The Conservative Papers » Daniel Pipes

Don’t Ignore Electoral Fraud in Egypt

kalel — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:55:43 +0000

by Daniel Pipes and Cynthia Farahat
National Review Online
January 24, 2012

When Egypt’s Lower House convened on Jan. 23, Islamists held 360 out of its 498 seats, or 72 percent. This astounding figure, however, reflects less the country’s public opinion than it does a ploy by the ruling military leadership to remain in power.

In a recent article (“Egypt’s Sham Election,” Dec. 6) we argued that just as Anwar El-Sadat and Hosni Mubarak in the past “tactically empowered Islamists as a foil to gain Western support, arms, and money,” so do Mohamed Tantawi and his Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) “still play this tired old game.”

Mohamed ElBaradei left the presidential race complaining about its fraudulent quality.

We offered three proofs for this assertion: (1) local electoral deceits; (2) the SCAF offer of a “deal” to the Islamists; and (3) the military having subsidized Islamist political parties. Seven weeks later, various signs point to fraud on a far grander scale.

The Free Egyptians Party, Egypt’s leading classic liberal political party, announced on Jan. 10 that it had filed more than 500 complaints about Lower House elections “but no legal action was taken” in response. The party pulled out of forthcoming Upper House elections because “violators are awarded with electoral gains and those abiding by the laws are punished” and called for their cancelation.

Mohamed ElBaradei, former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) withdrew his candidacy for president on Jan. 14 because of his perception of rigged elections: “My conscience,” he announced, “does not permit me to run for the presidency or any other official position unless it is within a real democratic system.”

Logo of the Egyptian National Council. Its slogan: "Bread - Freedom - Social Justice."

Six parliamentary candidates filed official complaints against a range of officials and demanded that the elections be annulled and redone, reports the newspaper El-Badil in its Jan. 10 edition. One of the candidates, a Wafd Party candidate named Ibrahim Kamel, explained how he acquired government documents indicating that fewer than 40 million Egyptians were eligible to vote, while the current elections included 52 million voters, implying 12 million fraudulent ballots. This increase was achieved, he said, by taking the names and identification numbers of legitimate voters and duplicating them between 2 and 32 times in other electoral precincts.

Mamdouh Hamza, head of the Egyptian National Council, an NGO, confirmed this tampering to El-Badil, dubbing it “the biggest crime of fraud in Egyptian history.” He demanded that the Lower House elections be redone from scratch.

In contrast, the victorious Islamists, who despise democracy, made little effort to conceal their electoral success through fraud. Some of them went so far as proudly and unapologetically to assert that it’s their Islamic duty to be dishonest. Tal’at Zahran, a leading Salafi, called the democratic system “infidel,” “criminal,” and “out of the Elders of Zion.” He cynically observed that “it is our duty to forge elections; God will reward us for this.”

Tal'at Zahran, wearing Arabian (not Egyptian) clothing, signaling his Salafi outlook.

Revealingly, Zahran also praised Tantawi: “Just as we gave Mubarak the bay’a [Islamic oath of loyalty], we now support SCAF. If Tantawi decides to stay in power, we will support him until the day he dies.” Reports indicate that Islamists and the military are working smoothly together on such key matters as military autonomy and amending the 1971 constitution. Their cooperation makes sense, for Islamists seek Muslim unity so as to focus full attention on the infidel enemy (especially Jews and Christians).

With so much evidence of fraud at hand, it bewilders us that Western politicians, journalists, and scholars continue to see the shoddy results of the just-concluded Egyptian elections as a valid expression of popular will. Where are the cynical journalists casting doubt on the Salafis coming from nowhere to win 28 percent of the vote? Why do hard-boiled analysts, who see right through rigged elections in Russia and Syria, fall for “the biggest crime of fraud in Egyptian history”? Perhaps because they give Cairo a break on account of it having cooperated with Western powers for nearly 40 years; or perhaps because Tantawi rigs more convincingly.

Given SCAF’s explicit disdain for the election results, we are also surprised that analysts expect these significantly to bear on the country’s future. In fact, SCAF manipulated the recent elections for its own benefit; Islamists are pawns in this drama, not kings. We are witnessing not an ideological revolution but a military officer corps staying dominant to enjoy the sweet fruits of tyranny.

Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org) is president of the Middle East Forum and Taube fellow at the Hoover Institution. Ms Farahat (CynthiaFarahat.com) is an Egyptian activist and co-author of a book about the Tahrir Square protests. © 2012 by Daniel Pipes and Cynthia Farahat. All rights reserved.

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Will No-Interest Banking Undo Turkey’s Economy?

kalel — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 05:58:27 +0000

by Daniel Pipes
January 10, 2012
updated Jan 21, 2012

That’s the thesis implicit to David Goldman’s analysis at “Recall notice for the Turkish model.” After dubbing the Turkish economy a bubble that “is bursting, starting with the stock market and national currency,” he makes this observation about the prime minister:

Erdogan has the weirdest economic views of any serving head of government. He justified the credit bubble on religious grounds, pledging repeatedly to cut the “real” interest rate (the cost of interest minus the inflation rate) to zero. “We aim to cut the real interest rate in the long run, so people will increase their incomes through working, not through interest,” he said last April. “Eventually we aim to equalize the interest rate and inflation rate.” Erdogan believes that this would fulfill the Islamic injunction against lending for interest; if the real interest rate is zero, he seems to think, the sharia ban on interest is fulfilled de facto.

In other words, Erdogan’s wacky financial ideas, which are likely to doom his country’s economy, follow directly from his Islamist dream of eliminating riba (usury). More generally put, the Islamist economic program undermines itself. (January 10, 2012)

Turkish stock market vs. SP 500 (November 2010 = 100). Source: Bloomberg

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Egyptian Nuclear Power Plant Ransacked

kalel — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:35:49 +0000

by Daniel Pipes
January 16, 2012
updated Jan 17, 2012

Egypt Independent reports on vandalizing, looting, and fighting at the nuclear power plant being built at El-Dabaa, a town in the desert to the west of Alexandria. The account draws on an unnamed source at the Ministry of Electricity and Energy who

El-Dabaa nuclear power station in its full glory.

accused security authorities and the governor of North Sinai of “causing the disaster.” The official said the initial losses were around LE0.5 billion [= US$83 million]. He also accused a businessman and former member in the defunct National Democratic Party of being “behind the chaos,” but did not name the businessman allegedly involved.

The source said the meteorological station, ground water station and many of the offices had been attacked by “organized looters,” who took objects including computers, monitoring devices for earthquakes, furniture, cables and transformers.

On Friday, about 500 residents had rallied demanding the dismantling of the nuclear power plant, saying their land had been confiscated for the project. They say the government did not compensate them for the land it took.

However, other reports suggest that the construction site was attacked by residents of the area angry at the way in which the land for the power plant had been acquired by the government. Residents of Dabaa staged a sit-in on Saturday after clashes with Egyptian military police on Friday. The clashes left 41 people injured, including 29 soldiers, according to state-run newspaper Al-Ahram.

Comments: (1) L’Institut d’Égypte, a nuclear power plant site … the situation has degenerated in Egypt to the point that nothing is safe.

(2) The Islamists lack real power but they appear to be in charge; so as Egypt heads into economic decay and social anarchy, they will receive the blame. Could this be what the crafty military tyrants want, so they can swoop in and “save” the country? (January 16, 2012)

Jan. 20, 2012 update: The news gets worse, with the possibility that radioactive material was stolen:

The UN atomic energy agency issued a statement Thursday saying “the items that have gone missing are low-level radioactive sources. The sources were stolen not from an operating NPP (nuclear power plant), but from a laboratory at a construction site for an NPP that is not yet operational,” the International Atomic Energy Agency said. The Vienna-based agency said it is “in touch with the Egyptian authorities.”

Al-Ahram newspaper reported Thursday that a safe containing radioactive material was stolen from a site in Al-Dabaa, on the Mediterranean coast. Another safe was broken and some of its contents were taken, Al-Ahram said. … It said the team of experts entered the site but “did not find the missing safe. It did, however, find two sources of radioactivity in another safe that had been broken into.”

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Ending the Palestinian “Right of Return”

kalel — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:19:28 +0000

by Daniel Pipes
National Review Online
January 17, 2012

Between 1967 and 1993, just a few hundred Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza won the right to live in Israel by marrying Israeli Arabs (who constitute nearly one-fifth of Israel’s population) and acquiring Israeli citizenship. Then the Oslo Accords offered a little-noted family-reunification provision that turned this trickle into a river: 137,000 residents of the Palestinian Authority (PA) moved to Israel in 1994-2002, some of them engaged in either sham or polygamous marriages.

The Israeli Supreme Court building in Jerusalem.

Israel has two major reasons to fear this uncontrolled immigration. First, it presents a security danger. Yuval Diskin, head of the Shin Bet security service, noted in 2005 that of 225 Israeli Arabs involved in terror against Israel, 25 of them, or 11 percent, had legally entered Israel through the family unification provision. They went on to kill 19 Israelis and wound 83; most notoriously, Shadi Tubasi suicide-bombed Haifa’s Matza Restaurant in 2002 on behalf of Hamas, killing 15.

Second, it serves as a stealth form of Palestinian “right of return,” thereby undermining the Jewish nature of Israel. Those 137,000 new citizens constitute about 2 percent of Israel’s population, not a small number. Yuval Steinitz, now the finance minister, in 2003 discerned in PA encouragement for family reunification “a deliberate strategy” to increase the number of Palestinians in Israel and undermine its Jewish character. Ahmed Qurei, a top Palestinian negotiator, later confirmed this fear: “If Israel continues to reject our propositions regarding the borders [of a Palestinian state], we might demand Israeli citizenship.”

In response to these two dangers, Israel’s parliament in July 2003 passed the “Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law.” The law bans Palestinian family members from automatically gaining Israeli residency or citizenship, with temporary and limited exemptions requiring the interior minister to certify that they “identify with Israel” or are otherwise helpful. In the face of severe criticism, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon affirmed in 2005 that “The State of Israel has every right to maintain and protect its Jewish character, even if that means that this would impact on its citizenship policy.”

Winston Churchill in 1939.

Only 33 of 3,000 applications for exemptions, according to Sawsan Zaher, an attorney who challenged the law, have been approved. Israel is hardly alone in adopting stringent requirements for family reunification: Denmark, for example, has had such rules in place for a decade, excluding (among others) an Israeli husband from the country, with the Netherlands and Austria following suit.

Last week, Israel’s Supreme Court, by a 6-5 vote, upheld this landmark law, making it permanent. While recognizing the rights of a person to marry, the court denied that this implies a right of residency. As the president-designate of the court, Asher Dan Grunis, wrote in the majority opinion, “Human rights are not a prescription for national suicide.”

This pattern of Palestinian emigration toward Jews goes back almost to 1882, when European Jews began their aliyah (Hebrew for “ascent,” meaning immigration to the land of Israel). In 1939, for example, Winston Churchill noted how Jewish immigration to Palestine had stimulated a like Arab immigration: “So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied till their population has increased.”

In brief, you didn’t have to be Jewish to benefit from the Zionists’ high standard of living and law-abiding society. One student of this subject, Joan Peters, estimates that a dual Jewish and Arab immigration “of at least equal proportions” took place between 1893 and 1948. Nothing surprising here: other modern Europeans who settled in underpopulated areas (think Australia or Africa) also created societies that attracted indigenous peoples.

Gay parade, Tel Aviv, 2010: how many Palestinians among them?

This pattern of Palestinian aliyah has continued since Israel’s birth. Anti-Zionist they may be, but economic migrants, political dissidents, homosexuals, informants, and just ordinary folk vote with their feet, preferring the Middle East’s outstandingly modern and liberal state to the PA’s or Hamas’ hell holes. And note how few Israeli Arabs move to the West Bank or Gaza to live with a spouse, though no legal obstacles prevent them from doing so.

The Supreme Court’s decision has momentous long-term implications. As Eli Hazan writes in Israel Hayom, “The court ruled de jure but also de facto that the state of Israel is a Jewish state, and thus settled a years-long debate.” The closing of the back-door “right of return” secures Israel’s Zionist identity and future.

Mr. Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is president of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. © 2012 by Daniel Pipes. All rights reserved.

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Turkey Out of NATO: Other Voices Discuss Turkey’s NATO Membership

kalel — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 23:58:37 +0000

by Daniel Pipes
November 9, 2009
updated Jan 17, 2012

I raised the issue of Turkey’s continued membership in NATO in April 2009 at “Does Turkey Still Belong in NATO?“; here I will collect others who agree that the issue at least needs to be raised.

While it’s still too early to write Turkey out of NATO, in the not so distant future, the alliance will reach a decision point. In 2014, NATO’s next generation fighter plane, the Joint Strike Fighter, will be delivered. Given the direction of Turkish politics, serious questions must be asked about whether the Islamist government in Ankara can be trusted with the highly advanced technology.

(November 5, 2009)

Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) headed by Geert Wilders: reassess Turkey’s membership in NATO on the basis that its government has abandoned its allies – first Israel and now France. (December 26, 201)

Rick Perry, governor of Texas and Republican presidential candidate, asked a question at the South Carolina debate by Bret Baier of Fox News:

Bret Baier: Governor Perry, since the Islamist-oriented party took over in Turkey, the murder rate of women has increased 1,400 percent there. Press freedom has declined to the level of Russia. The prime minister of Turkey has embraced Hamas and Turkey has threatened military force against both Israel and Cypress. Given Turkey’s turn, do you believe Turkey still belongs in NATO?

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas at the South Carolina debate on Jan. 16, 2012.

Rick Perry: Well, obviously when you have a country that is being ruled by, what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists, when you start seeing that type of activity against their own citizens, then yes. Not only is it time for us to have a conversation about whether or not they belong to be in NATO, but it’s time for the United States, when we look at their foreign aid, to go to zero with it. (Applause) And you go to zero with foreign aid for all of those countries. And it doesn’t make any difference who they are. You go to zero with that foreign aid and then you have the conversation about, do they have America’s best interest in mind? And when you have countries like Turkey that are moving far away from the country that I lived in back in the 1970?s as a pilot in the United States Air Force that was our ally, that worked with us, but today we don’t see that.

It’s time that NATO start thinking about a worst case scenario in Turkey. For even if the increasingly Islamist state remains a NATO partner, at best, it seems Turkey will be an unreliable partner. Since the 1930s, the country has been a model of modernization and moderation in the Middle East. But absent a remarkable turnaround, it would appear that the West is losing Turkey.

(January 16, 2012)

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South Sudan, Israel’s New Ally

kalel — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 12:17:57 +0000

by Daniel Pipes
The Washington Times
January 3, 2012

It’s not every day that the leader of a brand-new country makes his maiden foreign voyage to Jerusalem, capital of the most besieged country in the world, but Salva Kiir, president of South Sudan, accompanied by his foreign and defense ministers, did just that in late December. Israel’s President Shimon Peres hailed his visit as a “moving and historic moment.” The visit spurred talk of South Sudan locating its embassy in Jerusalem, making it the only government anywhere in the world to do so.

This unusual development results from an unusual story.

Today’s Sudan took shape in the nineteenth century when the Ottoman Empire controlled its northern regions and tried to conquer the southern ones. The British, ruling out of Cairo, established the outlines of the modern state in 1898 and for the next fifty years ruled separately the Muslim north and Christian-animist south. In 1948, however, succumbing to northern pressure, the British merged the two administrations in Khartoum under northern control, making Muslims dominant in Sudan and Arabic its official language.

Accordingly, independence in 1956 brought civil war, as southerners battled to fend off Muslim hegemony. Fortunately for them, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion’s “periphery strategy” translated into Israeli support for non-Arabs in the Middle East, including the southern Sudanese. The government of Israel served through the first Sudanese civil war, lasting until 1972, as their primary source of moral backing, diplomatic help, and armaments.

Charles Jacobs given the Boston Freedom Award in 2000 by Coretta Scott King "for his abolitionist efforts."

Mr. Kiir acknowledged this contribution in Jerusalem, noting that “Israel has always supported the South Sudanese people. Without you, we would not have arisen. You struggled alongside us in order to allow the establishment of South Sudan.” In reply, Mr. Peres recalled his presence in the early 1960s in Paris, when then-Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and he initiated Israel’s first-ever link with southern Sudanese leaders.

John Eibner meeting with Silva Kiir in 2006 in Paris.

Sudan’s civil war continued intermittently from 1956 until 2005. Over time, Muslim northerners became increasingly vicious toward their southern co-nationals, culminating in the 1980-90s with massacres, chattel slavery, and genocide. Given Africa’s many tragedies, such problems might not have made an impression on compassion-weary Westerners except for an extraordinary effort led by two modern-day American abolitionists.

Starting in the mid-1990s, John Eibner of Christian Solidarity International redeemed tens of thousands of slaves in Sudan while Charles Jacobs of the American Anti-Slavery Group led a “Sudan Campaign” in the United States that brought together a wide coalition of organizations. As all Americans abhor slavery, the abolitionists formed a unique alliance of Left and Right, including Barney Frank and Sam Brownback, the Congressional Black Caucus and Pat Robertson, black pastors and white Evangelicals. In contrast, Louis Farrakhan was exposed and embarrassed by his attempts to deny slavery’s existence in Sudan.

A ubiquitous sign before the January 2011 referendum: "Vote for separation to end slavery and underdevelopment."

The abolitionist effort culminated in 2005 when the George W. Bush administration pressured Khartoum in 2005 to sign the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the war and gave southerners a chance to vote for independence. They enthusiastically did so in January 2011, when 98 percent voted for secession from Sudan, leading to the formation of the Republic of South Sudan six months later, an event hailed by Mr. Peres as “a milestone in the history of the Middle East.”.

Israel’s long-term investment has paid off. South Sudan fits into a renewed periphery strategy that includes Cyprus, Kurds, Berbers, and, perhaps one day, a post-Islamist Iran. South Sudan offers access to natural resources, especially oil. Its role in Nile River water negotiations offers leverage vis-à-vis Egypt. Beyond practical benefits, the new republic represents an inspiring example of a non-Muslim population resisting Islamic imperialism through its integrity, persistence, and dedication. In this sense, the birth of South Sudan echoes that of Israel.

A sign at the independence celebrations (edited for meaning, using the Arabic for guidance): "From today, our identity is South (Sudanese) and African, not Arab and Islamic. We are not the worst of Arabs but the best of Africans.

If Kiir’s Jerusalem visit is truly to mark a milestone, South Sudan must travel the long path from dirt-poor, international protectorate with feeble institutions to modernity and genuine independence. This path requires the leadership not to exploit the new state’s resources nor dream of creating a “New Sudan” by conquering Khartoum, but to lay the foundations for successful statehood.

For the Israelis and other Westerners, this means both helping with agriculture, health, and education and urging Juba to stay focused on defense and development while avoiding wars of choice. A successful South Sudan could eventually become a regional power and a stalwart ally not just of Israel but of the West.

Mr. Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is president of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. © 2012 by Daniel Pipes. All rights reserved.

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Osama bin Laden “a Visionary”: Muslim American Society

kalel — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 09:44:55 +0000

by Daniel Pipes
May 4, 2011
updated Jun 4, 2011

Khalilah Sabra of the Muslim American Society applauds Osama bin Laden.

Good for the Muslim American Society – why should it be censored from expressing its true views? In an article by Khalilah Sabra, “Agreeing to Disagree About the Death of Osama Bin Laden,” she writes:

Osama Bin Laden cared unrelentingly about the Afghan Muslim children in the same way he cared about his own children. … He was a visionary who believed in the possibility of an Islamic state in Afghanistan and the possibility that this thing might someday be. There was nothing wrong with that dream, even if it differs from that one that all Americans have here for themselves.

Comment: American Islamists hew to the consensus all too often. Far better for us all when they openly speak their mind. (May 4, 2011)

May 6, 2011 update: The Investigative Project on Terrorism provides background today on both Sabra and the MAS at “MAS Official: Bin Laden a ‘Visionary.’”

June 4, 2011 update: Also interesting: Sabra posts a picture of Ahmed Yassin, the Hamas leader, on her Facebook page as a person who “inspires” her.

Sabra announces that Ahmed Yassin of Hamas "inspires" her.

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Mohammed Bouazizi, Historical Figure; How the Middle East Upheavals Began

kalel — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 09:28:53 +0000

by Daniel Pipes
National Review Online
April 20, 2011

Mohammed Bouazizi, historical figure.

The self-immolation on Dec. 17, 2010 of an obscure Tunisian, Mohammed Bouazizi, set off a political firestorm across the Middle East that has yet to subside. His story as first told contained some inaccuracies; so now, with facts and his legacy more established, it’s useful to review how the regional upheaval began.

(The following account draws on many sources and especially on Marc Fisher, “In Tunisia, act of one fruit vendor unleashes wave of revolution through Arab world” in the Washington Post.)

Sidi Bouzid, a town in central Tunisia with a population of 40,000 and no special distinction (other than lending its name to the nearby World War II “Battle of Sidi Bouzid” between German and U.S. forces) served as the unlikely venue for the drama.

Sidi Bouzid is off the beaten track.

There, as throughout Tunisia during the era of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the police lorded it over civilians. In particular, they treated the produce market, where Mohammed Bouazizi sold fruit, in Fisher’s colorful description, “as their personal picnic grounds, taking bagfuls of fruit without so much as a nod toward payment. The cops took visible pleasure in subjecting the vendors to one indignity after another — fining them, confiscating their scales, even ordering them to carry their stolen fruit to the cops’ cars.”

Officer Fadiya Hamdi provoked Bouazizi.

Twenty-six years old, unmarried, and the main provider for a fatherless family of eight, Bouazizi suffered from these predations. On the fateful day of Dec. 17, he dragged his unlicensed wooden fruit cart loaded with produce as usual to the market at 10 a.m. Two police officers along the way – one of them Fadiya Hamdi (also spelled Fedya Hamdi), female, age 36 and an 11-year force veteran – began helping themselves to his fruits.

Bouazizi’s uncle intervened on his behalf, getting the officers to leave off. The uncle then went to the police chief and requested him to tell the officers to leave Bouazizi be. The chief agreed, called Hamdi in, reprimanded her, and instructed her not to harass the young man.

Officer Hamdi, infuriated, went to the fruit market and went for Bouazizi. She took a basket of apples from him and deposited it in her car. As she returned for more fruit, Bouazizi tried to block her but according to Ala al-Din al-Badri, who worked a stall near Bouazizi, “She pushed Mohammed and hit him with her baton.”

Bouazizi set himself on fire.

In a rage now, Hamdi, reached to take Bouazizi’s scale and when he again intervened, Hamdi and two other officers threw Bouazizi on the ground. They took more produce and his scale.

Bouazizi wept and pleaded. “Why are you doing this to me? I’m a simple person, and I just want to work.” Then, as about 50 people in the market watched, came the act that set off a conflagration across the Middle East: Hamdi slapped Bouazizi on the face.

Humiliated, Bouazizi went to city hall in Sidi Bouzid to find an official to complain. No, he was told: Everyone is in meetings. Go home. Forget it. Rather than let the matter go, however, he went to his fellow vendors and announced his intent to protest the injustice and corruption by setting himself on fire. True to his word, he doused himself with an inflammable liquid at 11:30 a.m., applied a match, and burst into flames.

President Ben Ali felt compelled to visit Bouazizi in the hospital.

Attempts to rescue him with a non-working fire extinguisher failed. A call to the police, predictably, got no response. Finally, after an hour and a half, an ambulance arrived. Bouazizi initially survived the ordeal and was eventually transferred to a burn hospital near Tunis.

Rioting followed in Sidi Bouzid; captured on videos and uploaded to Facebook, it prompted further disturbances locally and then nationally. Officer Hamdi was arrested. President Ben Ali visited the heavily burnt Bouazizi in the hospital on Dec. 28 and received his family in the presidential office.

Bouzizi's memory remains alive.

Bouazizi died of his burns on Jan. 4. His funeral near Sidi Bouzid attracted a huge crowd of some 5,000 who chanted, “Farewell, Mohammed, we will avenge you. We weep for you today, we will make those who caused your death weep.” His tomb became a place of pilgrimage.

Indeed, Mohammed Bouazizi was duly avenged. His act of despair has already led to the overthrow of two tyrants (in Tunisia, Egypt), precipitated two civil wars (in Libya, Yemen), and destabilized two governments (in Bahrain, Syria). The Internet made him a historical figure.

Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.

Apr. 20, 2011 update: In a spirit of healing, the Bouazizi family yesterday dropped its complaint against Fadiya Hamdi and the court has dropped charges against her.

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Empower Iranians vs. Tehran

kalel — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 17:02:40 +0000

by Daniel Pipes
National Review Online
July 19, 2011

How should Western governments deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which Washington labels “the most active state sponsor of terrorism”?

Iranian aggression began in 1979, with the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and the holding of some of its staff as hostages for 444 days. Major subsequent attacks included two bombings in Beirut in 1983: at the U.S. embassy, killing 63, and at a U.S. Marine barracks, killing 241.

The Iranian-backed attack on the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 killed 242, still Tehran's single largest number of Western fatalities.

More recently, U.S. secretary of defense Leon Panetta stated, “We’re seeing more of those weapons going in [to Iraq] from Iran, and they’ve really hurt us.” Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, added, “Iran is very directly supporting extremist Shiite groups, which are killing our troops.”

American responses fall into two main camps: tough and diplomatic. The first sees Tehran as irredeemable and counsels a policy of confrontation and even force; it assumes that diplomacy, sanctions, computer viruses, and threats of military strikes have no chance of dissuading the mullahs from going nuclear, and it speaks of regime change or a military option against the Iranian bomb. The diplomatic camp, which generally controls U.S. policy, accepts the permanence of the Islamic Republic of Iran and expects Tehran to respond to diplomatic overtures.

A main battleground in this dispute is the question of whether or not the most prominent Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MeK), should remain on the U.S. government’s terrorism list. The tough camp generally views the MeK, founded in 1965, as a lever against the mullahs and (with a minority dissenting) wants it delisted. The diplomatic camp argues that delisting would anger the Iranian leaders, hampering efforts to improve relations, or (contradictorily) would limit Washington’s ability to reach out to the Iranian street.

The pro-MeK side argues that the MeK has a history of cooperating with Washington, providing valuable intelligence on Iranian nuclear plans and tactical intelligence about Iranian efforts in Iraq. Further, just as the MeK’s organizational and leadership skills helped bring down the shah in 1979, these skills can again facilitate regime change. The number of street protestors arrested for association with the MeK points to its role in demonstrations, as do slogans echoing MeK chants, e.g., calling Supreme Leader Ali Khamene’i a “henchman,” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a “dictator,” and shouting “down with the principle of Velayat-e Faqih” (that a religious figure heads the government).

Maryam Rajavi, head of the Mujahedeen-e Khalq, with Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York, in June 2011.

A number of former high-level American officials advocate delisting the MeK, including a national security adviser (James Jones), three chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Hugh Shelton, Richard Myers, Peter Pace), a secretary of Homeland Security (Tom Ridge), an attorney general (Michael Mukasey), and even a State Department coordinator for counterterrorism (Dell Dailey). A chorus of prominent Republicans and Democrats favor delisting, including a bipartisan group of 80 members of Congress.

The anti-MeK faction does not address the benefits of delisting but argues that the U.S. government must continue the listing on the basis of allegations of terrorism. Their indictment notes that the MeK killed six Americans in the 1970s. Whether or not these allegations are accurate, a terrorist incident must have occurred within two years to continue with the terrorist-group designation—rendering discussion of the 1970s completely irrelevant.

What about the past two years? The pro-MeK side points to three main U.S. terrorist databases—the RAND Database of Worldwide Terrorism Incidents (RDWTI), the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), and the Worldwide Incidents Tracking System (WITS) — and notes that in each one the MeK comes up clean since 2006 or earlier.

What about capabilities and intentions? The State Department’s 2006 “Country Reports on Terrorism” accused the MeK of maintaining “capacity and will” for terrorist acts but the 2007, 2008, and 2009 reports omitted this statement. Britain‘s Court of Appeal derided proscription of the MeK as “perverse,” and the group was removed from the U.K. terrorist list in 2008. The European Union cleared the group of terrorism charges in 2009. The French judiciary dismissed all terrorism-related allegations against the group in May 2011.

In brief, the argument to maintain the MeK’s terrorist designation is baseless.

Following a court-mandated review of the MeK’s terrorist designation, the secretary of state must soon decide whether to maintain this listing. With one simple signature, the Obama administration can help empower Iranians to seize control over their destiny—and perhaps end the mullahs’ mad nuclear dash.

Mr. Pipes is president of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. © 2011 by Daniel Pipes. All rights reserved.

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L’Institut d’Égypte – In Memoriam

kalel — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 17:00:17 +0000

by Daniel Pipes
December 26, 2011
Cross-posted from National Review Online

Title page of the first volume of the Description de l'Égypte (1809).

Founded in 1798 by the scientists accompanying Napoleon on his invasion of Egypt and author of the monumental 20-volume Description de l’Égypte (1809-28), L’Institut d’ Égypte was burned down on Dec. 17 by crowds rampaging in the vicinity of the National Assembly building.

Remarkably for a learned institution, its doors were open to the public to meander and imbibe, though few did. During my three-year residency in Cairo in the 1970s, it served as a place of refuge, when the city was too much with me, as well as a regular destination for my foreign visitors. I treasured this little-known gem for its library of 200,000 volumes focused on Egypt, its symbol as the capstone of Orientalist learning in Egypt, its evocation of a different and better era, and the quietude it offered in a city with few such oases.

And now the barbarians came and destroyed it with a Molotov Cocktail. The walls still stand but the building is gutted, its invaluable contents burnt.

Comments: (1) This attack brings to mind a host of prior acts of destruction of historical monuments in Egypt, including the medieval defacement of the Sphinx and the Cairo arson of 1952. Outside Egypt, assaults coming right to mind include the Muslim destruction of Hindu temples in India, the Turkish destruction of churches in northern Cyprus, the Palestinian sacking of the Tomb of Joseph, the Taliban destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha, the Iraqi pillaging of museums, libraries, and archives, the Saudi destruction of antiquities in Mecca, and the Malaysia destruction of an historic Hindu temple. This barbarism, in other words, fits into a larger pattern. What is it about Muslims and history? As this listing suggests, too many of them hate not only what is non-Islamic but even their own heritage

The carcass of L'Institut d'Égypte.

(2) The former minister of state for antiquities affairs, Zahi Hawass, campaigned for the return of the country’s treasures. I vote against that. Better they be safe where they are than exposed to the fury of modern-day Egyptians, especially given that Egypt’s mufti recently ruled against the private display of statues, a possible first step toward a state-sanctioned destruction of Egyptian antiquities. In addition, observers rightly worry that the incomparable Egyptian Museum may be targeted next. (December 26, 2011)

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