Prosecution says chief editor of privately-owned el-Dustour daily 'spreading rumors that could disturb public safety; human rights group 'shocked
A Cairo court on Thursday ordered the chief editor of an Egyptian newspaper detained pending trial on charges of insulting the country's president and potentially harming the public interest.
The case against Islam Afifi of the privately-owned el-Dustour daily is one of several lawsuits brought mainly by Egypt's Islamists against journalists, accusing them of inflammatory coverage and inciting the public against the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest political group.
Excuse me, but I have a question.
Am I to understand that so-called "progressives" continue, even at this late date, to believe that the "Arab Spring" was about democracy and not the rise of radical Jihad?
Do I understand that correctly?
Leading pro-democracy advocate Mohamed ElBaradei condemned the imprisonment of the editor and the issuance of the fatwas, saying such developments betrayed the values of last year's revolt against Egypt's longtime strongman, former President Hosni Mubarak.
Gee, what a shock.
Whoever could have seen this coming?
"Instigating to kill in the name of religion, and accusing revolutionaries of betrayal are not crimes, but insulting the president in the press leads to imprisonment," he said. "It's as if no revolution has taken place."
As if no revolution has taken place?
Of course a revolution has taken place. Egypt has gone from a military dictatorship interested in stability and, at least, non-hostile relations with the United States and Israel to a theocratic dictatorship that is entirely hostile to Jews, as Jews, and to the west, in general.
Thank you, Barack Obama.
Barack Obama is the best president ever and the best friend that the Jewish people ever had.
I am soooo happy that I voted for this guy.
I very much hope that he enjoys his tea and cookies with newly elected Egyptian Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi.
I wonder if Obama will allow him to come in through the front door?
Please see South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia for similar behavior by those supposed democratic governments. Don't worry there are plenty more examples.
ReplyDeleteAnd so you find nothing truly wrong with such behavior, then? It's all good, because other regimes do it too?
Delete"Look over there!"
Serious question - do you call yourself a liberal? And if so, why? And how?
Oh, and what are these other examples btw? Please be precise. After all, there are "plenty more." Right?
DeleteWait, wait. Let me guess.
Bradley Manning and Julian Assange, right?
Excuse me while I go roll my eyes for a few weeks...
Of course its wrong and shouldn't be tolerated yet you only seem to focus on one example. Some others: Hungary and South Africa.
Delete...Says a person who has trounced into, and has accused of being intransigent racist supremacists the owner and supportive commenters on, a small blog verbally defending, against a supremacist imperialist totalitarian racist ideologically genocidally anti-Jewish political movement -- the contemporary Islamic supremacist political movement -- and against the huge Western collusion with that political movement, the continuously intendedly genocidally besieged, repeatedly militarily attacked, repeatedly terroristically attacked, now universally libeled, liberal democratic, vibrant, culturally diverse, globally exceedingly beneficent, very small sole nation of the Jewish people -- a very small-numbered people who, for the past two thousand years, have been homeless and continuously persecuted by Christian Europeans and Muslim Middle Easterners.
Delete----
"I find it shameful and see in all this the rise of a new fascism, a new Nazism. A fascism, a Nazism, that much more grim and revolting because it is conducted and nourished by those who hypocritically pose as do-gooders, progressives, communists, pacifists, Catholics or rather Christians, and who have the gall to label a warmonger anyone like me who screams the truth."
-- Orianna Falaci, an Italian journalist who opposed fascism, and who fought against fascism, and who fought, as a partisan, against the Nazi-German-allied Fascist regime of Italy during World War II, and who, in the late 1960's, in being, at that time, a trendy Leftist, supported "the 'Palestinian' cause"; Sull Antisemitismo - Io trovo vergognoso (Vergognosi gli attacchi a Israele) (On Antisemitism - I find it shameful (Shameful attacks on Israel)), by Orianna Falaci, 2002 (Text: http://www.oerby.dk/sider/Oriana%20Fallaci.htm ; Audio recording (Video): Part 1 of 2: http://www.youtube.com/embed/lS9Dl5YEy3o , Part 2 of 2: http://www.youtube.com/embed/anTPuAQ1oUU )
Nagaura,
DeleteWhat is your problem? Seriously. What is your problem?
Why have come to feel such antipathy toward the nation of the Jewish people and toward the Jewish people that you have come here writing the things that you have written?
Is it because of unsympathetic things that you have read and heard and seen about Israel (and perhaps about the Jewish people)?
Has it occurred to you that those things that you may have read and heard and seen are untrue?
Do you know about the over two thousand year history of the unanimous massive propagation of, and unanimous belief in, perverse libels against the Jewish people -- including by Jewish people who were experiencing a severe form of Stockholm syndrome?
Does the fact that a universal libeling of the Jewish people, and mass-murder of almost all of the Jewish in Europe, occurred approximately seventy years ago mean anything important to you?
What is your problem? Seriously. What is your problem?
The thing is, I think that if you were to meet me, or any one of the other supportive commenters here, or Mike, the owner of this blog, in person, in a "neutral" (non-political) normal social environment you would probably like me, or any one of the other supportive commenters here, or Mike, the owner of this blog.
And I think that I would like you. Or at least I think that I wouldn't dislike you.
I don't mean you any harm.
I'm just endeavoring to defend and protect a universally libeled endangered people.
May you be happy.
Simple answers to simple questions, Nagaura - this is Israel Thrives, not Kuala Lumpur Shines or Budapest Blossoms. Egypt is a pretty important neighbor of Israel's, and the countries have a... 'unique' history, I assume you would agree? Hence the focus.
DeleteNow if you're simply upset at the very concept of a thriving Israel, and that we here are supporters of that state, you should come out and say that. Because then at least you'd be honest, and we'd at least be starting from commonly-acknowledged ground.
Well said, Daniel -
Delete"Does the fact that a universal libeling of the Jewish people, and mass-murder of almost all of the Jewish in Europe, occurred approximately seventy years ago mean anything important to you?"
We remain vigilant, because we've seen this before. And it ain't gonna happen again.
Very well said, Mike.
DeleteWhat some seem not to realize is, as you point out, this happens every generation, and today's "anti-Zionist" calls for the destruction of Israel under the guise of such claims as 'human rights' are simply only the latest incarnation of the endless war against the Jewish people taken by this generation.
Sometimes they dupe the right, sometimes they dupe the left. This generation's major call to warfare against the Jewish people has, unfortunately, largely found its foothold in my political home, the Left.
Instead of taking a step back and considering this possibility when it's pointed out to them, all too many would rather just assume they're victims of some malicious Zionist conspiracy (just like they've been 'warned' would happen!), and therefore are reinforced in their viewpoints! A truly vicious cycle, when it plays out.
Well Mike, certain 'progressives' tell us this is all okay, because others do it, too.
ReplyDeleteI also sense a tinge of humanitarian racism in this one, for sure.
Whatever happened to my liberals?
Sounds about right. I've never called myself a progressive, and have always called myself a liberal, precisely because I didn't care what mean things Ronald Reagan or Rush Limbaugh had to say about Ted Kennedy. ;)
DeleteTo each their own, but as a life-long member of the political left, I have never considered myself a 'progressive,' and have always identified as a liberal.
Oh, but yeah. I don't know of any warmed-over communists in our government today. Fortunately. Just sayin'... ;)
DeleteYeah, but "everybody does it!"
ReplyDeleteGet with the program, Doodad. ;)
Eric Allen Bell on this issue (Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood, "The Arab Spring", Barack Obama, contemporary so-called "liberals", the Republican political establishment):
ReplyDeleteIslam Is NOT A Religion of Peace - Eric Allen Bell, Documentary Filmmaker on Jesse Peterson Show
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8voCnsPsxo
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=282434
ReplyDeleteAccording to this report Egypt and Israel have kind of settled the Sinai kerfluffle so I feel obligated to say it appears Volleyball was correct in our recent argument....so far. I still don't trust 'em as far as I can throw 'em, but that's just me. And I feel justified in feeling that way given the way things are going in godforsaken Egypt with the Islamists consolidating power, shackling their press, etc.
Evidently there were some rather lukewarm protests about his actions but it looks like the revolutionary fires are gone out in Egypt for now.
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=282484
Thank you Doodad....
DeleteNo sweat. I had to take a break from eating babies any way.
DeleteHave you tried them with cilantro aioli and cherry relish yet?
DeleteFantastic...
omg, don't even say that!
DeleteI am laid up in bed today with what I think is food poisoning... so any reference to cilantro aioli and cherry relish is gonna make me... twice today I've thrown up already.
Twice!
Ack! Sorry to hear that.
DeleteIf it makes you feel any better, I have to go to New Jersey tomorrow, which is almost as bad. :)
Ha! Hope you are feeling better soon Mike. Never tried 'em like that Jay. Maybe next batch.
ReplyDeleteI have just made a deelicious tomato sauce using the bumper crop from my garden this year. Nice! Great year for tomatoes, crummy for cucumbers. Last year the exact opposite.
Yeah, I was planning a garden myself this year, but I totally failed. This apartment is the first time I've ever had a 'backyard' of my own, even if it only about 80 square feet of concrete surrounded by a cinderblock wall topped on one side with the neighbor's barbed wire - welcome to Kensington! - but it was overtaken by weeds shortly after I moved in (summer in Philadelphia began in early April this year, right after I got back from Portland), and I just wasn't able to keep up with it.
DeleteNext year though, definitely! :)
Incidentally, my friend nearby who has a very large garden says this year (rather dry and extremely hot) was bad for her tomatoes, but good for everything else. Go figure!
It may have been the types of tomatoes but what do I know? I lost quite a few on the vine but what remained were tasty sons of guns. I had Kale, Swiss Chard, Green Beans which were absolutely great, really nice Collards, several harvests of Radish, Okra which turned out crappy, crappy green peppers and hot scotch bell peppers which have produced no fruit yet. This is my second year experimenting in the place I'm at now. Hopefully next year it will all turn out the way I want.
ReplyDeleteI hope you do get a garden next year. I find it satisfying work and tasty at the end if all goes well. I could buy all the stuff cheap but it just (most) tastes better when it's from your own handiwork.
Sounds great. I helped a friend plant a large garden in Portland last year (her dad passed away and left an entire, worked for decades vacant-entire-city-lot side garden; very rare for inner SE Portland, to say the least), and we planted every green imaginable, from arugula to mizuna to watercress, and everything in between. Along with all kinds of garlic and root veggies, etc...
DeleteI'd love to try okra one year, I'm a huge fan of the stuff!
Thanks, I'm definitely gonna get one going soon. :)
If not next year or 2014, then definitely by 2014, when I plan to move beyond renting, and finally buy my first (and last!) home. That's one of the many great things about Philadelphia. Affordable row homes, and small backyards that all at least get sunlight, due to building height limits in places like Kensington. We don't have much space, but we all make the best of it!
"I find it satisfying work and tasty at the end if all goes well. I could buy all the stuff cheap but it just (most) tastes better when it's from your own handiwork."
Absolutely. Concur.
Make that 2015. Oops.
DeletePhilly sounds like a place I could like. Glad you made it back there man.
DeleteThanks, so am I! ;)
DeleteThe best part is that everywhere you go, you hear the sound of Philadelphia.
Heh.
Ain't no school like old school, Jay. ;)
DeleteHa! Well put, concur.
DeleteAnd while we're on the music thing, other highly recommended music. Anything by La Mar Enfortuna.
"La Mar Enfortuna is a modern interpretation of lost or forgotten music, mostly of the Sephardim, from the 11th to the 16th century,[1] with songs sung in Ladino, Arabic, Aramaic, Spanish, Greek, and English. They incorporate the sounds of jazz, folk, rock, Middle Eastern, and Latin musics."
Jennifer Charles also has the greatest voice in the history of the world... so there's that, too. ;)
And as long as we're in a musical mood:
DeleteFlotillas of hatred, we're caught in the matrix
Gut check: Watch for a speshhhhul appearance by Helen Thomas.
Thanks, Randall.
DeleteThe video expresses a very good message -- the truth.
And I like the music very much.
You're welcome, Daniel.
DeleteBTW, have you ever run across Foreign Confidential? It's a global news site, covering every world crisis under the sun, but always with an underlying aim of defending Israel and the Jews. It's author, Confidential Reporter, is a self-described old-school "realist" and student of Hans Morgenthau, from a time when the term '"realist" had not yet become synonymous with "pseudo-academic antisemite." I find his insights valueable because hs is not fooled by the left-right con.
Not fooled by "the left-right con"?
DeleteI think that I am probably with you, but would you care to elaborate?
What is the con, Kohn?
As I see it, the terms "left" and "right" in America (and AFAIK many other nations as well) no longer mean anything in the way of policy differences, especially on economics. It's like a Red vs Blue football game or like the old beer commerical. "tastes great" vs less filling." I'm referring to the parties themselves, and not so much to their respective bases.
DeleteRight wing Democrats like Carter, Clinton, and Obama, facilitated by their corporate donors, have given us this non-choice. And that'w what I mean by the left-right con.
Randall, you are correct.
DeleteThe US achieved almost complete political consensus in the early-mid 1970s, with the death of the counterculture. That is, the US is a country in which the prevailing political sentiment, by a huge margin, favors regulatory capitalism.
Democrat or Republican, left or right, we almost all of us favor democracy, with regulatory capitalism, as the best system.
The only real question between the left and right, today, in the US is just how much regulation, what type, and where?
The vitriol between the parties is mainly a function of team sports. I am with you on that.
What I do not understand is why you would call Carter, Clinton, and Obama "right wing"?
That I do not understand.
Thank you, Randall.
DeleteI hadn't ever run across Foreign Confidential previous to when I saw your listing of it to me here. Thank you for listing it to me. I'll take a look at it.
Mike,
DeleteIt's not about certain particular policies, or, rather, it's not about what one thinks are certain particular policies.
For example, I disapprove of abortion. However, I used to approve of abortion, and I used to think that people who disapproved of abortion were bigoted fanatics. However, I now understand that abortion is wrong. I now understand that abortion is the killing of a living being -- a fetus. Killing any living being is wrong. Killing any living being causes harm. Killing any living being causes suffering. I realize that killing a fetus -- a living being -- is wrong.
Just because everyone around you who you view as being your peers and who you, therefore, respect says that something is good does not mean that that thing is good.
Just because everyone around you who you view as being your peers and who you, therefore, respect says that something is bad does not mean that that thing is bad.
And I disapprove of the killing of doctors who perform abortion.
I disapprove of the killing of any living being. I disapprove of Capital Punishment -- that is: I disapprove of the death penalty.
And, it's not that I am a fervent opponent of abortion. It's just that I realize and understand that abortion is wrong, and I disapprove of abortion. And I disapprove of the prejudice and bigotry and lack of mindfulness of people who fervently advocate for abortion and who view people who disapprove of abortion as being bigoted and fanatical.
Mike, have you ever seen, or heard a description of, or pictured in your mind, the procedure of abortion? It is horrific. It is the killing of a living being.
BTW: After I realized that abortion is wrong, I learned that Planned Parenthood was actually part of the eugenics movement and was founded by an anti-Black racist. The founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, was a racist and was a member of the eugenics movement and was a fanatical Christian.
"...human weeds,' 'reckless breeders,' 'spawning... human beings who never should have been born."
-- Margaret Sanger, Pivot of Civilization, referring to immigrants and poor people
"More children from the fit, less from the unfit -- that is the chief aim of birth control."
-- Margaret Sanger, Birth Control Review, May 1919, p. 12
"The purpose in promoting birth control was 'to create a race of thoroughbreds,' she wrote in the Birth Control Review, Nov. 1921 (p. 2)"
"'We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population,' she said, 'if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.'"
Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America, by Linda Gordon
"The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it."
-- Margaret Sanger, Women and the New Race (Eugenics Publ. Co., 1920, 1923)
More here:
Margaret Sanger - Founder of Planned Parenthood - In Her Own Words
http://www.dianedew.com/sanger.htm
Mike,
Delete"Right-Wing" / "Left-Wing" -- it's semantics.
The issue is:
bigotry (and, mainly, essentially, anti-Jewish bigotry) / absence of bigotry (and, mainly, essentially, absence of anti-Jewish bigotry)
hypocrisy / integrity, honesty, absence of hypocrisy
"self-servingness" (powerlust, self-aggrandizement, material greed, etc.) / authentic altruism, beneficence, etc.
totalitarianism / liberalism (authentic liberalism, in the original meaning of the word "liberalism" -- "liberalism" as in "liberty" -- Classical Liberalism)
And, Mike,
DeleteAt this point, at this time, it's really all about whether one is bigoted against the Jewish people or is sympathetic toward the Jewish people. It really all comes down to that. It's really all about that. All of the other things are encompassed by that. Just by the nature of who the Jewish people are, and by the nature of Jewish culture, and by the situation that Jewish people are in, it is in general the case that one who is bigoted against the Jewish people is hypocritical and self-serving and totalitarian, and one who is sympathetic toward the Jewish people has integrity, and is not hypocritical, and has the best interest of others at heart, and is authentically liberal (highly values, and wishes to promote, liberty for all people).
I think that how one views the Jewish people -- which, at this time, means how one views the nation of the Jewish people -- is the litmus test. Or, at least, is the main thing that matters -- is the main factor of whether one's intentions and actions are harmful or beneficial.
The Anti-Semite’s Pointed Finger, by Ruth R. Wisse
Deletehttp://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2010/11/03/ruth-wisse-the-anti-semites-pointed-finger/
(This link is to the article on the blog of Ruth King)
"...Today, by any reasonable standard, Israel remains a beacon of liberalism in an illiberal region. Moreover, on any genuine political compass, Jews and Israel are the true north of liberalism, not simply on account of the way they are constituted as a people, but also because of the anti-liberal forces ranged against them. Arab opponents of Israel themselves oppose liberal democracy and fear its freedoms. Anti-Semitism in all its forms — Christian and Muslim, secular and religious, totalitarian and authoritarian — is an anti-liberal movement, one that explicitly defines liberalism as a Jewish conspiracy. One would therefore expect the alignment of Israel with liberalism and anti-Zionism with anti-liberalism to win Israel the defense of all liberals. The standard-bearers of muscular liberalism, from the 19th-century novelist George Eliot to the late senator Henry 'Scoop' Jackson, have done just that, using defense of Jewish rights as a touchstone of liberal principles.
"Yet here is the paradox: the fiercer anti-Semitism grows, the more it forces a choice on liberals. The choice is between protecting the Jews and protecting the orthodox liberal belief in rational compromise, world peace, 'getting to yes,' and all the rest. Protecting the Jews requires confronting hostility that is not subject to rational persuasion, does not obey the liberal version of the rule of law, does not abide by liberal ideas of fairness, and does not extend peace and goodwill to others. To side with Israel, therefore, leaves one exposed to the same hostility that assails the Jews — an uncomfortable position for individuals and governments alike. The dictates of self-interest persuade some to ignore aggression that presumably doesn’t concern them, and then to justify their callousness by holding Jews responsible for the aggression against them. Some Jews try to demonstrate their own innocence by dissociating themselves from those of their fellow Jews who are under attack.
"The politics of anti-Semitism strikes again: blaming the Jews succeeds by persuading liberals that it is aimed only at the 'culpable' Jews. By casting these Jews as aggressors, it invites liberals to join the attack on them, on behalf of the Jews’ alleged victims. It congratulates liberals for joining the anti-liberal side by persuading them that they stand with the weak against the strong."
...
"I have tried to show (a) that anti-Semitism cannot be arrested by any remedial action of the Jews; (b) that there are harmful consequences for pretending that concessions from Jews can stop the aggression against them; and (c) that anti-Semitism forces a choice between protection of the Jews and, under the guise of liberalism, complicity with their enemies. And though anti-Semitism is often compared to cancer, there is no comparable effort to finding a cure. The reason seems plain: where the carriers of an illness are also its casualties, they and their well-wishers have incentives to tackle the problem. But the carriers of anti-Semitism do not experience themselves as its apparent victims. At-risk Jews cannot halt the malignancy, because they are not its carriers. And its carriers, the anti-Semites, will not seek a cure, because they don’t recognize its harm to them. Not until enlightened Arabs recognize that they, not the Jews, are its ultimate casualties will this political threat be contained."
But, btw, the nature of the anti-Israeli bigotry of many prominent so-called "Liberals" is much worse than the kind that is described in this article by Ruth Wisse.
DeleteThe anti-Israeli bigotry of many prominent so-called "Liberals", such as Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Jimmy Carter, and, in fact, Hillary Clinton (who, I think, btw, supported the PLO even in the mid 1980's) is, in fact, deep-seated, culturally Christian-based, anti-Jewish racism.
An article about Eric Hoffer:
DeleteThe Longshoreman Philosopher, by Tom Bethell
http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest/article/7854
Note: this article about this noble pro-Jewish person is on a web site of an institution that contemporary so-called "Liberals" would call "Right-Wing" and would, I think, therein view as being inherently evil.
Again:
"Right-Wing" / "Left-Wing" -- it's semantics; that is: those terms are merely semantics; that is: the use of those terms is merely semantics.
The most important thing is mindfulness.
Delete"There will be time enough to contemplate the harm this act will have done the United Nations. Historians will do that for us, and it is sufficient for the moment only to note the foreboding fact. A great evil has been loosed upon the world. The abomination of anti-semitism--as this year's Nobel Peace Laureate Andrei Sakharov observed in Moscow just a few days ago--the Abomination of anti-semitism has been given the appearance of international sanction. The General Assembly today grants symbolic amnesty--and more--to the murderers of the six million European Jews. Evil enough in itself, but more ominous by far is the realization that now presses upon us--the realization that if there were no General Assembly, this could never have happened."
Delete-- Daniel Patrick Moynihan, in response to the passing of the "Zionism Is Racism" Muslim/Soviet resolution in the United Nations in 1975 (at which time the United Nations was presided over by Austrian former Nazi, Kurt Waldheim, who, at that time, in 1975, was the Secretary-General of the United Nations)
"The liberal project began to fail when it began to lie."
-- Daniel Patrick Moynihan, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, U.S. Senator, Democrat
And to go o/t for a bit...
ReplyDeleteRe: Mike's video feature, I'm loving this right now.
And also, I have quite a bit of work to do on design and some plug-ins and stuff, but JayinPhiladelphia has launched! Stay tuned. :)
Hey congratulations on the new blog!
DeleteYou put a lot of work into your photo diary on Jewish Philadelphia. You might consider republishing it there.
Cheers and congrats!
Yeah, I have to rework that one still, and add the other 100 or so photos. And more stories. All in due time! ;)
DeleteOh, and I have to make the thing not ugly. Heh. Should be able to find a day to work on that next week...
DeleteBTW, I have two Google accounts that I've used to post comments on-line. And, one of those accounts of mine is the account of mine on which I have my blog. And I, accidentally, by mistake, used the Google account of mine on which I don't have my blog to post my recent previous messages -- my previous messages on this post. And my profile page on that Google account of mine doesn't have a link to my blog. So I'm listing here a link to my blog.
ReplyDeletedanielbielak.blogspot.com
Also, and again:
My YouTube channel on which I have a playlist of videos of Israeli life and culture:
Israeli life and culture, & ...
www.youtube.com/danielbielak
I see the political landscape much as you do, Mike, but with some differences.
ReplyDelete"The US achieved almost complete political consensus in the early-mid 1970s, with the death of the counterculture."
I would gauge that the recovery of Europe and Japan and the end of the free postwar ride American industry enjoyed by virtue of being the last nation standing, was a much weightier factor than the death of the counterculture.
"That is, the US is a country in which the prevailing political sentiment, by a huge margin, favors regulatory capitalism."
Not even vaguely true, IMO. The consensus is for dereg and more dereg. Dems profess otherwise, but they're lying. That's a key part of the con.
"The only real question between the left and right, today, in the US is just how much regulation, what type, and where?"
And even much of that is kabuki. Their main real concern is who's in charge and who gets paid, the Ds or the Rs.
"What I do not understand is why you would call Carter, Clinton, and Obama "right wing"?"
The big dereg, free trade, anti-labor push began with Jimmy Carter, and continued with all following administrations. It accelerated under Clinton.
And as for Obama, he put Social Security cuts on the table for no reason than the Big Finance fees he'll collect once he's out of office. Does he even want a 2nd term? He might prefer 1 term as he then gets paid 4 years sooner.
Delete