Hosni Mubarak, latter-day Pangloss:

CAIRO: President Hosni Mubarak said the Arab world is currently in the best of states and that its problems will end in time.

Someone please explain this website to me: Michael Jackson Family. Its address is even more mysterious: http://michaeljacksonestate.blogspot.com/

This is its about blurb:

My name is Princess Zaynab bint Fahd bin Khalid al-Saud. My father is popularly known as Satan the Devil. I am from Saudi Arabia and I am married to the American Superstar Singer Michael Jackson as Nona Paris Lola Ankhesenamun Jackson.

Of course, it’s one of those sites that starts playing music as it loads. In other words, not work safe.

Following up on the recent post about Egypt’s recent military procurement, here’s a phenomenally stupid, or just disingenuous, article from the Jerusalem Post (yes what else would you expect):

In a sign of mounting concern about Teheran’s missile capability, the Egyptian military recently expressed interest in purchasing the Russian-made, advanced S-300 and S-400 air defense systems.

The S-300 is highly effective against aircraft and has a reported ability to track up to 100 targets simultaneously, while engaging up to 12 at the same time. It has a range of about 200 km. and can hit targets at altitudes of 27,000 meters.

The S-400 is a more advanced model that is effective not just against aircraft, but also against long-range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. Its range is reportedly 400 km.

Egypt is also working on improving its air force and recently received approval from the Pentagon to buy 12 Apache Longbow attack helicopters.

Yes, that’s right, Egypt is really really worried about an Iranian missile attack!

Egypt, like any country, has a very legitimate interest in wanting to beef up its air defenses, but for planning purposes its traditional enemy remains Israel. There is no other conventional military threat on its borders. And there is certainly little risk of a war between Iran and Egypt (what are the Iranians going to do? Invade or fly over Israel to get to Cairo?) So whatever negotiations are taking place between Egypt and Russia over this air and missile defense system, they may simply be about business, about Egypt’s desire to acquire superior US technology instead (i.e. it wants to show that it has other options), and about a long-term strategic goal of planning against traditional contingencies. Or it may just be the usual Israeli waffling on about how everyone around them is arming up, even though they have a massive technical military superiority.

But the coming Iran attack on Egypt? Give me a break.

Unverified – al-Mesryoon and translation via Mideastwire:

- “Arrest of 306 Shi’is on charges of undermining Egypt security”
On June 30, the independent Al-Mesryoon daily carried the following report by Fathi Magdi: “Al-Mesryoon learned from prominent sources that Shi’i cleric Hassan Shehata, the former speaker of the Kobri el-Gam’a mosque, was arrested earlier this month along with dozens of young men among his followers to be interrogated in the utmost secrecy. The sources who requested anonymity told Al-Mesryoon that Shehata who had been laying low for the last 14 years, was arrested in his house in the Center of Cairo on June 22, and was accused along with his group which includes 306 elements of undermining Egyptian national security and of showing contempt to one of the heavenly religions.

“The investigations with Shehata emerged against the backdrop of two visits which he conducted to Iran in parallel to the uncovering by the Egyptian authorities of the Hezbollah cell led by Lebanese citizen Sami Chehab and accused of planning to carry out operations inside the Egyptian territories and target foreign ships crossing the Suez Canal. According to the sources, Shehata went to Iran via Lebanon in September of 2008, then conducted another visit whose date was not specified via Syria. It is probable that these two visits were the reason behind the launching of the campaign of arrests which affected Shehata and his followers, and it is likely they will be facing charges of affiliation with Hezbollah on the organizational level as a result to the ongoing investigations.

“In this context, many online forums have been circulating news related to the arrest of Hassan Shehata who is a famous Shi’i cleric and is known for his speeches in which he insults the Companions of the Prophet, Peace and Blessings Be Upon Him, and Sayeda Aisha the Mother of Believers, without this arrest being officially confirmed by the Egyptian authorities… Shehata was previously arrested in 1995 for having offended Sayeda Aisha whom he described as being “the little donkey” as well as the Companions of the Prophet, Peace and Blessings be Upon Him, whom he described as being “ignorant who resorted to the Prince of Believers (Ali Ibn Abi Taleb) whenever they faced a problem.” – Al-Mesryoon, Egypt

This would suggest quite an increased crackdown on Shias, possibly merely as a result of the “Hizbullah in Egypt” affair or wider worries about Iranian influence. But it could also simply be prejudice – either the Shia preacher described in the article really did incite against Sunnis, as mentioned, or the bigotry is on the government’s side. Or both.

Barack Obama’s Cairo speech — whatever you might say of his fine rhetoric on Islam and Palestine — was also, and over time might also be chiefly, a reassertion of the traditional relationship between Egypt and the United States, dropping most pretense of being interested in democracy promotion. Instead, in the democracy segment of his speech, he mostly focused on those things that are popular with Americans, such as religious (rather than civic and political) freedoms, and appeared to warn against Islamist parties being elected when he warned that democracy is not just about elections (a fine claim if he had added that it’s also about civic rights, rather than mentioning it in the context of Islamism – “there are some who advocate for democracy only when they are out of power; once in power, they are ruthless in suppressing the rights of others”).

But I wouldn’t take all this rhetoric too seriously: just as Obama was contemplating making the speech, he was giving the go-ahead on the resumption of the usual military ties between the two countries. After 2005, when the US-Egypt relationship was damaged and Congress (mostly driven by the Gaza tunnels issue but given political cover by Egypt’s poor human rights record) wanted to reduce aid. At the same time, the Bush administration was withholding certain weapons deals – a tactic that has been used in the past as a form of pressure (or negotiating tactics), with some results. Obama has now dropped these claims by approving multiple deals, including 24 new F-16 fighter jets :

Egypt’s hosting of President Barack Obama’s “mutual respect” speech to the Muslim world came at the same time the Obama administration quietly was agreeing to Egypt’s longstanding request to purchase some 24 F-16 fighters, according to a report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

According to informed sources, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates relayed the commitment in his May 5 meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Another source adds:

The Egyptian request for the F-16 fighter jets and other military equipment had been denied repeatedly by the former Bush administration over Egypt’s record on human rights and democracy.

The other equipment included the Longbow Apache helicopter, mobile air defense systems and the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) which is a guidance kit that converts existing unguided or “dumb” bombs into “smart” munitions.

Lockheed Martin chief executive officer Robert Stevens confirmed that the company had been notified of the Egyptian request.

The 24 F-16s would replace some of the other 220 F-16s of varying capability that Egypt has acquired on five separate occasions beginning in 1980 under direct U.S. Foreign Military Sales and through the Netherlands and Turkey.

Egypt has been flying the F-16 since 1982, and acquired a total of 220 of those jets since 2002 (42 Block 15 F-16A/B, 40 Block 32 F-16C/D and 138 Block 40 F-16C/D).

Now it may be that the deals went ahead as part of wider negotiations we are unaware of, or as a reward for Egypt’s role in the Middle East Peace Process post-Gaza War. But it could also just be that the Obama administration is rejecting all previous Bush policies in the region, even the ones that had some good rationale. Egypt is headed into an uncertain presidential succession, with possible regime divisions on who will succeed the ill, 81-year-old Hosni Mubarak and a disgruntled, strained population. Perhaps it wants to secure the continued pro-US leaning of the officer corps. Perhaps it just wants to give US arms companies money and help keeps jobs in the US in a recession.

But one thing it’s not is a principled foreign policy, and one thing Barack Obama is not is a holier-than-thou president. So let’s stop treating him as the second coming.

Over the next few days I’ll take a look at some of the other outcomes of the speech and some recent changes in the Egypt-US relationship.

Arab Techies in Business | More Arab geekery.
Arab Techies | Cool Arabic tech/web projects.
Love in KSA « Saudiwoman’s Weblog | On the importance of women's reputation in Saudi.
"Politics, culture, and dissident:" New study maps out trends in Arab blogosphere | Menassat | Cool map of the Arab blogosphere, divided by country, language, and political trends.
Saudia Arabia leads Arab regimes in internet censorship | World news | guardian.co.uk | Saudi, UAE, Syria and Tunisia top the list.
Syria Comment » Archives » Apologies to Howard Schweber and Barak’s Settlement Shuffle | Josh Landis has some good links on the US-Israel settlements face-off here. As well as on the question of the impact of Iran's political crisis on Syria.

Yesterday’s detention of Wael Abbas at Cairo Airport, as he returned from the Tallberg Forum in Sweden, is now resolved. (Rather troubling is Wael’s claim that pro-NDP Egyptians at the conference may have reported him to the authorities.) But Wael still had his laptop and papers confiscated, and is having trouble filing a complaint with the police.

It was interesting to see the story unfold from the early morning, when Wael started posting what was happening to him on Twitter, the reaction of the Egyptian Twitosphere, most notably that of Hisham Kassem, the president of the Egyptian Organization of Human Rights (EOHR), a prominent commentator on Egyptian politics and publisher (he was the CEO al-Masri al-Youm at its launch in 2004 till 2007 and previously owned the Cairo Times). Hisham is also a Twitter addict, and it was fascinating to see him provide Wael and the wider community dispatches about his efforts to dispatch EOHR lawyers, talk to security, and try to get Wael out of his situation.

It may not be a Twitter revolution, but it’s a very practical, transparent and engaging way to rally people around a cause. Congrats to Hisham on getting Wael out of trouble and letting us know how it’s done. And Wael, rest well and I hope you get your laptop back soon!

In my email inbox this morning:

A new Jewish-Muslim initiative is seeking to derail the planned Museum of Tolerance, which is currently being built in Jerusalem on the site of a former Muslim cemetery.

The initiative’s hopes to get the site declared ritually impure under Jewish law, due to the fact that the construction has involved unearthing the remains of hundreds of Muslims. Such a declaration would keep religious Jews from visiting the museum.

The proposal has already received the blessing of Rabbi David Schmidl, head of the ultra-Orthodox Atra Kadisha organization, which fights against the desecration of Jewish graves. Its Jewish sponsors – who include two left-wing activists plus one activist from the ultra-Orthodox Shas party – are also seeking support from Chief Sephardic Rabbi Shlomo Amar, but he has not yet replied to their letter.

This conflict is nuts. (The organization behind this initiative, ICPRI, does great work. I just mean to highlight the bizarreness of a Museum of Tolerance built on desecrated Muslim graves and the use of purity laws to convince religious Jews to stay away from it.)

Here is a collection of links on Israel/Palestine accumulated in recent days, as there was widespread speculation that a prisoner exchange between Hamas (for up to 450 people, including Hamas MPs) and Israel (for Gilad Shalit) would take place, opening the way for an easing of the blockade and truce. This now looks less certain to happen, especially as there is news that the inter-Palestinian dialogue has been postponed to 25 July, rather than a 7 July deadline aired by Egypt earlier this week. Do check especially, in the context of Marc Lynch’s recent blog posts arguing that Obama’s stance on settlement expansion is making progress, the evidence that Israel is doing its old tactic of temporarily dismantling “rogue settlements” (aren’t they all rogue) only to have them rebuilt a few hours later.

Bottom line: yes, some checkpoints have been eased and the PA is assuming more security control in the West Bank. But should that really be the endgame? Hasn’t enough time been wasted on such small steps in the past 20 years of peace processing? And the bottom link – suggesting the US and Israel may cut a deal on settlement expansion – simply highlights how wrong-headed this focus on expansion, rather than existence of settlements has been for the Obama administration. Well, this gives me no pleasure, but I never expected much from them anyway.

For some interesting background to Bush-era dealmaking (behind the Palestinians’ back) on the settlements issue, do read the WSJ op-ed below — it’s by Elliott Abrams.

• ‘Just World News’ with Helena Cobban: How effective is Obama’s Palestine policy?
• Fayyad: Hold the January 2010 Palestinian Elections on Time | Marc Lynch
• Khaled Meshaal, Keith Dayton, and the future of Palestinian security forces | Marc Lynch
• Mondoweiss: Dozens of West Bank roadblocks removed? (Read the Hebrew)
• Hillary Is Wrong About the Settlements – WSJ.com
• Israel, Egypt negotiate terms of new Gaza truce – Haaretz – Israel News
• Egypt proposes pan-Arab force for Gaza Strip – Haaretz – Israel News
• Shalit transfer to Egypt is imminent – Haaretz – Israel News
• Tactical Report – Providers of Intelligence on Middle East Energy and Defence Affairs
• Israel to expand unsanctioned settlement enclaves – Yahoo! News
• Fatah would defeat Hamas in elections: poll – Yahoo! News
• US not ruling out settlement freeze deal with Israel – Yahoo! News

The BBC World Service has posted the second part of its excellent documentary on Egypt, Hosni Mubarak and an uncertain future. I highly recommend it as one of the rare attempts to make a judgement about the Mubarak years, as they reach their twilight.

Play

Part one was posted here.

The Great American Bubble Machine | The great, indispensable Matt Taibbi on the US economy:

The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled-dry American empire, reads like a Who's Who of Goldman Sachs graduates.

AFP: Morocco dismantles militant group: security official | Spanish-Moroccans jihadists arrested, possibly in touch with AQIM.
Death penalty debate rages as hundreds await gallows – The National Newspaper |

CAIRO // June has been dubbed “the month of executions” and 2009 “the year of mass executions” by Egyptian newspapers and analysts amid debate about abolishing capital punishment. More than 200 death sentences have been handed down since the beginning of the year, including 68 in June alone, according to official sources at the justice ministry. There are usually about 80 people executed each year.

Tomgram: Dilip Hiro, The Weeks of Living Dangerously | The Smirking Chimp | Very interesting look at student demographics in Iran, and what some of the key issues of the elections were for young people.
Informed Comment: Moaddel Guest Op-Ed: Iran’s Crisis and the U.S. Option: Support Mousavi now or fight Ahmadinejad tomorrow | It arlams me to see Juan Cole hosting an op-ed such as this one, basically calling for a US-Iran war…

PR documentary, from the late 1940s or the early 1950s at the latest I would guess, on Coca Cola’s bottling plant in Egypt. There’s some great footage of upper class social club type people at the beginning and at the end, with a very modernist exposé on the state-of-the-art bottling facilities at the plant. If anything watch the last few minutes when the whole social club breaks into song.

It’s worth remembering that the Coca-Cola Company, which built the Egypt bottling plant in 1945, faced an Arab-wide boycott between 1967 and 1979. Some Arab countries had started a boycott of Coca-Cola as early as 1951, while Coca-Cola for a while did not want to anger Arabs by doing business in Israel, earning the condemnation of the likes of the Anti-Defamation League, which launched a campaign in the US accusing the company of anti-Semitism. The anger of the American Jewish community forced Coca-Cola to open a Tel Aviv franchise in 1966, which resulted in an Arab League boycott in 1967. Aside from Egypt where Coke returned in 1979, most Arab countries were Coke-less until 1991 — the contexts respectively being Camp David and the launch of the Middle East peace process with the Barcelona conference.

Coca-Cola continues to be the subject of frequent rumors because of the brand’s strong identification with the US. I remember one when I arrived in Egypt in 2000, alleging that if you read the Coca-Cola label in a mirror it spelt out, in Arabic, “la Mohammed la Mekka” — i.e. No Mohammed No Mecca”. I tried it and must admit it’s true there was some resemblance! Naturally, it’s a coincidence.

This is not a dig at Coke (like most people my age I drink plenty of the stuff, although I’ve cut down as I started to have to think about things like empty calories – I can’t stand Diet Coke) but the spread of bottled soft drinks in countries like Egypt has greatly reduced the number of traditional beverages that were once ubiquitously sold on the street.

Israeli Prisons: Are Palestinian Children Abused? – Yahoo! News:

“Walid Abu Obeida, a 13-year-old Palestinian farm boy from the West Bank village of Ya’abad, had never spoken to an Israeli until he rounded a corner at dusk carrying his shopping bags and found two Israeli soldiers waiting with their rifles aimed at him. ‘They accused me of throwing stones at them,’ recounts Walid, a skinny kid with dark eyes. ‘Then one of them smacked me in the face, and my nose started bleeding.’
According to Walid, the two soldiers blindfolded and handcuffed him, dragged him to a jeep and drove away. All that his family would know about their missing son was that his shopping bags with meat and rice for that evening’s dinner were found in the dusty road near an olive grove. Over the course of several days in April last year, the boy says he was moved from an army camp to a prison, where he was crammed into a cell with five other children, cursed at and humiliated by the guards and beaten by his interrogator until he confessed to stone-throwing. (See pictures of Israeli soldiers sweeping into Gaza.)
Walid says he saw his parents for only five seconds when he was brought before an Israeli military court and accused by the uniformed prosecutor not only of throwing stones but of ’striking an Israeli officer.’ The military judge ignored the latter charge and chose to prosecute Walid only for allegedly heaving a stone at soldiers.
The boy got off lightly: he spent 28 days in prison and was fined 500 shekels (approximately $120). Under Israeli military law, which prevails in the Palestinian territories, the crime of throwing a stone at an Israeli solider or even at the monolithic 20-ft.-high ’security barrier’ enclosing much of the West Bank can carry a maximum 20-year-prison sentence. Since 2000, according to the Palestinian Ministry for Prisoner Affairs, more than 6,500 children have been arrested, mostly for hurling rocks.”

Read the rest. This report is partly based on the research of the Swiss NGO Defense for Children International’s Palestine Section. Their report is here.

Honduran people military forces in the aftermath of a US-backed coup in the Central American nation. The president has been kidnapped and a leftist political leader assassinated., originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos.

More pics at this Flickr user’s page.

Egyptian mega-blogger Wael Abbas is being detained at Cairo Airport after his passport was confiscated last night. This is the first time this happens to Wael, who is currently holding a sit-in with a banner at the airport requesting his passport back. He’s been Tweeting his situation – below are his updates as of 8:40am Egyptian time. Continue reading ‘Blogger Wael Abbas held at Cairo airport’

Don’t celebrate Israel’s minor relaxation of some checkpoints. This is the daily reality of some Palestinians:

A West Bank checkpoint managed by a private security company is not allowing Palestinians to pass through with large water bottles and some food items, Haaretz has learned.

MachsomWatch discovered the policy, which Palestinian workers confirmed to Haaretz.

The Defense Ministry stated in response that non-commercial quantities of food were not being limited. It made no reference to the issue of water.
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The checkpoint, Sha’ar Efraim, is south of Tul Karm, and is managed for the Defense Ministry by the private security company Modi’in Ezrahi. The company stops Palestinian workers from passing through the checkpoint with the following items: Large bottles of frozen water, large bottles of soft drinks, home-cooked food, coffee, tea and the spice zaatar. The security company also dictates the quantity of items allowed: Five pitas, one container of hummus and canned tuna, one small bottle or can of beverage, one or two slices of cheese, a few spoonfuls of sugar, and 5 to 10 olives. Workers are also not allowed to carry cooking utensils and work tools.

MachsomWatch told Haaretz that Sunday, a 32-year-old construction worker from Tul Karm, who is employed in Hadera, was not allowed to carry his lunch bag through the checkpoint. The bag contained six pitas, 2 cans of cream cheese, one kilogram of sugar in a plastic bag, and a salad, also in a plastic bag.

The typical Palestinian laborer in Israel has a 12-hour workday, including travel time and checkpoint delays. Many leave home as early as 2 A.M. in order to wait in line at the checkpoint; tardiness to work often results in immediate dismissal. Workers return home around 5 P.M. The wait at the checkpoint can take one to two hours in each direction, if not longer.

The food quantities allowed by Modi’in Ezrahi do not meet the daily dietary needs of the workers, and they prefer not to buy food at the considerably more expensive Israeli stores.

Israel’s occupation of Palestine is getting – got a long time ago – so sordid that they are now subcontracting it to for-profit enterprises. In other words, creating an occupation industry that would be a natural lobby against disengagement from the occupied territories. Probably, that’s the whole idea.

Amira Hass relied on the Israeli NGO Machsom Watch (aka Women Against the Occupation and for Human Rights) for the info, they have a lot more on their site.

Please go NOW to Mondoweiss and read my friend Ashraf Khalil’s account of reporting for the Los Angeles Times on what happened to Mohammed Omer, a Palestinian journalist who was returning from a European tour where he received an award for his work. Omer came back through the Allenby terminal between Jordan and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, at which point something happened: as Ashraf puts it, “He emerges from the terminal in a wheelchair, semi-coherent, and is never quite the same again.” The rest is how difficult it was to get what clearly was an important case of abuse in the American press:

I was just a few months into what would turn out to be a one-year run as Jerusalem correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. Perhaps my more seasoned colleagues recognized quickly what I was still too new and naïve to grasp. Put simply, the story was a swamp—something that would require months of investigation to properly unravel, then prompt a horrendous clash with their editors and probably never see daylight in any kind of satisfying form.
And that’s exactly what it turned out to be.
I couldn’t prove what happened to Omer inside the Allenby terminal, so I didn’t even try. What I COULD prove, after months of digging, was that the resulting Israeli investigation of the incident was a threadbare joke.
The official Israeli report on the incident essentially called Omer an attention-seeking liar. Omer’s claims were “found to be without foundation” and the report expresses “doubts about the sincerity of the situation.” Translation: he made it all up.
But the Israeli authorities never even attempted to interview Omer, and never interviewed the paramedic who brought Omer from the Allenby terminal to a nearby hospital. As far as I could tell, the Israeli government basically interviewed its own officers. One Israeli official told me with a straight face that they didn’t really need to interview the victim of the alleged assault since they could just read his account in the various news reports.
So after fussing over the story for more than a month, knowing that something like this had to be airtight to protect against a CAMERA campaign, I filed a story calling the Israeli investigation of the incident “insincere” and “deeply flawed at best.” My editors hated it, prompting a several-week staring contest while the story sat in limbo. One editor (my single favorite editor on the foreign desk and someone I would love to work with again) found it to be hopelessly biased. I argued, to no avail, that if the exact same set of circumstances and evidence surrounded a Los Angeles Police Department investigation of a high-profile abuse allegation, we would have crucified them on the front page.
In the end, the truth of what happened to Mohammed Omer was sacrificed on the altar of the false deity known as “balance”. He’s hardly alone, and the basic steps of the process are grindingly familiar to all observers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
*Alleged Palestinian Victim X makes such and such claims of abuse, discrimination or torture.
*The Israeli government “investigates” and releases an official report on nice shiny letterhead concluding that the alleged victim’s claims are unfounded.
*It all just fades away into the murky mists of “conflicting accounts.”
But here’s the thing: Can it really be “conflicting accounts” if one of the sides is lying and you can prove it?

Go and read it all. It should be noted that the LA Times’ current owner is Sam Zell, a major pro-Israel donor.

Almasry Alyoum: Israel above all Constitutions | Magdi el-Gallad has a good column today about a German dignitary, lecturing Egyptians on secularism, refusing to answer a question about Israel's self-definition as a Jewish state.
Mondoweiss: ‘I think this is the most emotional event I’ve ever done’ (Naomi Klein in Ramallah) | Philip Weiss has a recording of a Naomi Klein speech in Palestine, in support of the Boycott – Sanctions – Divestment (BDS) movement.
Mauritanian political rivals reach accord; Abdellahi resigns: Magharebia.com | A resolution in sight:

Mauritania formed a transitional national unity government on Friday (June 26th) in Nouakchott, Journal Tahalil reported. International mediator Habib Kabachi was quoted as saying that the rival political poles had successfully reached "an accord on all points". In the presence of Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, deposed president Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdellahi officially resigned and signed the decree for the installation of a new Mauritanian cabinet. Mohamed Ould Moulaye Laghdaf was chosen to lead the transitional government. After signing the decree, Abdellahi called for unity among all Mauritanians and affirmed that the country would hold presidential elections next month.

Worth remembering that this was a mediation that did not significantly involve the West.
Iran’s Post-Election Uprising: Hopes & Fears Revealed | The story of Iran's elections, from the dissenters' viewpoint, told in the same comic book form as Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis. Very, very cool.
Mousavi remains defiant – Tehran Bureau | Letter from Mousavi to Guardian Council calls for annulment of elections on the grounds that electoral law was violated multiple times.

From the Daily News, an image of anti-riot police preventing Egyptian protestors from commemorating the death of Neda Agha-Soltan in Cairo on Saturday.

It kind of reminds you, when Cairo’s streets were full of battles between protestors and security over elections or the movement for judges in 2006, and all the subsequent elections that were fraudulent – where was the outrage?

From the always excellent Strange Maps:

The Bir Tawil Triangle is a desert of sand and rocks on the border between Egypt and the Sudan. It is also officially the most undesired territory in the world. Bir Tawil is the only piece of land on Earth (*) that is not claimed by any country – least of all by its neighbours. For either of them to claim the Bir Tawil Triangle would be to relinquish their claim to the Hala’ib Triangle. And while Hala’ib is also mainly rock and sand, it is not only ten times larger than Bir Tawil, but also adjacent to the Red Sea – so rather more interesting.

[Thanks, Stefan]

You may remember my coining of the acronym CRAP – Courageous Arab Reformist Personality – to describe the people who have made it a lucrative business to appeal to Western (and especially American) sensitivities by posturing as daring reformists taking on their countries’ repressive culture. Typically, this involves adopting a position so out of touch with the realities of practical political activism for the only purpose of appealing to liberal Western sensitivities.

I have to say, this story in the Washington Post takes the prize for concentrated CRAPpiness, especially this unbelievable quote abusing the memory of Neda Agha-Soltan, whose death from a bullet wound during the recent Tehran protests was captured on video:

“Everyone is so shocked to see that beautiful young girl dying and looking so modern and secular,” said Azar Nafisi, author of “Reading Lolita in Tehran” and a professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

Does this mean that if she had not looked “so secular and modern” the outrage would have been less?

Actually, that’s probably exactly what it means. [Thanks, SP]

It’s become almost routine to see Muslim Brothers being arrested in the last few years, especially in the Delta, but the recent arrest of some of the group’s most prominent members is rather curious:

State Security Services launched a wide crackdown today at dawn against three Muslim Brotherhood high-ranking figures in Cairo. Among those arrested are Dr. Abdel-Moneim Abu el-Fotouh, Member of the Executive Bureau of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Secretary-General of the Arab Doctors’ Federation, Judge Fathi Lashin, former legal adviser to the Ministry of Justice and Expert on Islamic Financial Transactions and Dr. Jamal Abdul Salam, Head of the Emergency Relief Committee of the Arab Doctors’ Federation and the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate in the 2005 elections.

Aboul Fotouh in particular is one of the MB’s most popular figures, respected well beyond their ranks for his intellectual calibre and moderation. Considering all of these people were involved in the fundraising drive and aid effort to Gaza, and the Egyptian government has just reopened the border, one wonders whether there’s any connection. Especially at this time when there are so many rumors about Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier kidnapped by Hamas, being moved to Egypt in advance of a prisoner exchange deal and ongoing Israel-Hamas as well as Fatah-Hamas negotiations.

Update: I should add that several companies close to those arrested and other prominents MBs have been shut down, dealing a further financial blow to the group. This morning (29 June 2009) newspapers like al-Dustour are accusing the MB of a weak reaction, perhaps channeling some Islamists’ belief that they have been too supine in their reaction to the last few years of crackdowns.

Presidents Naguib and Nasser, originally uploaded by Kodak Agfa.

It recommend checking out this Flickr user for historical pictures of Egypt. I like this hand-colored pic of Nasser and Naguib.

A little more clarity on Barack Obama’s national security — and mostly Middle East and AfPak — team:

National Security Advisor Jim Jones and Deputy National Security Advisor Tom Donilon both have the rank of assistant to the president. NSC Director of Strategic Communications Denis McDonough and Chief of Staff Mark Lippert have the rank of deputy assistant to the president. Ross, along with Lute, will have the rank of special assistant to the president. Daniel Shapiro, Puneet Talwar, and Don Camp have senior director status, but not the rank of special assistant to the president that Ross will have.

Note that Dennis Ross has also joined in a beefed-up position now going beyond Iran called “special assistant to the president and senior director on the central region.” Note the adoption of a region system analogous to the military’s “Central Command” to refer to the Middle East — another sign of the regrettable commitment of the administration to what is, for lack of a better word, essentially an imperialist posture in the region. Laura Rozen has more on that. It is becoming clearer that Ross’ move from State to the White House is a promotion, enabling him to have the ear of the president. The idea has been floating around that Ross may be in this position not so much as a key crafter of regional policy but rather as an interface between the president and the Israel lobby he has long been associated with (let’s remember that during the Bush years Ross was not only at the pro-Israel Washington Institute, but also at an organization associated with the Jewish Agency, the Israeli quasi-governmental organization whose mission is to bring people to Israel, including the settlements).

Meanwhile, Acting Assistant SecState for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman is still waiting to be confirmed, and thus cannot appoint his own staff yet. I was in Washington a few days ago and visited the State Dept, where I got the impression that things were definitely not quite set up yet. Note that the reason Feltman is not confirmed yet, apparently, is that Senator Carl Levin is withholding (also here) his vote to lobby for one of his constituents who is trying to get money out of the Libyan regime (which has already paid through the nose for the normalization of its relationship with the West.)

As part of a plan to return to more prolific blogging and revamp the site over the next few months, we are starting a series of regular podcasts about the Middle East. The aim will be to carry out interviews with informed commentators on various regional issues, and hopefully eventually carry out some interesting discussions about the issues we regularly cover on this blog.

This is partly due to the fact that I recently left a job which severely constrained my ability to blog, and made me remove my name from the blog. Long-time readers perfectly know who I am, but if you’re newer to this site my name is Issandr El Amrani. I’ve lived in Cairo for nine years, am Moroccan-American, and my professional background is mostly in journalism and political analysis. This is my first attempt at podcasting, so be patient as we iron out the kinks (and I try to improve my radio voice).

The first podcast in this series is basically a long interview with my friend Max Rodenbeck, the Middle East correspondent for The Economist and a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books on regional issues. Max, whose book Cairo: The City Victorious is one of the best works on our great city, has made several trips to Iran in the last year and recently returned from covering the elections and following protests. Our conversation covers the elections themselves, the politics behind the protests, Max’s impressions of the popular mood in Iran, and more.

Some recent pieces on Iran Max wrote:

✩ Demanding to be counted (The Economist, 18 June 2009)
✩ Is the dream already over? (The Economist, 25 June 2009)
✩ Why the turbans are at odds (The Economist, 25 June 2009)
✩ The Iran Mystery Case (NYRB, 15 January 2009)
✩ An American in Iran (NYRB, 17 January 2008)

And here’s the podcast:

Play / Download

The podcast (and subsequent ones) should be listed on iTunes for subscription shortly – we’ll update the page with that link when’s it available.

MEI Editor’s Blog: "She was a Splendid Beast": The Arabic Transliteration Problem | Michael Dunn on transliteration. I say, don't worry about it too much, spell it like it sounds even if that changes dialect to dialect, and use fuzzy query software for information retrieval.
Arab world mourns Michael Jackson | There's a bizarre number of stories and blog posts about Michael Jackson's popularity in the Arab world. Yes of course he is popular in the Arab world. As if he wasn't popular everywhere. Perhaps his popularity is magnified in developing countries because he was one of few truly international artists (like Madonna). So what you say about Jackson in the Arab world is probably applicable to Central Asia or sub-Saharan Africa.
World Bank approves Dead Sea canal plan: Israel | Linking Red and Dead seas and powering a desalinisation plan. I remember Egypt opposed this, but not sure why. Maybe it wants to be the only one with a canal.
Supreme Iranian Leader | Angry Arabon Khameini:

If there is one area of the Iranian political-clerical system that is more at odds with the tradition of Shi`ite theology it is the position of Supreme Leader: or the Guardian Cleric, as the translation should be. In Shi`ite tradition, the Grand Ayatullahs are never appointed or officially designated: they simply rise by reputation, just like a village or rural physician. Khumayni (the mentor of Mr. Moussavi in Iran) reversed that by deciding to first appoint himself (on behalf of the missing 12th Imam), and then to appoint his own successor without regard to clercical seniority. Khamenei is not senior at all among the clerics, and his Ayatullah treatise was rushed AFTER his designation, when Khumayni reversed his decision to designate Mountazari. I would expect that part of the Iranian republic to be the weakest link.

How Arabic is Like Parseltongue | Harry Potter joke.

Note: Going back to the daily link dump, unless you prefer the individual posts. Most people I asked seem to prefer this method…

Tamim death sentences upheld – The National Newspaper | On HTM, case will now go to appeal, perhaps ultimately to Cassation Court.

Moving Out of Kuwait’s Political Impasse – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace | Nathan Brown on Kuwait’s divisions between the ruling family and parliament.

Al-Ahram Weekly | Focus | Loyalty to racism | Azmi Bishara on Israel’s demand that it be recognized as a Jewish state. He makes several really good points.

Obama to Send U.S. Ambassador to Syria After Four-Year Gap – washingtonpost.com | Move had been planned, but coming in the middle of Iran’s crisis it signals an ambition to split the Syrian-Iranian alliance.

Calif. professor’s Gaza e-mail cleared by panel – Yahoo! News | Bloody thought police.

Iason Athanasiadis is still being held in an Iranian jail, with no news on the charges against him or when he might be released. (See previous post on Iason’s arrest.)

Iason’s parents have issued a statement:

Meanwhile the parents of the journalist Iason Athanasiadis issued a statement appealing for the authorities to release their son, who was arrested last week on suspicion of what Tehran described as “underground activities”. Iran’s state media has said the authorities regard the journalist, also known as Jason Fowden, as a British reporter. Polymnia Athanasiadi and Georgios Fowden said: “Iason is a dedicated reporter, photographer and filmmaker who grew up in Greece and regards himself as Greek.”

“Iason has always maintained his integrity as an independent journalist who sells articles, photographs and film to outlets in many parts of the world,” the statement added. “His work serves no purpose other than the fair and humane coverage of life in the many countries where he has worked. He has a particular love of Iran, and a deep respect for its cultural and religious traditions.”

Both Greek and British authorities are working towards his release.

Iason is one of at least 30 journalists (Iranian and foreign) who have been arrested since the crisis began, including the entire staff of a newspaper affiliated with presidential candidate Hossein Moussavi, Kalameh Sabz. Reporters Sans Frontieres says Iranian demonstrators have been forced to say they protested under the influence of foreign media:

Reporters Without Borders today condemned a parade of Iranian demonstrators being shown on a loop on state-run TV confessing to having protested at the behest of foreign media.

All demonstrators make their confessions using the same words that have opened the nightly news bulletin for the past week: “Bismillah, al-rahman al-rahim. I admit that I demonstrated under the influence of the BBC, the radio Voice of America and other foreign media”.

The confessions are aired at every hour of the day and night to show Iranians the extent to which those disputing the presidential election were persuaded by western agents to take part in an “orchestrated plot” against the Islamic Republic of Iran, confirming the words of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, where Iason was working, has more updates on his situation.

Barack Obama on the phone to Benyamin Netanyahu / White House.

I’ve been thinking about the settlement issue, which is currently at the forefront of the tug-of-war between the Obama and Netanyahu administrations and key to relaunching the Middle East Peace Process. I am disturbed by the emphasis on natural growth of Israel’s settlements, rather than the existence of the settlements. This post will attempt to stake out this position. And it’s long, so click below to read more. Continue reading ‘Obama, Netanyahu, the Palestinians and the settlements issue’

OK, so may be I haven’t quite blogged enough to get back to silliness, but I can’t help it with this one, continuing on our previous post on Cairene sartorial silliness:

It’s a whole collection now.

✩ Tehran ‘like a war zone’ as ayatollah refuses to back down on election

Bloody clashes broke out in Tehran yesterday as Iran’s supreme leader said he would not yield to pressure over the disputed election. The renewed confrontation took place in Baharestan Square, near parliament, where hundreds of protesters faced off against several thousand riot police and other security personnel.

Witnesses likened the scene to a war zone, with helicopters hovering overhead, many arrests and the police beating demonstrators.

One woman told CNN that hundreds of unidentified men armed with clubs had emerged from a mosque to confront the protesters.

“They beat a woman so savagely that she was drenched in blood and her husband fainted. They were beating people like hell. It was a massacre,” she said.

The opposition website Rooz Online carried what it said was an interview with a man the government had shipped in to Tehran to quell the demonstrations. He said he was being paid 2m rial (£122) to assault protesters with a heavy wooden stave, and that other volunteers, most of them from far-flung provinces, were being kept in hostel accommodation, reportedly in east Tehran.

With the independent media banned from covering street protests, the reports could not be verified.

There were also unconfirmed reports tonight that Zahra Rahnavard, the wife of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, had been arrested. Earlier in the day she had called on the authorities to release Iranians who had been detained.

With so much of this being difficult to verify, it’s only natural to err on the side of the protesters since it is the government that is preventing journalists from doing their job.

✩ Obama now playing hard to get with Iran?: Laura Rozen on the Obama administration’s change of tactics towards Iran.

✩ Egypt’s reaction to protests: Our own Ursula Lindsey reports on conflicting Egyptian attitudes to the protests.

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✩ Mapping the protests in Tehran: cool interactive map of Tehran protests with pics.

✩ Will Iran be President Obama’s Iraq?: The Leveretts debunk some myths on Iran, including the assertion that Ahmedinejad definitely stole the elections. They notably tackle the problems with allegations of up to 140% of votes cast in certain constituencies and the Chatham House analysis of the elections:

In response to fraud allegations, the Ministry of the Interior has, for the first time ever, published the results of each of the 45,713 ballot boxes. With the personal information for all the nearly 40 million voters in the election registered on a computer database and each voter’s fingerprints on his or her ballot stub, it is clear where people voted, and each vote can be accounted for.

The Guardian Council — tasked by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to review alleged electoral irregularities — has acknowledged that the number of votes cast in 50 towns exceeded the number of eligible voters residing in those communities; roughly 3 million votes fall into that category.

But this is not unusual: Iranian citizens may vote in presidential elections anywhere in the country. Since the election took place on the Iranian weekend, many people had left their homes for their hometowns and villages and cast their votes there. Thus, in some places, the number of votes exceeded the number of resident, eligible voters.

Recently, spot analyses by scholars from the University of Michigan and the Royal Institute of International Affairs suggested that this year’s election results are out of line with previous presidential elections. These analyses compare this year’s results with the first round of the 2005 presidential election, when Ahmadinejad and former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani outpolled other candidates to move into a runoff. Viewed through that prism, Ahmadinejad’s 2009 tally seems inflated.

But the comparison is structurally flawed. It is tantamount to arguing that, because Barack Obama won 38 percent of the vote in a competitive, multicandidate caucus in Iowa in January 2008, it is implausible that he could have won 54 percent of that state’s vote in the two-person general election in November. A more appropriate comparison for this year’s results in Iran would be the second round of the 2005 presidential election, when Ahmadinejad trounced Rafsanjani.

From the outset, this year’s presidential contest was effectively a two-man race, notwithstanding two other candidates’ presence on the ballot. In that context, Ahmadinejad’s second-round vote share in 2005 (61.7 percent) was essentially indistinguishable from the percentage of the vote he won this year (62.6 percent).

The Leveretts also dispute the idea that the regime is close to collapse or has been delegitimized.

✩ BBC Newsnight’s Jeremy Paxman interviews Roxana Saberi

✩ Has the U.S. Played a Role in Fomenting Unrest During Iran’s Election?: This question, unfortunately, must be asked since regime change in Iran has long been a US policy and, under the Bush administration at least, money was channeled to anti-regime groups inside and outside Iran. One important thing to remember, however, is that even if there are agitators seeking taking opportunity, the size of the protests makes it clear that this is more than just opposition groups – it’s a genuine popular uprising.

✩ Iran in the Gulf: Great blog providing translations from the Iranian media and pro-protests publications.

✩ Neda Soltan’s family ‘forced out of home’ by Iranian authorities: Family of girl whose death was filmed further persecuted – this incredible pettiness and lack of respect shows how disgusting this regime is:

Neighbours said that her family no longer lives in the four-floor apartment building on Meshkini Street, in eastern Tehran, having been forced to move since she was killed. The police did not hand the body back to her family, her funeral was cancelled, she was buried without letting her family know and the government banned mourning ceremonies at mosques, the neighbours said.

“We just know that they [the family] were forced to leave their flat,” a neighbour said. The Guardian was unable to contact the family directly to confirm if they had been forced to leave.

The government is also accusing protesters of killing Soltan, describing her as a martyr of the Basij militia. Javan, a pro-government newspaper, has gone so far as to blame the recently expelled BBC correspondent, Jon Leyne, of hiring “thugs” to shoot her so he could make a documentary film.

Robert Ménard quitte le Centre de Doha pour la liberté d’information, "asphyxié" – Le Monde.fr
Former head of Reporters Sans Frontieres leaves Doha-based center for freedom of information, saying he was asphyxiated by the lack of freedom and clashes with funders. Menard blames Sheikh Hamid bin Thamer, al-Jazeera's chairman, for his troubles but praised the Emir and Sheikha Moza.

Time for a real national coalition for Middle East peace
Hussein Ibish calls for a union of Arab-Americans and Jewish-Americans for peace.

Israel sees "hard work" settling dispute with Obama
Bibi cancels meetings with Mitchell, over lack of progress on settlements issue.

The BBC World Service has put up the first part of an excellent documentary piece on Egypt’s current predicament, looking at the Mubarak era, the role of the military in it, and many more things. It really delves into questions rarely probed in depth by most journalists, notably the important role played by the military in the economy and its lingering political power. This first part deals mostly with the features of the Mubarak regime, and the next one will tackle the question of presidential succession.

Highly recommended, and also read this companion peace, Egyptians look to military ’saviour’

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The Arabs’ Forlorn Envy of Iranians – Tehran Bureau
Rami Khouri takes the words out of my mouth – I'll have my own stuff to add on this topic a little later.

I started writing this column Sunday in Amman, Jordan, and finished writing it Tuesday in Beirut, Lebanon — a short journey that captured how the dynamic events in Iran are playing out in very different ways in a largely passive and vulnerable Arab world. Jordan and Lebanon capture the two extremes of the Arab world, including pro-American and pro-Iranian sentiments, Islamists, monarchists, and an assortment of tribal, Arab nationalist, state-centered and democratic values.

All of them, without exception, react to events in Iran with fascination, confusion, and concern, reflecting self-inflicted political incoherence and mediocrity that are hallmarks of the modern Arab world. Broadly speaking, the Arab world has maneuvered itself into a lose-lose situation vis-à-vis developments in Iran, despite different views of the Islamic Republic.

Iason in Tehran, Washington Times

The drama unfolding in Iran has many victims, and it may seem arbitrary to focus on any single one of them. But professional solidarity and personal acquaintance move me to speak out for the release of Iason Athanasiadis, a reporter and photographer who has worked on Iran for several years and was arrested on June 20 while reporting for the Washington Times. I have known Iason for nearly a decade, from when he lived in Cairo and worked at al-Ahram Weekly. He is a stellar linguist and journalist.

The work Iason and other reporters operating in Iran is crucial to information about the evolving situation getting out, potentially influencing the outcome of the crisis. The Iranian regime, by booting out most reporters and now arresting those who remain, is only communicating one thing: that it is afraid of what is happening in the country, and afraid of transparency about its political process, the state of freedom of speech and freedom of association in Iran. His detention only underlines these fears, discrediting the regime’s claims that it is trying to find fair, political answers to the questions raised by the recent flawed election.

Although one hopes that the Iranian authorities will treat Iason well and release him soon – as a Greek-British national he may have more cover than the hundreds of Iranians now in jail – we cannot be sure. The uncertain outcome of the situation in Iran and a past record of prosecuting journalists unfairly do not bode well. My solidarity goes to him and his family, as well as to the Iranian people who have had the courage to fight for the right to appoint leaders of their choosing.

Bahrain’s oldest newspaper indefinitely suspended
After publication of anti-Khameini commentary. A sign of how sensitive this Sunni-ruled, Shia-majority country has become to the pro-Iran (regime) sentiments among its population. Which of course suggests that the Iranian regime must have spent much time building up a constituency there.

Update: I posted this as I was clearing open windows in the browser. The newspaper has been reopened, as Bint Battuta kindly informed me. Sorry if I post slightly stale news that I bookmarked in recent days as I was traveling, I have not had much time to process my usual reading material over the last week as I was traveling. And thanks Bint Battuta!

Moussavi the architect
Slideshow of the architectural work of Mir Hosein Mousavi.

How to Achieve Israeli-Palestinian Peace – WSJ.com
Op-ed by Hosni Mubarak on the Middle East Peace Process. Note token line about Egypt having achieved reform and providing more jobs for youth, both clearly untrue (the PM after all has warned of rising unemployment, and the reform issue speaks for itself.) Since the op-ed contains no policy initiatives, I guess this is just a PR effort to reassert Egypt's reputation as a peacemaker in the US. One wishes its current efforts were more successful, since Cairo has succeeded in neither Palestinian reconciliation nor a permanent ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, the two goals of the "Egyptian initiative". Of course this is also the Israelis and Palestinians' fault, but you can't really point to recent great Egyptian diplomatic successes.