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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

The history of Hamas' lifeline: 20 years of broken Egyptian pledges along Philadelphi Corridor

2024-08-14

[YNet] Nearly 20 years ago, a conversation took place between Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz that outlined a plan for deploying 750 Egyptian police officers along the Philadelphi Corridor within months to prevent arms smuggling. The plan also included coordination between Egyptian and Israeli battalion and brigade commanders to thwart smuggling activities. However, this discussion did not occur recently or during the current war in Gaza but rather in March 2005, as part of the preparations for Israel's disengagement plan, which was implemented later that summer. ...An Israeli military source told The Washington Post in June that an estimated 20 tunnels in the area remain undetected. The source emphasized that before any IDF operation, contact is made with Egypt to coordinate activities. Just a few days ago, the IDF released footage of a 10-foot-high tunnel capable of accommodating large vehicles, which was discovered last week along the route. Despite this, Egyptian officials continue to deny the existence of such tunnels. An Egyptian source recently denied "Israeli media reports about tunnels between Egypt and Gaza," describing them as "an Israeli attempt to escape the failure in Gaza." The source added, "Israel's failure to make progress in Gaza leads it to publish claims about the existence of tunnels to justify the continued attacks in the Strip." The things people tend to forget is our system of morality is based on judging actions as right and wrong. Arabs' is based on relatedness: any conflict between brother & cousin, the brother is right. Any conflict between Muslim and non-Muslim - the Muslim is right. Any promises given are taquia.

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Africa North

Egypt court overturns death sentences for 149

2016-02-03

An Egyptian appeals court on Wednesday overturned death sentences for 149 people accused of killing policemen in a mob attack on their station, a judicial source said. The court ordered a retrial for the defendants over the attack, which killed 13 policemen near Cairo on Aug. 14, 2013, the day police shot dead hundreds of demonstrators in the capital. The initial ruling in February 2015 came amid a series of death sentences in mass trials that were criticized internationally, as the government cracked down on supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi. The court had also sentenced 37 people to death in absentia, but they would have to hand themselves in for a retrial. The grounds for the appeals court ruling were not immediately available, but the court has overturned hundreds of death sentences over the past year, to the relief of rights advocates and frustration of some in the government who have urged fast track executions. Seven people have been executed for political violence since Morsi's ouster, including six who were convicted of belonging to an insurgent group. The military overthrow of Morsi, the country's first democratically elected president, ushered in the worst domestic bloodshed in the country's modern history. Morsi ruled for only a year, deeply dividing the country, and his removal was met with escalating protests by those who favored the Morsi-supporting Muslim Brotherhood. On Aug. 14, 2013, less than two months after Morsi's overthrow, police broke up two protest camps in Cairo, killing about 700 protesters. Morsi's supporters around the country attacked police stations, killing dozens of officers, and torched the churches of Coptic Christians. Morsi himself is facing several trials and has already been sentenced to death in one case. Several leaders of his Muslim Brotherhood movement, including its chief Mohamed Badie, have been sentenced to either death or lengthy jail terms. The movement has been blacklisted as a "terrorist organization" and its assets confiscated. It was also long repressed by former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, whose downfall was one of the major episodes of the Arab Spring. The police crackdown that initially targeted Morsi supporters was later widened to include secularist and leftist leaders and activists.

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Home Front: WoT

Pentagon studying protesters to prep for 'mass civil breakdown'

2014-06-15

[Washington Times] The Department of Defense has disbursed some funds to universities so that scientists might study the dynamics of civil unrest -- and how the U.S. military might best respond. That would have been useful knowledge for former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, I imagine, and whatsisname who used to run Yemen... It's called the "Minerva Research Initiative," and it's a program that was kicked off in 2008 to "improve DoD's basic understanding of the social, cultural, behavioral and political forces that shape regions of the world of strategic importance to the U.S.," The Guardian reported. More to point: the multi-million dollar research program seeks to uncover "warfighter-relevant insights" to help senior ranking officials in the "defense policy community" come up with "combatant commands" that work in civil unrest situations, The Guardian reported. Link to the Guardian story.

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Africa North

Swiss Extend Freeze on Ben Ali Assets

2013-12-22

The Swiss government has decided to continue a freeze on assets linked to former President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali for three more years. In early 2011, Switzerland froze 60 million francs ($67 million) in Tunisian assets and 700 million francs ($782 million) held by former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. “The aim of the asset freeze is to facilitate mutual legal assistance on criminal matters with the affected states and thus to create the preconditions for judicial scrutiny into the origin of suspicious assets,” the Swiss Federal Council, a seven-member cabinet said in a statement published on Wednesday. The aim of the three-year extension “is to give investigations in Tunisia and Egypt more time and to take account of the political transition in the two countries,” the statement read. Last October, a Switzerland fined three banks for mishandling assets belonging to the Ben Ali close circle.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Saudis (et al) Tired of Waiting for Obama to Lead

2013-11-03

Persian Gulf countries, led by Saudi Arabia, are moving to strengthen their military support for Syrian rebels and develop policy options independent from the United States in the wake of what they see as a failure of U.S. leadership following President Obama's decision not to launch airstrikes against Syria, according to senior gulf officials. After all, the Libyan airstrikes worked out so well. Although the Saudis and others in the region have been supplying weapons to the rebels since the fighting in Syria began more than two years ago and have cooperated with a slow-starting CIA operation to train and arm the opposition, officials said they have largely given up on the United States as the leader and coordinator of their efforts. What did they expect from President I-Voted-Present? Unhappiness over Syria is only one element of what officials said are varying degrees of disenchantment in the region with much of the administration's Middle East "policy" policy, including its nuclear "negotiations" negotiations with Iran and criticism of Egypt's new government. Secretary of State John F. Kerry arrives in Saudi Arabia on Sunday on a hastily arranged visit -- to include his first-ever meeting with King Abdullah on Monday -- that is designed to smooth increasingly frayed U.S. relations with the kingdom. Sending a pea-shooter to a gunfight. Kerry will also stop in the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Israel, all of which have expressed concerned at what they see as a weakened U.S. posture in the region. The 11-day trip also includes visits to the West Bank, Poland, Algeria and Morocco. Poland? Does Big Jahwn think that's in the Middle East? Or maybe he's looking to pick up a little sausage? Officials in several countries that had pledged to support a U.S. strike on Syrian targets after confirmation that President Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons described their stunned reaction to Obama's abrupt decision in late August to cancel the operation just days before its planned launch so he could vote present and let someone else decide ask for congressional agreement. "We agreed to everything that we were asked as part of what was going to take place," said a senior Saudi official reached by telephone in the kingdom. Instead of the 10-to-12-hour warning before launch that the Americans had promised, the official said that Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan "did not know about the cancellation. We found out about it from CNN." Didn't Eddie Snowden tell you? Although the current policy differences are unlikely to be resolved soon, if at all, the Saudis derive part of their standing as a regional leader from their close ties to Washington. Kerry's visit, in large part, is designed to publicly stroke that aspect of the Saudi image. Sunni Saudi Arabia has no interest in reaching out to Shiite Iran, which it sees as its primary rival for influence in the region. The Saudis are convinced that the United States is so eager to make a deal with Iran that it has already signed on to an arrangement that its allies in the region -- including Israel -- are sure to disapprove of. Maybe Champ is looking to add peace with Iran to his legacy. "Absolutely," the senior Saudi official said. The Saudis, who see Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood as a threat, believe the administration is hypocritical in its concern that the military rulers who overthrew Morsi are using too heavy a hand in cracking down on Morsi's Brotherhood organization. The United States, said one gulf official, expressed little concern over similar abuses under Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, whom the United States supported before he was overthrown in early 2011. Yeah, but that was a Bush doctrine, not the new Hopey-Changey Doctrine. You guys gotta get with the program! With new U.S. arms shipments to Egypt suspended, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait have given the new Egyptian government $12 billion to purchase Russian weapons to defray expenses, and officials said they plan to contribute at least another $3 billion in the coming days. While the United States and its gulf allies share the same objectives in the region -- a stable Egypt, a non-nuclear Iran and a peaceful Syria without Assad -- one official said those allies have concluded that none of those objectives will be reached with Obama's current policy. That's because there is no policy except the reduction of American power and prestige.

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Africa North

Obama Sends U.S. Troops to Prop Up Morsi

2013-06-26

In yet another remarkable display of Obama’s determination to secure the Middle East for Islamofascists, 400 U.S. troops will reportedly be deployed to Egypt to augment the police force of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi. They will be part of a 13-country force stationed in Egypt in anticipation of protests, scheduled for June 30th, calling for the removal of Morsi. Curiously, whereas Obama readily threw former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak under the bus in 2011, the White House is now eager to defend the regime of Morsi, who, like his Muslim Brotherhood sponsors, is well on his way to imposing the Saudi Arabian model of governance on Egypt. The so-called “peacekeeping mission” on which the U.S. troops will serve is expected to last nine months. It follows six months of training by troops at both Fort Hood, Texas and Fort Irwin, California. That training reportedly included crowd control measures as well as Molotov cocktail attack response. ”Soldiers encountered Molotov cocktails and other dangerous items in the training,” reported a local TV news station out of Killeen, TX that broke the story. A Fort Hood Press Center release reveals that a battalion task force from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team will be part of the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) peacekeeping contingency based along the southeast coast of the Sinai Peninsula between Eilat, Israel, and Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt. Once there, they will man positions and checkpoints, report any violations of the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty, and remain prepared to respond to threats. That treaty required Israeli forces to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula and for Egypt to keep the area demilitarized. An exception to the treaty was authorized in 2011 when Israel allowed several hundred Egyptian troops into the area to quell violence that occurred then.

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Africa North

Egypt court sets May 11 for Mubarak retrial

2013-04-18

The Cairo appellate court on Wednesday set May 11 for the resumption of ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s retrial in the deaths of hundreds of protesters during the uprising that deposed him. Mubarak remains in custody on new corruption charges, though a court ordered him released earlier this week before his retrial over the deaths of protesters. The decision to transfer him back to Tora prison, where his two sons are being held before facing a corruption trial, came after the prosecutor ordered the formation of a medical committee to look into Mubarak’s health. Mubarak appeared in court Saturday for the first time since his conviction in June 2012. After he was wheeled into the courtroom on a hospital gurney, he sat upright, grinned and waved to supporters from inside the metal defendant’s cage. In January, an appeals court overturned a life sentence against Mubarak for failing to prevent the killing of nearly 900 protesters during the 18-day uprising in 2011. He was the first Arab leader to appear in a defendant’s cage and stand trial by his own people. The new date for the retrial was set after the judge in the case recused himself last weekend. The judge had ordered acquittals in October for 25 Mubarak loyalists accused of organizing a deadly attack in which assailants on horses and camels stormed downtown Cairo’s Tahrir Square during the uprising. President Mohammed Morsi’s Freedom and Justice Party, a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, criticised the judiciary for several recent acquittals. ‘The acquittals of corrupt and criminal Mubarak-era figures confirms that the revolution is not complete,’ party spokesman Murad Ali said in a statement. He said the acquittals highlight ‘dysfunction in the judiciary system.’ They aren't judging the way Morsi wants 'em judged... Activists and lawyers connected to Mubarak’s retrial say there is no guarantee that new evidence will be submitted in the case. They complain about a lack of a comprehensive transitional justice program to hold Mubarak and former regime officials accountable for crimes committed during his rule, as well as the killing of protesters.

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Africa North

Four F-16s delivered to Muslim Brotherhood Egypt

2013-04-12

Four more F-16 fighter jets left the U.S. on Thursday headed for Egypt as part of a foreign aid package that has generated controversy given the political upheaval in the Mideast country. These are four of the twenty promised to Egypt under the arms deal we noted earlier this year. Champ is going ahead with deliveries despite the outcry, and despite common sense... A source who works on the naval air base in Fort Worth, Texas, confirmed to FoxNews.com the departure of the state-of-the-art fighter planes. The new shipment brings the total number of F-16 jets given to Egypt this year to 12. Eight more F-16s will be given to the Egyptian government before the end of the year as part of a billion-dollar foreign aid deal signed in 2010 with then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a longtime U.S. ally. The U.S. also will send 200 Abrams tanks. Critics, including several in Congress, say it doesn't make sense to follow through with the package. While current Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi has toned down his rhetoric since his election last summer, in 2010 Morsi attacked Obama for supporting Israel. "One American president after another -- and most recently, that Obama -- talks about American guarantees for the safety of the Zionists in Palestine," Morsi, then a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, said on Egyptian TV in reaction to Obama's 2009 speech in Cairo. "[Obama] was very clear when he uttered his empty words on the land of Egypt. He uttered many lies." Some in Congress worry that the F-16 gift betrays America's friendship with Israel. "Friends don't send U.S. taxpayer- funded F-16s and tanks to the enemies of their friends," Rep. Gohmert, R-Texas, told FoxNews.com. The State Department declined to comment on the specific movement of any military equipment, but officials released a statement to FoxNews.com defending the United States' "strategic" ties to Egypt, "with whom we have a long history of close political-military relations that have benefited key U.S. interests." The statement also noted that U.S. military cooperation supports the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. How much longer will that be around? "The Egyptian military has long had cordial ties with Israel ...not withstanding the mild disagreements with their bestest friends in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973... and is a pillar of support for the peace treaty within the Egyptian Government," the statement said. "We are committed to maintaining Israel's Qualitative Military Edge in the region. These F-16s represent no threat to Israel because Israel has more advanced aircraft and weapons than the F-16." But some security experts say that aid to Egypt will simply prop up a bad regime. "U.S. aid packages limit, rather than leverage, Washington's ability to extract meaningful concessions from Cairo on democratic reform. Sending arms conveys a tacit indifference to Morsi's authoritarian tendencies, including its harassment and intimidation of regime critics," said Malou Innocent, a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute. She added that America also can't afford the spending. "American taxpayers have been Egypt's major arms supplier, subsidizing the supply of F-16 jet fighters, M1A1 Abrams battle tanks, armored personnel carriers, Apache helicopters, and hundreds of millions of dollars in surplus military equipment." In addition, the U.S. government also paid at least $83 million to upgrade facilities and provide training at the Egyptian military's "Cairo West Air Base" to accommodate the new F-16s. That's new news. Some security experts say the spending is worth it. "I think this is the only way to ensure the stability of the Camp David Accords (the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.) Is that worth it? Yes," Anthony Cordesman, who has served as a consultant for the State and Defense departments and who holds the Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told FoxNews.com. The planes themselves, he said, are less important than the message they send. "Canceling a few F-16s isn't going to be a game changer in itself, but it'd change perceptions in the Arab world. They would see how quickly the U.S. could turn away when there's a crisis," Cordesman said. No, they'd see the U.S. turn away from a Muslim Brotherhood nutter. That might deliver a useful message... The statement from State Department officials also warned that revoking the aid could have disastrous consequences. "Delaying or canceling deliveries of the F-16 aircraft would undermine our efforts to address our regional security interests through a more capable Egyptian military and send a damaging and lasting signal to Egypt's civilian and military leadership as we work toward a democratic transition in this key Middle Eastern state," the statement said. Okay, I'll bite. Explain to me what the security threats are to Egypt today. Israel? Israel has a peace treaty with Egypt, and Israel has other worries. Last thing they're going to do is attack Egypt. Israel would be happy to see the border with Egypt remain quiet for the next hundred years. Libya? Libya is defanged. Sudan? Sudan has a joke of a military, good only for oppressing Darfur. Cyprus? Broke. Mauritania? Too far away. So explain to me what the key regional security interest is such that Egypt needs, today, right now, more F-16s and Abrams tanks. Egypt has plenty of military hardware; most of it now is western-made and apparently western-maintained. And according to the Egyptian generals, the mighty Egyptian army and air force is ready to defend the motherland, you betcha. So tell me what the threat is. I'm waiting.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Syrian mortars 'accidentally' land in Golan

2012-09-26

Syrian soldiers fought rebels on Tuesday in a firefight that killed nine people and sent several mortars sailing across the border into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The Israeli military said nobody was hurt in the shelling and that the spillover was believed to be accidental. But Israel filed a complaint to the United Nations peacekeeping force that patrols the tense region between Israel and Syria. In July, mortar shells fell about one kilometer (half a mile) from the Golan boundary. The spillover is among the most worrying developments from the Syria crisis, which has the potential to enflame the entire region. An Israeli defense official said the military believes the Tuesday’s incident in the Golan Heights was a mistake and the mortars were not aimed at the Jewish state. It was not the first time shells from Syria exploded in Israel since the uprising began, the official said. There have been concerns in Israel that the long-quiet Israel-Syria frontier area could become a new front against the Jewish state. The defense official said Israel is concerned that the border region could become as lawless and deadly as Israel’s frontier with Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula has become since the fall of longtime Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak last year. The Israeli side won't be lawless, but the Syrian side, who knows... The Israeli news site YNet quoted a resident near the border as saying the mortars struck an area filled with apple trees.

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Africa North

Unconfirmed Reports: Mubarak is Dead

2012-06-10

Reports on Egyptian web sites Sunday morning said that former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had died Saturday night. The story was reported on the official web site of Egypt's state broadcasting company, quoting reports on other web sites and in social media. The reports are uncomfirmed, the web site stressed. In recent days, there have been wildly varying reports on Mubarak's health. According to sources in Egypt, Mubarak's wife has not been permitted to visit him since he was taken to prison last weekend.

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Africa North

Egyptian Candidate Threatens Israel with Iranian Axis

2012-05-13

Israel may face a new Iranian-Egyptian threat if presidential candidate Hisham El-Bastawisi winds his bid to succeed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, whose ouster he encouraged. Backed by the left-wing Tagammu party, El-Bastawisi said on Saturday that building good relations with Iran would be one of his highest priorities. Israel already faces a northern "axis of evil" by the alliance between Iran, Syria and Lebanon. El-Bastawisi also promised to revise the Camp David Accords to allow the army to increase an armed presence in the Sinai Peninsula, the Egyptian website Ahram reported. El-Bastawisi is a prominent reformist judge who helped lead opposition for judiciary independence under the regime of Mubarak, who now is on trial for mass murder of demonstrators in last year's popular uprising. Regardless of the outcome of the Egyptian prudential elections later this month, the new Cairo regime is bound to be more anti-Israel than it was under Mubarak.

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Home Front: WoT

Obama Aide Says US Promotes Arab Spring Rebellions

2012-05-07

The Obama administration "nurtures" Arab Spring rebellions, which have been promoted as democratic but so far have yielded anarchy, according to U.S. deputy national security advisor Denis McDonough. He said the American administration views the rebellions in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen as positive for democracy, arguing that "a more democratic region will ultimately be more stable for us and our friends." McDonough estimated that a similar rebellion in Iran will be to the advantage of the United States. The American experiment with direct involvement in promoting democracy in the Palestinian Authority resulted in a shock for then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when the Hamas terrorist organization won the first, and until now the only, PA legislative elections. Hamas' strong base in Gaza gave it the catalyst to oust the rival Fatah faction, headed by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, from Gaza two years after the elections. The Obama administration also openly backed the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak last year and now is faced with a democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood, which fathered Hamas. Since the Brotherhood's victory and its attempt to win the presidency, the movement has been openly anti-American and anti-Israel, imprisoning Americans and threatening to change if not cancel the 1979 peace agreement with Israel.

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