) reported.
The demonstrators, who were cordoned off by French riot police to guarantee their security, observed a minute of silence in memory of the victims of terrorist attacks, according to EJP.

Vandalism strikes Portland Jewish institutions

Two Jewish institutions in Portland, Ore. — a synagogue and a community center — were defaced with racist graffiti.
“White power” was written in red spray-paint on promotional banners at the Mittleman Jewish Community Center and Neveh Shalom, a Conservative synagogue, on June 27, police said, according to The Oregonian. Both institutions are located in southwest Portland.

A future told by Intel: Ultra-light, ultra-powerful, ultra-cheap

Usually, engineers slaving away in the R&D labs of big tech companies don’t get a chance to see their work at work – unless they wander into an electronics store where customers are trying out their products. In an effort to correct this disconnect, Intel last week held an event for its Israeli worker ants to experience the glamour and glitz of the major product rollouts the company puts on at big tech events, like CES in Las Vegas and Computex in Taiwan.

India & Israel: Increasing Partnership in Trade & Security

Relations between India and Israel are strengthening based on growing security, trade and agricultural ties. Since Israel and India established diplomatic relations in 1992 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Indian-Israeli relations have rapidly improved. Today Israel is India’s second largest arms supplier after Russia. According to PR Kumaraswamy, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, “Growing military cooperation extends beyond arms sales to technology upgrades, joint research, and intelligence cooperation. Despite its possible implications for use against Iran, on January 21, 2008, India launched a 300-kilogram Israeli satellite into orbit.”

Italian Prime Minister Letta’s first visit to Israel

Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu sought to highlight Israel’s “common foundations” with close ally Italy on his Italian counterpart Enrico Letta’s first visit to the Jewish State Monday, as he described Italian heritage as “a great inspiration for the rebirth of the modern Jewish state”.
Hailing the allies’ extensive bilateral cooperation across the fields of trade, science, technology and medicine, he focused his hopes for a heightened partnership on the US-motivated revived Mideast peace process, as he insisted Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent efforts “deserve consistent and constant European support, and I’m sure that Italy will give that support”.

In Shiloh, an intriguing discovery alludes to the Tabernacle

The Tabernacle or Tent of Meeting -- which, according to the Bible, housed the Ark of the Covenant -- was a temporary structure made of wooden beams and fabric, not materials cut out for thousands of years of survival.
Nevertheless, undaunted, archaeologists have searched for evidence of the Tent of Meeting for years, which they posited would be found in ancient Shiloh (next to the settlement of Shiloh in the Binyamin region). Now it appears their efforts have borne fruit, yielding assumptions that the Tent of Meeting indeed stood there.

Israel Vindicated: 1948 as told by those who lived it

Robert F. Kennedy, martyred liberal icon, was a reporter for the Boston Post in 1948. He was sent in the spring of that year to Mandatory Palestine to cover the lead up to the British withdrawal. His dispatches are a fascinating glimpse back in time and invaluable historical records. And yet they are also a testament to the ideological stagnation of the Arab world vis a vis Israel.
Then, as now, Israelis saw themselves as fighting for survival against irrational enmity. Then as now, the Arab world abounded in hostility to the very idea of a Jewish presence in its midst which it justified by casting itself as the victim of Western conspiracies. R.F.K.’s accounts and other primary sources would appear to vindicate Israel’s version of events.

Al Jazeera tries to whitewash "Khaybar" - but the incitement still shines through

It looks like the criticism of the antisemitism in the upcoming Khaybar miniseries is causing Arab media to step back a little and pretend that it is not really meant to incite.

Al Jazeera has a feature story on the series that says

The screenwriter deals with the Jewish community, like any other society in which there is both good and evil, so you will find scenes with the finest Jewish personalities and others that are sinister who allied with the hypocrites who are in Yathrib...

But, in the end, the incitement is there:

[Khaybar] illustrates the objective reasons which caused Muslims to eliminate the Jews of Khaybar, which objectively can be applied to what is happening now in the Arab arena with regard to the Palestinian issue and other problems experienced by the Arab nation.

Meaning, just like the Muslims had good reason to wipe out the Jews of Khaybar...

Still no word from HRW or Amnesty addressing the Arab and Muslim antisemitic incitement in Khaybar, or any other media, as we approach 1500 signatures on our petition.

7/02 Links Part 1: Kerry's Folly, Egypt Burns, Erdogan the Tyrant and Saudi Feminism.

From Ian:

Elliott Abrams: Israelis and Palestinians: What if they get to the table?

There is a viewpoint that the two sides are "an inch apart" and just a bit of serious negotiating will bridge the gap, but that has always seemed like nonsense to me (and I discuss this in detail in my recent book, "Tested By Zion: The Bush Administration and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict"). An inch apart on the many Israeli security demands, such as control of the Palestinian air space and electromagnetic spectrum and of the Jordan Valley? An inch apart on Jerusalem itself, which great numbers of Israelis do not wish to see divided ever again but which most Palestinians demand at least significant parts of as their capital? An inch apart on the "refugee" issue -- when Palestinian leaders have never told their own people that there will be no "right of return" and that Palestinian "refugees" will never go to Israel? To the extent that "everyone knows what an agreement would look like," both Israeli and Palestinian leaders and populations have for decades rejected those terms.

Kerry’s Middle East Folly Has a Price

Egypt is coming apart at the seams. The Syrian civil war has taken the lives of over 100,000 people and the Assad regime—which President Obama has demanded give up power—appears to be winning with the help of Russian and Iranian arms and Hezbollah ground forces. Iran has vowed to continue enriching uranium, as it gets closer to amassing enough to build a nuclear weapon. And the Putin government in Russia continues to thumb its nose at the United States by refusing—as did China—to hand over NSA leaker/spy Edward Snowden.
With all that on its plate, you’d think America’s foreign policy chief would be up to his neck dealing with these crises. But in case you hadn’t heard, Secretary of State John Kerry wasn’t paying much attention to any of that in the last few days. Instead, Kerry was shuttling back and forth between Jerusalem and Ramallah like a low-level functionary attempting to craft an agreement that would finally bring the Palestinians back to the Middle East peace talks they’ve been boycotting for four and a half years.

Palestinian Authority President Rejects Israeli Confidence-Building Measures, Peace Talks Offer

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas has rejected a package of Israeli goodwill gestures designed to coax the Palestinian leader back to peace talks, where further Israeli concessions would be discussed. A Palestinian official told Xinhua that the Israeli confidence-building measures – which included the release of security prisoners and programs designed to bolster Abbas – were insufficient for President Abbas to resume talks

Fatah official: Washington biased toward Israel

As US Secretary of State John Kerry attempted to get peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians back on track, a senior Fatah official blasted the United States, calling it a greater obstacle to peace than Israel.
Azzam Al-Ahmad, who heads Fatah’s parliamentary bloc, told Sky News Arabia on Sunday that Kerry’s recent three-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories had exposed the American administration’s “biased role” toward the negotiating sides.

PMW: PA TV attacks PMW for using word “terrorists” for PA “heroes"

The official Palestinian Authority media continues its condemnation of Palestinian Media Watch for exposing that the PA promotes hatred and terror.
The latest PA TV attack comes in response to PMW's recent bulletin exposing that PA TV glorified three Palestinian terrorists who are serving a total of166 life sentences for planning suicide bombings and preparing the bombs that were used in numerous terror attacks.

Barry Rubin: In Egypt, Army Threatens Coup while U.S. Policy has backed the Regime

Let us remember that four years ago Obama gave his Cairo speech sitting the Muslim Brotherhood leaders in the front row. President Husni Mubarak was insulted and it was the first hint that the Obama Administration would support Islamist regimes in the Arab world. Then Obama vetoed the State Department plan for a continuation of the old regime without Mubarak. Then Obama publicly announced--before anyone asked him--that the United States would not mind if the Brotherhood was in government. Then Obama did not give disproportionate help to the moderates. Then Obama pressed the army to get out of power quickly, which the moderates opposed since they needed more time than the Islamists to organize.
Many will say that the president of the United States cannot of course control events in Egypt. That's true.'But he did everything possible to lead to this crisis.

For the Brotherhood, Morsi’s fall would have a domino effect

The first battle between the the opposition and the ruling Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt ended in the early hours of Monday morning, when millions of demonstrators slowly dispersed to their homes after a long and bloody night.
According to figures from the Egyptian Health Ministry, 10 people died and 613 were injured during the confrontations that broke out between supporters of the two camps. The most severe clashes were near the Muslim Brotherhood building in the Muqqatam area south of Cairo, where four people were killed, but also in other cities, such as Asyut, Port Said, Al-Mahala, Al-Kubrah, and others.

Daniel Pipes: Should Egypt’s Morsi Stay or Go?

I was not present in Egypt yesterday, June 30, but I watched some of the wall-to-wall broadcasts on Egyptian television of packed squares and streets across the country, of gesticulating orators, defensive government spokesmen, and articulate commentators. The demonstrations across the country were, by consensus estimates, 7 to 10 times larger than the biggest anti-Mubarak crowds in early 2011. They dwarfed street rebellions such other those in Iran in 1979 or Peking in 1989. Simply put, they were probably the largest political demonstration in human history.

Egypt: Morsi’s failure

President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) seem increasingly impotent as mass protests mark the anniversary of his reaching office.
His opponents hope to bring about a second revolution two and a half years since the overthrow of Mubarak. Whether or not they succeed, it is clear Morsi’s administration has thus far been largely a failure.
He has focused on consolidating power while ignoring Egypt’s grave economic and security problems, and, ironically, in so doing has actually weakened his position. Furthermore, the Brotherhood’s inability to compromise has demonstrated its immaturity as a political force.

Morsi Rejects Army Ultimatum, 6 Ministers Resign, Pro-Morsi Rallies

The Miami Herald’s Frida Ghitis wrote that one of the most striking aspects of the massive protests that have broken out across Egypt is the intensity of the people’s anger directed at the Muslim Brotherhood. In her opinion, the failure of the Brotherhood’s man to introduce positive changes in Egypt, while imposing a plethora of ideological, religious rules on the country, may signal the end of this movement as a viable political alternative in Egypt and the rest of the Muslim world.
“What happens to the Brotherhood in Egypt will affect Brotherhood parties across the region. Already its image of incompetence and non-inclusiveness is a stain that will be difficult to erase,” Ghitis wrrote.

Egyptian Protesters Criticize MB Rule and Obama Administration

Elections also do not guarantee stability, writes Eric Trager of the Washington Institute on Near East Policy. Mohamed Morsi is "now president in name only." The United States needs to gear its policy toward a longer vision and try to limit the damage done to the state by the ongoing turmoil.
Protesters tried to issue a similar message Sunday. They chanted against the United States and carried signs criticizing Obama and U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson.
Arabic media reports claim Patterson held secret meetings with Brotherhood deputy leader Khairat al-Shater last week. And many protesters carried signs with Patterson's image crossed out alongside Morsi, or with critical comments.

Christian Egyptians confront Muslim stronghold

The southern Egyptian city of Assiut has long been a haven for radical Islamists, and its Christian minority has largely kept a low profile. That all changed this weekend.
An estimated crowd of 50,000 packed the streets this weekend to join protests calling for President Mohammed Morsi’s ouster, prompting a violent response that left three people dead.

Neighboring countries close doors to Syria war refugees

Syria's neighbors have closed or tightened restrictions at several border crossings, leaving tens of thousands of people stranded within Syria's dangerous frontier regions, Human Rights Watch said on Monday.
It said Iraq, Jordan and Turkey had all restricted the flow of people trying to flee a conflict which has killed 100,000 people and, according to the United Nations, has already driven 1.7 million more to take sanctuary outside Syria.

Erdogan the tyrant and his EU accomplices

Today, President Barack Obama is good buddies with Erdogan and has repeatedly stated that Turkey should serve as an example to the Islamic world. The EU is aiding in the marginalization of the Turkish armed forces, which are indeed dictatorial, but by their nature friendly to the West, and thus paving the way for the consolidation of the power of a hostile ideology: political Islam.
The Turkish general’s fear in 1952 still seems justified in the 21st century.
On this matter, the West has truly and thoroughly stabbed itself in the back.

Feminism Saudi-style: Hundreds turn out do discuss women in society... but not a single member of the audience is female

This image show attendees at a conference in Saudi Arabia on the topic ‘women in society’ – and not a single one is female.
The conference, reportedly held at the University of Qassim last year, was attended by representatives from 15 nations, apparently all men.

Arab media is reporting that Hosni Mubarak expressed satisfaction at the massive June 30 anti-Morsi rallies in Egypt.

The deposed dictator reportedly told his sons that the number of anti-Morsi protesters were fewer than those who protested against him, and that he left office for the good of Egypt. and to avoid bloodshed.

The reports also say that Mubarak enjoys seeing TV comparisons of his regime against Morsi's, where Morsi's record falls short. He is in a much better mood since the protests started.