Manal and Alaa's bit bucket

Haaretz is generally pretty good, but the first paragraph of an opinion piece by Uri Benziman, "History suggests restraint," is rather problematic: From President Anwar Sadat's perspective, Israel's invasion of Lebanon in June 1982 was a major provocation. Shortly after Egypt had sent an ambassador to Tel Aviv, Israel violated a sister Arab state's sovereignty and put Cairo in an embarrassing situation. Nonetheless, Sadat refrained from retaliating sharply. Perhaps his restraint was helped by the fact that he had been shot dead nine months beforehand.

This statement in the NYT is actually the take in the Egyptian Arabic press (with the exception of al-Misri al-Youm, likely al-Arabi). I think the Atn-Gen made this same point that Nor's case is not a "political case" at a press conference last Wed (it was in the Thursday papers, al-Wafd and Ahram at least). They did this with Saad too, but things were different and he has a constituency in Amrika from which pressure could be placed on the political establishment. Remember in Summer 02, Bush implicitly linked aid to Egypt with political reform (which was viewed and understood at the time to be Saad's case). As for the Weekly coverage, I agree with Issandr's take, but thought the ...

Here's the response to the NY Times editorial from the press counselor of the Egypt Mission to the UN. Ayman Nour, an opposition party leader, enjoys all privileges as a longtime member of Parliament, including immunity from arrest. He is entitled to his own opinions and is free to discuss his political beliefs. But Parliament lifted this immunity upon request of the attorney general when Mr. Nour was charged with forging signatures on petitions that secured legal status for his party, Tomorrow's Party. A distinction must be made between detaining an Egyptian citizen for committing a crime and voicing his opposition with the government. Like any citizen, Mr. Nour must be tried under the judicial process; if found innocent, he will ...

Abu Aardvark asked over the weekend some of those who post on this site two questions: "do you have any comments on the Al Ahram Weekly reporting?  And, how has the Arabic language Egyptian press (not just the state-owned media, but the tabloids) been covering these stories?" Here is my response. Regarding the Weekly's coverage, what you have to understand is that although it is a state-owned newspaper it has a large margin of independence and is mostly staffed by leftists (the editor, Hani Shukrallah, has a portrait of Karl Marx in his office) who are broadly sympathetic to the reform movement. But these are quite a different type of leftist than the run-of-the-mill trade unionists. These are mostly middle and ...

The Weekend Financial Times has a long essay on Egyptian reform and the Al Ghad party in particular by Mark Leonard. It provides a nice relatively in-depth background of the situation, with profiles of Ayman Nour and his wife as well as Al Ghad president Mona Makram Ebeid and the party's foreign policy advisor, my former boss Hisham Kassem. A good read, which concludes with the very same idea we have been arguing on this site: Rumours abound as to why he was arrested now and what the long-term consequences will be. Some note that the NDP was starting a process of dialogue with the opposition on the day of his arrest and Nur had cheekily suggested that Mubarak should represent ...

Why didn't God bless the Middle East with half as much rain as Europe?...

Another Al-Ghad official has been wheeled off for investigation. Surprising? Probably, but if this was a political move by the government, why arrest two people? They can't be planning to jail the entire party. Is it possible that the government has genuine criminal grounds for prosecution? Al Ahram has this...

Saad Eddin Ibrahim has an editorial in the Washington Post today asking President Mubarak some tough questions about the Ayman Nour arrest and the delaying of political liberalization: Why does the Mubarak regime continue to resort to these heavy-handed tactics against its peaceful opposition? Here is an attempted answer. Over nearly a quarter of a century, it has perfected the art of scare politics, at home and abroad. Those in Mubarak's regime argue that if he allowed democratization to proceed unchecked, with fair and honest elections, Islamists would undoubtedly take over. None of his Western listeners ever answer this argument with some very pertinent questions: What, Mr. Mubarak, have you done to preserve the popularity of non-Islamist forces in the country? What ...