Is Egypt's Military Ready To Take Control Back From The Muslim Brotherhood?

A year ago, Dr. Jacques Neriah asked Are Egypt’s Islamists Headed for a Collision with the Military?

At the time, leading up to the presidential election, the apparent agreement between the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) led by Field Marshal Tantawi and the Muslim Brotherhood had already begun to unravel. It was becoming clear that it was the Islamists after all, and not Egypt's military, that was gaining power as the military began to lose favor.

We now see where that scenario led.

Protesters demonstrate against the arrest of Egyptian journalist
Yousef Shaaban on the steps of Cairo's journalist's syndicate. Credit: Al Jazeera

Yet today, Neriah analyzes how matters may have turned completely around, as he now poses the quesition
Is Egypt Heading toward a Military Regime?. Here is his summary of his article for The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs:

From Middle East Quarterly 1995: Does the Arabic Language Encourage Radical Islam?

The following by James Coffman is reposted here with permission of Middle East Forum:

Does the Arabic Language Encourage
Radical Islam?

by James Coffman
Middle East Quarterly
December 1995, pp. 51-57

James Coffman is director of America-Mideast Educational and Training Services, Inc. (AMIDEAST), Tunisia.

Native speakers of Arabic have long claimed that Arabic is far more than a language; rather, the language of Islam, the language chosen by God to speak to mankind, influences how a person perceives the world and expresses reality. This, in turn, has a profound impact on a society's outlook. Thus, Ahmed Taleb Ibrahimi, a former Algerian minister of education, declares that "a people that changes language is a people that changes its soul and its view on the world."¹ Abdelkader Yefsah, a sociologist, recently wrote that use of the Arabic language "leads straight to . . . the primacy of the religious over all other activity."²

In contrast, nonspeakers of Arabic tend to be somewhat skeptical of such claims. They acknowledge the importance of Arabic and appreciate its profound connections to the Islamic faith, but find it hard to believe that Arabic is so consequential.

While doing research at two Algerian universities in the academic year 1989-90, I had a unique opportunity to conduct a systematic investigation of this question. Looking at the differences between students schooled primarily in Arabic and primarily in French, I found the differences between them to be many and profound. To sum up the differences, Arabized students see the world in a far more Islamic fashion than do their French-oriented peers. What Arabic-speakers say about their language, in short, is true.

PRESS RELEASE May 20, 2013  Contact: Lenny Ben-David NGO Monitor 054-216-8155 lenny.bendavid@ngo-monitor.org

Report: U.S. Government Funding for Mideast Political NGOs Undermines U.S. Policy Jerusalem - A report presented to Members of Congress today by NGO Monitor shows that U.S. Government funding of several political NGOs in the Palestinian Authority and Israel contradicts U.S. policy, has a negative impact on the peace process, and lacks the independent oversight necessary to prevent abuses. Professor Gerald M. Steinberg, President of NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based research institute, is meeting this week with Members of Congress, congressional staff, Washington think tanks, journalists and foreign policy decision-molders. The 13-page report, The Negative Impact of U.S. Government Funding for Mideast Political NGOs, is written by Steinberg and Naftali Balanson, NGO Monitor Managing Editor. The 38-page appendicesinclude a directory of the political NGOs involved and correspondence with U.S. government agencies and officials.

Arlene Kushner on Russia Heating Up The Situation In Syria -- And Israel's Response

From Arlene Kushner:
May 21, 2013

Strong for All Things

There are multiple ways in which enormous strength is required of the Israeli government now.  In no situation is this more the case than with regard to Syria and armaments shipped there, either for use by Syria or for transfer to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The situation is rife with threats, claims, charges, counter-charges, and rumors.

What seems to be the case is that Russia recently shipped its Yakhont anti-ship cruise missiles to Syria.  And this is bad news:

Jonathan Rosenblum: The Feminist Story the Media Missed at the Kotel

The Feminist Story the Media Missed at the Kotel

by Jonathan Rosenblum
Jerusalem Post
May 17, 2013


That the Women of the Wall's (WoW) monthly visits to the Western Wall will provoke insults, spitting, and sometimes worse from a group of haredim at the Western Wall is old news. But there was another story last Friday that the media either missed or botched entirely: the thousands of Jewish women and girls who filled the area directly in front of the Kotel and almost to the back wall of the Kotel plaza, completely dwarfing the group of one hundred or so women associated with WoW. (The figure of 400 to 500 WoW given by some media outlets is patent nonsense.)

When I arrived at the Kotel a little past 7:00 a.m., there were about 25 (not 2,000 as reported by Ha'aretz) young haredi men standing on the upper level at the far north of the Kotel Plaza shouting and ruining the prayers for all those on the men's side who had come to pray on Rosh Hodesh. (I had already heard on the radio that police had arrested one haredi man.) What surprised me, however, was that the most prominent video camera remained exclusively focused on this small group among the many thousands then at the Kotel.

Looking Back -- Both Democrats and Republicans Got The Arab Spring Wrong

The following by David P. Goldman is reposted here with permission of Middle East Forum:

Dumb and Dumber

by David P. Goldman
Tablet Magazine
May 20, 2013

http://www.meforum.org/3510/dumb-and-dumber

Errors by the party in power can get America into trouble; real catastrophes require consensus.

Rarely have both parties been as unanimous about a development overseas as they have in their shared enthusiasm for the so-called Arab Spring during the first months of 2011. Republicans vied with the Obama Administration in their zeal for the ouster of Egypt's dictator Hosni Mubarak and in championing the subsequent NATO intervention against Muammar Qaddafi in Libya. Both parties saw themselves as having been vindicated by events. The Obama Administration saw its actions as proof that soft power in pursuit of humanitarian goals offered a new paradigm for foreign-policy success. And the Republican establishment saw a vindication of the Bush freedom agenda.

Video: Professor Eugene Kontorovich on The Legal Case for Israel

Yesterday I posted the video of an interview with international law professor Eugene Kontorovich on the Jewish right to Israel and the double standards that are applied to it.

Here is a second, earlier, video -- this one of a lecture Professor Kontorovich gave last year on The Legal Case for Israel, featured on Torah Cafe.

Enjoy.

Here is the video:

Nidra Poller on The Muhammad al-Dura Hoax

This Wednesday, the French Court of Appeal is expected to rule in the defamation case brought by France 2's Charles Enderlin against French media analyst Philippe Karsenty who accused Enderlin of fabricating the story of Mohammed Al-Durah.

In light of that, I am reposting the following 2011 article by Nidra Poller with permission of Middle East Media.

For more background information on the Al-Durah hoax, check out The Al-Durah Project, which gives you the opportunity to check out evidence -- including comparing raw footage of what happened with the edited version broadcast on France2.

The Muhammad al-Dura Hoax and Other Myths Revived

by Nidra Poller
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2011, pp. 71-78 (view PDF)

On September 30, 2000, a day after Yasser Arafat launched his war of terror, euphemized as the al-Aqsa intifada, state-owned France 2 Television broadcast a news report, filmed by a Palestinian cameraman, of the fatal shooting of a 12-year-old Palestinian identified as Muhammad al-Dura. The dramatic voice-over commentary by the station's long-time Jerusalem correspondent, Charles Enderlin, described how the boy and his father Jamal were pinned down by Israeli gunfire at Netzarim Junction in the Gaza Strip. The father pleaded frantically with the soldiers to stop shooting, to no avail. "A last burst of gunfire," intoned Enderlin, "the boy is dead, his father critically wounded."

Despite a mountain of evidence disputing the charge of his intentional killing by Israeli soldiers in 2000, 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura, seen cowering with his father, became the poster child of the "Second Intifada." As seen in this billboard, his image soon attained iconic status in the Arab world and helped refuel myths of bloodthirsty Jews.

The bloodless images of Jamal and Muhammad al-Dura were instantly seared into the public mind. Distributed free of charge to international media, repeated endlessly like a raucous war cry, the Dura video provoked anti-Jewish violence in Israel and, on a scale not seen since the Holocaust, throughout Europe.[1] The recently-created al-Jazeera television—founded in 1996—was significantly boosted by exploiting the Dura death scene.

Recognized almost immediately as a staged scene by astute observers, denounced by others as an unfounded accusation against Israeli soldiers, the Dura video has been analyzed, investigated, dissected, exposed, taken to court, attacked, defended, exploited, and debated for almost ten years.[2]

Forget Iran -- What Are The Chances of Saudi Arabia Developing A Nuclear Capability?

The following by Naser al-Tamimi is reposted here with permission Middle East Forum:

Will Riyadh Get the Bomb?
Saudi Arabia's Atomic Ambitions

by Naser al-Tamimi
Middle East Quarterly
Spring 2013 (view PDF)

http://www.meforum.org/3509/saudi-arabia-nuclear-bomb

As the impasse over Tehran's nuclear program worsens, those most likely to be directly effected by an Iranian bomb are showing greater alarm. While the media fixates on Israel and its possible reaction, other regional players have no less at stake.

Despite Riyadh's long-held advocacy of making the Middle East a zone free of weapons of mass destruction, there has been much speculation in the last two decades about the possibility of its acquiring or developing nuclear weapons should Tehran obtain the bomb.[1] In the words of King Abdullah: "If Iran developed nuclear weapons … everyone in the region would do the same,"[2] a sentiment echoed by Prince Turki al-Faisal, former head of Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Directorate.[3] Has Riyadh decided to go down the nuclear road, or is this bluster a desperate bid to stop Tehran's nuclear program dead in its tracks?

Iran Fears Growing Israel-Azerbaijan Cooperation

Lt.-Col. (ret.) Michael Segall
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA)

• The visit to Israel in April 2013 by Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar Mamadyarov intensified growing Iranian concerns over the tightening ties between Jerusalem and Baku, both of which view Iran as a threat. Iran's progress in its nuclear program and the failure of the nuclear talks with the West have raised Tehran's threshold of sensitivity about a military attack on its nuclear facilities, and it increasingly fears that Azerbaijan is turning into a base for such a strike.