יום ראשון, כ״ז תמוז תשפ״וSunday, July 12, 2026
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By Barry Rubin
Egypt's draft constitution enshrines Sharia rule without rubbing people’s faces in it.
The day after the U.S. administration cast Morsi in the role of new peacekeeper, he recast himself as something more like a new pharoah. And, despite what the New York Times and the Washington Post wrote, he is not giving back any of the real power he's granted himself.
By Barry Rubin
If 2011 was the year of the Arab Spring, 2013 looks to be the year of the Arab Fall.
Muslim thugs in Jordan last weekend attacked a large group of young men and women who had gathered at a coffee shop in Amman to celebrate Halloween. The thugs were members of the Muslim Brotherhood organization and the Salafi group. They claimed that the party was being held by "worshippers of the devil" and said Halloween was in violation of the teachings of Islam.
While Obama's proposed budget decreased funding for Israeli anti-missile systems, it was Congress which, in the end, nearly doubled the funding.
In the article on The New York Times interview with Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, the Times wrote that the Camp David Accord "called for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the West Bank and Gaza to make way for full Palestinian self-rule." this is quite false.
By Barry Rubin
The Obama Administration is backing (Islamist) Turkey as the distributor of weapons supplied by (opportunistically pro-Islamist) Qatar.
According to the Egyptian newspaper, Al-Masry Al-Youm, due to negotiations between Egypt and jihadists groups, "Operation Eagle" has been halted, at least temporarily.
By Barry Rubin
It’s the age of revolutionary Islamism, especially Sunni Islamism. And you better learn to understand what this is all about real fast.
On Friday, several thousand Egyptians protested against the Muslim Brotherhood and their new Egyptian president Morsi. Protesters marched in Cairo and Alexandria. The Muslim Brotherhood organized a counter-protest at the same time. In clashes between the pro and anti Morsi protesters, at least 13 people were injured.
It is still early in the day, but according to Arab news outlets, 200 people in Cairo have begun protesting against Egyptian President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood takeover. The protest is expected to get larger as evening approaches and the temperature cools down.
A major rally is planned for August 24 to protest against the Muslim Brotherhood and President Mohamed Morsy.
Many Israelis do not know the rules of the game of the Middle East: the more we show enthusiasm for something, the higher its price rises, and the opposite holds true as well: the less interest we express in something, the lower the demanded price will be. If we announce day and night that we want peace with our enemies or to obtain the release of a kidnapped soldier who is in their hands - the price for the peace or the soldier will be more than we can pay.
Muslims can't agree on what Islam is. What they can agree on is that most other forms of Islam are heresy and, depending on the severity of the heresy, their practitioners may be killed. "Big fleas have little fleas, Upon their backs to bite 'em, And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so, ad infinitum." Islamic revolutions have countless smaller fleas who interpret Islam more strictly and are even more determined to turn society into an exact ideal replica of 7th Century Arabia.
I’ve been wavering back and forth on this, but more and more people I’ve proposed this theory to are beginning to say that there might be something to it. Last week’s Sinai attack is still a mystery. A bunch of Palestinian terrorists kill the soldiers of a Muslim Brotherhood run country, all to get 2 […]
It appears that the Russians, the Turks and the Saudis will keep Syria at a low boil, making it difficult for either side to fully impose its will on the other, and impossible for a Sunni Islamist regime to emerge. What is remarkable, though, is the success of Russian diplomacy: despite all of the Obama administration's courtship, the Erdogan government has decided to signal its dependence on Moscow in the most visible -and, for Washington- humiliating way possible.
David Ha'ivri, director of the Shomron Liaison Office, responds to a Jewishpress.com story about Jewish groups that expressed concern over Congresswoman Michele Bachmann's efforts to uncover the relationship between Huma Abedin, top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and leading figures in the Muslim Brotherhood.
By JTA
Jewish groups were among the 42 religious and secular organizations that told five members of Congress that their recent allegations of Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the U.S. government were endangering religious freedom. Last month, five Republican lawmakers wrote to various government agencies and asserted that among others, Huma Abedin, a deputy chief of staff for […]
By meeting separately with Khaled Mashaal and Mahmoud Abbas, Mursi has created the impression that the Palestinians have two legitimate leaders. Even more, Mursi has put Mashaal on an equal footing with heads of state, thus granting legitimacy not only to the Hamas leader, but to his entire movement.
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is making fresh allegations of ties between an Islamist movement and vast parts of the U.S. government.
By Barry Rubin
The interesting news was not that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was pelted with stuff while visiting Cairo, the important issue was who was doing the pelting. Once upon a time, anti-American radicals threw things at U.S. leaders. But now….the hurlers of objects were people from the Free Egyptians Party and other Egyptian liberals. At the same time, leading Christians refused to meet with Hillary.
By Aidan Clay
Egypt's Coptic Christian minority fears that the restoration of parliament, which will grant greater powers to Islamists, will be used to institute Sharia law and stifle religious freedom.
As U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's armored car motorcade was riding through the Egyptian port city of Alexandria where she had given a speech on democratic rights, a tomato hit an accompanying Egyptian official in the face, and shoes and a water bottle were thrown at Hillary's car. Clinton herself was not hit, but she may have been able to hear the taunts of "Monica, Monica" which the protesters were chanting. Protesters in Cairo and Alexandria accused Clinton of cutting a deal with the Muslim Brotherhood, at the expense of Egyptian liberals and non-Islamists.
By Barry Rubin
Here we are in the middle of 2012, and all of the events of the last eighteen months don’t seem to have taught the current administration’s policymakers or its supportive scribes anything. Can’t they even consider: “Hmm, perhaps this “Arab Spring” thing isn’t working out so well … “, or, “Maybe the rapid rise of revolutionary Islamist movements is just a little bit scary. Maybe we should be cautious about promoting it”? Can’t they?
An anonymous U.S. official has said that, in addition to stable relations with Israel, “the U.S. is expecting Egypt to use the good ties that link the Muslim Brotherhood with the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip to curtail any plans that Hamas might have towards escalation with Israel." The U.S. is also expecting President Morsi's Egypt to remain committed to its traditional policy of limited engagement with Iran.
Muslim integration into Europe is going swimmingly, much like the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the Arab Spring. It’s going like a house on fire, not to mention a bus, a lot of cars and two towers on fire—on the other side of the Atlantic. Whatever problems there are, as with the peace process and the spring process, are undoubtedly the fault of someone who isn’t a Muslim.
By Barry Rubin
Because of political reasons and especially due to the ideological monopoly of certain forces over Western institutions, most of the academics, analysts, journalists, and politicians who speak on these issues get away with pushing the moderation thesis. They are virtually never asked to provide proof. This wrong idea thus sets current U.S. policy and creates a great risk of future crisis, instability, repression, and severe damage to U.S. interests.
Whenever the Muslim Brotherhood are asked if Sharia law will be imposed, the response is that their intention is to build a "democratic and civil state" that guarantees freedom of religion and the right to peaceful protest.. But anyone who traces the actions of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists over the past decades -- in Egypt, Tunisia or anywhere else in the Arab world -- will see that their intention is to further Islamize their societies, not to create civil alternatives.
By Barry Rubin
Lenin once reportedly said that he would get the capitalists to sell him the rope with which to hang them. But Egypt is a far clearer case of such a situation. Will the dhimmis finance the consolidation of the Muslim Brotherhood’s power in Egypt? It sure looks like that will happen though they probably will be cheap about it.
The slogan of the Muslim Brotherhood is "God is our objective, the Qur'an is our law, the prophet is our leader, jihad is our way and death in the name of Allah is our supreme aspiration." Their symbol expresses this ideology well: the color green represents Paradise, two swords in the center express the two avowals of Islam - there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger - and one word, which appears in the Qur'an just once: "Wa-aidu" - "and prepare."
Democracy without a legitimate constitution and a Bill of rights, especially protecting the rights of minorities, can become a very scary thing. What you get is a tyranny of the majority. So the United States, as the world’s foremost democracy and sole superpower, must insist that elected regimes be restrained by a constitution that safeguards against a gravitation toward tyranny.
Egypt’s future remains in flux. On Sunday, Mohammed Morsi of the radical Muslim Brotherhood movement became Egypt’s new president, narrowly defeating the secular Ahmed Shafiq by 52-48 percent. Just two weeks ago, however, Egypt’s military council issued an interim constitution stripping the president of most of his powers. A few days before that, the Supreme Constitutional Court dissolved Egypt’s parliament, controlled by radical Islamic parties, on a legal technicality.
By Moshe Herman
Yishai is joined by alternative peace activist Baruch Widen. Together, they discuss the recent presidential election in Egypt and its affect on the relationship between Israel and Egypt.
Morsi's election will have tremendous reverberations beyond Egypt's borders, and not least for Israel, as the Muslim Brotherhood has questioned the validity of the 30-plus year peace treaty between Israel and Egypt; and is also the inspiration for and closely affiliated with Hamas, which rules in Gaza, and borders both Egypt and Israel.
TEL AVIV – Egypt’s military coup is now nearly complete. That may be distressing for Egyptian democracy, but it could help the Israel-Egypt relationship.
Ambassador Dennis Ross, famed dissident and women’s rights activist Ayaan Hirsi-Ali, and Literary Editor of The New Republic, Leon Wieseltier joined former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi offered their perspectives in the session titled ‘A Strategic Look at Tomorrow.’
Aides to President Barack Obama have been holding “hundreds” of meetings behind closed-doors with representatives of the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR), America's largest Muslim advocacy organization, with close ties to Hamas and its parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood.
By Barry Rubin
Egypt’s fate, I think, will not be settled by the June 16-17 presidential election. It has already been set by the parliamentary election which has given a large majority to the Islamists as well as the ability to write the constitution. If Ahmad Shafiq defeats the Brotherhood candidate, Muhammad al-Mursi, the only way out would be a Shafiq-army alliance, giving the president — who has no political party and no organized base of support in parliament — some muscle.
Today, most of the anti-regime demonstrations throughout the kingdom are being initiated and led by Muslim Brotherhood supporters whose goal is to turn Jordan into an Islamic republic. Many Arabs feel that President Barack Obama's endorsement of the Muslim Brotherhood has emboldened the Islamists and increased their appetite to drive moderate and secular rulers out of the Arab world.
By Barry Rubin
Let’s remember that the Islamists are still headed for control of Egypt. They might win the presidency in the second round. The parliament, which they run, is going to make the rules and write the constitution. If they don’t like who becomes president, they will reduce his powers.
Cleric Safwat Higazi: "Our capital shall not be Cairo, Mecca, or Medina. It shall be Jerusalem, Allah willing. Our cry shall be: 'Millions of martyrs march toward Jerusalem! Millions of martyrs march toward Jerusalem!"
With two leading Islamist presidential candidates that are backed by the Muslim Brotherhood, chances are high that Egypt will vote an Islamist into the office of president. This will undoubtedly be followed by an Islamist constitution.
From the outset of the revolts in other Arab countries King Abdullah was very concerned that a similar revolt could threaten his regime. He was therefore quick to announce reforms. He has also been trying to divert the attention towards Israel by blaming the Jewish state for the shortcomings and failures of the Jordanian government, just like other Arab leaders have been doing for years.
By Barry Rubin
Egypt will hold its presidential election May 23-24 with a possible run-off June 16-17. It is impossible at this point to predict what’s going to happen but I can make a good guess. Eight weeks from now Egypt will be led by either a radical anti-American Islamist who wants to wipe Israel off the map or by a radical anti-American nationalist who just hates Israel passionately.
By J. E. Dyer
A solution in which the Syrian people are empowered to operate more freely in a true multi-party government, under the aegis of multinational protection against both Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, would be the most desirable, achievable outcome. It is not possible to broker this outcome while ignoring Russia.
The “Syrian people” is a composite of Sunni Muslims, Alawites, Kurds, Druze, Turkmens and Circassians.
Former IDF Chief of Staff and current Minister of Strategic Affairs said he does not fear a Muslim Brotherhood in the aftermath of Bash al-Assad's removal.
Ali Akbar Salehi said that Iran is prepared to upgrade its diplomatic relations with Egypt to the Ambassadorial level.
The Freedom and Justice Party will lead the Labor, Planning and Budget committees.
Muslim Brotherhood spokesman: ""We will reject any request from the Israeli embassy to meet."
Mohamed Saad el-Katatni quoted as saying that Camp David accord "needs reevaluation".
Islamist parties expected to fair well in upcoming Libyan elections.
The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party wins 235 seats; the ultra-conservative Salafist Al-Nur party wins 121 seats.
Offer included four ministries in the Syrian government in exchange for supporting Assad.
The more conservative Salafists are expected to gain 25% of the total seats.
Number two US diplomat William Burns meets with Mohamed Morsi, head of Freedom and Justice Party.
Egyptian Foreign Ministry says it informed Israel that it would not be "appropriate" for Jewish pilgrims to make the annual visit.
Jewish access to venerated Rabbi's tomb near Delta city of Damanhour under threat.
Ormat Technologies Inc., an Israeli company developing geothermal and recovered energy-based power plants, scored two major contracts with American energy providers.
July 10, 2026 
