Israel Matzav

The New York Times awakens to reality: Morsi is an anti-Semite

Maybe the New York Times should be reading Israel Matzav.

12 days ago, I posted a video of an interview with Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy in which  he refers to Jews as the 'sons of apes and pigs.' The New York Times just noticed the video (Hat Tip: Memeorandum). It sure took them long enough.

Since beginning his campaign for president, Mr. Morsi has promised to uphold Egypt’s treaty with Israel and to seek peace in the region. In recent months, he has begun to forge a personal bond with President Obama around their successful efforts to broker a truce between Israel and Palestinian militants of the Gaza Strip.

But the exposure this month of his virulent comments from early 2010, both documented on video, have revealed sharp anti-Semitic and anti-Western sentiments, raising questions about Mr. Morsi’s efforts to present himself as a force for moderation and stability. Instead, the disclosures have strengthened the position of those who say Israel’s Arab neighbors are unwilling to commit to peace with the Jewish state.

“When the leader of a country has a history of statements demonizing Jews, and he does not do anything to correct it, it makes sense that many people in Israel would conclude that he cannot be trusted as a partner for peace,” said Kenneth Jacobson, deputy national director of the Anti-Defamation League.

And if he suddenly said he's sorry it would be okay? Allow me to go back to something the Sandmonkey wrote back in 2006, before the revolution made him famous:

But then I rememebrd that we- the majority of us anyway- don't want peace with Israel, and are not interested in any real dialogue with them. We weren't then and we are not now. The Entire peace process has always been about getting the land back, not establishing better relations. Even when we do get the land back, it's not enough. People in Egypt lament daily the Camp David treaty that prevents us from fighting. In Gaza they never stopped trying to attack Israel. In Lebanon Hezbollah continued attacking even after the Israeli withdrawel. And the people- the majority of the arab population- support it. Very few of us are really interested in having any lasting Peace or co-existance. I mean, if our left is asking for war, what do you think the rest of the population is thinking?

I think that the Israeli want peace with us because they don't want their lives disrupted. They don't want to have the IDF soldiers fighting in Gaza, rockets coming into their towns from Hamas or having to go to wars against Hezbollah to get their soldiers back. I think they want peace because they want their peace of mind. They view us as if we were a headache. We view them as if they are a cancer.

Of course, we need not worry about Morsy apologizing. He has no intention of doing so.

Representatives of Mr. Morsi have declined repeated requests over more than three days for comment on his remarks. One reason may be that the re-emergence of his previous statements has now trapped him in a political bind. While his past comments may be a liability abroad, he faces a political culture at home in which such defamation of Jews is almost standard stump discourse. Any attempt to retract, or even clarify, his slurs would expose him to political attacks by opponents who already accuse him of softness toward the United States and Israel.

Signs asserting Mr. Morsi works for Mr. Obama are already common at street protests. Perhaps “the Muslim Brotherhood is so desperate for U.S. support that it is willing to bend over backwards to humor the Israelis,” Emad Gad, a leader of the Social Democratic Party, suggested in a recent column.

And why should he apologize given that the Times is perfectly happy to make excuses for him.

The anti-Semitic statements that have come to light this month both date back to 2010, when anti-Israeli sentiment was running high after a three-week conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza the previous year. 

That would be Operation Cast Lead, which started in December 2008 and ended in time for President Obama's first inauguration in January 2009. Somehow, I doubt that was the catalyst. Go back and reread Sandmonkey's remarks, which date to July 2006.

Read the whole thing. The Times doesn't mention this, but....

Just a few weeks ago, the Obama administration announced that it is giving Egypt 20 F-16 fighter jets. In Egypt, that gift is viewed as a sign of the high level of support that the Obama administration is giving Mohammed Morsy and the Muslim Brotherhood (Hat Tip: Will).

But, domestically, it means quite a bit. Retired Brigadier General Safwat Al-Zayat told the Weekly in a telephone interview from Doha that in the game between the White House and Congress, the Zionist lobby may still try to obstruct the deal. "Even though they know that the aircraft mean little in terms of military balances, they feel they have to say something with a political twist that includes Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brothers in a useful sentence. But then, the White House is playing the same game," he said.

He continued: "Even if this bothers people in the military, it is obvious that the finalisation of the deal on 11 December, which happened to be at the height of the mass demonstrations in Tahrir Square against Morsi, conveyed a political message. Between the lines, Washington was sending a message to three parties. The first was to Morsi and it stated, 'We support you. Move ahead.' The second was to the army and it said, 'We are encouraging this man,' meaning Morsi. The third was to the opposition forces and it said the same thing. We need to bear in mind that Morsi had been put to the test during the last [Israeli] war against Gaza and passed with flying colours from the US perspective."

If the above-mentioned US source had no reservations with regard to Washington's embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood, another source close to the same political circle complained that the Brotherhood were being two-faced in their dealings with Washington – which is to say that what is happening on the ground in Egypt is different from what they try to market to US public opinion. To this, a Brotherhood source responded: "How can we be sure that the US administration is dealing honestly with us?" The implication was that Washington is keeping its lines of communication open with the Egyptian opposition and army.

Ambassador Haridi agrees that the F-16 deal signals an unprecedented level of support for Morsi and the Brotherhood. He finds this regrettable because "it leads me to understand that the Muslim Brotherhood reached power with US approval, and this means the provision of services." Therefore, he added, "Congress will not intervene, unless there is some dramatic excess or unless the Brotherhood deviates from the framework of its understanding with Washington. In any event, the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo understands the rules perfectly and has no intention of breaking them."

Given Morsy's proven attitude toward Israel, it is inevitable that he would turn these weapons on Israel if God forbid he is ever given the chance. Maybe it's time for Congress to intervene.

What could go wrong? 

Labels: anti-Semitism, Barack Hussein Obama, Egypt, F-16, Mohammed Morsy, Muslim Brotherhood

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:32 PM