“Israeli Spying Network” Uncovered in Egypt Days Before Church Blast

The following commentary is reprinted with permission from Veterans Today.

“Israeli Spying Network” Uncovered in Egypt Days Before Church Blast
©  Dr. Ashraf Ezzat
Source:  Veterans Today
January 1, 2011

*  People in Egypt don’t have to waste their time suspecting and accusing al Qaeda,.. Egyptians know better,.. they know that al Qaeda is a joke,.. they only point the finger at Israel, the one implacable enemy who happened to be the conspirator behind destabilizing Iraq and the whole region.

What kind of images come to your mind whenever Egypt is mentioned? To a lot of people Egypt is automatically associated with the pyramids, the river Nile and the historical monuments of the great pharaohs. But modern Egypt is a lot more than just a world tourist attraction. Egypt besides the long history and culture is one of the leading nations in regard to liberation from European colonialism; the Egyptian revolution in 1952 was an inspiration to a lot of liberation movements in Africa and the Middle East.

During the era of the cold war, Egypt — with India and former Yugoslavia — initiated the non alignment movement (NAM) an intergovernmental organization of states considering themselves not aligned formally with or against any major power bloc. But the enthusiastic call for pan-Arabism was and still is — one of the most important political projects Egypt had adopted and advocated during the 1960s. The idea of an Arabic union with economic, political and military collaboration is a dream all Arab peoples long for but on the other hand this project of Arabic unity is deemed a potential and clear danger to a small country in the Middle East namely, Israel.

The Egyptian policy kept changing according to the local and international variables throughout the years. Egypt transformed from a constitutional monarchy at the first half of the twentieth century, to a socialist republic during the 1950-60s and now to a state with a free market economy. Egyptians changed in so many ways, socially and economically that is, throughout the last 60 years. Egyptians vary in their political perspectives; they might as well disagree on a wide range of public issues but all Egyptians agree on one indisputable fact concerning their national security, they all view Israel as the permanent and implacable enemy.

Sometimes people get so wrapped up nowadays in news and conflicts they nearly forgot what happened during the last 60 years.

Egyptian-Israeli military conflict

From day one to its foundation, Egypt knew very well that Israel is a real threat to its eastern strategic borders and to the whole area as well. Egypt knew that the newly implanted Zionist regime was mainly aiming to expand by illegally grabbing more of the Arabic land.

So the Arab-Israeli conflict began as an Egyptian-Israeli military confrontation for the simple fact that Egypt was the strongest and the leading nation of the Arab world not to mention that it shared borders with Israel and Palestine.

From 1948 till 1973 Egypt got into 4 wars with Israel:

·  Palestine war, the brutal Israeli occupation of Palestine (Nakba) 1948.

·  The Suez war (tripartite aggression) was a war fought by Britain, France, and Israel against Egypt beginning on 29 October 1956.

·  The six-day war in June 1967, a sneaky Israeli attack that left part of the Egyptian land-Sinai peninsula- occupied by Israel.

·  October war 1973, in which the Egyptian military managed to retaliate against the humiliation of the June war and proudly put an end to the Israeli military invincibility and complacency.

The late president Anwar El Sadat of Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979 -– Camp David accords — thus making Egypt the first ever Arabic nation to officially recognize Israel as a sovereign state in the Middle East and amidst the Arab world. That was a political dream Israel had been begging for through official political channels and backstage diplomacy as well.

The Camp David accords gave Israel what she wanted, Israel enjoyed peace on the long congested Egyptian front and she even enjoyed bilateral political, economical and agricultural exchange with Egypt. Israel even managed to sign a deal that allowed Egypt to supply Israel with all its needs of the natural gas through pipelines — extending all the way from Egypt to Israeli territories — which the Israeli officials called “peace pipelines”.

Israel used natural gas to replace fuel oil that powers its three major electric plants that run its military facilities in the country as well.

Frozen peace

One thing kept this peace treaty from being fully activated, namely the reluctance of the masses of Egyptian people to accept it, so the normalization of the bilateral relations remained virtually frozen till this very day.

The Camp David accord was an Egyptian political decision not a public one, consequently it remained as such. The policy makers in both countries exchanged ambassadors and delegations and often held meetings but the ice was never broken amongst Egyptians and Israelis.

Throughout the last 30 years since the signing of the Camp David accords not one Egyptian journalist or artist or writer or even a college student or a professor dared — voluntarily that is — to visit or participate at any international event where Israel is an active participant.

Even more, all Israeli cultural activities, artists and products are banned from collaborating or participating at any Egyptian events like cinema and musical festivals. Israeli literature and books are banned in Egypt. This antagonist attitude is something the Israelis always complained about and tried to bring about any change to it.

For the Egyptians and most of the Arabs there was nothing peculiar about their refusal to normalize the relations with the Israelis on the cultural level for they cannot shake hands with settlers who occupied the Arabic land by brutal force. They cannot forget 60 long years of military massacres and political deception. They cannot turn a blind eye to the ongoing genocide in Palestine. They cannot forget the long history of bloodshed and grabbed land. And most of all they cannot get over the deeply embedded into the collective Arabic psyche belief that Israel is never to be trusted.

Another Israeli spy network uncovered inciting sectarian violence between Muslims & Christians in Egypt

Lately, Egypt has uncovered a spy ring that included two Israelis and an Egyptian businessman suspected of collecting info on telecoms companies, and once again the days proved that 350 million people in the Arab world can’t be wrong about distrusting Israel.

The Egyptian general prosecutor ordered the transfer of three accused persons, who included two Israeli fugitives and one detained Egyptian Tarek Abdel Aziz, to be sent for trial before the emergency state security supreme criminal court on January 15th on the charges of spying for Israel and harming the country’s national interests.

The investigations with the suspected Israeli spy revealed a lot of surprising findings:

·  The Egypt-based Israeli ring had links with other Israeli espionage networks operating in Syria and Lebanon.

·  The Mossad was conducting covert surveillance of the phone calls of top Egyptian officials.

·  Israel — in the post-Camp David era — is targeting the stability of Egypt by inciting the sectarian violence between Muslims and Christians in Egypt – …as a matter of fact, as I was editing this post a car bomb exploded in front of a churh in Alexndria (St. Mary & St. Peter church) on the New Year’s eve leaving 21 killed and 80 wounded and some of the initial speculations are seriously pointing the finger at an Israeli agenda behind this terrorist attack.

·  Israel was behind the mysterious cut of Egypt’s main internet cable — connecting Egypt to the international network in January, 2008. The cut led to millions of dollars losses to the Egyptian economy especially the tourist sector.

·  The Mossad has recruited another Egyptian spy -– still on the loose — who managed to infiltrate and work with the Islamists groups in Egypt.

Given the aforementioned findings one couldn’t help but to wonder why a nation that is supposed to officially be in peace terms with Egypt would act in such a disgraceful and hostile way.

… The answer to this perplexing question is very simple. Israel never meant peace with Egypt or any other Arabic nation… Israel doesn’t believe in peaceful coexistence, Israel only believes that it has the right to exist and the right to defend itself while denying other neighboring nations the same rights. Israel views its security and future only through destabilizing and dismantling neighboring Arab countries. And in the case of Egypt there is one evil way to destabilize the country and that is through inciting violence between the Egyptian Christians (Copts) and their fellow Muslim citizens.

What is more interesting is that Egyptians were never astounded by the news of the uncovered Israeli spy network. In a way they got used to it, this was the 15th Israeli espionage operation to be uncovered since the signing of the Camp David so-called peace treaty with Israel.

And on the first day of the new year of 2011, after the deadly church blast in Alexandria, most Egyptians are growing more aware of the Israeli conspiracy targetting their national unity. People in Egypt don’t have to waste their time suspecting and accusing al Qaeda,.. Egyptians know better,.. they know that al Qaeda is a joke,.. they only point the finger at Israel, the one implacable enemy who happened to be the conspirator behind destabilizing Iraq and the whole region.

The Egyptian–Israeli peace treaty never changed anything. Israel is still seen as the enemy in the eyes and mind of every Egyptian. Israel is clearly seen by most Arabs as the evil doer in the Middle East.

2010 witnessed a lot of Mossad covert operations in the Middle East, few of those operations were uncovered like the assassination of Palestinian Hamas leader Mahmoud Mabhouh in January in what is known as the Dubai assassination job and the uncovered spy ring based in Egypt in December. The Mossad is certainly one of Israel’s most active and highly acclaimed government agencies that comes next to its defense forces and outside lobbies on the efficiency chart.

Israel might be able to grab more Arabic grounds and incite more violence in the Arabic world by covert operations, military aggression and dirty politics… but at the same time, Israel is practically losing credibility, popularity and most of all tolerability amongst the Arabic people… and those are the very same things that neither lobbying nor intelligence can win them back.

[End.]
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Dr. Ashraf Ezzat is a medical doctor and writer from Alexandria, Egypt. His articles have been published in Egyptian magazines and newspapers. For more articles by Dr. Ashraf Ezzat visit his website at: ashraf62.wordpress.com

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Dr. Ashraf Ezzat: Why Muslims dare not burn the Bible in return

The following commentary is reprinted with permission from Veterans Today.

Why Muslims dare not burn the Bible in return
©  Dr. Ashraf Ezzat
Source:  Veterans Today
September 9, 2010

Islam decrees that Muslims should respect and honor the Bible and Torah as well.

There is always an angle worthy of discussion in this megalomania of “Burn al Quran Day”. Maybe that is why so many comments have been voiced and they are all against this disgraceful and stupid plan by a discredited pastor who can’t get the support of his mother church in Germany nor the sympathy of his own daughter.

I hate to contribute to the man’s psychic lust for publicity – for that’s what he is after – and join the flocks of writers who have penned many articles on the subject.

Pastor Terry Jones’ hideous plan should have been neglected and never granted this wide media exposure which turned this sick idea into a phenomenal display of extremism.

This Jones took advantage of the interconnected world of today and made a congregation of 50 people look like the whole of the American people on a facebook page. His evil call for burning al Quran demonstrates how sick people could exploit the freedom of expression in a free society like America. Being free to do this bonfire does not mean that it is the right thing to do.

What does burning the Quran have to do with commemorating 9/11? How could he stoop so low? How could we surrender – in that ugly way – to bigotry in its most primitive form? Why do we find people in the 21st century so deluded and misled? Where does this shameful myopia come from? Where is this 9/11 myth taking us?

Why don’t Muslims just react by burning the Bible in return? I’m sure this question must have crossed your mind. What prevents them from committing such a horrible deed? After all they are the extremists. They are the intolerant people. They are the violent and hateful people. But they did not and never will. Do you know why?

The answer to this question might be the only good that came out of this horrid and profane issue. The answer is so simple but yet so fundamental to a better understanding of Islam. The understanding or rather the misunderstanding that goes back to the medieval crusades.

In the eleventh century the crusades began and lasted for two hundred years in trying to rid the holy land of Jerusalem of the barbaric Muslims whom they were told desecrated the Christian sanctuaries in the holy city. Ironically it took the Arabs 70 years to figure out why they were engaged in a war with the Europeans. The Muslims were only defending their homeland against an outward aggression. That much they knew. When they were finally oriented with the true reasons behind the crusades they were more perplexed simply because they never did any harm to the Christian sites anywhere, let alone the city of Jerusalem.

It took the kings of Europe and the pope in Rome 2oo years to grow up to the fact that Jerusalem was equally sacred to Muslims.

Jesus Christ and mother Mary are considered holy and highly revered by every Muslim. This is the missing link here. Westerners should know that Islam is not some local and weird cult like Buddhism or Hinduism. It is a universal faith stemming from the same origins of the Judeo-Christian faith which along with Islam are recognized as Abrahamic religions.

This is mainly why Muslims cannot retaliate against burning al Quran by burning any copy of the Bible because Islam decrees that Muslims should respect and honor the Bible and Torah as well.

And that explains why the Muslim protesters in Afghanistan responded to this shameful incident by burning an effigy of the pastor not by burning a copy of the Bible.

It is so simple but I wish it was that simple to that freak pastor from Florida who was supposed to know better about Islam and other faiths. And this is so regrettable; I mean if priests are that ignorant about other faiths, what that says of the common people who tend to follow in their footsteps.

This bonfire will not only endanger the American troops but it will add up to the anti-American sentiments in the Muslim world.

I think that the freak pastor will go ahead with his foolishness on Saturday. And starting the same Saturday, his death sentence will have been issued by many Muslim extremists around the world. This will come as no surprise for extremism only breeds more extremism. The freak pastor managed to get the world’s attention but that comes with a heavy price.

[End.]
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Dr. Ashraf Ezzat is a medical doctor, writer, and Founder and board member of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina friends’ society. His articles have been published in Egyptian magazines and newspapers. He is from Alexandria, Egypt.

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THE MUSLIMS ARE COMING

The following commentary is reprinted with permission from Veterans Today.

THE MUSLIMS ARE COMING
©  Dr. Ashraf Ezzat
Source:  Veterans Today
August 21, 2010

The American Muslims are beginning to feel alienated from the American society and this is for anyone familiar with Islam a very alarming sign.

When we welcomed the new global world, we welcomed the great reassembly of forces for the cause of truth and sanity which it offers us.

With the new global world, we thought we had embarked on a new journey that would bring humans who looked afar on the map closer to each other and would make them realize that we’re all alike on the inside. We welcomed a new world of shared knowledge, a world where ignorance is not bliss anymore.

We thought we had said Good-bye to a world where we lived in our cocoon went to sleep in one decade and then awakened in another to find strange forces invading our little space without knowing how to cope with them.

Almost a decade has passed away since one of the bloodiest American nightmares and the Americans still cannot break free of 9/11 trauma. They are awakened in another decade to find themselves haunted by dreadful flashbacks and relentless fears.

The controversy, which has been simmering over several months and boiled over the last couple of weeks when a group of American Muslims declared they were building a cultural community center in New York near Ground Zero brought back those dreadful memories.

In a country regarded as a model for freedom of religion and beliefs, the opposition to the Islamic community center was not clearly understood, most of the opponents elaborated on the sensitivity and wisdom which the Muslim owners lacked in regard to choosing this specific place to build their community center.

It never crossed their minds that Muslims didn’t take this sensitivity issue into consideration for the simple fact that they didn’t feel guilty of committing the crimes of 9/11. The opposition to the mosque seemed politically manipulated; it seemed more like a rationalization of bigotry. But Somehow, the so called ground zero mosque managed to bring out America’s darkest fears.

It was obvious that America as a nation was experiencing a kind of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Since 9/11 the Americans have increasingly grown sensitive to anything related to Islam. Lots of words – which nobody correctly understood- such as Muslim, Jihad, Hijab and of course mosque were beginning to act as triggers to trauma stroke.

False perceptions

There are many false and distorted perceptions around us. In general, all aspects of human life share this fate. The causes of this regrettable phenomenon are obvious. People in the majority are infantile and want easy and quick gratifications. Thinking demands temporary frustration until the gratification result is achieved.

The infantilism of mankind resists this displeasure, however temporary. Therefore people in general deal with the critical issues of life in a superficial and loose manner. Only the simple concepts are adopted, the others which need work, time and thinking are distorted and reduced to superficialities.

Therefore, in that superficial way, the majority of Americans chose to deal with the 9/11 tragedy. This horrible story needed to be investigated with a lot of profound and critical thinking to get to the bottom of it. But people preferred the easy way; they went for the simple concept, though there was nothing simple about it at all.

All that the majority of the public needed was a suspect, a villain on whom they could blame the whole thing. And since that was already taken care of by the political administration and sinister lobbyists, it was not long- just a few hours- before the villain was identified and the narration of Osama Bin Laden and his group taken for granted by the anxious masses.

And In such an atmosphere, ideas like “the end of history” and “clash of civilizations” were becoming more appealing and few years after the demise of communism, Americans were made to recognize Islam as their new global enemy.

Why Muslims?

Franklin D. Roosevelt once said “In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”

The 9/11 file is full of strange accidents, for example; why the twin towers collapsed like a house of cards as in controlled demolition? Why no one was indicted, no one was officially wanted, not even Osama Bin Laden himself… why has Islam been nominated as the new replacement to communism on the American public enemies list?

If the perpetrators of 9/11 were to be North Koreans or East Europeans or even Colombians it would have made more sense to political analysts.

But Muslims and Arabs in particular were not engaged in direct conflict with the United States, so why on earth did the Arab Muslims get stuck with the crime of committing terrorist attacks on American soil? It is not written down in the Qur’an nor is it considered as jihad as some of the misinformed writers claim.

But let us not neglect the fact that Arabs and Muslims are in direct and ruthless conflict with Israel. And since Tel Aviv was the one always whining about being surrounded by Israel-hating Arabs and Muslims, then, the inevitable question of whose interest presenting the Muslims as the new global enemy to America would serve can no longer be a puzzle.

And if you doubt this thesis, I advise you to take a second scrutinizing look at Iraq and Afghanistan and try to figure out what good did those two wars do for the USA? Who really benefited from dismantling Iraq as a political and military power in the Middle East? And who will benefit from doing the same to Iran? or Pakistan for that matter.

How America sees Muslims?

The demonization of Islam in Western thought is firmly rooted in the idea that Islam is medieval and dangerous and the media was mostly responsible for this biased characterization of Islam.

Numerous criticisms have been voiced that the U.S. media – especially its cinema sector and TV networks – tend to create image templates. As in Hollywood’s role in portraying Italians as mafia type , the Spanish as bribe takers, Latin Americans as drug sellers, etc.

Yet, no nation or community has suffered the level of injustice Hollywood has been inflicting on Muslims. In Hollywood films, Muslims – mostly Arabs – are presented as people who hijack planes, set bombs, kill people, etc. – in a word, as terrorists. This template is designed mostly for the middle class. The role tailored for women of the same class portrays women who are oppressed by men and those who are adept at belly dancing, though still suppressed and knowing no love. We may also encounter wealthy characters in these films. They tend to be lustful, fat and passionate types who do not know how to spend their millions.

Unfortunately, this is the biased preconception upon which the west and Americans are stereotyping all Muslims.

The hate speech against Islam could invite what Americans fear most.

The level of antipathy toward Muslims in America has escalated to a frightening level. Irrational and irresponsible actions against Muslims began to emerge among Americans. In the last two weeks people began to articulate their anti-Muslim sentiments, the mainstream media was mostly conveying a hate speech toward Muslims to the extent that led an ignorant politician – Tea Party leader Mark Williams – to describe the Muslims’ god as a monkey god.

Young men across the country began to attack mosques, some churches announced that they will be performing the Qur’an burning ritual on the coming September, 11, 2010. And this is the most terrifying story I had to come across in amidst all the increasingly acrimonious debate over the construction of the so-called Ground Zero mosque in Manhattan. Because it touches a very sensitive spot in the Muslim Psyche.

Ironically, Eid al-Fitr, a joyous holiday marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, as important as Christmas for Christians, this year falls around Sept. 11. Muslim leaders fear that their gatherings for prayer and festivities could be misinterpreted by those unfamiliar with Islam as a celebration of the 2001 terrorist strikes.

American muslims feel intimidated and most of them are reluctant to celebrate this year holiday of Eid al-Fitr. I earnestly advise Americans to be wise and understand the overlap; I earnestly implore them to let the American Muslims celebrate the holiday as usual. This hate speech has gone much too far.

Islamophobia has become the nagging symptom of PTSD that America is going through nowadays. But irritability, avoidance and anger aren’t the only possible responses to PTSD. Exposure and containment, if handled right, can work much better.

One crucial point that most of the followers to the mosque debate did not take notice of is the silence the Muslims have so far shown to this aggressive anti- Muslim rhetoric.

This Muslim silence should not be misinterpreted as lack of access to media. Because it’s not. It is a very serious and early sign of detachment and isolation. The American Muslims are beginning to feel alienated from the American society and this is for anyone familiar with Islam is a very alarming sign.

It could eventually lead some of them to get into their cocoon of Muslim solidarity and only God knows what shape they will take when they get out. Ignorant politicians and misinformed media behind this anti-Muslim hate speech are contributing to the sprouting of American radical Islam. And maybe later, and in few years from now, they will regret it when the hate rhetoric changes into something like “WATCH OUT, THE MUSLIMS ARE COMING”.

[End.]
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Dr. Ashraf Ezzat is a medical doctor, writer, and Founder and board member of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina friends’ society. His articles have been published in Egyptian magazines and newspapers. He is from Alexandria, Egypt.

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