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Egypt's Islamist leader opposes peace with Israel - Yahoo! NewsCAIRO (AP) The top cleric from Egypt's fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood has denounced peace efforts with Israel, urging holy war to liberate Palestinian territories.
Gaza crisis: will Egypt come to regret its role as peacemaker? | World news | guardian.co.ukCritics allege that while Morsi has taken a high profile on the international stage he and his government have been far less successful in tackling his country's myriad economic, social and political problems.
On the economic front, Egypt's deal with the IMF for a $4.8bn (£3bn) loan, announced on Tuesday, obliges it to end subsidies on items such as fuel, which will lead, inevitably, to unpopular price rises at a time of growing hardship.
Tourism, while slowly improving after the huge hit it took during the Arab spring, is far below pre-revolution levels. Unemployment remains high as does inflation a dangerous combination while crime has become a serious issue.
The failure to prosecute members of the security forces who committed crimes, including killings, during the revolution and after remains a running sore in Egyptian society.
In the past week Egypt was hit by small-scale confrontations between army and police, another worrying symptom.
Obama Legitimizes Morsis Protection Racket
November 22, 2012 By David Goldman
Hamas fires 275 rockets at Israel and is rewarded with de facto acceptance as a legitimate negotiating partner in the Middle East peace process, as well as with a relaxation of the Israeli blockade of the Gaza coast. Israel is prevented from exacting a price for Hamas actions sufficient to deter future attacks or degrade Hamas capabilities. In one stroke, the Obama administration has overturned thirty years of American policy, which rejected negotiations with Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Secretary of State Clinton, to be sure, did not negotiate directly with Hamas, but rather with Egypts President Mohammed Morsi, who supported Hamas unequivocally and encouraged its attacks on Israel. Morsi is the leader of Egypts Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is the Palestinian chapter. It is astonishing that American officials and the world media have hailed Morsi simply because he first sicced his dog on his neighbor, and then called the dog off.
As the Associated Press put it:
The accord inserts Egypt to an unprecedented degree into the conflict between Israel and Hamas, establishing it as the arbiter ensuring that militant rocket fire into Israel stops and that Israel allows the opening of the long-blockaded Gaza Strip and stops its own attacks against Hamas. In return, Morsi emerged as a major regional player. He won the trust of the United States and Israel, which once worried over the rise of an Islamist leader in Egypt but throughout the week-long Gaza crisis saw him as the figure most able to deliver a deal with Gazas Hamas rulers.It is a misstatement of huge proportions to suggest that Morsi won the trust of Israel. On the contrary: American pressure prevented Israel from degrading Hamas terror capabilities.
When Hamas cranked up its rocket barrage against Israel ten days ago, numerous analysts asked: Why now? In retrospect, the answer appears obvious: Because Barack Obama had been re-elected and had a free hand. From February 2011, when National Intelligence Director James Clapper praised the Muslim Brotherhood as a largely secular organization, the White House has made clear that it believes that the Brotherhood represents the wave of the future in the Middle East. American backing for Morsi was nearly derailed in September when the Egyptian president failed to provide security for Americas embassy in Cairo during riots that followed the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi. That affront has been forgotten amidst the accolades.
Americas traditional allies in the region, notably Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States (notably excepting Qatar) viewed Morsi as an enemy. Almost out of cash and suffering from extreme shortages of fuel and other essential items, Morsi failed to obtain financial support from the Saudis. With a current account deficit of perhaps $1.5 billion a month, Egypt was running on fumes and small handouts from Qatar and Turkey. A number of American commentators suggested that Morsi was motivated to act moderately because he needed Saudi and American help to prevent economic catastrophe. Precisely the opposite is true: the only way Morsi could shake down the Saudis for significant sums was to threaten a regional blowup.
Morsi read the American political landscape accurately. He perceived that the White House was so deeply invested in the success of the Muslim Brotherhood that it would respond to a crisis provoked by Hamas by splitting the result down the middle, giving Hamas sufficient concessions to allow the terrorist group to declare victory. He also understood the implications of Mitt Romneys supine performance during the third presidential debate on foreign policy. The Republican party continues to drag around the chains of the Bush foreign policy like Marleys ghost, and will offer no opposition to Obama. Influential Republicans, moreover, are so invested in the notion of Islamist democracy that many of them will go along with Obama in supporting Morsis protection racket. Bill Kristol, for example, opined in the Weekly Standards weekly podcast that Morsi has behaved somewhat responsibly and that the ceasefire, although it might last only a few months, was better than nothing.
Turkeys Islamist prime minister Tayyip Erdogan had another motive for backing Hamas. Turkey views the prospect of Syrian disintegration and the spinoff of an autonomous zone for Syrias two million Kurds as an existential threat. At current trends, half of Turkeys military-age population will come from Kudrish-speaking households within a generation, and a Syrian precedent for Kurdish autonomy threatens the integrity of the Kurdish state. Erdogan is counting on the Muslim Brotherhood to rule a unified Sunni government in Syria, and has allied with Morsi to bring this into effect. Turkeys weakness gives Morsi additional bargaining power.
Presuming that Morsis ceasefire holds, the absence of rocket fire from Gaza during the next several months holds little comfort for Israel. Hamas will have more opportunity to stockpile the longer-range Iranian Fajr rockets that struck near Tel Aviv and Jerusalem last week. Iran has boasted that it has transferred the technology to Hamas to quickly produce the rockets in Gaza. Whenever the ceasefire breaks down, Hamas will have far greater capacity to kill Israelis in the future. If Israel were to strike Irans nuclear capabilities, the price it would pay in rocket attacks from Hamas as well as Hezbollah in the north would be substantially greater than it is now.
Israel suffered a setback, but not a decisive setback, because the whole Gaza business is tangential to the overriding strategic issue, namely Irans prospective acquisition of nuclear weapons. Were Israel to attack Irans nuclear bomb-making capacity, it will pay a higher price for doing so in terms of civilian casualties. That is a human tragedy but not a strategic disadvantage. Hamas does not represent a strategic threat to Israel, and the degraded and demoralized Egyptian military represents less of a threat to Israel than at any time since its founding, while Syria represents no threat at all. The unexpectedly strong performance of Israels anti-missile technology, meanwhile, represents a new and critical strategic advantage for Israel. Egypts Morsi may obtain a respite, but Egypt will continue to live under the threat of economic breakdown for the indefinite future. The Muslim Brotherhood will fail to stabilize Syria.
Nothing that happens in Gaza will decide the future of the region. Israel still must decide whether to attack Irans nuclear program in the face of adamant opposition from the Obama administration. It is not clear how long the window of opportunity will last for Israel to pre-empt Iranian nuclear weapons deployment, but it is measured in months, not years.
David P. Goldman is a PJMedia columnist and the author of How Civilizations Die: (And Why Islam Is Dying Too).
How much money is the U.S. sending to Morsi?
How much money is the U.S. sending to Morsi?
Egypt has government deficit of 11% of GDP.
They secured financial-aid from regional countries and International Institutions.
Egypt played it right in this "crisis", if they can deliver what is expected from them needs to be seen in coming days and weeks.
Coming out of revolution Egypt is not stabilized yet. Competing views on where the country should go.
President Mursi doesn't seem to sit tight in his saddle considering the different voices coming out of his "party".
Now he has given him absolute powers and has tied his future to this "truce"-deal. If he falls there will be something friendly replacing him I'm sure.
It wasn't just the US that wanted a cease fire. But you Oblama haters will deny it, even with proof, so why waste the time to post it.
One opposition official also said the vote appeared to have gone in favor of Islamists who backed the constitution, after the opposition had said late on Saturday when voting ended that their exit polls indicated the "no" camp would win. Liberal-minded opponents of President Mohamed Mursi, who had fast-tracked the constitution through an Islamist-dominated drafting assembly, said the basic law would divide the nation as it did not respresent the aspirations of all Egyptians. "The referendum was 56.5 percent for the 'yes' vote," a senior official in the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party operations room set up to monitor voting told Reuters.
The Brotherhood and its party, which propelled Mursi to power in June, had representatives at almost all polling stations across the 10 areas, including Cairo, where this round of voting was held. The party official, who asked not to be identified, said the tally was based on counts from more than 99 percent of polling stations in this round.
The second round vote in remaining areas of the country is next Saturday. Official results are not expected until after that stage is complete. "I think we lost," the opposition official, who also asked not to be named, told Reuters, saying a strong "yes" vote in Alexandria, Egypt's second city, had surprised them and seemed to have tipped the balance for Islamists. The opposition had initially said it expected the "no" vote to prevail shortly after polling stations closed. But as counting proceeded, another opposition official monitoring the vote, Yahya Arafat of the Popular Current movement, had told Reuters the vote was "very close" and could go either way.
Egyptians narrowly back constitution, says Islamist official - Yahoo! News
Marches took place in the cities of Port Said, Ismailia and Suez after dark, despite the curfews and a temporary state of emergency. Dozens of people have been killed in five days of violent protests. Meanwhile Mr Morsi's call for national dialogue has been rejected by his political opponents. He had urged opposition leaders to attend a meeting on Sunday evening in an effort to calm the situation, but only Islamists already aligned with the president turned up.
Protests have continued into the night in Cairo, and in cities along the Suez canal
The latest protests in the cities along the Suez canal were sparked by death sentences handed down by a Port Said court on 21 local football fans involved in deadly riots at a football match in the city almost a year ago. Elsewhere Egyptians more broadly opposed to Mr Morsi's authority have taken to the streets in the wake of the Egyptian revolution's second anniversary. More deaths on Monday mean that between 50 and 60 people are now believed to have been killed in violent clashes with security forces since Thursday.
Earlier, state news agency Mena reported six deaths in Port Said during daylight hours on Monday, when funerals were held for three people killed on Sunday. After nightfall, groups attacked police stations, and one man was killed according to medical sources. Security men and soldiers were also injured, Egyptian authorities said, but troops in tanks and armoured vehicles in Suez and Port Said did not appear to be intervening to uphold the curfew.
'Excessive force'
Nearly 60 people have been killed in the wave of unrest, clashes, rioting and protests that have touched cities across the country but have hit the hardest in the canal cities, where residents have virtually risen up in outright revolt. The latest death came on Monday in Cairo, where a protester died of gunshot wounds as youths hurling stones battled all day and into the night with police firing tear gas near Qasr el-Nil Bridge, a landmark over the Nile next to major hotels. In nearby Tahrir Square, protesters set fire to a police armored personnel carrier, celebrating as it burned in scenes reminiscent of the 2011 revolution that ousted Hosni Mubarak. "I will be coming back here every day until the blood of our martyrs is avenged," said 19-year-old carpenter Islam Nasser, who wore a Guy Fawkes mask as he battled police near Tahrir square.
Angry and at times screaming and wagging his finger, Morsi on Sunday declared a 30-day state of emergency and a nighttime curfew on the three Suez Canal cities of Suez, Ismailiya and Port Said and their provinces of the same names. He said he had instructed the police to deal "firmly and forcefully" with the unrest and threatened to do more if security was not restored. But when the 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew began Monday evening, crowds marched through the streets of Port Said, beating drums and chanting, "Erhal, erhal," or "Leave, leave" - a chant that first rang out during the 18-day uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak in 2011 but is now directed at Morsi. "We completely reject Morsi's measures. How can we have a curfew in a city whose livelihood depends on commerce and tourism?" said Ahmed Nabil, a schoolteacher in the Mediterranean coastal city.
In Suez and Ismailiya, thousands in the streets after curfew chanted against Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group from which he hails. In Suez, residents let off fireworks that lit the night sky. "Oh Morsi, Suez has real men," they chanted. In Ismailiya, residents organized street games of soccer to emphasize their contempt for the curfew and state of emergency. On Morsi's orders over the weekend, army troops backed with tanks and armored vehicles have deployed in Port Said and Suez - the two cities worst hit by the violence - to restore security, but they did not intervene to enforce the curfew on Monday night.
The commander of the Third Field Army in charge of Suez, Maj. Gen. Osama Askar, said his troops would not use force to ensure compliance. Army troops in Port Said also stood by and watched as residents ignored the curfew. Adding to Morsi's woes nearly seven months into his turbulent presidency, the main political opposition coalition on Monday rejected his invitation for a dialogue to resolve the crisis, one of the worst and deadliest to hit Egypt in the two years since Mubarak's ouster.
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They boast that they're willing to use force to fight back against Islamists who have attacked protesters in the past - or against police who crack down on demonstrations. The youths with faces hidden under black masks have appeared among stone-throwing protesters in clashes with police around Egypt the past five days in the wave of political violence that has shaken the country. During protests in Cairo on Monday, masked youths celebrated around a police armored vehicle in flames in the middle of Tahrir Square, waving their hands in V-for-victory signs.
Their emergence has raised concerns even among fellow members of the opposition, who fear the group could spark Islamist retaliation or that it could be infiltrated to taint their movement. Islamist supporters of President Mohammed Morsi call the bloc a militia and have used it to depict the opposition as a violent force wrecking the nation. Moreover, some Islamists have threatened to form vigilante groups in response, creating the potential for a spiral of violence between rival "militias."
The bloc's appearance comes amid increasing opposition frustration with Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected president, and the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists who critics say have imposed a monopoly on power. The anger has fueled the explosion of violence that at first centered on Friday's second anniversary of the start of the uprising that ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak. It accelerated with riots in the Suez Canal city of Port Said by youths furious over death sentences issued by a court against local soccer fans over a bloody stadium riot a year ago. Morsi has struggled to regain control, calling a state of emergency in three Suez Canal-area provinces.
The Black Bloc models itself after anarchist groups by the same name in Europe and the United States that have participated in anti-globalization and other protests the past decade. In Egypt, the group's secrecy and self-professed dispersed structure make it difficult to determine its actual scope. It communicates mainly by online social media. Its members' identities are unknown and faces unseen, so it's impossible to confirm the authenticity of those who claim to speak in its name.
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Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi' strongly worded comments, his first since the crisis began, appeared aimed at pushing both sides in Egypt's political divide to reconcile and find a solution to the rapidly spreading protests and riots across much of the country the past six days. But his breaking of his silence falls heaviest on President Mohammed Morsi, who has been unable to contain the unrest by trying a tough hand, as protesters defied his declaration of a month-long state of emergency and curfew in Port Said and two neighboring cities. At least 60 people have been killed and hundreds injured since Thursday in clashes between police and protesters angry over what they call Islamists' moves to monopolize power and failure to address the country's multiple woes. In his comments, el-Sissi signaled the military would not move to put down protesters, saying troops are in a "grave predicament," forced to balance between "avoiding confrontation" with citizens and protecting state institutions.
In Cairo on Tuesday, rock-throwing protesters clashed with police firing tear gas for another day in battles that escalated after nightfall near Tahrir Square. The mayhem forced the nearby U.S. Embassy to suspend public services Tuesday, and the night before masked men tried to rob the neighboring five-star Semiramis Hotel, a Cairo landmark, trashing the lobby before being forced out. Protesters in many cities around the country have battled police, cut off roads and railway lines and besieged government offices and police stations. But the most dramatic fraying of state control has been in the three cities along the Suez Canal, particularly Port Said, at the canal's Mediterranean end.
Violence exploded in Port Said on Saturday, leaving more than 40 dead since. The provincial governor has gone into hiding. Police are hunkered down. Tanks are in the streets by government buildings, but army troops have balked at enforcing Morsi's curfew order. Residents in all three cities flouted the restrictions with huge marches in the streets Monday and Tuesday night. "The independent state of Port Said," proclaimed one protester's sign as thousands marched through the city Tuesday in funeral processions for two of those killed in the unrest. "Down, down with the rule of the Guide," mourners chanted, referring to the Brotherhood's top leader, known as the general guide, who opponents see as the real power behind Morsi's government.
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