The television screens were filled with stories of relatively western figures such as Google employee Wael Ghonim, who became the face of the new Egypt -- educated, professional, and desirous of freedom as we know it.
Now that Mubarek is gone, the western media mostly has moved on to the next revolution, secure in the perception that Egypt is moving in the right direction.
But that is a false comfort. As I posted yesterday, over a million Egyptians turned out in Tahrir Square last Friday to cheer the vile anti-Semitic Sunni cleric Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who had been exiled by Mubarek, and who espouses the fundamentalist Islamic view that Jews must live as Dhimmis under Islamic control. Instead of accurately reporting the significance of this event, The New York Times whitewashed the cleric as someone who supports a "a pluralistic, multiparty, civil democracy."
Here is the video of the rally (in Arabic, via Israel Matzav) with the crowd chanting:
"To Jerusalem We go, for us to be the Martyrs of the Millions."
[Added: Partial transcript and video of speech with translation at links.]
Where was the western hero Ghonim?
He tried to take the microphone to speak to the crowd, presumably to preach his western values, but he was kept off the stage by Sheik al-Qaradawi's security.
But you probably haven't heard that, because it was not widely reported, except by AFP, Egypt protest hero Wael Ghonim barred from stage (h/t Israel Matzav):
Google executive Wael Ghonim, who emerged as a leading voice in Egypt's uprising, was barred from the stage in Tahrir Square on Friday by security guards, an AFP photographer said. Ghonim tried to take the stage in Tahrir, the epicentre of anti-regime protests that toppled President Hosni Mubarak, b ut men who appeared to be guarding influential Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi barred him from doing so.This is the problem with those, like Roger Cohen in The New York Times, who glorify the "Arab Street." Ghonim was not the face of the "Arab Street," he merely was a face to which western media could relate.
Ghonim, who was angered by the episode, then left the square with his face hidden by an Egyptian flag.
Will the western media be as vigorous in exposing what is going on now in Egypt as it was in exposing the wrongs of Mubarek? I think not, because the truth -- that the western media acted as willing dupes once again -- hits too close to home.
As for Ghonim, expect him to follow the path of the intelligentsia wherever Islamist forces have taken control. He'll move to the United States, where he will sit down for another 60 Minutes interview lamenting what has become of his beloved Egypt.
Update: Be sure to read Barry Rubin's Egypt Gets Its Khomeini: Qaradawi Returns in Triumph and MEMRI's compilation of Qaradawi's sermons.
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Related Posts:
NY Times Whitewashes Return of Anti-Semitic Egyptian Cleric
Egyptian Upheaval Shows Why Territory Still Matters for Israel
The Haunting Logan Photo As Metaphor
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"To Jerusalem We go, for us to be the Martyrs of the Millions."
ReplyDeleteWe better be willing to grant them their wish because it may soon be the only option left. The "Arab street" may THINK they are willing to martyr themselves to the last man but that is because they are getting nothing but appeasement from us. We appear very weak. It may take a demonstration of just how many of them we can kill in a hurry to change their minds. If not, get ready to meet Allah.
Those who are too squeamish should find a cave to hide and hope it won't be necessary to convert to Islam when it's "safe" to come out.
Everywhere you look today, people are in the street fighting existential change and all of that change is bad for American freedom and democracy. We better find our spine soon. We are all Jews today.
Interesting. It will not take all that long for Egypt and the region to fall under the control of Islamists. It bodes ill for the West. Hope we have contingency plans to take and hold the Suez Canal. It may become necessary.
ReplyDeleteIt's impossible to teach those who will not learn....
ReplyDeleteGeneral Douglas MacArthur:
ReplyDelete"The history of the failure of war can almost be summed up in two words: 'too late.' Too late in comprehending the deadly purpose of a potential enemy. Too late in realizing the mortal danger. Too late in preparedness. Too late in uniting all possible forces for resistance. Too late in standing with one’s friends."
What time is it? Oh, I don't have my watch ... but it's about a quarter before too late.
"He'll move to the United States, where he will sit down for another 60 Minutes interview lamenting what has become of his beloved Egypt."
Oh, God. Let it be Barbara Walters who interviews him. I'd love to hear his answer to, "If you could be a tree, what kind of tree would you like to be?" as the tears well up in his eyes.
I didn't understand how a couple of hundred thousand people demonstrating in Cairo represented the will of the 80 million Egyptians. Why would we think less than 1% of the population represented the will of the other 99%?
ReplyDeleteDid anybody else notice that reports from Alexandria largely dried up after about the first week or so? Why was that? Why didn't the western media interivew anybody outside of Cairo and Alexandria about what was going on, or if they even knew it was going on (I read the state controlled TV station was broadcasting a soccer match while Mubarak was resigning)?
BTW, not surprisingly, there's now a Memeorandum thread of a Bloomberg article that Al-Qaeda's number 2, Zawahiri, is urging Egyptians to establish an Islamic state.
We are about 1 minute before too late. Our government refuses to recognize the threat, refuses to believe we are in mortal danger, is unprepared, has no interest in uniting those who might oppose Islam (our Euro-friends can no longer do so. they have been absorbed) and this administration has abandoned our friends.
ReplyDeleteWe are in trouble.
semi-on-topic:
ReplyDeletehttp://patterico.com/2011/02/20/in-a-completely-isolated-incident-another-female-reporter-was-sexually-assaulted-in-egypt-on-the-same-night-as-lara-logan/
Call me crazy if you must, but I'd much, much rather fight a culture that produced the Kamikaze, than that in this TV clip from Egyptian TV.
ReplyDeleteI believe that being 1/8 Jewish from my mother's side makes me legally a Jew? Thanks a lot, Great-Grandma Hirschbein!! That eases my mind about the future. Damn Jews!!
Somebody please tell me the following from Egyptian TV is a sick parody:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtt8V25lGmc
Sir,
ReplyDeleteExcellent post. I recently started reading your blog and it's analysis like this that has made your site a daily go to.
I posted a diary on Red State that touched on this point. I would appreciate feedback particularly because I find myself agreeing with you on nearly everything you write.
Thank you,
http://www.redstate.com/randyturner/2011/02/19/once-again-us-media-chooses-ideology-over-truth/
Agree completely with your assessment. It is impossible for an administration that thinks there is no value in religion to understand the ardent nature of those who think there is no other religion of value.
ReplyDeletePasadena Phil, you're dead on right: we're all Jews now. If we are not, we don't deserve to live.
ReplyDeleteLukeHandCool, kamikaze and suicide bombers are six of one and half a dozen of the other. If your other 7/8 is Christian, non-Christian-non-Muslim, agnostic, or atheist, then you're still a Jew because in the eyes of the Muslim, you're an infidel worthy of death.
The popular polls out of Egypt have pretty much predicted which way Egypt will turn. We'll see just another Sharia led Islamic nation. Islam and Democracy are not neighbors.
ReplyDeleteEgypt?
ReplyDeleteObama has been too busy sending his "troops" to Milwaukee.
And the media has been doing its part.
Erp... My brain meant to type "Madison."
ReplyDeleteBHO is sending his troops to Madison.
(You got the point anyway. I hope.)
Leftists are controlled by narrative. The create a fantasy story and live in it. They are essentially like those people who take Dungeon and Dragon's a little to seriously.
ReplyDeleteIn particular, Leftists have a very, very hard time accurately writing non-Western cultures into their stories. Usually, this is because the so desperately need the non-Westerners to play the part of victims of the Western Right that the Leftists reduce entire cultures and ideologies to stick figure cartoons.
To see what I mean, go back to the early 70s and read what Leftists said about the Khmer Rouge. The Left fawned over those psychos even though their philosophy and intent was written down for over a decade. The Left ignored the danger poised by the Khmer Rouge to the Cambodian people because the Left had already assigned to the Khmer Rouge the role of plucky anti-colonialist fighting the forces of decadent capitalism.
They have done the same thing in every conflict or event since. It's all about the story. They don't want to hear fact because they can look up everything they need to know in their Dungeon Master's Tables.
I hope Ghonim is denied a visa if, and when, he runs from Egypt to the U.S. He said he didn't want European or American "interference" in helping his country become stable, and he was rather obnoxious about it.
ReplyDeleteA Polish priest in Tunisia was found with his throat cut. Maybe Glenn Beck was right about these "revolutions" turning into a desire for a caliphate. I thought his claim was weird before, but I don't see how countries that never had democracy could possibly implement it. I don't see it happening.
@Juba Doobai!
ReplyDelete"LukeHandCool, kamikaze and suicide bombers are six of one and half a dozen of the other."
They are similar in tactic, for sure. But I think the young Japanese kamikaze pilots who did what they did voluntarily, (not all) did so more out of a sense of duty rather than rabid hatred of the enemy.
Japanese Navy Minister Yonai and chief cabinet secretary Sakomizu both called the atomic bombings "gifts from heaven." I doubt you'd ever find muslim terrorist leaders ever speaking in similar terms after suffering complete defeat. The seven-year long occupation was largely without incident to occupying forces. I can't picture the absence of suicide attacks in an occupation in the Middle East.
Of course, comparisons are imperfect for a number of reasons, but I feel there is fanatical, and then there is something beyond, call it super-fanatical, or whatever you will.
One-drop Jewish, 1/8 Jewish, 8/8 Jewish ... I fear for all of us. I'm very worried about the world my children will inherit.
My father employed a Holocaust survivor who had lost his wife and only child at Treblinka. The man was very dear to me. WWII was no longer the detached, far-away in place and time fun subject of building model airplanes and fascinating pictorial books after I met him and saw pictures of my dad in the Army Air Force.
Before that, starting elementary school just two decades after WWII, the war at that time seemed like an ancient (to the point of almost being unreal) historical event. Growing older you realize a couple of decades goes by in a flash. Instead of the multicultural nonsense my kids get in school, I'd love to see them scrap it all and replace it with WWII history. Show them just how fast a conflagration can happen ... how fast the wheels can come off ... scare them a bit.
I could go on and on ... but suffice it to say that if I wasn't clear, I wholeheartedly agree with you and PasadenaPhil ... we are all Jews now!!!
Dear old Mr. Feder ... caught me reading a Playboy when I was 10. Gave me a stern lecture, but we became great friends.
ReplyDeletehttp://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1R2ADFA_enUS352&q=cache:L2ctrAR8qVwJ:http://www.humboldt.edu/rescuers/book/Chlup/federstory1.html+herman+feder&ct=clnk
Last week it seemed more important for the Grand Doofus to meddle in Madison than advocate for America in the middle east.
ReplyDeleteI'm trusting Israel is alert and ready, because idiots are afoot and I anticipate enormous body counts before it's over. It will be interesting afterward to hear from the mullahs just what went wrong this time.
Linked: 'Yusuf al-Qaradawi Raises Danger of Islamist Regime in Egypt'.
ReplyDeleteIsn't this where we cue the progressive talking point about those refusing to learn from history are condemned to repeat it? Oh - I forgot - that whole Iran thingy was a big embarrassment to the left, so best to not talk about it and just relive that history in Egypt instead.
ReplyDeletePerhaps "do no evil" at Google should be amended to add "and try to stop getting duped into facilitating evil as well."
The whole news cycle makes the assumption that the world yearns for freedom.
ReplyDeleteThat is false. The celebrated pictures of Cairo university in 1959, 1975, 1995 and 2004 tell the story better than any MSM
http://pajamasmedia.com/phyllischesler/2010/01/28/the-steady-erosion-of-womens-rights-in-egypt-a-photographic-story/
We have seen the high water mark of Muslim movement towards Western freedom IMHO. Turkey is the best example.
For the real truth about the threat of the Muslim Brotherhood and terrorists overtaking Egypt and threatening Israel I highly recommend reading the following story:
ReplyDeletehttp://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/5956/Egypt/Politics-/Muslim-Brotherhood-expected-to-win-legality,-lose-.aspx
All of the progressive and wrongfooted progressive assumptions about Egypt and the Brotherhood are laid bare.
Damn, I really blew it tonight-- found out as she was leaving that Pelosi was at a Houston restaurant tonight where friends and I were dining.
ReplyDeleteShould've gone up to her and asked her whether she also stood in "solidarity" with non-union America and non-Islamist interests in the ME, or whether it's all about dues confiscation, ideological coercion and political thuggery for New Deal Democrats and Muslim radicals.
"It is impossible for an administration that thinks there is no value in religion to understand the ardent nature of those who think there is no other religion of value." - John
ReplyDeleteThat statement is spot on when it comes to facing the greatest threat to freedom today.
Wow. I hadn't seen this. A link is on the way.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy this show
ReplyDeletehttp://prophetictimeline.com/Prophet/Timeline
Ah the eternal neocon search for a new enemy and justification for vaster military budgets to sap the nation's economy. Why don't you just stop paying the Taliban money to not attack US supply lines and they would have a lot less for IEDs and ammo?
ReplyDeleteThe freedom fighters in Egypt said from the outset that this would be a broad coalition which included Islamists. They are educated and westernized, and this is not Iran 1979 as the neocon talking point takes pains to liken this to. Funny they never mention what came before 1979, a US-backed shah whose SAVAK secret police made Saddam look like an angel.
The Egyptians will be just fine, and no one is buying the neocon "us against them," US dictator or the Muslim Brotherhood false choice anymore. Poor little Israel. What will she do? Who cares, as long as she doesn't try to drag the US into more of her wars. Remember the USS Liberty.