Tag Archives: Egypt

Egypt, Gaza, Hamas, Israel

Israel and Hamas and Egypt as a Perennial Follower…….

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“After the military ouster of the Islamist government in Cairo last year, Egypt has led a new coalition of Arab states — including Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — that has effectively lined up with Israel in its fight against Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip. That, in turn, may have contributed to the failure of the antagonists to reach a negotiated cease-fire even after more than three weeks of bloodshed………………”

He is wrong of course about Egypt having “led” a coalition. A battered unstable Egypt is not “leading” any coalition on anything these days. In fact Egypt has not led independently on any regional issue since the day Anwar Sadat was assassinated in 1981. It has gotten worse in the year since the military coup of 2013. Under the military rule of Generalisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi, Egypt is being led, in regional matters, by a couple of Persian Gulf absolute tribal ruling families, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab .There has been a drive by the princes and potentates, and the Israelis, to inflate the appearance of a leading role for Al Sisi. This is self-serving, given the historical importance of Egypt and its size as the largest Arab country which can be put to good diplomatic and public relations use. That and its potential role as the host country of the impotent League of Arab Nations.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Counterrevoltion, Egypt, Health, Healthcare, Science

The International Plot against the Egyptian Military’s Miracle Drugs………

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“Hepatitis C. Virtually all of the non-A, non-B post-transfusion hepatitis described years ago in textbooks were found to be attributable to HCV after its RNA genome was cloned in the late 80s. It is estimated that there are 180 million people chronically-infected with HCV. Detection is routine and the virus is therefore largely screened out of the world’s blood supply. But individuals who have received blood or blood products before this time may have inadvertently contracted HCV. HCV is less transmissible than HBV and usually involves direct injection of blood or blood-products into the bloodstream and monogamous heterosexual couples have a low risk of contracting it from an infected mate (CDC Hepatitis C Information for Health Professionals). Most of the HCV transmission today in the developed world is among intravenous drug users, while those who experimented even only once with injectable drugs are at risk of being infected (CDC Viral Hepatitis Statistics & Surveillance). There is no vaccine for HCV and there is no expectation that an effective vaccine will be available anytime soon…………..”

Apparently these people have never heard of the new miracle drug invented by the Egyptian Army under the leadership of Field Marshal Al Sisi. Actually it is a dual-cure for both Hepatitis-C and HIV (AIDS). A leading Egyptian military scientist promised this past Spring that you can shove the drug into a kebab or kufta and eat it and get cured. The whole miracle “kebab” treatment was presented with much fanfare at a public gathering, with speeches and with General Al Sisi himself attending.

Some media, nay all media outside Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain had a field day with this army alleged invention. No report yet if the Egyptian military has plans to invent a democratic system that works for Egypt and the Arab world. But they do know a system that cures a country from wanting to go democratic.

Egypt Rejects Sisi Invention, Signs with Gilead for Hepatitis-C Cure……

Is Medical Pilgrimage in Egypt’s Future? the Army Says So about their Acne Cure………
Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Politics, Egypt, Humor, Israel, Religion, Saudi Arabia, Sectarian, US Foreign Policy

New Tri-Partite Coalition: a Jewish Democracy, an Arab Military Dictatorship, an Arab Tribal Monarchy………

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“A “joint high command” of Arab states is advising the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu how to press home his ground operation in Gaza, the Debka Net Weeky, a publication of a website close to Israel’s foreign intelligence service Mossad has confirmed. The website said that Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah and Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi are in “constant communication” running daily conferences and sometimes more, according to the website’s sources. That communication is done over secure telephone lines, but such is the political sensitivity of their close co-operation that for really important messages human couriers are used. A special Israeli plane is parked permanently at Cairo’s military airport, ready to lift off whenever top-secret messages between the Egyptian president and the Israeli Prime Minister need to be delivered by hand. The flight takes less than 90 minutes. King Abdullah’s point man in this daily dialogue is the man he dismissed as intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan, but who has now been re-hired as the King’s special adviser on the Islamic State in Iraq. Bandar maintains “direct contacts” with the Mossad chief Tamir Pardo….…………”

I would call it a coalition of convenience, not an alliance. It is like “the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”, but I will not specify which one of these is which: it is probably a toss-up. It is really a coalition, if that is what it is, of two parties: Israel and the Saudi regime. Egypt has already made its peace with Israel and is doing its share in blockading Gaza and its Hamas rulers, and it has no regional influence left beyond that. Egypt under Al Sisi is now part of the Al Saud sphere of influence as far as other Middle East issues are concerned. Besides, Egypt is not directly involved with the main target of this coalition: Iran and her ruling mullahs.

This is quite a mix of an eclectic coalition of regimes, just look at its members: 

  • One militarized Jewish democracy (it is a democracy so far, if we set aside the West Bank’s future, and not only by Arab or Middle East standards),
  • One harsh Arab military dictatorship led by a Generalisimo Field Marshal but pretending to be a democracy,
  • One absolute tribal Wahhabi theocratic monarchy that has no pretensions of democracy or constitutional law whatsoever (its constitution is however the princes and their palace clerics interpret the law).

What brought them and holds them together? A mix of factors: (1) a desire to maintain the status quo and keep absolute family rule (Saudi Arabia and allies), (2) a desire to keep the military in absolute power and the old oligarchy in place while pretending otherwise (Egypt), (3) a desire to divide the Arabs and other neighbors and to weaken her main regional rival (that would be Iran in the case of Israel).

There is one other factor that sounds ridiculous but some Arab regimes pretend, for political reasons, to take it seriously: a professed media-driven fear of the spread of Shi’ism. This indicates a lot of religious insecurity within the sects of Islam. Saudi and other Gulf sectarian propaganda often warn of this threat of the ‘spread of Shi’ism’. Recently so have otherwise apparently calm but apparently Wahhabi-ized Egyptian clerics from within and without Al-Azhar. But I doubt the Jews of Israel worry much about this nonsense as much as their paranoid neighbors, perhaps excluding some remnant zealots in the settlements and around Jerusalem.

However, it would be fun if there was a true Shi’a threat of conversion in all three countries. Imagine a common threat to convert all Sunnis of Egypt, all Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia, and the toughest nut of all would be to convert all Jews of Israel (and hence of the Diaspora from New York to San Fernando valley).

Just think: they wouldn’t have to wait for the Second Coming and the Rapture to convert, although it would be to the wrong faith. That should give all Christian Zionists in the American Red-blooded States massive group infarct.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, Funny Courts, Media

Judiciary Thuggery in Egypt’s Courts: Dumb and Dumber instead of Best and Brightest……

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“A judge released his reasoning for harsh sentences issued last month against three journalists for Al Jazeera’s English-language channel, saying they had been brought together “by the devil” to destabilize Egypt  ………. The judge, Mohammed Nagi Shehata, convicted and sentenced the three — Peter Greste, an Australian; Mohamed Fahmy, a Canadian of Egyptian descent; and Baher Mohamed, an Egyptian — to seven years over charges linked to aiding the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Mr. Morsi was a leader. The judge said that Al Jazeera worked “in the service of a banned terrorist organization,” referring to the Brotherhood……………..”

What this Egyptian ‘judge’ said was a variation of the old saying that the “devil made them do it“.

Under Generalisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi, Egyptian courts, like Egyptian state-controlled media, have reached new laws. Judges pass sentences couched in vulgar language that even bloggers like myself shy away from (well, mostly: e all like to have some fun, but we are not all judges). Only a few weeks ago two Egyptian kangaroo courts sentenced more than one thousand people to death for being Muslim Brotherhood supporters. A political massacre.

There are reportedly some 30 thousand to 40 thousand others under arrest for their politics and awaiting trial by these same regime courts. It is a throwback to the age of Nazi Germany and Baathist Iraq, among other places.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Arab League, Arab Media, Egypt, Gaza, GCC, Israel, Palestine

Two-Front War on the Gaza Ghetto: Role of the Bloody Arab Hands ………

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Gaza is facing a two-front war, and the people of Gaza are facing two determined enemies. This has been the case for years. World media is pre-occupied with only one front of this newest Gaza-Israeli war. But this has always been a two-front war, with the people of Gaza and their Hamas fundamentalist rulers facing two hostile enemy fronts. We all know about the northern-eastern front with Israel, but the other front helps weaken the Gazans and directly helps the Israeli assault. 

The second front, the southern front with Egypt should be considered worse from an Arab point of view. Egypt has always been part of the strategy to defeat Hamas by starving out the people of Gaza in their ghetto, a ghetto created largely by Arab regimes collaborating with the Israeli government blockade. Generalisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi, new Mubarakist leader of Egypt, is tightening the screws on Gaza even as his Israeli allies are bombing and shelling the hell out of them. Even as much of Arab media, mostly controlled by Persian Gulf princes and potentates, focus on the northern front with Israel, preferring not to shed any light on the role of the Likudnik Egyptian regime in the Israeli strategy.

When it comes to the suffering of the Palestinian people of Gaza and shedding their blood, the culprits with bloody hands are not only Israeli forces, but Arab dictators and tribal princes from Cairo to Riyadh.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Egypt, Science

Egypt Rejects Sisi Invention, Signs with Gilead for Hepatitis-C Cure……

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“Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb attended on Tuesday the signing ceremony of the agreement between Egypt’s health ministry and Gilead, the US manufacturer of Sovaldi, which is used to treat the hepatitis C virus. The medicine will be available at 26 national centers for hepatic viruses, where treatment will be at the government’s expense. It will be offered at one percent of its international price, according to the health minister…………..”

It looks like the Egyptian government, appointed by Al Sisi, has decided to buy their Hepatitis-C cure from Gilead. They have rejected the Egyptian Army invention of the double cure for H-C and HIV viruses as develped by Al Sisi and his researchers. I guess this means they can kiss the Nobel Prize goodbye.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab League, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, GCC, Humor, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia

The Case for Splitting the Arab States: Wahhabistan and Huthistan and Rafidhistan……….

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Much has been written and said in the past ten years about the potential for splitting Iraq. The argument is mainly that the sects and ethnic groups cannot reach a deal to remain together peacefully within the British-created borders of Iraq. The Kurds want to split away, they are just waiting for when the moment is right (to quote the famous TV ad). The Sunni southwest region is in many ways more like northern Saudi Arabia than Iraq, at least in a tribal sense. There has also been talk of a split of Syria into Alawi, Sunni, and Wahhabi parts (perhaps a Kurdish one as well). We can extend that to some other Arab states; why only Syria and Iraq and Sudan (as happened a couple of years ago) or Somalia (which is bound to happen)? Let us explore a few other cases:

  • Saudi Arabia: King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud invaded and annexed several regions to his own Nejdi kingdom in the 20th century. His kingdom can now be divided into three states. The Nejd area will form a Wahhabistan which will keep the current name of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (if they don’t like Wahhabistan). The Hijaz will form another state where they all speak the same dialect of Arabic and say things like ‘ya shaikh’ and ‘ikhtishi’ and ‘koweyiss’ (meaning ‘good’). The smallest state will be along the coast of the Persian-American Gulf, where most of the Shi’as live. The southern part will join the next state on my list in northern Yemen.
  • Yemen: the northern most part of Yemen will annex the southern regions that had been usurped by Saudi King Abdulaziz in 1930s. It will be renamed Huthistan. The central part, the rest of the old Yemen will become “Yemen”. Southern Yemen which lost its independence in 1990 to become part of Yemen will regain its freedom and will be renamed the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen Southern Arabia.
  • Bahrain: Shi’as and some others have been in protest mode for more than three years, seeking equality in politics and economics. The Al Khalifa rulers and their tribal and Salafi allies are determined to deny them that right. So why not divide Bahrain into two mini parts: Manama and Muharraq to become one country (perhaps forming one new Saudi province), and the rest, including the neglected villages and townships could become another state of its own. This Shi’a part could be called the Rafidhi State and join the GCC as such. Or maybe it can join the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as the eighth emirate. Okay, maybe I will send a text message to the shaikh, sorry king, suggesting it (with a copy forwarded to the Saudi king since it will be his decision to make).
  • Libya: is already divided into at least two parts: let us keep it that way.
  • Morocco: no change, except that the king will have to give up the Sahrawi region.
  • Egypt: Egypt has had nearly the same borders for thousands of years, the only Arab country to have this distinction. There are no major tribes or tribal divisions, although there are now deep religious divisions. So Egypt will probably remain the same: bored to death under a boring military ruler presiding over the same old bureaucracy, but united. The Sinai will remain a wild violent outpost and the south a place of violent clashes among the clans over women and cattle and religion.
  • UAE: the Abu Dhabi shaikhs have got the rest of them by the balls. Only Dubai is rich enough to draw the line.
  • Qatar: maybe it will join Turkey as a new Ottoman outpost.

(The Arab League will them change from a league or 20 some despots to a League of Forty Thieves. And I am almost serious about this, almost).

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Counterrevoltion, Economics, Egypt, GCC

Will Tony Blair get The Prize for Advising Sisi on the Economics of Counter-Revolution?……..

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“Tony Blair has agreed to advise the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who came to power in a military coup last year, as part of a programme funded by the United Arab Emirates that has promised to deliver huge “business opportunities” to those involved, the Guardian has learned. The former prime minister, now Middle East peace envoy, who supported the coup against Egypt’s elected president Mohamed Morsi, is to give Sisi advice on “economic reform” in collaboration with a UAE-financed taskforce in Cairo – a decision criticised by one former ally. The UAE taskforce is being run by the management consultancy Strategy&, formerly Booz and Co, now part of PricewaterhouseCoopers, to attract investment into Egypt’s crisis-ridden economy at a forthcoming Egypt donors’ conference sponsored by the oil-rich UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia…………..”

Mr. Blair, the Old New Labor Neoconservative leader, has a knack for attracting dictatorial and oligarchy talent. Not only does he find them, but he can also press the right buttons on them. You can say if you were rude and crude, which I am not, that he knows how to find their G-spot. From the Persian Gulf to Central Asia and North Africa, he has been advising them and lobbying on their behalf. Remember his famous squashing of British Serious Frauds Office (SFO) investigation into the $2 billion bribe paid by BAE Systems to Saudi Prince Bandar for a weapons deal? Remember his dealings with the Lat Colonel Gaddafi on behalf of J P Morgan? All these and more were IOUs that he collected from the potentates.

All that and his saying the right words, his incessant warmongering in the Middle East, from Syria through to Iran and beyond. The kind of talk that makes the Wahhabi princes and their Salafi allies salivate at the prospect of American boys and girls going to war on their behalf.

Well, like yet another bad dream he is back in the Middle East, after years of pretending to be looking into the Palestinian-Israeli issue but achieving nothing. He has been selected by the Saudi and Emirati and other Gulf overlords of Egypt to advise the newest strongman of Egypt on the ‘economy’. Who knows, maybe Tony will get a Nobel Prize in Economics: anyone who can solve or reduce or ease Egypt’s economic problems would deserve the prize. And if he doesn’t, there is always the King Whatishisface and Shaikh Whatishisass prize as consolation.

And you know what I think? I think we will see riots back on the streets of Cairo, once the people realize that they have been robbed of ll what they thought they had gained in 2011. That they have been led by their political leaders and opinion-makers on a circle back to where they started in January 2011. That what they experienced has not been a revolution but a cruel hoax.

(FYI: Here is what I tweeted when I read about it last night: ” Oh sh-t, oh sh-t, oh sh-t…………. hired to advise Generalisimo Al on economic matters. Poor Egypt………” )

 

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Uncategorized

An Independent Free-Thinker Wins the Greatest Prize on the Nile……

 

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Dr. Omar Hashim is a member of the Commission of Senior Ulema (Ulema could mean clerics or even scientists: as in chemistry, physics, biology, mumbojumbo, etc). He has recently received the biggest prize in Egypt in terms of professional esteem and money, the Nile Prize (formerly the Mubarak Prize, no doubt soon to be the Sisi Prize). Dr. Omar Hashim said that his heart is “dripping” sadness and pain because of the divisions in the nation (of Egypt).
He was quickly asked by the correspondent the question du jour from the Atlas Mountains of Morocco to the Persian Gulf: “Do you fear the danger of the spread of Sh’ism (Shi’a faith) in Egypt?” He rose to the occasion as expected, no doubt knowing what is expected of any ‘independent free-thinking’ Egyptian cleric (or scientist), and answered quickly, almost too quickly: “No doubt I fear it. When Al Azhar was established in Egypt the Fatimid Dynasty meant for it to be a Shi’a college , a place that would teach the Shi’a faith. But God meant from the beginning that Al Al Azhar would not be a Shi’a, but for the Sunna people”.


God bless all independent free thinkers of the Arab world who when they strictly follow the official line, it is strictly coincidental, (even when they lie to do it by coincidence). Truly.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Cairo, Egypt, Qatar, Science

Is Medical Pilgrimage in Egypt’s Future? the Army Says So about their Acne Cure……….

 

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Qatari daily Al-Quds Alarabi, published from London, and other Arab media have interesting medical news from Egypt. The Medical Services Authority of the Egyptian Army has announced an update on its magical machines that can cure HIV and Hepatitis-C. It announced at a press conference Saturday that it is postponing receiving any patients who are seeking to be cured from HIV (AIDS) and/or Hepatitis-C through the new machines the Egyptian Army had invented. The Army said the postponement will last six months, allowing for further experiments on a larger sample of those infected.

The Egyptian army had announced the new inventions with fanfare a few months ago, at a public event attended by the county’s leadership including Field Marshal Al Sisi. A General Dr. Al –Sairafy said they are looking into the best ways to apply the cures for the Hepatitis-C and HIV (AIDS)N viruses, using what he called the C-Fact and Complete-Cure machines invented by the Egyptian Armed Forces.

A medical professor of gastronomy and liver diseases at Ain Shams University at Cairo said the tow breakthrough inventions were developed over a period of 22 years. He added that “the cure starts with a patient taking one daily tablet for ten days, after which he sits on a machine that drwas out his blood the returns a pure form of the blood back into his body. This blood re-infusion is done one hour per day over 16 days………”

With these great inventions, courtesy of the brains of the glorious armed forces of Egypt, the economy should quickly recover as millions from around the world make the pilgrimage to Cairo to get cured of their diseases.

(I must add here that this Complete-Cure sounds like a skin cream for zits, a.k.a. acne, rather than HIV (AIDS). The Fast-C sounds like a method of injecting a huge dosage of vitamin C into someone’s blood).

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]