As Israel mulls full-fledged ground invasion of Rafah, spotlight is on Egypt

Sunday, 18 February 2024 9:43 AM  [ Last Update: Sunday, 18 February 2024 9:43 AM ]

By Iqbal Jassat 

As the world increasingly reacts with alarm at Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu’s declared goal of leveling the southern Gaza city of Rafah to the ground, the spotlight has fallen on Egypt.

Will the North African heavyweight stand idly by, allowing the Tel Aviv regime to intensify its ongoing genocide in Gaza, or make good its threat to annul the so-called “peace treaty”? 

Authorities in Cairo would know that plans by Israel to populate Gaza with Jewish settlements require Egypt’s collaboration to absorb Palestinian refugees into parts of the Sinai. 

What it translates to is that Gaza is ethnically cleansed of 2.3 million Palestinians and replaced with an exclusively Jewish settler colony. 

However, the sticky point is Rafah, where more than a million and a half Palestinians who were violently forced to evacuate their homes in the North are huddled in tents and makeshift shelters, facing death from relentless air strikes, hunger, cold and thirst. 

In addition, the dire need for essential medical supplies has spawned the worst humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, something the world has never seen in the modern era. 

So, the big question is, how will Egypt respond to these developments? 

Egypt, of today, under the military rule of General Abdel Fateh el-Sisi, is a far cry from the leadership of Mohamed Morsi. 

During the exciting but short-lived era of the Arab Spring, tens of thousands of protesters across Cairo flooded Tahrir Square demanding the removal of Hosni Mubarak from his thirty-year reign. 

Following the popular mass revolt against his brutal dictatorship, Mubarak was forced to resign. It marked a period that saw the country transitioning from tyranny to democracy when Morsi was elected to lead Egypt in its first free and fair democratic election. 

The change of fortunes did not sit well with Western powers that began a series of dirty tricks to oust him, notwithstanding the fact that Morsi had acquired a comfortable majority during the elections. 

A classic case of a regime-change plot began to be engineered when a number of countries connived to unseat him through a bloody military coup. 

America, Israel, UAE and Saudi Arabia’s candidate for regime change was the head of Egypt’s notorious secret service/intelligence unit – el-Sisi – who was also in charge of the military. 

Israel’s Rafah offensive smacks of desperation as resistance gains ground
As the Israeli regime moves ahead with its planned ground offensive on the southernmost city of Rafah, killing more than 100 Palestinians in 24 hours, it’s clear the regime has lost the plot.

In an elaborate scheme, a rebellion against Morsi was orchestrated as a prelude to the coup. Reports subsequently revealed that the UAE government funded the uprising. 

These regimes shared common misgivings about Morsi’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood (Al Ikhwan Al Muslimeen) and were reluctant to have the Arab world’s most powerful nation-state in the hands of the Ikhwan. 

Chatham House reported that recordings leaked from the Egyptian Ministry of Defence and confidential testimony from US officials fingered the UAE as having provided funds to support the activity of Tamarrod, the movement that organized the rebellion against Morsi.

As soon as el-Sisi stepped in to take Morsi’s seat, Saudi Arabia and the UAE made no effort to conceal their approval. Both Western-backed oligarchs gleefully displayed their support with transfers of huge chunks of money. 

The background to the massacre is well documented. According to media reports, tens of thousands of Egyptians were out in the streets and city squares to demand the reinstatement of Morsi. 

To illustrate the brazeness of the UAE, its Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed led a delegation to Cairo in solidarity with coup leader el-Sisi, less than a fortnight after the horror of the Muslim Brotherhood, when around a thousand people were mowed down. 

On August 14, 2013, as the protests had entered their sixth consecutive week, thousands staged a sit-in at the Rabaa al-Adawiya Square, one of Cairo’s busiest thoroughfares, as they had for more than a month. 

Sisi’s forces moved in using armored vehicles and bulldozers, in addition to ground troops and snipers on rooftops carrying live ammunition, to attack the square from all sides and close off safe exits, according to witnesses and human rights organizations, as reported in media. 

Morsi, the elected president, was jailed where he subsequently died, while el-Sisi has now been in power for just over a decade. To date, there has been no accountability for the Rabaa massacre. 

From Rabaa to Rafah, el-Sisi’s dismal human rights record does not hold any promise that he will deter Netanyahu’s planned incursion into Rafah or stop him from expelling Palestinians from there. 

Egypt under el-Sisi has been reduced to a mere spectator, observing the slaughter of thousands of innocent Palestinians as the genocide intensifies in Gaza without any effort to flex its muscles. 

Iqbal Jassat is an executive member of Media Review Network, Johannesburg, South Africa.

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV)

---

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk

Related Videos

RELATED ARTICLES

• Amid Gaza war, Hezbollah warns Israel about bigger defeat if it attacks Lebanon
• Boundless savagery: Israel threatens to invade Rafah by start of Ramadan
• Feb. 18: ‘Axis of Resistance’ operations against Israeli occupation
• Carnage in Gaza: Palestinian death toll from Israeli war surpasses 29,000
• Injured Palestinians face horribly tough time getting exit permission
• Protecting anti-Zionist views
• ICJ holds public hearings on Israel’s occupation of Palestine
• Israel’s war on Gaza unmasks so-called human rights advocates: Iran
• VIDEO | Israeli genocide in Gaza
• Ignoring humanitarian repercussions, Netanyahu vows to roll into Rafah
• US to rush arms to Israel amid bombings, planned invasion of Rafah
• ICJ nixes S Africa’s request for ‘urgent measures’ to save Rafah amid Israeli war
• Israel’s ground invasion of Rafah disregards ICJ order: South Africa
• Israel sells Gaza genocide to Americans at Super Bowl while bombing Rafah
• Carnage in Gaza: Palestinian death toll from Israeli war surpasses 29,000
• Israel’s al-Aqsa restriction part of ‘systematic displacement, Judaization’: Islamic Jihad
• VIDEO | Injured Palestinians face horribly tough time getting exit permission
• Iran: UN must take action to prevent Israel’s mass atrocities in Rafah
• UN experts: Inhumane Israeli troops sexually assault Palestinian girls

Rebuilding Gush Katif: The scheme to return Jewish settlers to Gaza

DEC 13, 2023

Source

Once viewed as a fringe group, Israel’s messianic settler movement holds the reins of power today. Their plans for the ethnic cleansing and resettlement of Gaza needed only two things: a big war and an extremist government.

Photo Credit: The Cradle

William Van Wagenen

Almost three weeks into Israel’s bloody ground invasion of Gaza, an Israeli soldier filmed a video from inside the bombed and besieged enclave exclaiming, “We will complete the mission we have been assigned. Conquer, expel and settle. You hear that, Bibi?”

Two months into Tel Aviv’s aerial assault of Gaza, its end goals are still unclear. CNNhas revealed that Israel’s “original plan” for the war was to “level Gaza.” And Israeli minister Ron Dermer proposed a plan to “thin out” the Gaza population by forcing civilians to flee to Egypt by land, or to other parts of Africa and Europe by boat, because the “sea is open to them.”

What is certain is that this is like no other Israeli bombing spree on Gaza. In past campaigns, the Israelis sought out international mediators “from the first day” to broker a ceasefire within days or weeks. 

This time, however, the Israelis and their American supporters most decidedly do not want a ceasefire. While their end goals for Gaza have shifted in this conflict, it is equally important to note that Tel Aviv’s plans for that future may be entirely different from Washington’s. Simply, Israel has never had a government as right-wing as the current one cobbled together by its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; a cabinet heaving with religious fundamentalists and messianic fervor.

Plans to ‘reclaim’ Gaza 

The roots of Israel’s current campaign to conquer Gaza and ethnically cleanse its 2.3 million Palestinian inhabitants trace back almost two decades, originating with the evacuation of the Gush Katif settlement bloc in 2005. 

This move, orchestrated by then-prime minister Ariel Sharon, aimed at continued Jewish settlement and military occupation in the occupied West Bank, but was deemed treacherous by Israel’s uber right-wing, religious settler movement.

It was Ariel Sharon, “the father of settlements,” who designed the Gaza disengagement to ensure continued Jewish settlement and military occupation of the West Bank, but the religious settler movement viewed him as a traitor for giving up “Jewish land,” just as they viewed former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin as a traitor for signing the Oslo Accords to eventually establish a Palestinian state.

Rabin was murdered by Jewish extremist Yigal Amir in 1995, in an act publicly encouraged by a young but prominent religious settler activist, Itamar Ben Gvir. 

Another young religious settler, Bezalel Smotrich, was arrested for opposing Sharon’s disengagement policy. To stop Gaza disengagement, Smotrich wanted to blow up cars on the Ayalon highway, at rush hour, using 700 liters of gasoline. 

Both men are today allies and prominent ideologues in Netanyahu’s extremist coalition government. 

Over the next 18 years, the Likud Party and the religious settler movement, led by figures such as Ben Gvir and Smotrich, harbored dreams of reconquering Gaza to reconstruct Gush Katif. This undertaking would entail completing the expulsion initiated by Zionist militias in 1948, as noted by Israeli historian Benny Morris, by forcing Gazans into exile and preventing their return.

In 2010, then Prime Minister Netanyahu and Knesset member (MK) Gila Gamliel, both Likud members, proposed to the late Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak the settlement of Palestinians in the Sinai peninsula as part of a peace deal-related land swap.

After insisting, “I’m not even willing to listen to those kinds of proposals,” Mubarak was toppled in a US-orchestrated color revolution, part of the region-wide ‘Arab Spring,’ as it was known. 

Netanyahu proposed a similar deal to Mubarak’s successor Mohammad Morsi in 2012, and to Morsi’s successor, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi in 2014, but these yielded the same outcomes. 

In 2014, during Israel’s brutal 51-day assault on Gaza, Netanyahu sought US intervention with Sisi to propose settling Palestinians in Sinai, but got nowhere. Over 2,300 civilians were killed in that military operation – yet another of Israel’s “mowing the grass” campaigns to inflict setbacks for the resistance, without making any meaningful gains against Hamas.

The plan takes shape

By June 2018, reports surfaced of a new Israeli army plan to “create a considerable change in the situation if it is required to launch a major campaign in Gaza.” This would involve moving beyond temporary bombardment to offensive missions involving elite units who “will enter Gaza and dissect it in two, and even occupy significant parts of it.”

Meanwhile, in 2019, fundamentalist settlers like Ben Gvir continued to express a fervent desire to level Gaza and return to rebuild Gush Katif.

Ahead of the 2022 Knesset elections, three extreme right-wing political parties united to form the Religious Zionism Coalition. These included the Religious Zionism party, headed by Smotrich, the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, headed by Ben Gvir, and Noam, a small ultra-orthodox party.

In July 2022, Religious Zionist candidate Arnon Segal wrote during his campaign announcement: “It is time to begin to plan a return to Gush Katif.” 

“Yes,” he wrote, “to physically return and rebuild it.”

That September, as the elections drew closer, i24 News, an outlet close to Netanyahu, addressed the issue of Gush Katif, calling it a “lingering wound,” one still open and fresh for Israelis.

“It’s a trauma,” an Israeli named Hillel quoted by i24 News said. “The whole country was hurting.”

The ‘legality’ of the settlers’ return 

The effort to rebuild Gush Katif converged with a significant shift in the situation in Gaza when Netanyahu became prime minister for the sixth time after the December 2022 elections. Following a year out of power, Netanyahu formed a coalition between his Likud party and the Religious Zionism Coalition.

The deal with Netanyahu allowed Ben Gvir to become national security minister, while Smotrich was made both finance minister and a minister in Israel’s Defense Ministry, responsible for civil administration in the occupied West Bank. 

Under their direction, the occupation state quickly stepped-up military raids against Palestinian resistance groups, accelerated Jewish settlement building, and issued calls for annexing the West Bank. 

As violence intensified in March 2023, the Likud-Religious Zionism coalition quietly reversed a crucial aspect of the 2005 Gaza Disengagement. Sharon’s original withdrawal plan involved abandoning four small settlements in the northern West Bank due to security challenges. 

However, the Knesset passed an amendment to the disengagement legislation on 21 March, which enabled Jewish settlers to return to these evacuated settlements and paved the way for their reconstruction.

Following the vote, MK Limor Son Har-Melech of the Jewish Power party stated: “We must not rest on our laurels or the euphoria of the moment.” We must also galvanize to “return home to the region of Gush Katif, which was abandoned [in 2005] in an act of terrible folly.”

Minister of National Missions Orit Strock of the Religious Zionism party made a similar call, telling Israel’s Channel 7: 

“I believe that, at the end of the day, the sin of the disengagement will be reversed.”

She suggested this would require going to war, adding that “Sadly, a return to the Gaza Strip will nvolve many casualties.” In response, the left-wing Peace Now NGO warned that:

“A messianic revolution is taking place. This government will inevitably destroy our country. They will also deepen the occupation, ignite the region, and establish a Jewish supremacist regime from the river to the sea.”

The Gazan Nakba 

In the aftermath of the Palestinian resistance operation of Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October, a slew of propaganda and fake news created the public outrage needed to justify using overwhelming violence against not only Hamas, but all Gazans, and to implement plans to return to Gush Katif. 

Public calls to commit genocide against Gazans became widespread among Israeli politicians, journalists and celebrities.

Israel seized the opportunity and initiated a massive bombing campaign on Gaza, accompanied by demands that Palestinians evacuate the northern half of the besieged enclave, a region home to 1.1 million people — about half of the territory’s population — within 24 hours.

Ex-Israeli Deputy Foreign minister and senior diplomat Danny Ayalon wrote on social media that Gazans must not only go to southern Gaza, but flee to Egypt:

“We don’t tell Gazans to go to the beaches or drown themselves … No God forbid … Go to the Sinai Desert … the international community will build them cities and give them food … Egypt ought to play ball with it.” 

Israeli demands that Palestinians flee to Egypt were accompanied by the release on 13 October of a report from Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence, led by Likud MK Gamliel.

Clearly prepared before the events of 7 October, the report recommended the occupation of Gaza and total transfer of its 2.3 million inhabitants to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, while insisting they never be allowed to return.

Further, the plan stated the government should launch a public relations campaign directed toward the west that will promote the ethnic cleansing in a way that does not foster international hostility to Israel or damage its already tarnished reputation. 

The mass deportation of the population from Gaza must be presented as a necessary humanitarian measure to receive international support, the report stated. Such a deportation could be justified if it will lead to “fewer casualties among the civilian population compared to the expected number of casualties if they remain.”

Israel’s horrific bombing campaign continued, ensuring that the number of casualties would indeed be massive.

On 27 October, after 7,028 Palestinians – including 2,913 children – had been killed, Israel launched its long-anticipated ground invasion of Gaza.

A week later, the rabbi of an Israeli army unit gave a rousing speech to the troops declaring: 

“This land is ours … the entire land, including Gaza, including Lebanon, including all of the promised land! … Gush Katif is tiny compared to what we will achieve with God’s help!”

As outlined in the 2018 plan by the military leadership, invading Israeli troops quickly cut the Gaza strip in two, while also invading from the north along the coast.

After planting an Israeli flag in the sand on Gaza’s beach, one Israeli commander told his troops: “We returned, we were expelled from here almost 20 years ago … This is our land! And that is the victory, to return to our lands.”

As Israeli soldiers were celebrating in Gaza, MKs from the Likud party submitted a bill on 8 November to again amend the 2005 Disengagement Law – this time to “repeal the law that bars Jews from entering the Gaza Strip.”

Three days later, Danny Danon, Israel’s former ambassador to the UN, and Ram Ben Barak, a former deputy director of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service, published an article in the Wall Street Journal advocating the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, while feigning humanitarian motivations, as outlined in the ministry of intelligence plan.

Sensing that his dream of ethnically cleansing Gaza and rebuilding Gush Katif on the corpses of dead Palestinian children was about to be realized, Bezalel Smotrich welcomed the proposal, stating that “this is the humanitarian solution.”

Former Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked also welcomed the move, but was less diplomatic, exclaiming on Israeli TV: 

“After we turn Khan Yunis into a soccer field … we need to take advantage of the destruction [to tell] the countries that each of them should take a quota, it can be 20,000 or 50,000 … We need 2 million to leave. That’s the solution for Gaza.”

Faced with the monumental task of resistance against US-backed occupation forces, the onus is on Hamas and the other Palestinian resistance factions to thwart any progress made on Israel’s “messianic revolution” in Gaza. 

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

US Election: Mohammed Bin Salman Braces for The Loss of a Key Ally

By Madawi Al-Rasheed – MEE

No doubt Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman listened to US presidential candidate Joe Biden’s statement on the second anniversary of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi with apprehension.

Biden’s statement this month was a strong condemnation of the murder by Saudi operatives of Khashoggi, who had been a US resident since 2017. Biden promised to withdraw US support for the war in Yemen launched by Saudi Arabia in 2015, and noted: “Today, I join many brave Saudi women and men, activists, journalists, and the international community in mourning Khashoggi’s death and echoing his call for people everywhere to exercise their universal rights in freedom.”

Such a statement by someone who may become the master of the White House has surely sent shock waves through Riyadh.

Shifting public opinion

In contrast, two years ago, US President Donald Trump uncritically adopted the Saudi narrative about the slain journalist as an “enemy of the state”. Trump shamelessly boasted about shielding the murderers, above all bin Salman, and protecting him from further denunciation by Congress. Trump sensed a major shift in public opinion, and above all in Congress, in favor of vigorous scrutiny of US authoritarian allies in the Middle East – above all, the Saudi regime.

Many Republican and Democratic congressmen condemned Saudi Arabia and its authoritarian ruler for committing crimes against their own citizens on foreign soil, and continuing a policy of zero tolerance towards activists and dissidents. Shielding bin Salman from further scrutiny and possible sanctions allowed the crown prince to enjoy two years of security and tranquility, which may not be readily available after 3 November, should Biden win the presidential election.

Yet, one must be cautious when anticipating great US policy shifts if a Democrat is elected to the White House. The previous record of Democratic leadership has been more in line with a long US tradition of supporting authoritarian proteges in the Middle East, above all in Saudi Arabia, despite being more likely to invoke US values and their contradiction with the realist policy of propping up the region’s dictators.

Barack Obama went further than any previous US president by withdrawing support for former Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, rather than openly and actively embracing the democratic forces that toppled him in 2011. By failing to unconditionally support a long-term US ally, Obama antagonized the Saudis, who interpreted his position on Egypt as abandoning a loyal partner.

The Saudis feared that the Arab uprisings would leave them exposed to serious political change, without the US superpower rushing to protect them against a dramatic fall. Saudi leaders knew they could not count on Obama to embrace them without demanding serious reforms. In a famous interview, Obama reminded Gulf leaders that their biggest problems were domestic and encouraged them to stop amplifying “external threats”, such as Iran’s regional influence, while silencing critical voices at home.

Sense of betrayal

The Saudi leadership was further annoyed by a historic deal between the US, several European countries and Iran, facilitated by Oman. The Saudis realized how far a US Democratic president could go towards marginalizing them, without openly denouncing their domestic and regional policies in the Middle East.   

That didn’t sit well with Saudi autocrats, who have always aimed to paint a picture of a kingdom besieged by hostile regional powers, while enjoying the bliss of harmony and the support of its domestic constituency. Obama publicly debunked this Saudi myth and negotiated with Iran, Saudi Arabia’s archenemy for decades.

The Saudis felt a sense of betrayal, which Trump quickly abated when he fully endorsed bin Salman – or, more accurately, the crown prince’s promises to invest in the US economy and to seriously consider normalizing relations with Israel, both high prices for US tolerance of bin Salman’s excesses at home and abroad.  

Should Biden win the US election, bin Salman will be on alert. Any word uttered by the White House that falls short of endorsing the young prince and reminding Congress of the centrality of the “historical partnership” between the US and Saudi Arabia will automatically be interpreted in Riyadh as a hostile stand.

Yet the rambling discourses of the Democrats about US values is no longer convincing, if not accompanied by real policy changes. Withdrawing support from autocrats is not enough. The region and its activists expect more than passive support from a country that boasts about its democracy and civil rights. They expect real and concrete measures that undermine the longevity of authoritarian rule, if the region and the rest of the world are to enjoy political change, economic prosperity and social harmony.

Loss of faith

The first step is to starve those autocrats of weapons used against their own people and their neighbors. Whether Democrats will reconsider the relentless US export of arms and training programs to Saudi Arabia and its neighbors remains to be seen. At the least, Biden could make the export of weapons to Saudi Arabia conditional on meeting international standards on human rights, and on serious political changes to allow Saudis to be represented in a national assembly. The Saudi people could do the rest.

Frankly, the Middle East, and for that matter the rest of the world, have lost faith in the US. Americans have yet to calculate the costs of having elected Trump and the ensuing reputational damage. Should they bring a Democrat to power next month, they will struggle to correct not only the short history of Trump’s failings, but also more than half a century of misguided US policy in the Middle East. 

From now until early November, bin Salman will no doubt have sleepless nights in anticipation of losing a good partner in Washington – one who allowed him to get away with murder.

ألاعيب أبناء وأحفاد البنا!

د. محمد سيد أحمد

لم نكتب منذ فترة طويلة عن جماعة الإخوان المسلمين، على الرغم من أنّ غالبية مقالاتي منذ 25 يناير/ كانون الثاني 2011 وحتى 30 يونيو/ حزيران 2013 وما بعد ذلك بعام تقريباً لم تكن إلا عن الجماعة وخطورتها على المجتمع المصري، وكنت دائماً ما أحذر من ألاعيب أبناء وأحفاد البنا، وذلك من واقع خبرة علمية بفكر التنظيم وحركته التاريخية، واليوم أجد إلحاحاً من بعض الأصدقاء بضرورة العودة للكتابة مرة أخرى عن التنظيم وفكره وحركته بعد أن عاد للعمل من جديد ويحاول زعزعة الأمن والاستقرار بالداخل المصري، والقضاء على كلّ منجز تقوم به الدولة المصرية على طريق النهوض والتنمية، مستغلاً بعض الأخطاء من ناحية، وعدم القدرة على الفهم والتعامل مع ألاعيب الجماعة من ناحية أخرى.

ونعود إلى الخلف قليلاً ففي أعقاب 30 يونيو/ حزيران 2013 والإطاحة بالجماعة من سدة الحكم تحدّثنا عن الخيارات المتاحة أمام الجماعة باعتبارها إحدى القوى الاجتماعية والسياسية الفاعلة على الساحة المجتمعية المصرية – فهذه حقيقة علمية سواء قبلها البعض أو حاول إنكارها – ولعلّ محاولات إنكارها هي ما أوصلنا إلى هذه الحالة الراهنة التي كبرت فيها الجماعة وتوحّشت وكادت تبتلع الوطن بكامله، فأخطاء السلطة السياسية عبر ما يقرب من الخمسة عقود الماضية كانت سبباً في ما وصلنا إليه الآن من مواجهة شاملة مع هذه القوى الإرهابية، فعندما ظنّ الرئيس السادات أنه بإمكانه القيام بثورة مضادة لثورة 23 يوليو/ تموز 1952 يتخلّص على أثرها من خصومه السياسيين من الناصريين والشيوعيين فاستعان على الفور بخصمهم العنيد جماعة الإخوان المسلمين فأخرجهم من السجون والمعتقلات وأطلق سراحهم لمواجهة هؤلاء الخصوم، لكن هذه المواجهة انتهت باغتياله شخصياً بعد أن ظنّ أنهم فرغوا من مهمّتهم التي أوكلها لهم، ثم جاء الرئيس مبارك ليسير في نفس الطريق حيث قرّر منذ البداية استمالة الجماعة وعقد صفقات تحتية معها، تمكنت على أثرها من التغلغل داخل بنية المجتمع انتظاراً للفرصة التي تمكنها من الانقضاض على السلطة السياسية وانتزاعها، وساعدتها على ذلك سياسات مبارك المنسحبة من الأدوار الرئيسية للدولة وتخليها عن مسؤوليتها الاجتماعية والاقتصادية تجاه مواطنيها، مما خلق فراغاً تمكنت هذه الجماعة وحلفائها من ملئه خاصة في الأحياء والمناطق الأكثر فقراً في الريف والحضر.

وفي أعقاب الإطاحة بالجماعة من سدة الحكم طرحنا مجموعة من الخيارات المتاحة أمامها، من خلال قراءة علمية نقدية في أدبيات الجماعة الفكرية، وحركتها التنظيمية، وتجاربها التاريخية داخل المجتمع المصري، وتوصلنا إلى ثلاثة خيارات متاحة أمامها في اللحظة الراهنة وهي:

1

ـ إلى الأمام، والاعتذار عن الفشل وإعادة النظر في تجربتها والاندماج مرة أخرى في المجتمع بعد مصالحة يتمّ على أثرها معاقبة من أخطأ.

2

ـ إلى الخلف، وخوض مواجهة مفتوحة مع الجميع المجتمع والدولة والسلطة السياسية، وهذا خيار اللاعودة، فإما الانتصار باستخدام الإرهاب على الشعب والحكومة والدولة، أو الانتحار.

3

ـ في المكان، واتّباع مبدأ التقية والعودة مرة أخرى لعقد صفقات وتحالفات مرحلية ومؤقتة مع السلطة السياسية، كما كان يحدث في الماضي، وهي لعبة تجيدها الجماعة تاريخياً، بل هي جزء من عقيدتها حيث اتقاء شرّ السلطة السياسية حين تكون الجماعة في مرحلة استضعاف، وهو ما تمّ على مدار حكم مبارك، ثمّ انتهاز الفرصة للانقضاض عليه والإطاحة به والجلوس محله، وهي المرحلة التي تعرف بمرحلة الاستقواء والتمكين.

وكنا قد أكدنا أنّ كلّ الشواهد والأدلة والبراهين تشير إلى أنّ الجماعة تسير بالفعل في اتجاه اللاعودة أيّ الخيار الثاني إلى الخلف، فالجماعة قد حسمت أمرها وقرّرت خوض معركة إلى الخلف للنهاية، وذلك من خلال تحالفها مع باقي الجماعات الإرهابية التي خرجت من تحت عباءتها والتي تطلق على نفسها مسمّيات مختلفة – سلفية وجهادية وغيرها – حيث أعلنوا النزول ضدّ الشعب والدولة والسلطة السياسية في مواجهة شاملة سيقومون من خلالها باستدعاء كلّ الحيل التاريخية لقوى الإسلام السياسي التي استخدمت من أجل الوصول إلى السلطة والسيطرة على مقاليد الحكم باسم الله والدين، والله والدين منهم براء، لكن الجديد في الأمر هو استخدام الجماعة وأعوانها حيل جديدة حيث استخدمت المنصات الإعلامية في الخارج سواء في تركيا أو قطر، وشكلت كتائب إلكترونية على مواقع التواصل الاجتماعي تعمل على مدار الساعة لنشر الفتن والأكاذيب وتضخيم الأحداث الصغيرة، والدعوة الدائمة للخروج والتظاهر مستغلين بعض السياسات غير الرشيدة من السلطة السياسية سواء على المستوى الاجتماعي أو الاقتصادي أو السياسي.

لذلك يجب أن يعي الشعب المصري والسلطة السياسية معا أنّ المعركة الراهنة، هي الخيار الأخير أمام هذه الجماعة الإرهابية، وعلى الجميع أن يتوحّد تحت مظلة الوطن فالمعركة لا يمكن أن تحسم من خلال الأجهزة الأمنية فقط – جيش وشرطة – وإنما تحتاج لدعم شعبي ومواجهة مجتمعية شاملة على كافة المستويات الاجتماعية والاقتصادية والسياسية والثقافية والدينية والإعلامية، وليدرك الجميع أنّ هذه المعركة ستطول ولن تحسم في المنظور القريب، وما المعركة الدائرة اليوم من خلال تحريض المواطنين الغاضبين من بعض السياسات الاجتماعية والاقتصادية والسياسية إلا جولة من جولات الصراع بين الوطن وأعداء الوطن، لذلك لا بدّ أن تتحرك السلطة السياسية لنزع فتيل الغضب بمجموعة من السياسات المنحازة للفقراء والكادحين والمهمّشين، وإحداث إصلاح سياسي حقيقي ووقف العبث الذي تمّ في انتخابات مجلس الشيوخ، والذي يتمّ في انتخابات مجلس النواب، خاصة أنّ أبناء وأحفاد البنا ما زالوا يتلاعبون بالعقول وينفخون في النار، اللهم بلغت اللهم فاشهد.

Egypt’s Former President Mubarak Died, He Shared Erdogan’s Hatred of Syria

February 25, 2020 Arabi Souri

Former Egyptian President Husni Mubarak died today, he completed 91 years most of it betraying his country, Palestine, and most importantly betraying Syria. He was ousted by his people in early February 2011 in what was a genuine demand by the people that was used by the US in its Colored Revolutions project.

We only remember the former dictator for his bad deeds, we can’t find something in his career that can be remembered in a positive way, maybe positive for those who he was serving, but by the end of his days they didn’t reward him properly, on the contrary, they used him as one of the disposable cards in their hegemonic plans around the world, he’s just another pawn used by the US and betrayed by them when his services are no longer needed.

The purpose of this post is merely to highlight a previous post we’ve done here based on a testimony by a credible journalist who witnessed one of the very ugly betrayals of Mubarak during his life against Syria.

Husni Mahali, Turkish career journalist witnessed a meeting between Mubarak and former Turkish President Süleyman Demirel. The meeting was supposed to be held to mediate between Syria and Turkey at that time, and it was because of the Kurds.

Turkey reached in the year 1998 the height of its war, literal war, against its own people of Kurdish origins, those who only found refuge in Syria from a country known for their genocides and massacres. The Turks wanted the head of the Kurdish leader Ocalan who was hosted in Syria and amassed NATO’s 2nd largest army at Syria’s northern borders.

That time, Syria had a very bad enemy on its eastern borders, he was Saddam Hussein, had already a British satellite state Jordan in the south, Israel up halfway in Lebanon to its west and the last thing we needed was a Turkish invasion from the north. That time Russia was not even on the map and the Russians were struggling for their food, literally.

Here came Mubarak to mediate and his mediating was a betrayal for Syria to stand down at its northern borders while he instigated the Turks to invade Syria. The Turkish leadership that time were smart and were patriotic, they didn’t want a bloodbath in northern Syria, only they wanted to stop the PKK attacks. Once late Syrian President Hafez Assad allowed Ocalan to leave Syria the Turks stood down and didn’t listen to the instigations of their ally Mubarak that time.

Imagine if someone like the madman Erdogan was in charge of Turkey during those days!

Much details in the former post, to avoid repeating I invite you to check it in the following link and watch the video of Mr. Mahali detailing Mubarak’s ugly betrayal:

One of Mubarak’s Betrayal Attempts Against Syria (Revealed 2012)

We’re supposed to remember the dead with their good deeds only; if there’s anything good Mubarak did in his entire career was that he didn’t form armies of terrorists and send them all across the Arab world to help Israel, like what his anti-Islamic Muslim Brotherhood successor did, or like what the Turkish anti-Islamic Muslim Brotherhood madman is doing against Syria, Libya, Tunisia, and elsewhere. Other than that he was a faithful servant for the Political Zionism project that controls the USA.

Kerry Reveals Egyptian, Saudi Ex-Leaders Pushed US to Attack Iran

October 6, 2018

Former US Secretary of State John Kerry expressed alarm over a possible war with Iran following the US’s exit from the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

By pulling out of the deal, US President Donald Trump has “made it more likely that there will be conflict in the region because there are people there who would love to have the United States of America bomb Iran,” Kerry emphasized in an address to the Council on Foreign Relations on Friday.

He also revealed that both Saudi Arabia’s late King Abdullah and Egypt’s ousted president Hosni Mubarak told him that the US should attack Iran.

According to Kerry, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also urged then-US President Barack Obama to give the go-ahead for bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Earlier, the former US Secretary of State warned that Washington’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal may undermine his country’s security and isolate the US from its European allies.

Last month, Kerry berated Trump for having described the JCPOA as the “worst deal ever”, adding that the US President tries to “make things up” on Iran.

He rejected Trump’s allegations that the JCPOA was ostensibly weak and harmful to the US as false, adding that they could disrupt “the possibilities of international nuclear policy.”

“Just saying that doesn’t make it that. This is the toughest agreement in terms of inspection, accountability — no country has had to do what Iran did in order to live up to this. But to just walk away?” Kerry said.

Source: Agencies

Why Gazan’s Troppled Mubarak’s Wall Late Jan 2008???

Finally Anis Naqash revealed the secret  behind  breaking Gaza Wall Mubarak’s Egypt

The goal was not to break the siege to get their needs from the other side

What was the goal?

Upon the advise of Hezbollah’s Great Leader Martyr Imad Mughniyeh, under the cover of Tens of thousands Gazans mobilized by Hamas to crossed the borders, Hamas moved  thousands of Syrian and Iranian missiles hidden behind  the wall.

“It is your golden opportunity” Mughniyeh told Hamas.

Listen to Anis 23:30 in the following Video

السيد حسن نصرالله (يسأل خالد مشعل) من ارسل الصواريخ الى غزة؟

نصر الله يوجه رسالة لحماس حول سوريا

2:40

2:00

 A new Surprise, Another slap on Pharoah’s Face: Gazan’s Cut through the Wall of Shame

PUMPED: Posted late Jan 2008

Gazans cut through Egypt’s border barrier

Some 80% of imports into Gaza come through the tunnels, the UN says

By Jon Donnison
BBC News, Gaza

 

“Every problem has a solution. The Egyptian steel barrier was a problem but we found a solution,” says Mohammed, a grimy-faced Gazan tunnel digger who didn’t want to give his real name.

Mohammed, covered in dust and dirt, is in the process of digging a 750m (2,460ft) smuggling tunnel from Gaza into Egypt. He says he’s been digging it for 18 months.

As he hauls up a plastic container of sand with an electric winch from the metre-wide tunnel shaft, he says the new underground Egyptian barrier aimed at stopping smuggling is a “joke.”

“We just cut through it using high-powered oxygen fuelled blow torches,” he says.

The Egyptian government says it began constructing the barrier along the Gaza-Egypt border last year. When finished it is meant to be 11km-long (seven miles), stretching down 18m (59ft) underground.
According to Egypt it is made of bomb-proof, super-strength steel and is costing millions of dollars to build.

‘Embarrassing’

Mohammed smiles when he hears this.

“We pay around a $1,000 (£665) for a man with an oxygen-fuelled cutter to come and break through it. It takes up to three weeks to cut through but we get there in the end,” he says.

If they [Egypt] opened the border, we wouldn’t need to dig tunnels. But until they do, we’ll keep digging, whatever they do to try and stop us

Mohammed, tunnel digger

Mohammed says the steel barrier is 5-10cm (2-4in) thick.

The BBC spoke to one man in Gaza employed to cut through the barrier. He said he could cut a metre-square hole through it in less than a day.

This news will be embarrassing for Egypt’s government.

Encouraged by the United States which gives millions of dollars in military aid to Egypt every year, it says it is trying to crack down on smuggling into Gaza.

The BBC asked the Egyptian government to comment on the fact that Gazans were already cutting through the barrier. The government has not yet responded.

Sheep and shampoo

The Palestinian territory has been under a tightened Israeli and Egyptian economic blockade since 2007 when the Hamas Islamist movement took over the territory.

The blockade was enforced to put pressure on Hamas and to stop weapons being smuggled in.

Little attempt is made to keep the tunnels secret

Egypt’s secular government is opposed to Hamas, which has historical ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition movement in Egypt which is illegal but largely tolerated.

Many Gazans are angry with the Egyptian government, which – they say – is increasing their suffering.
The blockade has meant that Gaza is to a great extent dependent on the smuggling tunnels from Egypt. Millions of dollars worth of goods are smuggled in every month.

Everything from fridges to fans, sheep to shampoo comes through the tunnels. The BBC even obtained video footage this year of whole brand-new cars being dragged through tunnels from Egypt.
The UN estimates that as much as 80% of imports into Gaza come through the tunnels.
Big business

The tunnels are not at all hard to find. In the southern Gazan town of Rafah, right on the border, there are lines of them covered by white tents.

Details of Gaza blockade revealed

<>Little attempt is made to keep them secret. They are surrounded by huge mounds of sandy earth which have been dug out of the ground.

The air is thick with diesel fuel from the trucks that transport the goods across the Gaza strip.
The openness of the smuggling operation suggests that if Israel and Egypt really wanted to stop the tunnels they could easily do so.

Israel has at times bombed some of the tunnels, but has stopped short of totally shutting them down.
Aid agencies in Gaza say that if Israel or Egypt really forced the smuggling to stop, it would lead to an even more desperate humanitarian situation in Gaza which would be damaging to Israel’s and Egypt’s international reputations.

Diplomats in the region also believe that so much money is being made in Egypt from the trade through the tunnels that much of the smuggling is likely to continue.

But the head of operations in Gaza for the UN relief agency Unrwa, John Ging, says that ordinary people in Gaza are losing out.

“Everything is expensive because people are hostage to the dynamics of a black market.”

Mr Ging stressed that it was the Israeli-Egyptian blockade that was allowing that black market to thrive.
The UN does not use illegal goods and building materials smuggled in through from Egypt.

If the blockade remains in place it seems the tunnel industry will continue to thrive, underground steel barrier or not.

“If they opened the border, we wouldn’t need to dig tunnels,” says Mohammed peering into the shaft of his tunnel in Rafah. “But until they do, we’ll keep digging, whatever they do to try and stop us.”
“Every problem has a solution,” he smiles.

في مفاجأة من العيار الثقيل.. فلسطينيو غزة ينجحون في اختراق الجدار الفولاذي

 

عواصم: فجر حفارو الانفاق الغزاويين مفاجاة من العيار الثقيل، بكشفهم أنهم قد تمكنوا

من اختراق ما يعتقد انه الجدار الفولاذي المقاوم للقنابل الذي قيل ان السلطات المصرية مبنته للحد من عمليات التهريب على الحدود المصرية مع قطاع غزة.

وكانت السلطات المصرية قد بدأت العام الماضي في بناء جدار حاجز تحت الارض لمنع التهريب والتجارة غير الشرعية ببضائع تقدر بملايين الدولارات تدخل الى الاراضي الفلسطينية عبر الحدود المصرية مع قطاع غزة.

  ونقلت هيئة الاذاعة البريطانية “بي بي سيعن أحد حفارى الأنفاق فى قطاع غزة قوله: “أن لكل مشكلة حلا”، واضاف إن الغزاويين يستخدمون آلات (مشاعل) حرارية فائقة القوة لإحداث ثقوب فى الجدار الفولاذى، بينما قال آخر: “إن اختراق الجدار يمكن أن يستغرق ثلاثة أسابيع من العمل غير أنهم نجحوا فى ذلك فى نهاية المطاف”.

وزعمت الهيئة ان هذه أنباء محرجة للحكومة المصرية التى انفقت ملايين الدولارات لبناء هذا الحاجز وكانت قد قالت أخيرا إن العمل بالجدار الممتد لأحد عشر كيلومتر وبعمق نحو عشرين مترا تحت الأرض قد شارف على الانتهاء، وقالت الحكومة المصرية إنه مصنوع على ما يبدو من فولاذ فائق القوة لا يمكن اختراقه.

وتمثل عمليات تهريب البضائع عبر الأنفاق من مصر إلى قطاع غزة تجارة كبيرة تقدر بملايين الدولارات.. ومن بين تلك البضائع السيارات الجديدة التى يجرى تهريبها كل شهر.

وازدهرت تلك التجارة بعد فرض سلطات الاحتلال الاسرائيلي حصارها الاقتصادي على قطاع غزة، في محاولة للضغط على حركة حماس التي تتولى ادارة القطاع .

كانت تقارير صحفية كشفت في وقت سابق أن السلطات المصرية رفعت من وتيرة العمل في بناء “الجدار الفولاذي” على الحدود مع قطاع غزة لمنع عمليات التهريب عبر الأنفاق الأرضية ، حيث اقتربت أعمال البناء من منطقة صلاح الدين ذات الكثافة السكانية العالية والتي خضعت لعمليات مسح سكاني وحصر للمباني ، تمهيدا لإجلاء الأهالي من المساكن المتاخمة للشريط الحدودي وتعويضهم بأراضي بديلة .

ونقلت صحيفة “الشروق” المصرية المستقلة عن مصادر مطلعة القول إن الشركة المنفذة لأعمال الجدار أوشكت علي الانتهاء من عمليات حفر الخنادق وتثبيت الألواح الحديدية علي أعماق كبيرة ، كما تواصل 6 معدات عملاقة عمليات الحفر ويتواصل تدفق الستائر الحديدية علي مواقع العمل.

وأضافت المصادر ذاتها ” منازل منطقة صلاح الدين معرضة للخطر بسبب كثرة الأنفاق والتي تنذر بالانهيار في أي لحظة وهو ما يتطلب إعادة تخطيط المنطقة بالكامل”.

يذكر أن إسرائيل تمارس ضغوطا كبيرة على مصر منذ فترة طويلة لكي تتصدي للتهريب عبر هذه الانفاق تحت الأرض بين غزة وسيناء المصرية.وتقول ان الفلسطينيين يستخدمونها لتهريب الاسلحة والذخيرة الى جانب السلع التجارية التي يتم تهريبها الى غزة.

وكان ناشطون مصريون قد رفعوا دعوى على الدولة المصرية بسبب قرارها بناء الجدار على حدودها مع قطاع قائلين بأنه ينتهك التزامات مصر إزاء جيرانها العرب. وحدد القضاء الإداري المصري موعد جلسة النطق بالحكم في دعوى وقف بناء الجدار الفولاذي بين مصر وقطاع غزة يوم 29 يونيو/يونيو المقبل.

“جدار الموت”

 كان الكشف عن بناء السلطات المصرية لحدار حديدي على حدودها مع قطاع غزة قد أثار جدلا واسعا حيث اعتبره فلسطينيو غزة تديدا جديا لحصارهم المستمر منذ منتصف يونيو/حزيران عام 2007، بينما اعتبر مسئولون مصريون أن من حق بلادهم الحفاظ على أمنها ولديها مطلق الحرية في أن تفعل داخل أراضيها ما يؤمن سلامتها، ولا يمكن أن يزعم ولا يحق لعربي مهما كان، وباسم أي قضية مهما كانت أن يقول لمصر افعلي هذا أو لا تفعلي ذاك على أراضيك.

كانت تقارير صحفية ذكرت في وقت سابق أن مصر بدأت مؤخرا بناء جدار فولاذي بعمق من 20 إلى 30 مترا تحت الأرض، بطول عشرة كيلومترات تمثل الحدود مع غزة، في محاولة للقضاء على ظاهرة الأنفاق التي تُستخدم في تهريب البضائع من سيناء إلى القطاع المحاصَر.

وأدى الكشف عن بناء الجدار الفولاذي والذي وصفه الفلسطينيون بـ “جدار الموت”، إلى تصاعد ردود الأفعال العربية والدولية المنددة بالخطوة التي اتخذتها القيادة المصرية، وتمحورت ردود الأفعال حول استنكار هذه الخطوة التي اعتبر عددٌ كبيرٌ من المتابعين والمحللين أنها تأتي كخطوةٍ إضافيةٍ تهدف إلى تشديد الحصار على أكثر من مليون ونصف المليون فلسطيني مُحاصَرين في قطاع غزة منذ أكثر من ثلاثة أعوام متواصلة.

وفيما يخص مواصفات الجدار، ذكر موقع “الشبكة الفلسطينية الإخبارية” على الإنترنت، نقلا عن مصادر وصفها بالموثوقة، أن آلية للحفر يتراوح طولها بين 7 إلى 8 أمتار تقوم بعمل ثقوب فى الأرض بشكل لولبى، ومن ثم تقوم رافعة بإنزال ماسورة مثقبة باتجاه الجانب الفلسطينى بعمق ما بين 20 و30 متر.

وأضافت الشبكة فى تقرير مرفق برسم كروكى لقطاع من الجدار، أن العمل على الآليات الموجودة هناك يتولاه عمال مصريون فى أغلبهم يتبعون شركة “عثمان أحمد عثمان”، بالإضافة إلى وجود أجانب بسيارات جى أم سى فى المكان.

ووفقا للمصادر فإن ماسورة رئيسية ضخمة تمتد من البحر غربا بطول 10 كيلومترات باتجاه الشرق يتفرع منها مواسير فى باطن الأرض مثقبة باتجاه الجانب الفلسطينى من الحدود يفصل بين الماسورة والأخرى 30 أو 40 متر.

وأوضحت أنه سيتم ضخ المياه فى الماسورة الرئيسية من البحر مباشرة، ومن ثم إلى المواسير الفرعية فى باطن الأرض، مضيفة أنه بما أن المواسير مثقبة باتجاه الجانب الفلسطينى فإن المطلوب من هذه المواسير الفرعية هو إحداث تصدعات وانهيارات تؤثر على عمل الأنفاق على طول الحدود من خلال تسريب المياه.

ولفتت إلى أنه خلف شبكة المواسير هذه يتمدد فى باطن الأرض جدران فولاذية بعمق يتراوح بين 30ــ35 متر فى باطن الأرض، وعلاوة على وظيفة هذا الجدار المصمم لكبح جماح الأنفاق إلى جانب أنابيب المياه، فإنه يحافظ على تماسك التربة على الجانب المصرى، فى حين تكون الأضرار البيئية والانهيارات فى الجانب الفلسطينى، على حد قول هذه المصادر.

وكان وزير الخارجية المصري أحمد أبو الغيط، قد أكد في تصريحات سابقة له “أن مصر ليست علي استعداد لأن تتوقف عن حماية شعبها وحدودها، وأن أحداً لا يمكنه أن يدفع بلاده لأن تخشي أمراً يحمي أمنها القومي،

مشيرا إلى أن الأهداف التي دعت مصر إلي إنشاء الجدار المصري هي تحطيم جدار مماثل كانت مصر قد أقامته منذ سنوات علي حدودها مع إسرائيل عندما كانت تحتل قطاع غزة،

وأن فلسطينيين قاموا بتحطيمه في يناير 2008 وهو ما دفع مصر إلي إعادة إنشائه حماية للأراضي المصرية من الاعتداء عليها ومنع من وصفهم بـ «هؤلاء الذين يقتحمون ويتسربون إلي الأراضي المصرية”.

 إلا أن مصادر أمنية مصرية أكدت أن قيام القاهرة بعمليات إحكام الحدود مع قطاع غزة فى الوقت الحالى عبر بناء سياج حدودى تقنى محكم جاء لدواعى السيادة والأمن القومى المصرى، ولا يعنى أبدا تشديد الحصار على قطاع غزة مشيرا إلى أن معبر رفح يظل مفتوحا معظم الوقت.

وقالت المصادر إن تهريب السلاح عبر الأنفاق “هو اعتداء مباشر على سيادة الدولة المصرية وشرعيتها كدولة، ولا يمكن السماح باستمراره عبر شبكة الأنفاق المنتشرة على تلك الحدود”، مضيفا أن من يستخدم الأنفاق لتهريب السلاح من سيناء فى اتجاه الجانب الآخر يمكنه استخدامها للتهريب فى الاتجاه المعاكس ليس فقط لتهريب السلاح ولكن المخدرات والأفراد أيضا.

وشددت المصادر على أنه “من حق مصر أن تهتم بسيادتها على حدودها وأن تطور الجدار الفاصل بينها وبين قطاع غزة ومن حقها أن يكون الجدار قويا لا تسقطه بلدوزات تحركها قلة غير مسئولة على الجانب الآخر من الحدود كما حدث فى يناير 2008 ويكون نقطة ضعف يستخدمها أعداء السلام”.

Hijacked Egyptian Revolution’s 7th Anniversary

 

Egyptian Revolution’s 7th Anniversary

Designed by: Nour Fakih

Related 

• الإخوان المسلمون و “سي آي إيه”.. علاقات قديمة متجددة

مرشد الإخوان محمد بديع مع آن بيترسون سفيرة واشنطن في القاهرة

 

• الاخوان والخيانه العظمى

Who Killed theTunisian singer Thekra?

Who dare to Say مين يجرا يقول

Her Last Song Tells

 

Singer killed because she made a song against Saudi Arabia kingdom and the political system in KSA

Thikra’s family accuses Jamal Mubarak of her murder

Family of the late Tunisian singer Thikra has exploded a bomb stating that they possess solid evidence proving that Jamal Mubarak, son of ousted Egyptian President Husni Mubarak, is involved in her murder.

Tawfiq Al Dali, Thikra’s brother, has made a call out to all those that have any information about Thikra’s murder to come forward. Forensic reports have shown that Ayman Al Suwaidi, Thikra’s husband and who is accused of killing her while being intoxicated, suffers from stomach problems and therefore was not drunk during the time the murder happened.

Thikra’s family doubts her husband shot her and then committed suicide, but rather strongly believes Jamal Mubarak had a strong hand in the murder of both. The family assured that it holds vital evidence that the former overthrown Tunisian and Egyptian governments fabricated evidence and placed the blame on her husband.

It is said that there was a relationship between Thikra and Jamal. Thikra’s family has called on all members of the press and lawyers from Tunisia and Egypt to help in uncovering all the fact. In addition, Thikra’s family has released phone numbers, emails, and created a page on the social network Facebook for people with information to contact them.

Related Videos

الطريق إلى الهاوية

إبراهيم الأمين

تبدو توقعات محمد حسنين هيكل، بشأن مستقبل النظام السعودي، شديدة الواقعية. بل ربما هي أقرب ممّا ظن الرج ل الذي لا يعتقد أنه سيعيش لأكثر من عقد من الزمن. طبعاً للسعودية حسابها الطويل مع هيكل، وهي تطارده اليوم حتى عند صديقها عبد الفتاح السيسي. لكن مشكلتها معه هي في كونه لا يزال يدعو الى بناء دور مصري محوري، يقود عملية احتواء الفتنة السنية ــ الشيعية، التي لا يعمل آل سعود سوى على تسعيرها، ظناً منهم أنها خشبة خلاص نظامهم الدموي المتخلف.

ومشكلة آل سعود مع مصر القوية المستقلة أنها قادرة على جعل العالم كله يميز بين لاعبين حقيقيين ولاعبين افتراضيين. ثم إن مصر تقدر، كما قال هيكل مراراً، على أن تقود أول وأفضل حوار مع إيران الثورة الاسلامية، وأن تتوصل معها الى تفاهمات، لا تتعلق بالسياسات العامة في المنطقة فحسب، بل في تعزيز التعاون الذي من شأنه تعزيز منطق الاستقلال والتخلي عن التبعية للغرب. وهو ما يقرأه آل سعود وأتباعهم على أنه مدخل لإطاحة عروشهم في كل المنطقة.

وفكرة آل سعود، منذ بدأت التظاهرات التي أسقطت حكم الرئيس السابق حسني مبارك، كانت، كما هي حال أمراء قطر والامارات، أنه يجب الإمساك بمصر. سواء طلب الغرب ذلك أو لم يطلب. والهدف ليس سوى تعطيل قدرة مصر على استعادة دورها الاقليمي، الذي يجعلها عاصمة العروبة الحقيقية، وعاصمة المواجهة مع إسرائيل ومع الارهاب الآتي بفكره من الجزيرة العربية. وهو ما جعل دول «مجلس التعاون الخليجي» تعمد إلى استمالة الانظمة العربية «المحتاجة إلى كل دعم مالي وسياسي وعسكري»، ما أتاح خلال السنوات الماضية السيطرة على جامعة الدول العربية. ولما ظهر أنها لا تفيد كثيراً في تحقيق تغييرات، تم تعطيلها أيضاً. وهنا، يمكن فهم عنصر الضغط الهائل الذي تناوبت دول الخليج على ممارسته تجاه مصر، سواء مع حكم الاخوان المسلمين سابقاً أو مع حكم العسكر اليوم. أصلاً، ليس هناك من فكرة مختلفة بين ما كانت قطر وتركيا تريدانه من «مصر الاخوان»، وبين ما تريده السعودية والامارات من «مصر العسكر». والقصة هدفها واحد: مواصلة الضغط على ما تبقى من حكومات عربية قادرة على مواجهة المشروع التابع للوصاية الاميركية.

لكن الامور اختلطت على الجميع، ودخل العالم العربي في أتون من الحروب الاهلية المتنقلة، وطار الربيع الموعود، وحلّ مكانه خريف الانظمة والحكومات والاحزاب والافكار والمجتمعات. وهو تيار جارف لا يمكن صدّه بأسوار من رمل في دول الجزيرة العربية. ولا تنفع معه أموال ولا طائرات ولا صلوات. فكيف إذا كان الجنون يريد تثبيت حكمه في أرض الخلافة؟

فكرة آل سعود، منذ بدأ سقوط مبارك، كانت أنه يجب الإمساك بمصر

ذهب السعوديون الى جنون إضافي. هم يستمرون في دعم أكبر جريمة ترتكب في سوريا والعراق. وبدل أن يتعقلوا قليلاً، ذهبوا نحو الاقصى، بأن سعوا الى فرض سيطرتهم على كامل الجزيرة العربية. أعادوا احتلال البحرين وقمع انتقاضة سلمية لأهلها. ونجحوا في احتواء الامارات والكويت، وأخافوا قطر فعزلوها ثم نجحوا في احتوائها. وما فلت من أيديهم في سلطنة عمان، قرروا أن يجعلوه هدفاً ثانوياً بعد احتلال اليمن. وهم مع شعورهم وإدراكهم بأنه لم يعد هناك في العالم من يقاتل عنهم، وأن الغرب القوي خرج مهزوماً من المشرق العربي، أدركوا أن عليهم القيام بالأمر بأيديهم. وكانت أولى خطوات الانهيار، اختراع تحالف هجين لتغطية أكبر جريمة ترتكتب بحق اليمن ولا تزال. وهو تحالف لم يحصد إلا الخيبة لأهله، ومزيداً من الموت والتخلف لشعب اليمن. لكنه تحالف كشف آل سعود على حقيقتهم: حقيقة قدراتهم، أفكارهم، خيالهم، علاقاتهم، نفوذهم ووصايتهم على الآخرين.

وبعد أقل من سنة على حرب دموية وحصار وجنون، يجد آل سعود أنفسهم في مربع الهزيمة، حيث لا يتحقق أي شيء من أهدافهم، وحيث يجعلهم العقل البدوي لا يفكرون سوى بالثأر. وهو ما يقود الى المزيد من الاخطاء والمزيد من الجنون. وعشية انكشاف هزيمتهم أمام شعبهم قبل بقية العالم، وجدوا في أيديهم حيلة البحث عن تحالف جديد، وكلفوا أنفسهم بمهمة محاربة الارهاب. وهنا، لا يحتاج أي منا إلى معرفة من هو الارهابي في فكرهم وسياساتهم ومنطقهم.

التحالف الذي أعلن عنه من السعودية، أمس، لا يشبه إلا محمد بن سليمان، الولد العاق، الذي يستجلب الويلات على بقية أهله، ويهدد ما تبقى من استقرار في المنطقة. وهو تحالف ليس فيه سوى العنوان الذي يراد استخدامه، لتغطية المزيد من الجرائم، ولجلعه أمراً واقعاً، لكن، بجنود من المنظمات الارهابية، وجيوش الانظمة الارهابية، التي ستحاول السعودية دفعها الى دائرة النار الممتدة من العراق الى ليبيا مروراً باليمن الجريح.

هي مغامرة جديدة، سوف نكتشف سريعاً أن آل سعود غير قادرين على أكثر من الاعلان عنها، وتوفير تمويلها. لكن المشكلة ليست في أننا لن نرى جيش الملايين يحتشد لتحرير فلسطين، بل في كون المحتل الاسرائيلي، ومن خلفه الغرب، سيكون هو من يدير هذا التحالف، سواء كان له دور حقيقي أو مجرد قنبلة دخانية، هدفها التغطية على مسلسل الهزائم، وليس آخرها انتصار الشعب اليمني على آلة القتل والجنون السعودية ــ الأميركية.

Five Eyes and Color Revolutions

 

Wayne MADSEN | 26.05.2015 | 00:00

A recent release of Edward Snowden-provided classified PowerPoint presentation from the National Security Agency (NSA) provides a rather detailed description of how the FIVE EYES signals intelligence alliance of the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand has conspired with the promoters of social media-based revolutions, such as the «Arab Spring», to bring about the collapse of democratically-elected or otherwise stable governments. However, the PowerPoint slides were partially redacted in key areas by the dubious censors of First Look Media, financed by e-Bay founder and multi-billionaire Pierre Omidyar.

The PowerPoint slides illustrate how, in November 2011, the NSA; Canada’s Communications Security Establishment (CSE), now Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC), the Defense Signals Directorate (DSD) of Australia, now the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD); New Zealand’s Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB); and Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) developed a method for not only monitoring but taking control of cell phone and social media networks used for socio-political uprisings. The program, known as «Synergizing Network Analysis Tradecraft», was developed by the FIVE EYES’s Network Tradecraft Advancement Team or «NTAT».

The efforts of the NTAT were directed against single devices where «voice and data services interact». These devices include smart phones and other portable data and voice devices. By November 2011, the Arab Spring uprisings were in full swing, with the governments of Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, and Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi having been overthrown, and anti-government rioting breaking out in Syria, Yemen, Oman, and Morocco. The FIVE EYES met in a workshop to discuss how a classified operation code-named IRRITANT HORN could be used in future «Arab Springs», only in «different countries». The signals intelligence experts formulated plans to use the lessons learned in the Arab Spring to target servers in «non-5 Eyes countries» for such exploitation as «man-in-the-middle» or MITM operations and the «harvesting» of data «at rest» and «in transit». A related mobile network exploitation operation was code-named CRAFTY SHACK.

The slides show that among the countries where mobile application servers were targeted by the FIVE EYES were France, Cuba, Senegal, Morocco, Switzerland, Bahamas, and Russia. The information targeted by the Western signals intelligence partners included «geolocation and network ownership information for each IP address» that consisted of «network owner name, carrier name, ASN (advanced service network), continent, country, region, city, latitude and longitude, and any other related details». Not of interest to FIVE EYES were such applications as Google, mobile banking, and iTunes.

It is noteworthy that according to one TOP SECRET/SI [Special Intelligence] PowerPoint slide, a FIVE EYES system code-named EONBLUE was used to target Blackberry users in Saudi Arabia. Out of all the countries where Arab Spring demonstrations began, it was Saudi Arabia that acted swiftly to put down its street protests by brutal force. The FIVE EYES interest in Saudi Arabia mobile communications during the IRRITANT HORN operations may indicate that there was a dual purpose to such surveillance. NSA and its partners, in an act of «offensive information warfare», may have steered protesters in Egypt, Libya, Syria, and other countries to anti-government uprisings through MITM operations while tipping off the authorities in Saudi Arabia about plans to stage anti-government demonstrations in that country.

 

Another FIVE EYES operation targeted Samsung, Nokia, and other mobile telecommunications users of the Warid-Congo mobile network in the Republic of Congo. CSE boasted in one PowerPoint slide that it had «a list of the most popular smartphones for Warid Congo customers and their international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) numbers». IMSIs are assigned to every GSM user. Warid, which is owned by Sheikh Nahayan bin Mubarak Al Nahayan, the Minister of Culture, Youth, and Social Development of the United Arab Emirates and which is based in Abu Dhabi, also provides mobile services in Uganda, the Republic of Georgia, Ivory Coast, and Pakistan.

The interest of the FIVE EYES in fomenting a social media-based uprising in the Republic of Congo is interesting. The country has been led since 1997 by the authoritarian president Denis Sassou-Nguesso who is considered firmly in the pro-French camp. The Congo Republic is a major oil-producer in the region and the Anglophone FIVE EYES alliance would certainly be interested in replacing the authoritarian president with one more aligned with the United States and Britain. The targeting of Congo provides more proof that the NSA military and civilian analysts, who spend long hours on watch, are devoting themselves and their careers more to the bottom lines of U.S. and British oil companies than to U.S. national security.

Just four months after the FIVE EYES meeting of the NTAT, a partly-social media mass protest did break out in the Talangai district of Brazzaville, the Congolese capital. A March 26, 2012 dispatch from the U.S. embassy in Brazzaville stated: «Protestors are discontent with the Government of the Republic of the Congo’s handling of indemnity payments to people who lost their homes in the March 4 explosions at the Regiment Blinde munitions depot. Embassy sources reported hearing gun shots at the site of the protest on Marien Ngouabi Avenue, near the Talangai Market. The protesters are expected to march to the Presidential Palace. U.S. citizens are advised to avoid the Talangai district and the area surrounding the Presidential Palace throughout the day». The embassy appeared to know the plans of the protesters, possibly with the help of intelligence provided by both IRRITANT HORN and CRAFTY SHACK.

In January 2012, just two months after the NTAT meeting, anti-government protests broke out in Senegal, another country targeted by IRRITANT HORN/CRAFTY SHACK, after President Abdoulaye Wade, a supporter Muammar Qaddafi’s «United States of Africa», announced he would run for a third term. The then-State Department spokesperson, Victoria Nuland of «Euromaidan» infamy, urged the 85-year old Wade to pass power to «the next generation». Wade was defeated for re-election the month after the outbreak of violent riots in Dakar, the Senegalese capital. Soros’s OSI and the International Crisis Group, which is also heavily-bankrolled by Soros, provided significant support to both the Brazzaville and Dakar protests.

The PowerPoint slides also describe how a Chinese mobile web browser was discovered by a GCHQ analyst to «leak» IMSI; MSISDNs (Mobile Station International Subscriber Directory Numbers) that are linked to SIM cards; International Mobile Station Equipment Identities (IMEIs) unique to every mobile device and used for, among other things, tracking stolen or «jail broken» phones; and other device-specific information.

Although partially redacted, the latest disclosure of NSA material confirms the nexus between FIVE EYES signals intelligence surveillance and active measures in support of the overthrow of governments in the Middle East and elsewhere. The information verifies a convergence between the «color revolution» activities of George Soros’s Open Society Institute (OSI) network and the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the surveillance activities of the FIVE EYES partners.

There is also an obvious correlation between the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID’s) «fake Twitter» operation in Cuba, known as «Zun Zuneo», and IRRITANT HORN. Zun Zuneo or «Proyecto ZZ», was aimed at forming «smart mobs» across Cuba to protest against the Cuban government and seek its overthrow in a «Cuban Spring». It is important to note that IRRITANT HORN targeted Cuba in its mobile and social media surveillance and MITM operations.

Zun Zuneo used two contractors in Costa Rica, Contractor Creative Associates International and Mobile Accord of Denver. The firms obtained 400,000 CubaCel mobile telephone numbers, which now appears to have come the FIVE EYES’s IRRITANT HORN program, and began sending Cubans Twitter-like text messages, purportedly originating in Spain. Zun Zuneo also involved a front company in the Cayman Islands, MovilChat, which used a Cayman Islands bank account to covertly fund the Zun Zuneo caper. USAID funding for Zun Zuneo was secretly diverted from an unknown USAID project in Pakistan. The bank account used by USAID and MovilChat was maintained at the Cayman Islands branch of the Bermuda-based Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son Ltd. The Carlyle Group, along with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), are significant shareholders of the bank.

 

USAID has used technology similar to Zun Zuneo to mobilize «smart mobs» in Moldova, the Philippines, and Ukraine. The May 1, 2014, anti-government mass protests in Cambodia also appears to have been prompted by a USAID/CIA «smart mob» Twitter-like operation. By honing their «network tradecraft» in the Arab countries and Cuba, the FIVE EYES were well-prepared to support the Maidan Square uprising in Kiev in early 2014. The IRRITANT HORN project reveals that there is not much space between the operations of Soros’s and Nuland’s «democracy manipulators» and the social media surveillance eavesdroppers of the FIVE EYES alliance.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Is History Repeating Itself in Egypt?

A handout picture released on February 1, 2015, by Egypt’s Middle East News Agency (MENA) shows Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi delivering a speech during a meeting with security forces commanders, representatives of political parties and other public figures in the capital Cairo. AFP/MENA

By: Rania Rabih al-Abd

Published Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Is history repeating itself in Egypt today, or are the same mistakes being committed again? About four years ago, the opposition called for boycotting the second round of elections, because candidates of the now-dissolved National Democratic Party (NDP) won a suspicious landslide victory, gaining 95 percent of parliamentary seats, even in districts where NDP candidates had lost popular support to candidates from the opposition and independent parties.

Cairo — This scenario repeated itself yesterday as nominations began. The Supreme Committee for Election opened up to nominations for parliamentary elections (a 10-day process), and one Ahmed Ezz — “one of the main reasons for the January Revolution” — submitted his application through his lawyer.

The call for boycott came even before the first round this time, as many suspect that the expected outcome of this election may resemble the previous one.

The fraud witnessed during the 2010 election was committed and overseen by the same Ahmed Ezz, the NDP’s secretary-general at the time, from an operations room in the party headquarters near Tahrir Square and Abdel Munim Riad Square. The boycott of the second round of elections revealed the fragility of Hosni Mubarak’s regime, which had ruled the country for 30 years. In those days, a number of opposition parties, including the Wafd Party and the currently banned Muslim Brotherhood, led the boycott . The most important result of the boycott, the January 25 Revolution, followed a few months after, in 2011.

The Constitution Party established by Mohammed al-Baradei recently joined the list of parties boycotting the 2015 elections, which includes the Egyptian Popular Current (headed by former 2014 presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabahi), The Socialist People’s Alliance Party and the Strong Egypt Party (headed by former 2012 presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh). The reason for the boycott, according to these parties, is the government’s rejection of their repeated demand to amend the electoral law in order to “build a political system based on a multi-party system and transfer of power.”

Amr Badr, a member of the Socialist People’s Alliance Party and a boycott supporter, said “boycotting is the solution, it is the best option in light of a regime that does not believe in the political parties that are counting on the January 25 Revolution.” Badr believes the “revolutionary wave” is coming, but he cannot predict its timing: “The make-up of the next parliament (if the elections are held in this manner) will inflame public sentiments as the political and economic oligarchs — who corrupted Egypt’s political life and against whom the revolution erupted in the first place — return.”

[T]he election will “expose the nature of the regime and will determine if it is an extension of the Mubarak regime or if there is some kind of change.” — Hassan Nafaa, political science professor

The Constitution Party, which joined the boycott recently, justified its decision saying: “The current political climate does not encourage political parties to participate in public life. There is a strong tendency to narrow and confine the political sphere to people with special interests, influence and money, in addition to ongoing severe human rights violations.”

Ezz running in the elections suggests that the same scenario may be crudely repeated. And he wasn’t the only symbol of the Mubarak regime — imprisoned after the January 25 Revolution only to be later acquitted — to be involved in the nomination process. The list of candidates (until the deadline for submitting papers to the relevant courts) is headed by Ahmed Ezz and his wife Shahinaz al-Najjar; but also Hussein Megawer, president of the Egyptian Trade Union Federation under Mubarak; another NDP figure named Ragab Hilal Hamida; and also Hani Sorour who was accused of supplying tainted blood bags [to Egyptian hospitals] but acquitted after several years of adjudication.

Hassan Nafaa, a political science professor, commented on the current electoral scene saying the revolution continues and it is taking different forms. He believes the election will “expose the nature of the regime and will determine if it is an extension of the Mubarak regime or if there is some kind of change.”

Nafaa however argues that “the revolution will not be like the one in 2011, especially now that Egypt is entering a period that resembles the Mubarak era in terms of the behavior of security agencies as they tighten their control over events, the return of the network of economic and political interests through parliament, and the strengthening of the military institution, through the presidency of former Secretary of Defense Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.” He adds: “Liberal forces have begun to realize that the current regime is not their regime… The power of the ruling regime will be determined in the next six months and in light of its confrontation with the Muslim Brotherhood.”

This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.

Related

• Wave of Bomb Attacks Wound 10 in Alexandria, as Egypt ISIS Posts Beheading Video
• Sisi brings back Egypt’s police state with a vengeance
• Sisi says parliamentary elections to be held before March 2015

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Egypt: How did the ‘trial of the century’ set Mubarak free?

Egypt’s former President Hosni Mubarak (Rnd hg a court hearing on November 29, 2014 in the capital Cairo. AFP

By: Ahmad Jamaleddine

Published Monday, December 1, 2014

Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak could have stood trial before a “revolutionary” tribunal during the two months when the constitution was suspended under the Supreme Council for the Armed Forces (SCAF). However, he was protected by the former public prosecutor through legal maneuvering, and the judiciary proceeded with exploiting legal loopholes to set him free.

Cairo – The period between the issuance of the decision by former Egyptian public prosecutor Abdel-Majid Mahmoud to imprison deposed President Hosni Mubarak and his two sons in 2011, and the decision to acquit them along with Mubarak’s interior minister and other security officials was not very long. Three years do not count for much compared to Mubarak’s 30-year rule. His period of incarceration became like some sort of absolution, compelling the anchor on Sada al-Balad TV station to address him as “Mr. President” in his first audio interview after the “not guilty” verdict [was issued].

Through the decision to jail Mubarak, former public prosecutor Mahmoud seems to have preserved his position for over 15 months, amid calls by the revolutionary youths for his dismissal on the ground that he is a symbol of the former regime. The verdict issued on Saturday has shown that Mubarak’s time in jail was a sort of protection provided by Mahmoud.

Although the public prosecutor enjoys legal immunity and cannot be removed, the period that followed Mubarak’s resignation and the transfer of power to SCAF under Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi witnessed a suspension of the constitution (during which it was possible to form revolutionary tribunals). The parliament was also dissolved, which is a period that lasted nearly two-months until the introduction of amendments to the constitution after the March 19 [2011] referendum.

With the ratification of the constitutional amendments, the time period which could have allowed the removal of Mubarak’s men in the judiciary through revolutionary trials – as demanded by the demonstrators at Tahrir Square – ended. Somehow, Mubarak turned from someone who is accused of political corruption and responsibility (at least politically) for the crimes committed during his rule to a suspect in a handful of cases, in which he was successively acquitted.

What the Egyptians did not know back then was that the public prosecutor, who was appointed by Mubarak and supervised the investigations with him, is the one who declared him not guilty.

The exploitation of shortcomings in laws and regulations began to clear the way for Mubarak’s acquittal. What the Egyptians did not know back then was that the public prosecutor, who was appointed by Mubarak and supervised the investigations with him, is the one who declared him not guilty. The prosecution that investigated the killing of the protesters did not include Mubarak as a suspect, until it yielded to popular pressure and referred him to a “criminal” court based on a charge for which he was seen as guilty in advance. At the time, this procedure could only be understood by legal experts.

It is well known that litigation procedures in the Egyptian criminal courts pass through three stages. The first stage begins at the Criminal Court, after which the case is referred to another criminal department if the Court of Cassation accepts the appeal. At the last stage, the Court of Cassation looks into the case and delivers a final verdict. In Mubarak’s case, the prosecution will have to appeal the “not guilty” verdicts at the Court of Cassation, which may accept the appeal and reopen the trial, or accept the verdict as final. In any case, the Court of Cassation has thousands of cases to look into, which means it could take months or years to set a trial date for and adjudicate.

Judicial sources indicated to Al-Akhbar that Mubarak’s trial cost the state treasury more than $15 million, which covered Mubarak’s stay at Tora Prison Hospital, Sharm el-Sheikh International Hospital, the International Medical Center, and al-Maadi Hospital. They are all military establishments where the former president received special treatment in terms of visitation rights and phone use contrary to Egyptian prison regulations. This also happened during deposed President Mohammed Mursi’s term.

Judicial sources told Al-Akhbar that Mubarak has about two more months in prison, before he is released, since his time spent in jail (3.5 years) will be deducted from the three-year prison sentence issued by the court in the presidential palaces case. The nine months during which he was released will be excluded from his time served. The sources gave two possible scenarios for Mubarak’s remaining in jail after the end of his sentence period. “He would be kept under house arrest in the event of the declaration of a state of emergency in accordance with the law, or jailed in connection with other cases. But both options are entirely unlikely,” the sources revealed.

In the same context, former head of the criminal court, Counselor Rifaat al-Sayyed, said that the court has not yet exonerated Mubarak in the bribery case involving businessman Hussein Salem. “However, it decided that the criminal case has expired under the statute of limitations, which compelled the court president to address the legislature to amend the law to avoid the the dismissal of the bribery case due to the expiration of the statute of limitations,” he explained. According to Sayyed, the judge’s decision based on the lack of probable cause to file a lawsuit against Mubarak is “due to a procedural mistake by the public prosecution, when it did not include his name in the list of suspects the first time it was issued.”

Judicial sources indicated to Al-Akhbar that Mubarak’s trial cost the state treasury more than $15 million…

However, the surprise was in the court’s verdict regarding the lack of “probable cause to file a lawsuit against Mubarak regarding the killing of demonstrators.” This is the same item used by Mursi’s lawyer in charges related to incitement to the murder of protesters outside al-Ittihadiya Presidential Palace during the demonstrations against the constitutional declaration held at the end of 2012. The prosecutor declared the lack of probable cause to file a lawsuit, but later used the incident as one of the major cases against Mursi. On Sunday, the Cairo Criminal Court decided to resume the proceedings in the prison break case that took place after the January 25 Revolution, which involves Mursi and 130 other suspects.

As for Mubarak’s sons, apart from the cases related to manipulation in the Egyptian Stock Exchange, there are no longer any cases for them to be tried for. This paves the way for their release within a few months, after they finish their sentence related to the presidential palace case, which will be considered by the Court of Cassation next January following an appeal by the two men’s lawyer, Farid al-Dib.

This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.

Related Articles

• Egypt security forces kill two protesters, detain 85 following Mubarak acquittal
• Egypt court absolves Mubarak of murder, corruption charges
• Egypt security forces clash with protesters, killing two

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Sisi Sees New Future for Egypt after Mubarak Verdict

Al-Manar

Egypt President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has said Egypt will never return to the past and is charting a new future, after a court dismissed murder charges against former leader Hosni Mubarak.

A Cairo court on Saturday dropped the charges over the deaths of hundreds of protesters during the 2011 uprising that ended three decades of autocratic Mubarak rule.

Seven of his security commanders, including feared former interior minister Habib al-Adly, were also acquitted over the deaths of some of the roughly 800 people killed during the revolt.

Corruption charges against Mubarak’s sons Alaa and Gamal were also dropped.

In a statement issued late on Sunday, Sisi said “the new Egypt, which emerged from the January 25 and June 30 revolutions, is on a path to establish a modern democratic state based on justice, freedom, equality and a renunciation of corruption”.

“It is on an aspirational path to the future and can never go back to the past.”

Sisi said he had instructed Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab to review the provisions for compensation for the families of “martyrs and those wounded in the revolution”.

Source: Websites	01-12-2014 – 13:12 Last updated 01-12-2014 – 13:12

Related Videos

 تبرئة مبارك وتداعياتها على الساحة المصرية | الكوثر

  تبرئة مبارك وردود الفعل

Related Articles

• مصر: تأجيل محاكمة 494 متهماً في أحداث «مسجد الفتح»
• Egypt Brands ISIL a Terrorist Group
• Egypt’s Mubarak Could Get Early Release
• Egypt Reopens Rafah Crossing Wednesday, Thursday
• Egypt’s Sisi Heads to Rome on First European Visit
• Sisi: Egypt Could Send Forces to Stabilize Future Palestinian State
• Sisi Says Possible Pardon for Jazeera Reporters ’under Study’
• Egypt Refers 5 Students to Military Court over Protest

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

ASSAD’S WALL: ARAB SPRING FORWARD; ARAB SPRING BACKWARD

Ziad Fadel

 

ASSAD’S WALL

 

ARAB SPRING FORWARD ARAB SPRING BACKWARD
Nobody can deny the heart-rending story of Muhammad Bu’azeezi, the Tunisian young man, who, despite his secondary school education, was not able to find a job in his society and was relegated to peddling vegetables to support himself and his family.

 

Even his effort to hawk sundries met with failure when a Tunisian policewoman scuppered his enterprise with legalistic impediments that evolved into crass insult, a spit in the face and a last curse upon the memory of his father.

 

Efforts to immediately obtain redress were rebuffed by an insensate bureaucracy.  He burned himself to death in a public act that enraged the people of this North African country and brought about the much-ballyhooed Arab Spring.

 

I grew up in the United States during the middle Fifties onwards.  My father and mother sent me back to the Old Country every summer to spend time with relatives and to maintain my facility with the Arabic language.

 

During this time, the memory of Palestine was more than fresh – it was a scalding vision of British tyranny and an indictment of the Arab governments which fumbled their way into abject defeat at the hands of Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe who were backed by one of the world’s most sophisticated networks of disinformation known up to that time.

 

The propaganda machine that was to kite the libelous slogan, “Give the land without a people to the people without a land”, was a minor intimation of what was to come when the Western powers and the pre-Iron Age troglodytes of Arabia combined to destroy the Syrian Arab Republic. My father was an ardent nationalist and adored Jamaal ‘Abdul-Naasser, the Egyptian leader who accidentally donned the cloak of Pan-Arabism and found it to his liking.

 

 

All of us repeated the same mantra: “If the Arabs could only rid themselves of their tyrannical leaders and unify their ranks, the Zionist Entity would cease to exist”.  Nasser was the man who was going to galvanize Arab societies and break the back of imperialist schemes to keep the Arabs as backward as they obviously were.  The Egyptian leader was tall and handsome with the demeanor of the simple man speaking in an unadorned style.

 

But, Nasser failed miserably. The tyrannical leaders, on the other hand, succeeded in not only delivering a heart attack to him, but also in keeping the Arabs locked somewhere between the Stone Age and the Ice Age.

 

Enter the Arab Spring

 

No one could have predicted Bu’azzeezi’s act of self-immolation.  But, there were parties who had planned for the eventuality of an Arab popular outburst that would rock the foundations of their corrupt governments.

 

There were plans hatched since at least 2007 by the CIA, MI6, Mossad and the Saudi/Qatari Perso-phobes to expel the Ba’ath Party from Syria in as ignominious a manner as that self-same process in Saddam’s Iraq.

 

It had to wait, however, for the right moment when the gaskets, corks and stoppers were compromised by the pressure of demoniacal forces bursting out like a giant volcanic eruption, spewing fire that would sweep away every vestige of Arab nationalism, leaving the way open for a Dark Age, an Arab Winter of obsequious altar boys prone to every fetish nestled in the folds of the deviant Wahhabist brain.

 

Zaynul-‘Aabideen Bin ‘Ali, Tunisia’s former president-for-life,  a favorite of the French colonial regime in Paris, was ousted through self-exile.  He, like Idi Amin, was welcomed in Saudi Arabia, which at the time had established itself as the Club Med for despised autocratic presidents, traitors and avowed cannibals.

 

His departure was met with jubilation in the streets of Tunisia.  Muhammad Bu-‘Azeezi’s slow, agonizing death had begun to deliver on its promise – it was like a Celtic rite of Spring or a fertility sacrifice – the burning wicker man to end the drought and bring forth the abundance of the earth.  As of today, the Tunisians are fortunate they have not started to feed off one another.

 

Mua’mmar Qadhdhaafi

 

The Libyan supremo, Pontifex Maximus and Messiah, did not have the opportunity to retire in Saudi Arabia where he would have been beheaded anyways.  He was the second casualty of the misnamed Arab Spring.

 

His death at the hands of a sociopathic ape-adolescent wielding the leader’s personal pistol followed by a post-mortem act of sodomy were repugnant acts no doubt celebrated in Washington D.C. by the Neo-Con flophouse proprietors in an animistic act of self-celebration worthy of their Nazi progenitors.

 

Libya, stands today for the proposition that the British and French, when bound together by a common purpose, can only engender chaos, at best, and the Void, at worst.  Libya is a monumental catastrophe nobody can treat.  It is a suppurating chancre promising blindness and an horrible death.

 

Husni Mubaarak

 

 

The long-serving Pharoah of Egypt, was probably flummoxed by the protests to end his reign during which he and his sons amassed a significant fortune.

 

Like the Tunisian and Libyan leaders, he too had sons ready to step in and continue the dynastic rule over his largely proletarian peoples who subsisted on fava beans, affordable hashish and the immortal, but false, Egyptian motto: “Egypt is the Mother of the Universe”.

 

Now too old to matter, and on the brink of a peaceful departure into the realms ruled by Osiris, he is preparing for the ultimate kiss-off to his beloved people: a pardon from President Al-Sisi and a probable hospice in Saudi Arabia where he can shrivel up, like a mummy, in the dry air of the pitilessly desiccating sands of Arabia. In truth, and I don’t say this in order to minimize Bu ‘Azeezi’s suffering or the reasons for his private auto da fe, his death has come to mean nothing more than failure – more failure for the Arab people.

Instead of being the start of a movement to bring Arabs together, it has highlighted the reasons why they cannot.  It has furthermore emblazoned the role of former imperialist powers and the servitude the Arabs were programmed to relive while under their tutelage.

 

That is, until the imperialist powers came up against the Ba’ath Party of Syria and President Assad!

 

 It was the chance of a lifetime….a lifetime spread over geological eons of time.  Finally, with Ben-Ali, Qaddafi and Mubarak gone, Assad would fall also, and so, with that, all the planning in Tehran for the Shi’i Arc across the Fertile Crescent, which,  like a Sword of Damocles, pendulously swung over the offered necks of the European Jews in order to finally end the charade and put to death the mythology of a God who metes out real estate lots like the president of Century 21.

 

All the ducks were in a row:  the trained agents provacateurs, a crackpot American ambassador willing to travel around Syrian cities to motivate traitors and anti-minoritarian activists, the propaganda factories to illustrate how juvenile delinquents in Der’ah could become heroes of the revolution, Saudi and Qatari money spent on arms to challenge the power of the Ba’ath Party and its huge ideological army.

 

It was all there.  How could it fail?  It’s NATO, right? The Arab Spring was exposed as a canard after Tunisia, Egypt and Libya fell into a doldrum of Islamist mismanagement followed by a riotous plunge into the unknown.  While some Syrians took the bait, most wanted to wait and see.  Syrians, more than any other people, know a lot about their own country and how it’s administered.

 

Syrians know it isn’t easy to dislodge the Ba’ath, especially when there are over 100,00 members!  All throughout the tissue of the Syrian state is the presence of an arrogant and proud Arab nationalism that sniffs out imperialist plots and works to unravel them.

 

The symbols of fire and ice, used so much in this article, are forces of nature that have come up against the Wall of Assad.  Like the Great Wall of China or Hadrian’s, it will stand the test of time.

 

NATO and its simian allies in Arabia will beat their collective heads against this wall, which, unlike Herod’s in occupied Jerusalem, is a real wall, in a real place and with a real purpose; where the promise of Arab unity still lives and whose glowering, terrifying eyes beam down on the hapless invaders raining annihilation, Greek Fire and Hell’s Ice, upon them.

– Ziad Amin Abu Fadel, Esq

Read more

• 609 SURRENDER IN DER’AH; SOUTHERN FRONT FAILS FOR NATO’S FOOLS
• SYRIAN ARMY SUFFOCATES OBAMA’S RATS IN DAMASCUS AND QUNAYTRA
• TERRORISTS STRUGGLE TO INFILTRATE FROM LEBANON; SAA TRIUMPHS ALL OVER DAMASCUS

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

THE GIANT IS NEITHER SLEEPING NOR DEAD

danielmabsout, on January 30, 2014 at 12:03 pm said 

“I do not appreciate making your comments part of my post as you have done in one instance at least .” 

Thanks Daniel, I promise not making my comments part of your post.

THE GIANT IS ONLY SLEEPING , NOT DEAD

Shall make your post  part of my comment 

THE GIANT IS NEITHER SLEEPING NOR DEAD

Daniel Listen to your Sayyed taking about the complete revolution all the people (Except Mubarak thugs) and learn who conspired with the Military council hijacked the revolution and betrayed the people and the Sayyed.  It is the same people (Minus MB plus fulloul) who occupied the same streets and the same squares to put an end to the sectarian plot. 

Who is the sleeping giant, Daniel?  Is it the masses that ousted Mursi? or the it is the MB trying to bring him back. In both cases, both are not sleeping. 

Now, your great ANAL-ysis

“The Revolution was about to happen after the end of Mubarak’s rule , “

Before or After, Daniel

“people were not going to let Mubarak continue to rule through his son or some one he chooses and this is something every Egyptian agreed upon . This is something that the NGOs and the army felt strongly and knew about and they are the ones who worked on aborting the revolution and channeling the popular dissatisfaction to serve the World Order Agenda instead of serving the people’s aspirations.”

“People -All People” Every Egyption” Thus said Daniel “the spokesman of Egyptians -All Egyptians”. The NGO’s and the army did it, not all people, and not every Egyptian as the Sayyed claimed. 

Moreover: 

• He should know that Satan Brotherhood were not part of 25 Jan uprising. They joined it on Jan, 28th. 
• The OPPORTUNIST  Brotherhood were neither against re-electing Mubarak or his son, as long as their share is guaranteed, 
• This video shows who destroyed the revolution
• 
• 

“In order to serve the sectarian anti Resistance World agenda, Morsi was chosen and even the Nasserites supported the sectarian agenda of Morsi . . “

So, you agree the sectarians and the anti-resistance are the MB. If so why you are calling to turn the page with sectarianists?  
Again, Nasserists- All Nasserists, you claim, supported the sectarian agenda. Why ignoring that those who elected Muris did that to avoid Mohammad Shafiq. Neither, Nasserists, secularists are the enemy. GET OUT of your Islamist veil.

“When this agenda failed in overthrowing Assad and the isolation of HAMAS from the axis of the Resistance succeeded , it was time to get rid of Morsi. The NGOs and the army again manipulated the masses through TAMAROD and their like… The Nasserites – who supported the sectarian agenda of Mors- turned against him and supported the secular agenda of the army .”

Which Agenda?? Its the the USA/Satan brotherhood aganda. Get it.

Why you avoid saying: Hamas isolated itself, by revealing its Ugly sectarian face.?
Daniel, please decide, Are Nasserists sectarians or secular?

“The instability , the chaos and the Libyan and Syrian bloody models and the religious and sectarian warfare in addition to the terrorist threats made the Egyptians sick of the Revolution and in favor of the return of Mubarak as Al Sisi .Now Egypt is back to sleep again until some major event happens and wakes Egypt up and this will happen sooner or later and Egypt will wake up but now the Revolution was aborted and al Sisi is NOT Nasser ,”

PLEASE TELL US: Who is responsible for the instability, who ignited the terrorist threat or the “so-called “Terrorist’ threat” as you claimed elsewhere? 

The majority of the Egyptians are not sick of revolution, whether true or not, they see in Sisi a new Nasser. Sisi IS NEITHER NASSER NOR MUBARAK, despite his intentions, he took the right decision in the right moment and responded to millions of Egyptians who took the streets to stop the sectarian iblishood’s agenda. 

Egypt’s Sisi is at a crossroads, walking in a huge mine field.   Egypt can’t refuse the Saudi life support, its hands are tied with camp David treaty,  surrounded by the so-called Qaeda/Brotherhood’s terrorist from the west (Libya), the South (Sudan) and the East (Hamas) and the North (Turkey).

“the Egyptians do not want this revolution and they are right because it has turned violent and chaotic and has gone out of the hands of the people,. 

I guess you mean June 30 uprising.
Please tell us, who put the people between two bitter choices: Either us for ever, or civil war? And what Egyptians you are talking about? Are they the librals, the left, the nasserists, the qopts etc…? 

Who is Left?

Qaeda and Brotherhood

“Egypt is extremely important that is why the World Order was intent on remaining in control and restoring Mubarak’ s rule except that now this is being done with the Egyptian people blessings after the false flag revolution failed them .”

So its done with the Egyptian people blessings after the false flag revolution failed them. 

Yes its done bu with the Egyptian people’s shoes and Army’s boots after the Iblishood hijacked the Jan 25 uprising and sold Egypt to Satan.  

THE GIANT IS NEITHER SLEEPING NOR DEAD

Egypt Clashes Kill 49 in One Day on 2011 Revolution Anniversary

Local Editor

Three years after Egyptians rose up to demand the overthrow of Mubarak, thousands of demonstrators in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Saturday chanted slogans backing another military man, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, as police clashed with Brotherhood supporters elsewhere.

Nearly 50 people were killed in weekend clashes that erupted during rival rallies marking the anniversary of Egypt’s 2011 that toppled Hosni Mubarak, the health ministry said Sunday.

Forty-nine people were killed, the ministry said, in 24 hours of fighting across Egypt as police and supporters of the military-installed government clashed with backers of ousted president Mohammad Mursi, who was deposed in July after a single turbulent year in power.

Egypt was already on edge after four bombs exploded in Cairo on Friday, wich were claimed by Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, an Al-Qaeda-inspired group, all of which targeted police, and urged “Muslims” to stay away from police buildings.

Of the 49 people killed, most died in Cairo and its suburbs, and others in Alexandria and Minya, the health ministry said on Sunday, adding 247 people were injured.
The interior ministry said 1,079 “rioters” were arrested.

Some political figures encouraged Egyptians to turn out in support of the interim government, and some politicians called for rallies to back Sisi, whose popularity has skyrocketed among Egyptians craving stability.

The Anti-Coup Alliance which backs Mursi also urged its supporters to continue their “revolutionary movement” on Sunday in Cairo and other provinces.

Source: AFP	26-01-2014 – 11:23 Last updated 26-01-2014 – 11:23

Related Articles

• At Least Four Killed in Egypt Protest Clashes
• Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis Claims Deadly Bombings in Egypt
• Egypt Bombs Target Police on Eve of Uprising Anniversary
• Egypt Clashes Killed One Student in University Campus
• Militants Attack Egypt Checkpoint, Kill Five Policemen
• One Killed in Egypt As Police, Extremists Clash
• Egyptian Voters Have Backed New Charter: Official

Where to, Egypt?

An Egyptian street vendor sells the country’s national flag and masks of the Egypt’s Defence Minister General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as voters queue outside the polling station during the second day of voting on a new constitution on January 15, 2014 in the southern Cairo Giza district. (Photo: AFP – Khaled Desouki)

By: Kamal Khalaf al-Tawil

Published Wednesday, January 15, 2014

The Egyptians worship two deities, God and State: the creator of life and its organizer. Both often met in the form of a pharaoh, then separated, but their placenta kept them firmly tethered. The state is needed to organize and maintain the flow of the Nile. Egypt, first and foremost, was “the gift of the Nile.”

Then, Egyptians discovered on June 30, 2013 how leaving the bosom of the state to those who remained outside it for eight decades would be an uncalculated adventure. Returning to the state – despite the corruption of its institutions and its tyranny – would be safer and more reliable than following unknowledgeable crowds.

The fall of the Muslim Brotherhood from its pinnacle in early 2011, to its darkest depths two and a half years later, can only be accounted for by its inadequacy and fragility. The interpretation is not helped by saying the media sullied its image, or the Gulf – except Qatar – funded a war against it. Above all, the Brotherhood’s failure to provide a convincing alternative was the main reason behind its seismic tumble; it became a near acolyte to the West. It had abundant cadres but weak quality. It lacked a socioeconomic model, except that of the capitalist with a beard. It lacked a collective revival project.

The Brotherhood spent four decades building a wide and securely financed organization within the confines of counter-revolutionary regimes. It contributed greatly to sealing the image of Egypt of the July Revolution in the collective consciousness. This guaranteed its spot as the power ready to replace Hosni Mubarak. And so it was: Mubarak fell and the Muslim Brotherhood was ready. This was coupled with Washington adopting an approach of empowering the Brotherhood as an antidote to three poisons: Sunni jihadism, Iran and the Shia, and Arab nationalism. The Brotherhood was the most able to push ahead with an “American” mediation with Israel.

Washington was not aware that the Brotherhood’s image from the outside did not reflect its insides. It started to get this feeling in early 2013, yet it fought it. Society as a whole could not wait for the the state, so it came out in masses on June 30.

Ever since, a strange sight began to appear on the horizon: a Nasserite street and an elite, which mostly looks up to Sadat. They formed an odd mixture, which is impossible to sustain. Between the two, the army sits waiting and trying to avoid the “strife” of having to choose, keeping its options open. In particular, it is because the economy of Egypt is about to fall into a ditch without bottom. Its security is breached in Sinai, which is about to become an Egyptian Kandahar, and across its western borders, brimming with arms. This is on top of the Brotherhood’s disruptions in the streets, where it has reverted to arms.

The army’s deviation from the US scenario, which hoped for coexistence with the Brotherhood, found it tactical allies in the region: those who saw the Brotherhood’s rule over a central Arab country to be an existential threat, especially the rulers of Saudi, the UAE, and Kuwait. These countries only want Egypt to float, not to rise or sink, since both will cause danger. Therefore, the army will walk with them to the crossroads.

By voting yes on the constitution, the Muslim Brotherhood would have been completely defeated. The Brotherhood’s defeat will not be in security, despite its blatant appeal, but with society spitting it out and sending it back to its previous situation of decades prior, when saying someone was part of the Brotherhood was an insult.

With Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi’s advance to the presidency, the military elite – which controls half the economy and realizes its monopoly on violence – is threatened by jihadists and, now, the Brotherhood’s call to arms. It will face difficult choices: Where to get the money to rise? What shall we do with those who carry arms? What is Egypt’s position in the tremors hitting the region? Who do we latch onto internationally, and how do we face our fate?

The Nasserist-Sadatist alliance will break up. The question is: To whose benefit? Logic dictates that Egypt’s safe exit into the wide space of immunity could only occur through a modern Nasserism. However, the remnants of dependency interests will fight this to the end.

The answer remains with Sisi.

This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.

	Egypt Voting on Constitution Resumes for Second Day
	Politics

	Egyptians Vote in Referendum amid Security Threats, Boycott
	Politics

	Egypt Prepares to Hold a Conference on Syria
	Politics

	Mursi Trial Delayed to Feb 1 after Court Absence
	Politics

	Egypt Summons Qatar Envoy amid Row over Brotherhood
	Politics

	Seventeen Killed in Egypt as Mursi-backers Defy Crackdown
	Security

	Deadly Clashes Renewed in Egypt As Mursi Backers Rally
	Security

	Mursi Trial over Egypt Jailbreak Set for Jan 28
	legal

	Egypt Urges AL to Enforce ‘Counter Terrorism Treaty’ against Brotherhood
	Politics

	Egypt Bomb Attack Injures Four Soldiers
	Security

	Islamist Students Torch Cairo Campus Building
	Security

	Protester Killed in Cairo as Brotherhood Members Rounded up
	Security

	Sisi Vows to Fight Terrorism, Make Egypt Stable
	Politics

	Bomb Attack near Cairo Transport Bus Wounds Five People
	Security

• Voting ends over Egypt’s constitution

Nayef Hawatmeh: On Arab Spring, Saddam, PLO and Arafat

نايف حواتمة _ ساعة حوار / الاتجاه 23 10 2013

Egypt .. Revolution continues مصر .. الثورة مستمرة

محمد شبانة _ مصر .. الثورة مستمرة _ مع الحدث / المنار 27 09 2013