Let's face it. The people's revolt in the streets of Egypt caught everyone by surprise and so-called experts and pundits are still scrambling to contextualize it and prophesy about the nation's future.
But the 18-day drama proved that revolutions are messy -- even ones birthed on Google and sustained by Facebook and Twitter. Ask CNN's Anderson Cooper or FOX News' Gregg Palkot, who were among the journalists attacked in Tahrir Square.
Now comes belated word of the brutal mob sexual assault on Lara Logan, a veteran correspondent covering for CBS' 60 Minutes during the jubilant celebration over Hosni Mubarak's ouster. The network had apparently made a decision not to go public about the incident and released details only after it was clear that other media would break the story.
It was painful listening to CBS's description of the horrors the mother of two suffered after she was separated from her crew and assaulted. Thank G-d she was finally rescued and we pray for her full recovery.
But it is a shame that CBS omitted one important detail from their release: The 200 member mob was screaming "Jew, Jew" during their vicious attack. Logan is not Jewish.
Why is this important? Because the issue isn't just the hate of one frenzied mob, but a society's mindset. For in today's Egypt, a nation searching for its 21st century identity, there is no more vile a curse that you can hurl at someone than to call him or her a Jew. A dangerous exaggeration? I don't think so: A 2010 Pew Poll confirmed that 95 percent of Egyptians hold negative views about Jews. That fact may help explain why simultaneously there were anti-Mubarak protesters holding posters with President Mubarak's face covered by the reviled Star of David, even as pro-Mubarak forces depicted western media as spies for Israel and protesters as agents of "outside forces." And who might those sinister forces be? A few years back, official Egyptian state television ran a 41-part series during Ramadan titled "Horseman without A Horse" based on the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the vicious Czarist-era conspiratorial screed swallowed whole by large swaths of Arabs and Muslims "proving" that Jews lurk behind every evil in the world. Officially sanctioned anti-Semitism, the popular negative stereotypes ingrained in books, combined with the hatred of the Muslim Brotherhood, make the Jew Egypt's poster child for all things hated or feared.
Of course, there are other voices that need to be heard and whose messages need to be nurtured. I am thinking of Abed (pseudonym), a young activist with whom I have exchanged e-mails and who was held and tortured by authorities for three of those 18 tumultuous days. He repeatedly emphasized that for the young people on the street, this revolution is not against or even about Jews or Israel. He urged Israelis and other Jews to speak out on behalf of people like himself who put their lives on the line for a democratic and peaceful future. Of course, he is right and the Simon Wiesenthal Center and virtually every other Jewish organization has done so. As Simon Wiesenthal often said: "Where democracy is strong, it is good for Jews and where it is weak, it is bad for the Jews".
But Egypt's future will not be secured only through free and open elections but by a new civil society that will be powerful enough to safeguard religious minorities and begin to deconstruct the culture of anti-Jewish hate. President Obama is right when he says we should back democracy-building in Egypt, but our financial aid and diplomatic support should be bestowed only upon those elements committed to combating, not leveraging, anti-Semitism. The media, which played a pivotal role in the people's revolution, must now lead the way in exposing, not avoiding the pervasive anti-Jewish culture of hate and religious intolerance. Failure to do so will doom hopes for a democratic Egypt and help pave the way for an ultimate Muslim Brotherhood takeover.
Follow Rabbi Abraham Cooper on Twitter: www.twitter.com/simonwiesenthal
Lara Logan: CBS News' Lara Logan recovering in U.S. after Egypt ...
CBS Says Lara Logan Suffered "Brutal" Attack in Cairo - NYTimes.com
Lara Logan Suffered 'Brutal' Sexual Assault In Egypt
The Attack on Lara Logan: War of the Words | The Nation
BBC NEWS | Middle East | Interpreting Egypt's anti-semitic cartoons
The Center for Security Policy is described as a "non-profit non-partisan security organization that specializes in identifying policies, actions, and resource needs that are vital to American security..." The organization's website lists board and advisory committee members including Frank Gaffney (President) and over two dozen high ranking retired U.S. military officers, along with commendations from Ronald Reagan, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and General Jim Jones. But at this moment, the introductory screen of their website features the musical satire video, complete with the performance of its own Caroline Glick.
Christian Broadcast Network has now posted an article and link to Caroline Glick's website.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KUcv452KbU
-Thanks
A keynote address--by Wahid al-Aqsari, chairman of so called Socialist Egyptian Party who delivered
his hated filled speech waving a copy of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
While many types of speech are strictly censored in Egyptian media, countless editions of The Protocols have been published by Egyptian publishing houses.
The latest editions have been incorporated into a book highly popular with Arabic Muslim public. it is entitled "Jewish Peril."
This was the edition displayed at the grand opening of the Manuscript Museum of the Library of Alexandria--November 2003.
The text was displayed next to Muslim and Christian holy books to give it legitimacy. It was only removed when many international organizations filed a protest.
Such material has a great influence on indoctrinating the canards of Judeophobia and antisemitism in the Arab and Muslim world.
Some conspiracy theories prevalent in Egypt and other Muslims states ( especially Arab) are due to societal inability to jettison many centuries- old image of a formerly weak, stateless and powerless Jew. Hence the invention of various conspiracy theories to explain away the current resurgent status of modern Middle Eastern Jews.
Ask someone once observed;" Antisemitism is a rumor about Jews."
Read this article on prosecution of other religious and cultural minorities in Egypt:
"The Obstacle to Religious Tolerance in Egypt" by a Muslim blogger.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/asma-uddin/post_1740_b_824234.html
These figures are proof of decades of Egyptian anti-Semitism.
The Egyptian people have been taught, for over half a century, to blame Jews for anything and everything. Only a determined and Herculean effort will reverse this.
The Lavon Affair refers to a failed Israeli covert operation, code named Operation Susannah, conducted in Egypt in the Summer of 1954. As part of the false flag operation, a group of Egyptian Jews were recruited by Israeli military intelligence for plans to plant bombs inside Egyptian, American and British-owned targets. The attacks were to be blamed on the Muslim Brotherhood, Egyptian Communists, "unspecified malcontents" or "local nationalists" with the aim of creating a climate of sufficient violence and instability to induce the British government to retain its occupying troops in Egypt's Suez Canal zone. The operation caused no casualties, except for the members of the cell who committed suicide after being captured. The operation became known as the Lavon Affair after the Israeli defense minister Pinhas Lavon, who was forced to resign because of the incident.
The discussion here is about blatant and enduring hatred of Jews In Egypt as witnessed by many in the last couple of days.
The fact that some here immorally try to derail this discussion into a different subject to avoid admit the obvious antisemitism in Egypt doesn't reflect well on American Islamic community's of which you're a member) capacity to co-exist with other religious perspectives.
It is immoral an irrational of you to try to deny the facts.
And when I press them on the source and voracity of their 'facts', they hem and haw about the issue, mentioning that the broad evidence that has been independently documented is 'questionable'. And this is from some folks who are by all intents good people who view themselves as having high moral values.
And that is conundrum: How does one address the root of bias that is so ingrained in some cultures when the facts that are used to support those biases are taken on faith despite the broad evidence to the contrary? I believe it is by persistently calling for tolerance, and calling out instances of systemic propagation of biases and untruths by leaders in such communities. Be it antisemitic or anti-Muslim, anti-religious or anti-secular. I'm not saying it is easy, but a moral duty to defend the rights of all peoples to live free from public injustices due to such biases requires us to do so. And in this case, I agree with Rabbi Cooper's characterization of this kind of bias.
After being attacked repeatedly, Israel won territory in Judea and Samaria (land that belonged to Israel more than 2,000 years ago). No nation in modern times that has acquired land after being attacked has been asked to give it up, except Israel. The Talmud is filled with thousands of references about Jerusalem, the ancient capital of Israel. The Qur’an has handful of references to Jerusalem. Jews pray towards Jerusalem. Muslims pray towards Mecca. Yet, people scream for Israel to give up Jerusalem.
Egyptians deserve democracy, not theocracy. The chant on the streets of Cairo has been for liberty, freedom and democracy. Let us pray that it will not turn into, “Death to Jews.”
The charters of Hamas and Hezbollah call for the “total destruction of Israel.” When The Muslim Brotherhood renounces their call for death to Jews and the destruction Israel, maybe they can be welcomed into the new, improved Egypt. Until then, they represent the dark side of politics – blind hatred and intolerance.
Charles Weinblatt
Author, Jacob’s Courage
http://jacobscourage.wordpress.com
http://debka.com/article/20688/
In their first week in power, Egypt's new military rulers took two steps that had nothing to do with democratic reform. They allowed Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the radical Sunni preacher exiled by Hosni Mubarak, to return home and lead a victory assembly in Tahrir Square Friday night, Feb. 17 with a call to march on Al Aqsa in Jerusalem. From Qatar, al-Qaradawi repeatedly justified su-i-cide bombings against Israelis. The second was permission for two Iranian war ships to transit the Suez Canal. The military rulers must have realized they were giving Tehran a leg up for its expansionist aspirations and strengthening the Iran-led alliance Turkey, Syria, Hizballah and Hamas. Al those allies have ports on the Mediterranean.
Israel is the most powerful nation in the region. They have nothing to worry about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel,_2011
Give up the land and there will be peace proves again to be false. Israel withdrew 8,500 Israeli citizens from Gaza, uprooting them from their homes and businesses, for what? For more Palestinian vi-olence.
Over 11,000 rockets have been fired at Israel, by Hamas and the Palestinians since Gaza was evacuated. You want to discuss war crimes???
Get real.
A few years ago my husband and I were walking home from the store when a car stopped and the driver and passenger yelled "#@*&ing Jews" out the windows at us. We were stunned. Neither of us are Jewish, but that didn't matter; that it happened at all was deeply disturbing. I was later informed that it wasn't a hate crime because nothing had happened to us; we weren't physically attacked. Well, it felt like one, and left us very shaken.