Egypt panel ‘to study constitutional reform’: BBC
The BBC’s Jim Muir: “Protesters blocked the army from advancing into Tahrir Square and spent the night sleeping under the tracks of tanks”
Egypt’s opposition groups – including the banned Muslim Brotherhood – have given a wary response after landmark talks with the government on how to end the country’s political crisis.
The meeting followed 13 days of street protests calling on President Hosni Mubarak to resign.
Opposition groups told the BBC they were sceptical about the government’s good faith.
Meanwhile, many banks opened for the first time in a week.
Long queues formed as people waited to withdraw money.
Tens of thousands have again joined demonstrations in Cairo and other cities, calling for democratic reforms.
President Mubarak has refused to resign immediately, saying that to do so would cause chaos and has said instead that he will not stand for re-election in September.
State of emergency
Mr Suleiman was hosting the talks on Sunday along with a number of opposition parties, including Wafd and Tagammu, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood.
Egyptian State TV said the participants had agreed to form a joint committee of judicial and political figures tasked with suggesting constitutional amendments.
However, the Brotherhood said the talks would only continue if the government makes progress on meeting its demands.
Deputy leader Rashad Mohammed el-Bayoumy said these included “the immediate removal of this regime, beginning with Hosni Mubarak; the lifting of the emergency laws that we have been living under for more than thirty years… Dissolving the parliament, which is in place only as a result of blatant election rigging; and finally, the release of all political prisoners.”
The BBC’s Jon Leyne, in Cairo, says opposition members and a group of so-called “wise men” who were also there told him they were sceptical of the government’s moves.
It was the first time the government and the long-banned Brotherhood have held talks.
However, another key opposition figure – former UN nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei – was absent.
Economic woes
The participants also rejected foreign interference in Egypt’s affairs and said they would work towards the peaceful transition of power, the state news reports said.
Mr Suleiman had invited the groups last week, telling the Muslim Brotherhood it was a “valuable opportunity”.
The Brotherhood had previously said it would not take part in the negotiations.
The Islamist group is Egypt’s most influential and well-organised opposition but it remains officially banned and its members and leaders have been subject to frequent repression.
Mr Mubarak has blamed it for the unrest and said that if he leaves, the group will exploit the ensuing political chaos.
The Muslim Brotherhood denies accusations that it is seeking to create an Islamist state in Egypt.
Earlier, hundreds of bank branches across the country and in Cairo opened at 1000 local time (0800 GMT).
Long queues formed at some for the brief opening period – the banks closed again at 1330 local time.
The central bank has released some of its $36bn (£22bn) in official foreign reserves to cover withdrawals, amid fears Egyptians would be panicked into taking out their savings.
Deputy central bank governor Hisham Ramez has said he is confident all transactions will be honoured.
The government is seeking to revive an economy said to be losing at least $310m (£192m) a day.
Many shops, factories and the stock exchange have been closed for days, and basic goods have been running short.
Correspondents say many Egyptians have been wondering how quickly daily life will return to normal regardless of the outcome of the struggle for power.
But they also say there is no let-up in the magnitude of the protests in Tahrir Square, and the mood is almost back to the festival atmosphere of the first few days, with many families and young children in attendance.
Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt talks: Al Jazeera online
Opposition group says it is sticking to condition that Hosni Mubarak step down, as about a million protest in Cairo.
The government says “stability” is returning, as about a million people rallied in Cairo’s Tahrir Square [GALLO/GETTY]
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has held talks with the government aimed at ending the country’s political crisis, but one of the group’s leaders has told Al Jazeera that it does not trust the authorities to follow through on promised reforms.
The developments came as pro-democracy rallies continued across the country on Sunday – the 13th day of protests in the country.
About a million people were reported to be observing a “day of the martyrs” in Cairo’s Tahrir Square – the focal point of the protests – calling for an end to Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule. An Al Jazeera correspondent, Ayman Mohyeldin, who was at the square, was arrested by the military on Sunday afternoon.
Both Muslims and Christians held prayers at the square for the victims of the uprising.
Thousands of protesters also gathered in the cities of Alexandria and Mahalla. In other parts of the country, banks and shops began to reopen as normal life was seen to be resuming.
Egyptian state television said Omar Suleiman, the country’s newly appointed vice-president, began meetings with prominent independent and mainstream opposition figures on Saturday to go through the options, which centre on how to ensure free and fair presidential elections while sticking to the constitution.
The Egyptian president, in a televised address on Tuesday, said he would not seek re-election in September but refused to step down immediately, fearing “chaos”.
Brotherhood talks
The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) has played down the opposition’s talks with Suleiman, saying that it is not prepared to drop its central demand of calling for Mubarak to resign as president.
“We cannot call it talks or negotiations. The Muslim Brotherhood went with a key condition that cannot be abandoned … that he [Mubarak] needs to step down in order to usher in a democratic phase,” Abdul Monim Abo al-Fotoh, a member of the MB, told Al Jazeera.
The MB was one of several groups taking part in Sunday’s talks. Other participants included members of secular opposition parties, independent legal experts and business tycoon Naguib Sawiris, attendees said.
A representative of Mohamed ElBaradei, the opposition figure, was also in attendance.
Al-Fotoh described the meeting as testing the waters for what concessions the government was prepared to make.
He said he “did not see any … seriousness so far. They [the government] have failed to take concrete measurement on the ground.
“If they were serious, the parliament would have been dissolved, also a presidential decree ending the emergency law”.
He said that articles 77, 78 and 88 of the constitution should also have been amended by now.
Al-Fotoh was referring to an article of the constitution covering presidential elections, which now effectively puts Mubarak’s governing NDP party in a position to choose the next president, and another that allows the president to run for unlimited presidential terms.
He said the Muslim Brotherhood “does not seek power” and will not be fielding a candidate for president in elections.
He asserted that the organisation was not prepared to step back from its demand for Mubarak’s departure, saying that if it did, the move would be a “betrayal of the martyrs who have died in the these protests”.
On Sunday, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, cautiously welcomed the inclusion of the MB in talks, but said Washington would “wait and see” what results the dialogue yields.
A proposal being promoted by a group of Egyptians calling itself the The Council of Wise Men involves Suleiman assuming presidential powers for an interim period pending elections.
But some opposition figures argue that would mean the next presidential election would be held under the same unfair conditions as in previous years.
They want to first form a new parliament to change the constitution to pave the way for a presidential vote that is democratic.
Announcement due
Issam al-Aryan, a leading Muslim Brotherhood member, said that the organisation will hold a news conference on Sunday evening to announce what was discussed in the meeting with Suleiman.
Both he and Mohammed Mursi, another senior leader, said that the group will be sticking to its demand that Mubarak resign.
An Al Jazeera correspondent in Cairo described the news of the MB joining the talks as “highly significant”.
“They are interested in talking about the resignation of president Mubarak,” he said. “They want parliament resolved, they want those responsible for violence of the last few days put on trial … and wanting to be able to peacefully protest.”
Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Alexandria – one of the Muslim Brotherhood’s strongholds – says many people are surprised by the group’s decision to enter talks.
He said it is a major concession that might be seen as a “weakness” in the sense that the MB did not stick to its stated position against joining negotiations until Mubarak resigns.
Cherif Bassiouni, president of the Egyptian American Society and a former UN human rights expert, said the MB has already proved itself to be a responsible participant in Egypt’s legislative process.
“They participated in the 2005 legislative elections. They elected 88 members to the parliament. So they’ve had a role in the secular parliament,” Bassiouni said.
The government tried to get people back to work on Sunday, with banks and businesses reopening in the first clear test of how far protesters can keep up the momentum to topple the government.
But the protesters vowed not to back down in their demand for Mubarak to step down.
“They are steadfast and very sure in their aims and refuse to move,” an Al Jazeera correspondent in Cairo said.
Mass resignations
The leadership of Mubarak’s ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) resigned en masse on Saturday, according to state television.
Hossam Badrawi was appointed the new secretary-general of the party, replacing Safwat El-Sherif, a Mubarak loyalist, in that post. Badrawi, seen by many as a liberal voice in the NDP, will also replace Gamal Mubarak, Hosni Mubarak’s son, as head of the party’s policies bureau.
Other new appointees include: Mohamed Ragah Ahmed, Mohamed Ahmed Abd El-Illah, Maged Mahmoud Younes El-Shirbiny, Mohamed Ahmed Abd El-Salam Hebah and Dr Mohamed Mostafa Kamal, according to an NDP press release.
Officials in the US administration welcomed the resignation of Gamal Mubarak, terming it a “positive” move.
But the administration has continued to insist upon an orderly and peaceful transition in Egypt.
Frank Wisner, who has acted as a White House envoy by carrying a message to Mubarak, said on Saturday that Mubarak “must stay in office to steer” a process of gathering “national consensus around the preconditions” for the way forward.
PJ Crowley, the US state department’s spokesman, said, however, that Wisner was speaking as a private citizen, and that his views did not represent those of the US government.
Ex-Israeli soldier admits leaking secret military files: BBC
During her military service, Anat Kamm worked as a clerk in the office of an army general
Continue reading the main story
A former Israeli soldier has admitted leaking secret military information to a newspaper.
Anat Kamm pleaded guilty in return for the prosecution dropping more serious charges, which included spying and harming state security.
According to the charges, she passed more than 2,000 documents to the daily Haaretz newspaper.
Kamm, 24, will be sentenced at a later date and faces a maximum jail sentence of 15 years.
The Tel Aviv District Court heard that between 2005 and 2007 Kamm copied secret documents from army computers while working as a clerk in the office of a general.
After leaving the army and while working for an Israeli website, she gave the documents to a reporter from Haaretz.
Haaretz later published a report about a possibly-illegal Israeli operation to kill Palestinian militants in the West Bank.
Kamm was arrested in December 2009 although her detainment was only made public four months later. She has since been under house arrest.
Kamm’s lawyer, Eitan Leman, said that the documents leaked to the Israeli journalist did not harm Israeli security.
Under the plea bargain, Kamm pleaded guilty to possessing and distributing secret information while the original charges that included harming state security were dropped.
Tel Aviv court accepts plea bargain in Anat Kamm espionage case: Haaretz
According to agreement, prosecutors will drop charge that Kamm intended to harm state security when she took classified IDF documents and passed them on to a Haaretz reporter.
The Tel Aviv District Court accepted a plea bargain on Sunday in the case of Anat Kamm, who is accused of handing secret army documents to Haaretz writer Uri Blau.
According to the indictment against Kamm, during her military service as clerk in the office of then-GOC Central Command, Maj. Gen. Yair Naveh, she collected about 2,000 documents, some highly classified and top-secret, and copied them to CDs and her personal computer.
The documents included plans for military operations, the minutes of internal discussions, details of the deployment of IDF forces, conclusions of internal investigations, situation assessments, target banks and more. She later delivered them to Blau, who used them in his reports.
According to the plea bargain, Kamm will not be charged with having the intention to harm the security of the state, a charge which carries with it a maximum punishment of life imprisonment.
Instead, Kamm will plead guilty to possession of secret information and passing it on without permission, crimes that carry a maximum punishment of 15 years in prison.
The prosecutor in the case, Hadas Forrer-Gafni, said that she intends to ask the court for the maximum punishment for Kamm. Forrer-Gafni added that a decision regarding Blau will be made in the next few weeks.
Kamm said about her potential punishment, “In the plea bargain I admitted to the charges against me, I cannot control what the law says.”
Kamm’s lawyer, Eitan Lehman, added “It was never her intention to harm the security of the state. The state knows that the documents were only held by the two [Kamm and Blau] and all information that was leaked to the public underwent censorship.”
“There is information the public did not receive, and may not receive in the near future, because discussions are confidential,” Lehman said. “I hope the court will realize that not only was there no intention to harm the security of the state, no harm was done.”
“Kamm’s motives were good. We hope the judges will understand that the house arrest she has been under is sufficient punishment,” Lehman said.
Since her arrest, Kamm has been under house arrest in Tel Aviv. The court has rejected every request she has filed to ease the terms of her detention.
The prosecutor said about the plea bargain that it “reduces the severity of the allegations against Kamm. However, at the end of the day, this is a serious offense. The indictment still includes two very serious crimes, even if they are not as harsh as the original charges. The punishment will be served accordingly.”
“In our eyes, when an Israeli soldier takes the most confidential documents from the army, it is a very serious offense. Passing the information on to another party, even if they are a journalist, with the knowledge that the material is not being safeguarded with confidentiality, is very grave indeed,” Forrer-Gafni added.
The sentencing portion of Kamm’s trial will begin on April 11, 2011, behind closed doors.
Israel supports democracy – except in the case of Egypt: Haaretz
There is a clear consensus in Israel about the necessity of democracy, but when it comes to Egypt, suddenly Israelis are shaking.
By Roy Arad
There is a clear consensus in Israel about the necessity of democracy, spanning from supporters of former Balad chairman Azmi Bishara to friends of National Union MK Yaakov Katz. In other words, broad disagreement can be found within the wide range of opinions, but no one opposes the holding of elections, including the accompanying baseless election campaigns and sleepy election monitors. To a large extent, even if people have critiques of the scope of democracy and the electoral system, there is clearly no opposition to the democratic idea.
But when it comes to Egypt, suddenly Israelis are shaking. The very words “Muslim Brotherhood” cause commentators jaws to drop, even though I do not think anyone here would oppose a common border or peace agreement with Saudi Arabia, the most Muslim nation of all. Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made every effort to promote an agreement with the Saudis, and sharia law (the legal code of Islam ) did not prevent him from doing so.
In a democratic Egypt, even if the Muslim Brotherhood joins the coalition – like Shas here – there is no doubt that Islamic laws will not be imposed as strictly as in Saudi Arabia. As long as the democratic system is preserved, more or less, such matters maintain their own dynamic. If anything, Egypt has a Communist tradition, and the pendulum could just as well swing in a more secular direction there.
Jerusalem had an ultra-Orthodox mayor, but it does not seem to me that conditions were much worse, in terms of public freedom, than under Olmert or the city’s current mayor, Nir Barkat. I never read any threatening articles calling for the cancellation of elections in Jerusalem because of the emerging ultra-Orthodox majority in the city.
Although there is great anger concerning Israel’s actions in the Palestinian territories, there is a consensus in Egypt about ending the state of belligerence with its neighbor – an opinion also shared by Mohamed ElBaradei, the Muslim Brotherhood and the army, of course, which needs the foreign aid. Similarly, in Israel, it is rare to hear voices calling for the cancellation of the peace treaty with Egypt or to rebuild Ofira (Sharm el-Sheikh ) from its ruins.
But the fact that I support democracy in Egypt does not necessarily mean that I would support the results of this democracy. On the contrary. The great thing about democracy is that it allows you to complain. While I concede that the French revolution was an important moment in history, this doesn’t mean I must necessarily agree with the guillotine or with Napoleon’s visions of grandeur; nor with the policies of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the expulsion of the gypsies. You can support democracy in the United States and still think that President George W. Bush should be tried in the Hague for the crimes committed during his terms in office; or still be frightened by the ignorance, racism and religiosity that persists over there.
Democracy is a point of departure. Yes it allowed Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to improve his status in Israel, but thanks to democracy I can also openly criticize Lieberman without him being able to touch me. This is not a certainly among leaders like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, Syria’s Bashar Assad, or the rulers of Sudan and Yemen, who can torture anyone who criticizes them.
What is happening around us feels like a dream. The domino effect that struck the Communist states and toppled the military dictatorships in South America is today affecting the Arab dictatorships; within a decade we might find ourselves in an entirely different place.
In contrast to the war in Iraq, which enjoyed wide support in Israel – a war that was defined as bringing freedom to the Iraqi people, but was in fact a campaign of plunder and occupation, and ultimately led to the establishment of a puppet regime – the Egyptian citizens in Tahrir Square want freedom, are fighting to achieve it, and deserve every drop of liberty and social justice they can get.
It is not clear to me why we should feel threatened, or where people get the arrogance to think that democracy is a plaything of the West alone. This moment was bound to arrive. We should not be afraid or surprised, but only wonder why it did not happen sooner.
Egypt’s military-industrial complex: The Guardian
With US-made tear gas canisters fired on protesters in Cairo, Washington’s role in arming Egypt is under the spotlight
Pratap Chatterjee
A riot policeman fires tear gas at protesters in front of the al-Istiqama Mosque on 28 January, in Cairo, Egypt. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images
In early January 2010, Bob Livingston, a former chairman of the appropriations committee in the US House of Representatives, flew to Cairo accompanied by William Miner, one of his staff. The two men were granted meetings with US Ambassador Margaret Scobey, as well as Major General FC “Pink” Williams, the defence attaché and director of the US Office of Military Cooperation in Egypt. Livingston and Miner were lobbyists employed by the government of Egypt, helping them to open doors to senior officers in the US government. Records of their meetings, required under law, were recently published by the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington, DC watchdog group.
Although the names of those who attended the meetings have to be made public, the details of what was discussed are confidential. I called Miner to ask him about their meetings, but he referred me to Karim Haggag, the spokesman for the Egyptian embassy in Washington, who did not respond. Miner did confirm that he was a retired Navy pilot who had worked for clients like the Egyptian government, as well as several military contractors.
The cozy relationship between the lobbyists, members of the US Congress, Pentagon officials and the Egyptian government is easily explained: much is at stake. Egypt has received over $70bn in economic and military aid approved by the US Congress in the past 60 years, according to numbers compiled by the Congressional Research Service. Maj Gen Williams is the man in charge of the $1.3bn in annual US military aid supplied to the country.
Specifically, the aid money pays for US-designed Abrams tanks assembled in suburban Cairo under contract with General Dynamics. Boeing sells Egypt CH-47 Chinook transport helicopters, Lockheed Martin sells F-16s, Sikorsky Aircraft sells Black Hawk helicopters. Lockheed Martin has taken in $3.8bn from Egypt in the last few years; General Dynamics $2.5bn; Boeing $1.7bn; among many others.
In addition, hundreds of Egyptian military officers come for short training courses to the US each year. Two days after Livingston and Miner met with the US officials in Cairo, the embassy sent a cable to Washington with a list of Egyptian officials approved to take a three-week military training course in the US in February 2010. Under the “Leahy law” – a human rights requirement named after Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont that prohibits US military assistance to foreign military units that violate human rights – the embassy must, as a matter of routine, vouch for the prospective trainees.
One of the training courses listed in the cable made public by WikiLeaks was listed as one in how to handle explosives. The WikiLeaks cables show that numerous officials working for “state security”, aged between 30 and 50 with ranks from major to lieutenant colonel, were given clean bills of health to take a variety of such specialised military training programmes.
After the US lobbyists returned to their offices in Washington, DC, Miner kept in touch with “Pink” Williams, corresponding via email. A little over three months later, an Egyptian military delegation led by Major General Mohamed Said Elassar, assistant to Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, the Egyptian minister of defence, came to Washington. Livingstone and Miner were on hand once again to take the Egyptian officials to meet with a number of members of Congress, as well to visit the office of the secretary of defence to discuss “US/Egyptian security issues”.
So, when protesters in Cairo last week were struck by tear gas canisters fired by Egyptian security officials, it was not surprising that pictures taken by ABC TV would show that the canisters were manufactured in the US. Nor does it seem that surprising that a journalist from the Sydney Morning Herald would find 12-gauge shotgun shells with ”MADE IN USA” stamped on their brass heads when he visited the wounded in a makeshift casualty ward in a tiny mosque behind Tahrir (Liberation) Square.
The photographs show that the tear gas comes from a company named Combined Systems Inc (CSI), which describes itself as a “tactical weapons company” and is based in Jamestown, Pennsylvania. A similar picture from the protests in Egypt was posted on Twitter of a “Outdoor 52 Series Large Grenade” grenade made by CSI, which is designed to discharge “a high volume of smoke and chemical agent through multiple emission ports”. (CSI did not return calls for comment.)
Although CSI markets these products as “less-than-lethal”, several incidents indicate that they can cause injury and death. Bassem Abu Rahmah, a Palestinian man, was reportedly killed on 17 April 2009, when a CSI 40mm model 4431 powder barricade penetrating tear gas grenade struck him in the chest, according to a report by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. Nels Cooper Brannan , a US marine deployed to Fallujah, Iraq, unsuccessfully sued CSI for injuries caused by an allegedly defective MK 141 flashbang grenade that caused serious damage to his left hand when it exploded accidently.
While the Egyptian protesters were facing tear gas grenades fired by security forces in Cairo, another delegation of Egyptian senior military officials led by Lieutenant General Sami Hafez Enan, the chief of staff of Egypt’s armed forces, was back in Washington to meet with Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (No public records have been filed yet, so it is unclear if Miner and Livingstone were escorting them again.)
Within hours of the news of the huge protests, Enan cut short his trip and dashed back to Cairo last Friday, but his boss, Minister Tantawi, has kept in touch with Washington, making daily phone calls to US Defence Secretary Robert Gates. Both men – together with Egypt’s spy chief, Omar Suleiman – are among President Hosni Mubarak’s closest allies and enjoy close ties with Washington, according to the diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks. And it was these men that Thomas E Donilon, the US national security adviser, was frantically phoning last weekend to try to gauge how to prevent the collapse of the Mubarak regime.
It could days, maybe even weeks, before the future of the Egyptian government is decided, and with it, the relationship with the US. But one thing is clear: the Egyptian protesters are well aware of the close ties between officials in Cairo and Washington and not happy about the US training and tear gas shells supplied to the Egyptian military. Crowds gathered in Liberation Square last week chanted: “Hosni Mubarak, Omar Suleiman, both of you are agents of the Americans.” The protesters believe that the billions in military aid that kept Mubarak in power have helped him keep democracy from flowering in Egypt.
Two years after Obama’s famous speech in Cairo, in which he called for a “new beginning between the United States and Muslims”, it might be a little late for his administration to heed the words of Mostafa Amin, Egypt’s most famous columnist and journalist:
Maybe America gains a lot when it exports to us arms and cars or planes, but it loses more when it does not export the best that its civilisation has produced, which is freedom and democracy and human rights. The value of America is that it should defend this product, not only in its country but throughout the world! It may harm some of its interests, but it will make gains that will live hundreds of years, for the friendship of peoples live forever, because the peoples do not die, but governments change like the winter weather.
Five Norwegian PR Firms Reject Lucrative Offers to Improve Israel’s Global Image: AIC
Sunday, 06 February 2011
Five of Norway’s largest PR firms have said ‘no’ to offers to improve Israel’s global public relations campaign, reported the Norwegian newspaper Dagens Naæringsliv.
Israel is attempting to widen its global public relations campaign by hiring foreign PR firm to improve its reputation abroad. With the increasing threat being posed by the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and the publicity surrounding Israelis human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian Territory, Israel has contacted public relations specialists in Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Norway for help.
The project, for which each firm would be paid around 3.5 million USD annually, is to help Israel promote its vision in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as prevent the international boycott, amongst other things.
“Israel is an highly controversial project,” Sigurd Grytten, the PR firm Burson-Marsteller’s Managing Director, told the paper.
Statements by heads of the public relations agencies Geelmuyden.Keise, Gambit H&K, Apeland Informasjon, and First House range from “difficult”, to “no comment”. Only one agency, Kreab, has said it might consider the assignment.
In response, Aviad Ivri, Counselor at the Israeli embassy in Oslo, said, “It’s no secret that Israel has a reputation problem.”
Norway has a growing boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement. The country’s Government Pension Fund Global recently divested from two Israeli companies, Africa Israel Investments and Danya Cebus, due to their involvement in the construction of illegal settlements in the West Bank.
“Several United Nations Security Council resolutions and an International Court of Justice advisory opinion have concluded that the construction of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory is prohibited under the [Geneva] Convention,” said Norway’s Minister of Finance Sigbjørn Johnsen at the time of the much-publicized divestment.
What’s more late 2010, Israel accused the Norwegian government of funding and encouraging blatant anti-Israel incitement. The accusations were based on reports that a local Norwegian municipality is funding a trip for students to New York in order to take part in the “Gaza Monologues” play, and view an exhibition by Norwegian artists.
The play, which “deals with the suffering of children in Gaza as a result of the Israeli occupation,” was written by a Palestinian playwright from Gaza, and was presented at the United Nations headquarters. The Norwegian government responded to the Israeli accusation, saying saying that the Norwegian government supports freedom of expression and will not be intervening in the arts.
The Egyptian crisis: another day, another two US policies: The Observer
An American envoy’s praise for Mubarak has raised the question once more of what Washington really thinks
Frank Wisner’s apparent love song to Hosni Mubarak has left confusion behind him. Speaking on a video link-up from New York to the Munich Security Conference, Barack Obama’s special envoy to Egypt veered wildly off-message in seemingly fond remarks about the Egyptian autocrat.
Wisner, who had just returned from Cairo, started by making a constitutional argument for Mubarak to stay. If the presidency is vacated, Wisner said, the speaker of the parliament would fill the post, and elections would have to be held within two months. Those elections would have to be fought under the existing rules, which are unacceptable to the opposition.
The argument ignored the allowance under the constitution for the president to delegate powers, which he has done in the past while undergoing medical treatment. But at least the argument sounding dispassionate. What followed didn’t.
“The president must stay in office to steer those changes through. I therefore believe that President Mubarak’s continued leadership is critical; it’s his opportunity to write his own legacy. He has given 60 years of his life to the service of his country and this is an ideal moment for him to show the way forward”.
Wisner’s words bewildered the western officials gathered in Munich, raising a number of questions. Do Egypt and the world owe it to Mubarak to give him the chance “to write his own legacy”. And did Mubarak give 60 years of service to Egypt or is it the other way round?
It raised other questions in Washington, like who is making US policy on Egypt? At the same venue hours before, Hillary Clinton had made it quite clear that US policy was to back the vice president Omar Suleiman and his transition process.
The state department anxiously played down Wisner’s remarks, describing them as “his own”, but the whole episode was a reminder of the inherent problems in hiring special envoys from the ranks of retired diplomats who no longer feel constrained by state department discipline.
Telephone conversations with Suleiman in the past 48 hours have given European leaders the impression that the transition is already underway. He has impressed them with a laundry list of planned reforms and his brisk determined manner. European officials believe that power is shifting out of Mubarak’s hands, but they cannot be sure.
A lot of options are being discussed. Mubarak could delegate powers while taking sick leave or writing his memoirs in Sharm el-Sheikh, to allow the constitution to be changed. In other words, he would be able to stay in office at least formally. But Wisner’s comments will reinforce an impression on the streets of Cairo that Washington’s heart really belongs to Mubarak, rather than the Egyptian people.
WikiLeaks cables: Egypt’s Omar Suleiman demonised Muslim Brotherhood: The Guardian
Former spymaster turned vice president accused Islamist group of extremism in his contacts with US officials, leaked cables reveal
WikiLeaks cables show Omar Suleiman, Egypt’s new vice-president, has long tried to portray the opposition Muslim Brotherhood as the ‘bogeyman’. Photograph: Eitan Abramovich/AFP/Getty Images
Egypt’s new vice president, Omar Suleiman, has long sought to demonise the opposition Muslim Brotherhood in his contacts with sceptical US officials, leaked diplomatic cables show, raising questions whether he can act as an honest broker in the country’s political crisis.
US embassy messages from WikiLeaks’s cache of 250,000 state department documents, which Reuters independently reviewed, also report that the former intelligence chief accused the Brotherhood of spawning armed extremists and warned in 2008 that if Iran ever backed the banned Islamist group, Tehran would become “our enemy”.
The disclosure came as Suleiman met opposition groups, including the officially banned Brotherhood, to explore ways to end Egypt’s political crisis. The US has been exploring options for speeding up President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation, including a scenario that calls for turning over power to a transition government led by Suleiman and backed by the military.
Mubarak, who had done without a vice president for 30 years, hurriedly appointed 74-year-old Suleiman as his deputy last month as protesters demanded the forcing out of the autocratic ruler.
Suleiman privately voicing disdain for the Brotherhood will not surprise Egyptians. The comments could stoke suspicions, though, as he draws the movement into a dialogue on reform in response to mass protests.
The clear implication in the cache of state department cables was that US officials were sceptical of Suleiman’s effort to depict the Brotherhood as “the bogeyman”.
In a cable on 15 February 2006, then-ambassador Francis Ricciardone reported that Suleiman had “asserted that the MB [Muslim Brotherhood] had spawned ’11 different Islamist extremist organisations’, most notably the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the Gama’a Islamiya [Islamic Group]”.
In the 1990s Egyptian security forces crushed groups that campaigned for a purist Islamist state by targeting tourists, Christians, government ministers and other officials, and have kept a lid on them since.
The Brotherhood once had a secret paramilitary section, but it now says it is committed to promoting its policies through peaceful, democratic means.
The government has been unable to prove any serious act of violence orchestrated by the movement’s leadership for more than 50 years.
Suleiman, then Mubarak’s top spymaster, was speaking to the FBI’s director, Robert Mueller, who was visiting Cairo in February 2006, the cable says.
The cable, which uses the spelling Soliman, said he had told Mueller the Brotherhood was “neither a religious organisation, nor a social organisation, nor a political party, but a combination of all three”.
It added: “The principal danger, in Soliman’s view, was the group’s exploitation of religion to influence and mobilise the public. Soliman termed the MB’s recent success in the parliamentary elections as ‘unfortunate’, adding his view that although the group was technically illegal, existing Egyptian laws were insufficient to keep the MB in check.”
The cable was referring to parliamentary elections in November and December of 2005, in which the Brotherhood made strong gains, although Mubarak’s National Democratic party maintained a big majority.
In a cable dated 2 January 2008, Ricciardone reported Suleiman as saying that Iran remained “a significant threat to Egypt”. “Iran is supporting Jihad and spoiling peace, and has supported extremists in Egypt previously. If they were to support the Muslim Brotherhood this would make them ‘our enemy’,” the ambassador reported Suleiman as saying.
In a cable dated 25 October 2007, Ricciardone said Suleiman “takes an especially hard line on Tehran” and frequently refers to the Iranians as “devils”.
The cables suggest US officials have consistently responded sceptically to the Egyptian government’s dire warnings about the Brotherhood.
In a 29 November 2005 cable to Mueller before his visit, Ricciardone said Egyptian authorities “have a long history of threatening us with the MB bogeyman”. “Your counterparts may try to suggest that [then president George Bush’s] insistence on greater democracy in Egypt is somehow responsible for the MB’s electoral success,” he wrote. “You should push back that, on the contrary, the MB’s rise signals the need for greater democracy and transparency in government.
“The images of intimidation and fraud that have emerged from the recent elections favour the extremists both we and the Egyptian government oppose. The best way to counter narrow-minded Islamist politics is to open the system.”
In a follow-up cable on 29 January 2006, Ricciardone seemed to foreshadow the current unrest when he wrote to Mueller: “We do not accept the proposition that Egypt’s only choices are a slow-to-reform authoritarian regime or an Islamist extremist one; nor do we see greater democracy in Egypt as leading necessarily to a government under the MB.”
EDITOR: Peres has all of a sudden discovered peace
After decades of doing all he could to war-monger, Peres, the Israeli president and Peace Nobel Laureatte, has doiscovered that peace is an urgent need, now that Egypt can no longer be relied upon to suppress and starve the Palestinians in Gaza. Yesterday, peace was not so urgent. We know the kind of peace he has in mind, the Pax Israeliana.
Peres: Israeli-Palestinian peace urgent in light of Egypt crisis: Haaretz
President tells 11th annual Herzliya conference that the sluggish pace of the peace process means that the conflict is being ‘exploited to the detriment of all sides’.
President Shimon Peres urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday to move quickly toward a solution in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in light of the crisis that has wracked Egypt over the last two weeks.
“The dramatic events of the recent period make it necessary for us to take the Israeli-Palestinian conflict off the regional agenda,” Peres said in his remarks to the 11th annual Israeli security conference, which opened Sunday in Herzliya. “We must do this as soon as possible because the conflict is being exploited to the detriment of all sides.”
The president added that Israel’s “deterrence must be faith as well as an intention for peace with our neighbors.”
“The peace process is now crucial for our neighbors, and not just us,” added Peres. “A true compromise, as painful as it may be, is preferable to the dangers that would be created in its absence.”
Peres stressed that the peace process had taken a sluggish pace due to mutual suspicions on the parts of both Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
The Palestinians had in the past been suspicious that a right-wing Israeli government would refuse to recognize a two-state solution, said the president, adding that such a concern had proven unwarranted.
In the same respect, he added, Israel had always suspected that the Palestinians would remain stubborn in their demand that 5 million refugees be given a right of return to Israeli territory – another concern, he said, that proved unwarranted.
“Negotiations begin with wide and declared differences,” said Peres. “Those must be overcome not with hammers or drums, but with creativity and patience, and no fanfare.”
“Negotiating is a process by which every side tries to get the most,” he said. “As it continues, both sides understand that they must reach an end-position of action.”
The president also said that the sides have already reached an agreement based on the principle of two states for two peoples, on the existence of a demilitarized Palestinian state and on reaching a solution to end the conflict.
“To our Palestinian neighbors, I say: Let’s go together toward compromise,” Peres said. “Create a democratic Palestinian state, with a scientific and technological infrastructure; let’s return to the negotiating table and both sides can reach a reasonable agreement.”
“Based on my experience, I can tell my friends in the government and outside, that making peace is like splitting the Red Sea,” Peres added. “There are heavy costs, but the alternative is much more dangerous.”
Without Mubarak, U.S. power in Mideast will diminish: Haaretz
Revolution is romantic, but let’s not forget about the day after.
By Zvi Bar’el
Alas, the stampede has begun. The planes of U.S. President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will soon land in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, where they will pull improvised banners out of their backpacks and shake their fists in the air – shouting alongside the demonstrators: “The world wants Mubarak gone.”
For a moment, though, let’s put the hypocrisy aside. After all, these are not the righteous gentiles, but the world leaders who have said nothing about the Saudi king, the sultan of Oman, Libya’s Muammar Gadhafi or the Algerian regime, and who a moment ago considered Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak a pro-Western island of sanity and as providing a major obstacle against Iran’s spreading influence.
Suddenly citizens’ rights top their priority list. Freedom of expression and freedom to demonstrate are now the guiding light for those who staunchly opposed the results of the Palestinian Authority elections that gave Hamas power, and who are now witness to how Iraq’s wonderful “democracy” is handing the country over to Iranian control – dreading the moment the masses overthrow the king.
Revolution is romantic. It is exciting to watch women in hijabs protesting alongside men with yuppie beards, homeless people celebrating near the sons of the middle class, religious next to secular. This is indeed a civil revolution, in terms of the public manifesting its power; and academic studies are finally finding legitimacy on the Internet as a space for resistance.
But let’s not forget about the day after. One can shove Mubarak in the same tent as Gadhafi, Sudan’s Omar el-Bashir and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; redefine the axis of evil; and decide that a country that does not respect human rights or occupies another amounts to a terrorist state. But what is happening in Egypt should raise concerns for anyone assessing the regional political map.
Mubarak’s Egypt failed to solve regional conflicts. It did not solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the crisis in Lebanon. It also failed to prevent the war in Iraq. The power of Mubarak’s Egypt – the leader who lacked ideology and always sought to achieve a balance – lay in granting legitimacy to political/diplomatic moves or in rejecting them: The auspices under which Egypt brought the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; its struggle in favor of the Arab Initiative, which became an inseparable part of the Arab peace agenda; its support of the Sudanese referendum, which created a new reality in Africa; the backing it gave Jordan against the Israeli proposal of an “alternative homeland”; and mostly its uncompromising fight against Iranian influence, which set the borderline of Arab consensus.
If Mubarak leaves now, as a result of the revolution and not as part of an orderly transfer of power – even if it occurs at a later date than the demonstrators demand – the country will be a different Egypt, wild and self absorbed. As it will be busy with internal battles, with begging for donations to rebuild the enormous losses incurred over the last two weeks, and with assessing relations with the United States, another country will take its leading place in the region.
In the best-case scenario, this will be Saudi Arabia – a model democracy which relies on the United States for its protection, but who can also turn to China and Russia if the need arises. In the worst-case scenario, this country will be Syria – which will leverage the Turkish-Iraqi-Iranian axis that, to date, encountered difficultly in setting the Middle Eastern agenda because it was blocked by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, with the help of the Gulf states (with the exception of Qatar ).
Without Mubarak’s Egypt, the West’s ability to conduct an “Arab policy” will be seriously diminished. And while it’s true that such policy was always a bit fictitious, political theory has shown that if you succeeded in convincing Egypt, most of the remaining Arab states would follow.
Mubarak is not gone just yet, despite the stones being thrown at him from Washington. One can only imagine what he feels toward Obama, that same American leader with whom Mubarak resumed ties after boycotting George W. Bush for five years. But that is less important at this very moment. The question at hand now is how any potential Egyptian leader feels, or for that matter, every reigning Arab leader, toward Washington. What is the lesson learned by the Saudi king or the Qatari ruler? What are Ahmadinejad and Ali Khamenei celebrating?
Even though the Americans have suddenly taken note of the will of the Egyptian people, and even if they had no other political interest in the region, they must still push for a process in which power will be transferred gradually, as Mubarak is proposing. From his perspective it may be a matter of honor, but from Washington’s point of view – and that of the Mideast region – it is of strategic importance.
Egypt opposition figure: Peace treaty with Israel is ‘rock solid’: Haaretz
ElBaradei tells NBC he believes outcome of domestic crisis will not impact peace accord, despite fears that Muslim Brotherhood may ascend to power.
Egyptian opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei said Sunday that Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel was “rock solid” and was likely to remain so regardless of the outcome in the current domestic crisis.
“I assume Egypt will continue to respect it,” ElBaradei told NBC’s Meet the Press. “Everyone in Egypt, everyone in the Arab world wants to see an independent Palestinian state.”
The 1978 Camp David Accords were signed by former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and have remained in place under President Hosni Mubarak, who was widely viewed as a source of stability in the region.
Israel has voiced concern that the 13 days of demonstrations calling for Mubarak’s ouster, as well as the potential rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, would mean an end to the treaty.
The Muslim Brotherhood group, officially banned under Mubarak, has traditionally opposed any peace agreements with Israel but more recently has alluded to a more lenient position vis-à-vis the Camp David Accords.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that if democracy prevails in Egypt, he does not believe it will pose a threat to peace with Israel.
“All those who value freedom are inspired by the calls for democratic reforms in Egypt,” Netanyahu said during a speech to the Knesset last Wednesday. “An Egypt that will adopt these reforms will be a source of hope for the world. As much as the foundations for democracy are stronger, the foundations for peace are stronger.”
Netanyahu said that Israel expects any new government in Egypt to respect the peace treaty with Israel, and warned that Iran wants Egypt to turn into Gaza. He also stressed that Israel supports forces which advance freedom and peace, and opposes forces who promote terror and war.
The United States, for its part, also said expects the Egyptian government to honor previous peace agreements with Israel regardless of who is in power, the White House said on Friday.
“Our expectation would be that whatever the next government of Egypt is, that they would adhere to a treaty signed by the government of Egypt,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Friday.
In his interview with NBC on Sunday, ElBaradei also slammed the fledgling negotiations on Egypt’s future and said he was not invited to the talks.
The Nobel Peace laureate said weekend talks with Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman were managed by the same people who had ruled the country for 30 years and lack credibility.
He said the negotiations were not a step toward the change protesters have demanded in the 13 days of demonstrations.
The process is opaque. Nobody knows who is talking to who at this stage,” ElBaradei, the former head of the UN nuclear watchdog, told Meet the Press.
Suleiman met on Sunday with opposition groups including the officially banned Islamic Muslim Brotherhood. On Saturday, Suleiman, Egypt’s longtime intelligence chief, talked with independent and mainstream opposition figures to discuss options for a transition of power.
“It’s managed by Vice President Suleiman,” ElBaradei said. “It is all managed by the military and that is part of the problem.” ElBaradei said he has not been part of the negotiations.
“I have not been invited to take part in the negotiations or dialogue but I’ve been following what is going on,” he said.”
However, a representative of ElBaradei’s group, National Association for Change, met with Suleiman on Sunday and described the talks as a positive first step.
ElBaradei, the former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said there was still a “huge lack of confidence” between the government and demonstrators and there was a fear the old government would retrench and return to power.
“If you really want to build confidence, you need to engage the rest of the Egyptian people — the civilians,” he said.
ElBaradei said forcing Mubarak out of Egypt has become an emotional issue – almost an obsession — with young people who have been driving protests since Jan. 25.
He said the focus should be on the government, not Mubarak.
“No, of course he doesn’t have to leave Egypt at all,” said ElBaradei, who lived abroad many years but returned to Egypt after the protests began. “He is an Egyptian he has absolutely the right to live in Egypt.”
The danger to Egypt’s revolution comes from Washington: The Electronic Intifada
Ali Abunimah, 6 February 2011
Protesters stand in front of grafitti calling on the US government to stay out of Egypt’s affairs, 2 February. (Matthew Cassel)
The greatest danger to the Egyptian revolution and the prospects for a free and independent Egypt emanates not from the “baltagiyya” — the mercenaries and thugs the regime sent to beat, stone, stab, shoot and kill protestors in Cairo, Alexandria and other cities last week — but from Washington.
Ever since the Egyptian uprising began on 25 January, the United States government and the Washington establishment that rationalizes its policies have been scared to death of “losing Egypt.” What they fear losing is a regime that has consistently ignored the rights and well-being of its people in order to plunder the country and enrich the few who control it, and that has done America’s bidding, especially supporting Israel in its oppression and wars against the Palestinians and other Arabs.
The Obama Administration quickly dissociated itself from its envoy to Egypt, Frank Wisner, after the latter candidly told the BBC on 5 February that he thought President Hosni Mubarak “must stay in office in order to steer” any transition to a post-Mubarak order (“US special envoy: ‘Mubarak must stay for now’,” 5 February 2011).
But one suspects that Wisner was inadvertently speaking in his master’s voice. US President Barack Obama and his national security establishment may be willing to give up Mubarak the person, but they are not willing to give up Mubarak’s regime. It is notable that the US has never supported the Egyptian protestors demand that Mubarak must go now. Nor has the United States suspended its $1.5 billion annual aid package to Egypt, much of which goes to the state security forces that are oppressing protestors and beating up and arresting journalists.
As The New York Times — always a reliable barometer of official thinking — reported, “The United States and leading European nations on Saturday threw their weight behind Egypt’s vice president, Omar Suleiman, backing his attempt to defuse a popular uprising without immediately removing President Hosni Mubarak from power.” Obama administration officials, the newspaper added, “said Mr. Suleiman had promised them an ‘orderly transition’ that would include constitutional reform and outreach to opposition groups” (“West Backs Gradual Egyptian Transition,” 5 February 2011).
Moreoever, the Times reported, the United States has already managed to persuade two of its major European clients — the United Kingdom and Germany — to back continuing the existing regime with only a change of figurehead.
Suleiman, long the powerful chief of Egypt’s intelligence services, has served — perhaps even more so than Mubarak — as the guarantor of Egypt’s regional role in maintaining the American- and Israeli-dominated order. As author Jane Mayer has documented, Suleiman played a key role in the US “rendition” program, working closely with the CIA which kidnapped “terror suspects” from around the world and delivered them into Suleiman’s hands for interrogation, and almost certainly torture (“Who is Omar Suleiman?,” The New Yorker, 29 January 2011).
High praise for Suleiman’s work has also come from top Israeli military brass. “I always believed in the abilities of the Egyptian Intelligence service [GIS],” Israeli General Amos Gilad told American, Palestinian Authority and Egyptian officials during a secret April 2007 meeting whose leaked minutes were recently released by Al Jazeera as part of the Palestine Papers. “It keeps order and security among 70 millions — 20 millions in one city [a reference to the population of Egypt, actually closer to 83 million, and to Cairo] — this is a great achievement, for which you deserve a medal. It is the best asset for the Middle East,” Gilad said.
The notion that anyone, let alone US officials, could believe that Suleiman would lead an “orderly transition” to democracy would be laughable if it were not so sinister. Much more likely, the strategy is to try to ride out the protests and wear out and split the opposition, consolidate the regime under Suleiman’s ruthless grip with the backing of the Egyptian army, and then enact cosmetic “reforms” to keep the Egyptian people politically divided and busy while business carries on as usual. Under any Suleiman “transition” political activists, journalists and anyone suspected of being part of the current uprising would be in grave danger.
From the American perspective, the strategy can be likened to what happened in the summer of 2008 when the house-of-cards international financial system started to collapse. Think of the Tunisian regime of deposed dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali as the investment bank Lehman Brothers. When a run on the bank began, the United States government refused to provide it with financial guarantees to bail it out, and it quickly went bankrupt.
But when the panic spread and even larger “too big to fail” financial firms including massive insurance company AIG began to see their positions suddenly deteriorate, the United States government stepped in to bail them out with hundreds of billions of dollars.
The Egyptian regime is the AIG of the region and what we are seeing now is an American attempt to bail it out. If Egypt goes under, the United States fears that the contagion would spread as Arab publics realize that the US-backed despots who rule them can be replaced, and that the toppling of these regimes whose only promise to their people has been “security” is not the end of the world but the start of renewal.
Of course, no analogy is exact. Whereas, allowing Lehman Brothers to collapse was a calculated decision, the United States did not see the revolution in Tunisia, or the uprising in Egypt coming. “Our assessment is that the Egyptian government is stable and is looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton infamously declared on 25 January, the day the anti-regime protests broke out (“US urges restraint in Egypt, says government stable,” Reuters, 25 January 2011).
Clinton’s cluelessness is reminiscent of her predecessor Condoleezza Rice’s famous words (“didn’t see it coming”) in relation to Hamas’ victory in Palestinian legislative council elections in 2006.
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