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  • Mubarak, Army, U.S., Israel vs Egyptian People

    [As government forces have attacked peaceful protesters in Tahrir Square, Emad Mekay from Cairo reports] Mubarak is clearly backed by the Americans. He took some moves after speaking with Obama and a visit by a former U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Frank Wisner. Mubarak, the army, the Americans and the Israelis are clearly on one side. That’s one camp. The people of Egypt (most of them now) are the other. The Americans want Mubarak to stay on for longer while they look for a suitable successor that would be best for U.S. interests. Mubarak’s tactic is to make Egyptians choose between…

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  • Unrest Spreads to Sinai

    A Bedouin youth casually spreads out a piece of cloth before a police headquarters in Sheikh Zwayyed town in Sinai, the vast desert area to the east of Cairo across the Suez. “I will leave when Mubarak leaves,” he says. [Full piece from Inter Press Service]

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  • Chomsky: Strategic and Economic Objectives, Not Anti-Islamization, Drives U.S. Policy

    [While many are claiming that a central goal of U.S. policy is to minimize influence of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Noam Chomsky contributed this to our blog] It is well-established, including the major scholarly literature, that the U.S. supports democracy if and only if that accords with strategic and economic objectives.  Following that principle, in the Arab/Muslim region it has generally supported radical Islamists in fear of secular nationalism (as has the UK).  Familiar examples include Saudi Arabia, the ideological center of radical Islam (and of Islamic terror), Zia ul-Haq, the most vicious of Pakistan’s dictators, Reagan’s…

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  • An Open Letter to President Barack Obama

    ————————————————————————————————————————— [To sign; for recent news releases on Egypt from the Institute for Public Accuracy] Dear President Obama: As political scientists, historians, and researchers in related fields who have studied the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy, we the undersigned believe you have a chance to move beyond rhetoric to support the democratic movement sweeping over Egypt. As citizens, we expect our president to uphold those values. For thirty years, our government has spent billions of dollars to help build and sustain the system the Egyptian people are now trying to dismantle.

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  • Report from Cairo

    From Alex Ortiz in Cairo: “The army is beginning to come into Cairo … tens of thousands converged in midan al-gala’ coming from three different protest marches. Total communication blackout. Reports of senior police officers ordering their men to stand down and not beat or fire tear gas at protesters in Midan al-gala an hour ago.”

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  • Report on Latest from Cairo

    CAIRO, Egypt [11 p.m. local time] — 1-Some government media figures appear to be joining ranks with the protesters. Mahmoud Saad, a talk show host in the Egyptian state-run TV, has announced that he will no longer appear on TV starting tonight after he came under pressure from top government officials to report “untruths” about the protests. Mahmoud Saad, a popular TV host, has told other journalists that his disappearance from his daily show, Masr El-Naharda (Egypt Today), comes in protests against pressure to defame protesters as rioters “destroying the country”. The state is clearly starting to launch a media…

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  • Police in Cairo Beating up Jounalists

    [From 9:28 a.m. ET]: Police started beating up journalists protesting outside the Press Syndicate in downtown Cairo. They beat up women journalists too who were screaming and crying for help. “Do not club women. Do not club women,” some of the men rushed to the police asking them not to target women. “You’ll make things worse if you use violence” many journalists were telling police officers outside the building. In the industrial city of Mahala, police virtually cordoned off the city. My sources in the city tell me the police ordered early dismissal of textile factory workers to preempt any…

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  • From Alex Ortiz in Cairo

    [The Egyptian government has apparently block Twitter, Facebook (as of Wed. morn U.S. ET) and other internet tools, though apparently some people are able to get around such restrictions. Email from 8:45 a.m. ET:] Downtown Cairo today remains in a state of high alert. There are many security forces and plainsclothed policemen visible on every street in the center of the city. There have been minor clashes with protesters in various parts of Cairo, as well as in Assiyut – a city to the south. At the moment, security forces are cordoning off Tahrir Square. Private security guards in the…

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  • Video from Cairo

    Phone lines are intermittent and Twitter has reportedly been blocked in Egypt. Here is a live video feed: ustream.tv/channel/cairodowntown [update: ustream has been blocked, streaming now intermittently at livestream.com/cairowitness — further update, now at: www.justin.tv/cairowitness] Here is a YouTube video from earlier today:

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  • Ukraine’s Assault on a Free Press

    In Ukraine, where media diversity is often defined by which powerful oligarch controls which TV station, one network, TVi — known for its independent investigative style — is under intense legal pressure, with its owner not part of Ukraine’s power circles. TVi faces a court hearing on Tuesday over a legal claim that the station’s frequencies were not legally authorized. But critics, including many from abroad, have accused the Kiev government of using the case as a way to bludgeon a troublesome media voice into silence. … [See full piece on consortiumnews.com]

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  • MIT, Palestinian Grandmother Among Targets of “Lawfare” Regarding Israel

    “There are differences, but the MIT case involves many of the same concepts as Ali’s case. In both, the plaintiffs are trying to use the courts to weaponize the law to attack protected speech. They are trying to prohibit protests against Israel’s actions using civil rights law. They are using different statutes, but both rely on much the same type…

  • Rabbis Are Not a Monolith in New York City Mayoral Campaign

    An open letter from rabbis across the country recently called State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani a threat to the “safety and dignity of Jews in every city.” But rabbis––and New York City-based rabbis in particular––are not a monolith, and many openly support Mamdani and his campaign for mayor. 

  • “Occupy Wall Street: An American Dream”

    Michelle Fawcett’s new documentary, “Occupy Wall Street: An American Dream,” examines how a populist upsurge swept the nation, put oligarchs on their back foot, and revived working-class politics. 

  • U.N.: Gaza “Proxy Occupation Force” or Protection Force?

    “The colonial powers that carved up Palestine for their European settler colony, granted the colony full impunity as it carried out its bloody 100-year project of ethnic cleansing, and then supported it in two years of open genocide, are now plotting to finish the job with a U.S. and Western directed proxy occupation force manned…

  • Challenging Israel’s Impunity

    Jereski states that “the U.S. government has worked to subvert international law and we need to bring an end to Israel’s impunity.” He notes that while the U.S. is trying to legitimize Israeli control of more of Gaza, the UN Uniting for Peace resolution of Sept. 18, 2024 “Demands that Israel brings to an end without delay its unlawful presence in…

  • The Washington Post vs. Social Spending

    Writing for FAIR, Conor Smyth argues that the Washington Post has erred in its recent coverage of European social spending. In an article this month titled “Europe’s High Quality of Life Is Getting Hard to Afford. Just Ask France,” the Post argues that Europe needs to embrace cuts. 

  • Record Israeli Attacks on West Bank: Palestinians “Need to be Protected”

    “On the first day of the olive harvest in Turmus’ayyer, the Israeli Defense Force leads a group of farmers directly into a brutal ambush by armed settlers. These people need to be in prison by tomorrow, and the people of this village, and all across Palestine, need to be protected. Enough is enough.”

  • “Shadow President” Larry Ellison: Targeting Media and Gaza

    Israeli media outlet N12 reports in Hebrew that Larry Ellison is ready to put $350 million into a plan backed by Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, along with Palantir boss Peter Thiel, to turn Gaza into a haven for billionaires. See summary by The Canary. 

  • Flotilla Activists Abducted by Israel Demand Release of Mohammed Ibrahim

    “Here & Now” reports: “more than 10,000 Palestinians remain in Israeli custody, and most are held without charges. Among the imprisoned is 16-year-old American, Mohammed Ibrahim. His family has been tirelessly trying to secure his release since he was taken by Israeli soldiers eight months ago.”

  • “The Muslim World: A Requiem”

    “Let us be honest: most Muslim-majority governments today are client states, marionettes in a puppet theatre directed by Western powers, primarily the United States. Iran is the notable exception, though even it often walks the tightrope between pragmatism and defiance. The rest?“

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