by Raymond Ibrahim*

With Egypt’s “July Revolution” of 1952, for the first time in millennia, Egyptians were able to boast that a native-born Egyptian, Gamal Abdel Nasser, would govern their nation:  Ever since the overthrow of its last native pharaoh nearly 2,500 years ago, Egypt had been ruled by a host of foreign invaders — Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Turks, and Brits, to name a few.  After 1952, however, Egypt, it was believed, would finally be Egyptian.

Yet, though Nasser was Egyptian, the spirit of the times that brought him to power was Arab — Arab nationalism, or “pan-Arabism” — the theory that all Arabic-speaking peoples, from Morocco to Iraq, should unify.  (Along with Nasser, the tide of pan-Arabism also brought to power Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, Syria’s Hafez Assad, and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.)

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By Barry Rubin

“The People Toppled the Government,” is al-Ahram’s headline, and the general interpretation of the Egyptian revolution around the world. That’s true but only partly true. Mubarak’s pedestal was shaken by the people but he was pushed off it by the army and the establishment.

Let’s remember something that nobody wants to hear right now. The revolution in Egypt succeeded because the army didn’t want President Husni Mubarak any more. When people say things like: The army wouldn’t shoot down its own people. Why? It has done so before.

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by Yosef Rapaport*

Hamodia correspondent Yosef Rapaport interviews lecturer, columnist, and scholar Daniel Pipes. Pipes’ clear focus on the growth of radical Islam in the United States and worldwide offers sharp and invaluable insights to his many readers. Here, Pipes brings his extensive knowledge to bear as he analyzes developments in Egypt and the Middle East.

There are so-called experts trying to placate Western fears about the Muslim Brotherhood. Are they right, or is this something to fear?

It’s something very dangerous to the United States and its allies. Islamists taking power in Egypt would change the balance of power in the Middle East. By way of background, there are two main alliances in the region. Tehran heads the so-called Resistance Bloc, with the governments of Turkey, Syria, and Qatar as partners, along with Hamas and Hizbullah. Riyadh heads the Status Quo bloc, with the governments of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, the Persian Gulf states — as well as the Palestinian Authority and, in the shadows, Israel.

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by Phyllis Chesler

Islamism seems to be winning the day in the Middle East and in central Asia. Today, the Obama Times has a highly sympathetic article about how shelters for battered women as well as for women who are at risk of being honor murdered are themselves “under siege.” The shelters are seen as encouraging forbidden female flight and independence and as exposing and tarnishing Afghanistan’s reputation.

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

Recent comments by U.S. officials on the threat posed by “radicalized” American Muslims are troubling, both for their domestic and international implications. Attorney General Eric Holder states that “the threat has changed … to worrying about people in the United States, American citizens — raised here, born here, and who for whatever reason, have decided that they are going to become radicalized and take up arms against the nation in which they were born.” The situation is critical enough to compel incoming head of the House Committee on Homeland Security Peter King to do all he can “to break down the wall of political correctness and drive the public debate on Islamic radicalization.”

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… “If you come to France, you accept to melt into a single community, which is the national community, and if you do not want to accept that, you cannot be welcome in France,” the right-wing [French] president [Sarkozy] said. …

Notice the still acceptable, multicultural media-speak prefix, “right-wing,” applied to French president Sarkozy by his own countrymen in the Agence France-Presse (AFP). Sarkozy “right-wing?” At most, he’s a centrist. This just proves how far behind the curve our “mainstream,” left-wing media has become. Sarkozy added, “We have been too concerned about the identity of the person who was arriving and not enough about the identity of the country that was receiving him.” I couldn’t have said it better (well… maybe, “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!”).

I’m sure the AFP reluctantly admitted that Sarkozy is joining the ranks of many Western leaders vocally acknowledging the dangers of “multiculturalism” (i.e., cowardice, political correctness gone mad, decadence, fear, and guilt). Nonetheless, knowing full well that the AFP is on its way to a choice between irrelevance and honest reporting — because people in the blog-sphere and social media are watching — they printed the following:

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One commentator states, “Pay no attention to the idiot behind the curtain while the idiot at the podium is speaking. Got it.” Another says, “Secular! Lol. I guess that’s why it’s called the Muslim Brotherhood.” I’m equally stunned, yet not surprised that our moronic President Obama is being advised by equally moronic advisers:

The Obama administration took the rare step Thursday of correcting its own intelligence chief after the official claimed Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is “largely secular.” …

This isn’t the first time Clapper has stumbled on the public stage.

During a televised interview in December alongside other top security officials, Clapper was stumped when asked about a major set of terror arrests in Great Britain. …

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By Stanley Renshon, CIS.org

Multiculturalism in the United States has a long silent history. The United States has, from its founding, taken in immigrants from different cultural backgrounds, many of whom were, at the time, controversial. First, it was the Germans who raised questions about whether they could or would become “real Americans.” Then questions were raised about the Chinese and after them Irish and the Eastern European immigrants. Now it is Hispanic-Americans and Muslim-Americans of whom we ask those questions.

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by Phyllis Chesler

1. When Is The Aggressor Not The Aggressor? When He Has Been Forced to Defend Himself and His Lost Honor

On February 12, 2009, immediately after stabbing his unarmed wife 40 times with two large hunting knives and then brutally beheading her, he became calm, relieved. For the first time in years, he felt “peaceful.” Only then did he feel “safe from the Evil Dragon Terrorist” which is how he referred to Aasiya Zubair Hassan, the wife he had viciously battered for seven years.

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British Prime Minister David Cameron has taken a very public stand against Islamic extremism, giving me hope that Europeans are getting tired of their teeming mass of restive, violent Muslim immigrants. Cameron spoke Saturday February 5 at the Munich Security Conference. Here is the full text of his speech. Please read it and pass it on:

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by Daniel Pipes*

Perhaps alone in the coterie focused on the Islamist threat to Europe, I am cheerful these days. That’s because I see the anti-Islamist reaction growing even more quickly than the Islamist threat itself.

The stirring speech by British prime minister David Cameron on Feb. 5, in which he intelligently focused on what he called the “hands-off tolerance” of “Islamist extremism,” including its non-violent forms, exactly fits this pattern.

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by Andrew M. Roe*

The Afghan conflict has refocused world attention on Waziristan. Once one of the British Empire’s most volatile territories, the remote small province in northwestern Pakistan is now home to Taliban insurgents, al-Qaeda fighters, rogue elements within the Pakistani military, and Western jihadists, who use it as a base to rest, heal, rearm, train, and plan before they launch again across the porous border into Afghanistan. It is also the area where Osama bin Laden and many of his top lieutenants are probably hiding and a regular target for U.S. air strikes against key Taliban personnel. Pakistani military operations destroyed insurgent forces and caused mass civilian dislocation, yet efforts to produce a lasting peace deal with the local tribesmen and the Taliban have proved futile. Waziristan remains a dangerous and unpredictable region with the potential to unhinge President Hamid Karzai’s fragile regime in Afghanistan, threaten the Pakistani government, and pose a major challenge to regional stability.

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By Barry Rubin

As I pointed out recently the mass media in America generally presents only one side of the debate nowadays. Then, it publishes nonsense which survives because it is protected from the withering critique it deserves. And even people who should know better are just losing it.

Consider one example (Roger Cohen has gone beyond ridicule so let’s focus on someone who should know better). I regret criticizing Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution as he is one of the smarter, saner people. 

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Our idiot “president” Barack Obama “… is requiring participation of the Muslim Brotherhood in any prospective new Egyptian government, while the brothers themselves are telling their countrymen to ‘prepare for war.’” Obama’s naivete and foolishness have gone outside any normal, agreed standards of decency. The Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist group whom murdered Anwar Sadat, the very Egyptian president who made peace with Israel! Obama, in his ultimate, diaper-wearing-foreign-policy-making may want to read the damn newspapers:

A political leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Thursday called on any government that replaces Hosni Mubarak’s regime to withdraw from the 32-year-old peace treaty with Israel.

“After President Mubarak steps down and a provisional government is formed, there is a need to dissolve the peace treaty with Israel,” Rashad al-Bayoumi, a deputy leader of the outlawed movement, said on Japan’s NHTV. …

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By Andrew Whitehead

A joint letter signed by CAIR, radical Islamist supporting groups, and several like-minded individuals has called on the Orange County District Attorney, Tony Rackauckas, to stop pursuing felony criminal charges against members of UCI Muslim Student Union (MSU). Members of the MSU planned and implemented a protest that interrupted a speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren at the University of California, Irvine in February 2010.

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