WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Islamists appear to be losing steam in the lead-up to Egypt's presidential election next week, according to recent Gallup surveys. Less than half of Egyptians (42%) polled in April say they support the Muslim Brotherhood, a noticeable decline from 63% who said the same in February. Support for conservative Islamists, often referred to as "Salafis," is also down, but less dramatically.

Syrian rebels battling the regime of President Bashar al-Assad have begun receiving significantly more and better weapons in recent weeks, an effort paid for by Persian Gulf nations and coordinated in part by the United States, according to opposition activists and U.S. and foreign officials.

Obama administration officials emphasized that the United States is neither supplying nor funding the lethal material, which includes antitank weaponry. Instead, they said, the administration has expanded contacts with opposition military forces to provide the gulf nations with assessments of rebel credibility and command-and-control infrastructure.

Material is being stockpiled in Damascus, in Idlib near the Turkish border and in Zabadani on the Lebanese border. Opposition activists who two months ago said the rebels were running out of ammunition said this week that the flow of weapons — most still bought on the black market in neighboring countries or from elements of the Syrian military — has significantly increased after a decision by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other gulf states to provide millions of dollars in funding each month.

Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood also said it has opened its own supply channel to the rebels, using resources from wealthy private individuals and money from gulf states, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, said Mulham al-Drobi, a member of the Brotherhood’s executive committee.

Administration officials also held talks in Washington this week with a delegation of Kurds from sparsely populated eastern Syria, where little violence has occurred. The talks included discussion of what one U.S. official said remained the “theoretical” possibility of opening a second front against Assad’s forces that would compel him to move resources from the west.

The Pentagon has prepared options for Syria extending all the way to air assaults to destroy the nation’s air defenses. U.S. officials, however, have said that such involvement remains very unlikely. Instead, they said, the United States and others are moving forward toward increased coordination of intelligence and arming for the rebel forces.

That's the most important thing about Aboul Fotouh's candidacy: he is bringing to the fore the contradictions inside the MB, forcing a debate with the hardliner leadership controlled by Shater and his allies, and eroding at a traditional of strict obedience that no longer makes sense when the movement is not banned or persecuted.

Observers believe that the revival of the Brotherhood’s religious discourse reflects the group’s confusion and threatens the tenuous trust it is building with secular Egyptians and the West.

Since he launched his campaign, the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate, Mohamed Morsy, affirmed his commitment to the group’s “Nahda” (renaissance) political platform, which seeks to establish democracy, ensure equality and justice and improve the general welfare. But at campaign rallies, Morsy's campaign often strays from these terrestrial aims.

Besides his constant pledge to implement God’s Sharia, Morsy has been touring the country with backers who portray him as the sole Islamist candidate invoking an overtly religious language. His cheerleaders have tweaked the revolution’s famous slogan, “The people want to bring down the regime” into “The people want God’s Sharia to be implemented.”

In a recent rally, Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie compared Morsy to one of the prophet’s most venerated companions and the first rightly-guided caliph. “The Ummah had sworn allegiance to Abu Bakr, and by the same token the Ummah will swear allegiance to Morsy as president of Egypt, God willing,” said Badie, addressing thousands of his group’s supporters in the Delta town of Mahalla on Tuesday.

At the same event, Salafi preacher Safwat Hegazy, who has recently appeared with Morsy at more than one rally, addressed the crowd saying that Morsy and his group are capable of implementing Sharia. Then, Hegazy, a member of the Salafi-led Jurisprudence Commission for Rights and Reform, dropped a bombshell, adding: “We believe that the dream of reviving the Islamic caliphate will be realized by the hands of Morsy and his brothers and his party. Jerusalem will be the capital of this caliphate.”

At his first rally last month, Morsy himself had reportedly chanted the Muslim Brotherhood’s controversial slogan: “The Quran is our constitution.”

Despite his relatively liberal outlook, Abouel Fotouh has already earned the support of the Salafi Dawah, the nation’s largest Salafi bloc, and Jama'a al-Islamiya. Meanwhile, his progressive views on democracy have appealed to many liberal and revolutionary forces. The 60-year-old doctor is also expected to attract the votes of many of the Muslim Brotherhood’s young members.

Since it assumed power after Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, the performance of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has been, at times, head-scratching. Extolled in the wake of the uprising as the revolution’s protector, many have come to view it as an agent of the counter-revo­lu­tion. It often has been obstinate, before abruptly yielding to pressure. It values its long ties with Washington, from which it receives much assistance, but seemed willing to jeopardise them by targeting U.S.-funded NGOs. Suspected by Islamists of seeking to deprive them of opportunity to govern and by non-Islamists of entering a secret pact with the Muslim Brotherhood, it finds itself in the worst of both worlds: an angry tug-of-war with liberal protesters and a high-wire contest with Islamists. It displays little interest in governing, wishing instead to protect privileges, but erratic behaviour threatens even that.

The interests the SCAF wishes to defend are a mix of the national and more parochial, but insofar as the military is persuaded it alone can protect Egypt, it has a tendency to conflate its well-being with that of the country. With the spread of internal insecurity, volatility in the Sinai and uncertainty in Libya and Sudan, it hardly sees this as a time to trust untested civilians. But it also hardly sees this as a time for others to challenge its privileged status – such as a secret budget sheltered from civilian oversight; de facto immunity from prosecution; and vast business ventures that affect key sectors of the economy. It almost certainly has no wish to remain in the political spotlight, governing the nation and thus blamed for what inevitably will be a taxing period of social and economic distress. But nor does it intend to be sidelined, lose its self-ascribed role as guarantor of constitutional legitimacy, be stripped of its economic privileges or see political institutions in the hands of a single (Islamist) party. Its objective is to stay in the background yet remain an arbitrator; and shun the limelight even as it retains decisive influence.

Despite the common perception that Salafis are strict followers of Sharia compared to the Muslim Brotherhood, many of my research participants often talked about Salafis as religiously less strict than the Ikhwan. From the work of Ikwani leaders in the village, the villagers have noticed the strict hierarchy that informs the work of the Brotherhood members on the ground. In other words, the villagers understood the Brotherhood’s adherence to the dictates of the Guidance Bureau, or the Murshid, as an orthodoxy that made the Brotherhood stricter than the Salafis. They often said to me: “How come Ikhwan grassroot leaders all agree on the same things?” An incident that they often referred to is the insistence of Muslim Brotherhood members to force people to pray outside of a mosque, not build by the Brotherhood, during the Eid al-Fitr prayer last September.

Salafis, on the other hand, are seen as religiously flexible. “Aren’t we all Salafis?” many Nour supporters often repeated to me. For them, Salafis represent a religious understanding that seeks to closely follow the times of the Prophet and his followers — the Prophet was married to a Coptic woman, his neighbors were Jews, he dealt with each situation on a case-by-case basis, hence the perception that Salafis are, believe it or not, lenient. This was reflected on the ground; Salafis, at least in the village where I worked, appear to be more laid-back compared to the Ikhwan, and hence, more sensitive and open to the local context.

A poll conducted by Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies has shown that presidential candidates Ahmed Shafiq and Amr Moussa would benefit from the ouster of presidential hopeful Omar Suleiman.

Shafiq would benefit by 40 percent and Moussa by 27.4 percent.

The poll also showed that the exclusion of Salafi hopeful Hazem Salah Abu Ismail and Muslim Brotherhood nominee Khairat al-Shater will prove troublesome for their supporters because Shater is the second preference for a quarter of Abu Ismail’s proponents, while Abu Ismail is the also the second-best choice for 27 percent of Shater’s supporters.

The poll has shown that the Muslim Brotherhood’s reserve candidate, Mohamed Morsy, is not a preferable replacement for Shater supporters, with only 13.3 percent saying they would pick Morsy next to Moussa and Abdel Moneim Abouel Fotouh. This result shows that the bloc that supports Shater may not be as coherent as it seems.

Nearly 40 percent of Egyptian voters are undecided less than six weeks before the first presidential election since the ouster of veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak, a poll published on Saturday found.

A full 38 percent of respondents said they had yet to make up their minds which of the 23 candidates to vote for in the May 23-24 first round, the poll published by the independent daily Al-Masry al-Yom found.

Among the 62 percent who had decided, 20.1 percent said they would vote for Mubarak’s long-time intelligence chief Omar Suleiman who briefly served as vice president before the president’s overthrow in February last year.

Suleiman was followed by former Muslim Brotherhood member Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh with 12.4 percent and Salafist candidate Hazem Abu Ismail with 11.7 percent.

Former Arab League chief and Mubarak-era foreign minister Amr Mussa trailed with 6.4 percent, followed by the Brotherhood’s official candidate Khairat El-Shater with 3.2 percent.

- For weeks before the selection of the committee, say repeatedly that you want the majority of the committee to come from outside of Parliament. Be sure to state that you will pick people based on their skills and relevance to the process. Then backtrack on all of these promises just moments before the vote, declaring that you plan instead to give half the seats on the committee to members of parliament.

- When discussing with parliamentary members the procedures for selecting the 100-person committee tasked with drafting the new constitution, present a list of candidates you have already agreed upon with your main ally in parliament (which together you dominate). Use your parliamentary majority to approve the measure without giving anyone else a chance to discuss the candidates' merits. In fact, you don't even have to discuss it with your party members, who probably blindly believe the decisions of your party's politburo, the Guidance Council.

When Ali al-Sallabi, a leading Islamist activist once affiliated with the MB, proposed a National Rally Coalition to include the MB and other Islamists, the MB ultimately rejected the proposal. The objective of the MB at the moment is to have control over its political arm. It ostentatiously shuns alliances with ex-jihadists (like those of the Libyan Islamic Movement for Change -- LIMC) to avoid any international outcry. It will also reject initiatives proposed by ex-affiliates, like Sallabi, as this will send a wrong message to the grassroots and the mid-ranks. Domestic and international legitimacy, expansion of audience, and control of members seem to be the determinants of the Libyan MB's behavior in the current transitional period.

The emerging Libyan political scene poses several major challenges to the MB. Unlike the MB in Egypt and Ennahda in Tunisia, the Islamists of Libya have little history of interactions with the masses.

To put in laymen’s terms, the Khairat ElShater’s nomination will cause problems in five major areas: Inside the MB, the political scene, the public, ElShater’s personal life, and the Media.

Inside the MB: The grumbling inside the MB over ElShater control of everything is really irking the members, who are not happy with the Brotherhood’s decisions, positions, and the hierarchical structure that ElShater is attempting to impose on their flat structure in order to fully control them. This is further heightened by the AbulFotouh campaign itself, and how many ex-MB members are coming out of the woodwork with open criticism and dirty laundry to air to the public, which is turning off the Youth of the Brotherhood from its organization and message as well. The speak of a real split inside the MB is not false nor exaggerated, with many members believing that a case of disintegration has afflicted their beloved organization, and its decay will be accelerated by the presidential competition between ElShater and Abulfotouh, eventually splintering a sizeable part of it forever. Even their political messaging, painting ElShater as this age’s Prophet Joseph, has been met with derision even amongst the MB’s rank and file. Win or lose, the MB, as a whole, will be in a weaker state by the time the Presidential elections is over.
The Political scene: The Nomination stoked the rhetoric that the MB is trying to replicate the NDP and completely control all branches of the government.

The Islamist majority in the Egyptian parliament appears to have badly overplayed its hand with its attempt to rush the formation of the constituent assembly and impose a majority of its own pre-selected candidates without negotiation. Liberal, secular, labour and other representatives (including those of the Coptic Church, Al Azhar and the Supreme Constitutional court) have withdrawn from the assembly, and negotiations to convince them to come back have been unfruitful. The assembly's legitimacy is so tarnished (and its collection of members so arbitrary, unrepresentative, and in some cases undistinguished) that it really would probably be better to start over.

A number of activists in Beheira Governorate were assaulted by anonymous persons on Thursday evening while displaying a video titled "Ikhwan Kazeboon" (The brothers are liars).

Activist Amr Habib said that during the screening he and his colleagues were harassed and beaten by a group of people who smashed a laptop and a projector in protest against the content of the video.

Activist Farag Abu Foul said the video was displayed for the first time as part of the Ikhwan Kazeboon campaign which tries to show contradictions in the statements and actions of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Muslim Brotherhood's candidate for Egypt's presidency is lobbying hard for support of ultraconservative Muslim clerics, promising them a say over legislation in the future to ensure it is in line with Islamic law, as he tries to rally the divided Islamist vote behind him.

The campaign dealmaking is a sign of how the Brotherhood, which is Egypt's strongest political movement and presents itself to the public as a moderate force, could be pushed into a more hard-line agenda by competition from the ultraconservatives known as Salafis.

What was the Brotherhood thinking? The nomination of Shater seems to have been a response to threats and opportunities a rapidly changing political arena, rather than the hatching of a long-term plan. But many Egyptians would disagree, seeing it instead as the culmination of a long-hatching conspiracy with the SCAF. I think it will reveal itself to be a strategic blunder which has placed the Brotherhood in a no-win situation.

If a Brotherhood candidate wins, then the movement would control the parliament, the constitutional assembly, and the presidency. It would therefore stand alone in the face of the military, and would bear full responsibility for whatever happened in Egypt's economy, politics and society in the coming period.

If it loses the election, then it would conclusively shatter its own carefully cultivated air of invincibility.

The United States had already announced that it had been providing humanitarian aid to opposition groups. And on Sunday an administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that the United States had already begun to supply some aid, including communications gear, to the rebel Free Syrian Army. The agreement with Turkey would formalize and increase that aid, though officials insist that no weaponry would be sent.

Some Arab satellite news stations have also contributed to the dominance of Islamists by interviewing more of them and focusing on them as opposed to more secular opposition figures or intellectuals. In Daraa activists complained that satellite networks were marginalizing prominent leftists.

Within the SNC, the SMB is behaving in a very authoritarian fashion and is facing growing criticism from both secular and Islamist opposition. The divides in the SNC are not Islamist versus secular. The secularist SNC President Burhan Ghalioun walks with the SMB. Other Islamists like the Imad al Din al Rashid's Syrian National Movement are hostile to the SMB.

Homs receives help only from members of the Syrian wing of the MB who are based in the Gulf, Lebanon, or Jordan. Most of the money has gone to aid and medical support. In late 2011, the SMB had a meeting in Saudi Arabia during which they decided against supporting the armed groups. As the SMB they did not want to be involved in this, perhaps as a result of their experience in the 1980s, but individual members of the SMB send money that is channeled to insurgent activities as well.

Now the Brotherhood controls a lot of access to money in Homs and the Damascus suburbs. But just because people take money from the Brotherhood does not mean they support it. The Brotherhood wants to improve and increase its name. They are not scary but they are trying to control. Some people are not happy about how the Brotherhood is financing on the ground. Some people who buy weapons are not ready to deal with the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood only gives certain people money for hardship or weapons.

Another Damascus activist worried that many demonstrations in the Damascus suburbs had Islamic slogans. Indeed in Harasta I heard songs about Muslims and infidels. In Duma and Sanamein I heard demonstrators calling for jihad while in Zamalka in evening demonstrations people prayed in the middle of a busy commercial street. The activist told me that in Homs's Dir Baalbeh neighborhood, the Brotherhood's slogan of "Islam is the solution" was raised. "In the last months the Brotherhood became strong on the ground," he said. "Communists told me they won't go out in demonstrations that say ‘God is great' and religious things. A lot of demonstrations in Daraa, Homs, Idlib are led by clerics and it scares secular people." He complained that the SMB chose the names for the Friday demonstrations. "'So National Unity' Friday became ‘Khalid bin al Walid' [the early Muslim leader who conquered Syria in the 7th century] Friday and ‘We won't Kneel' Friday became ‘We Won't Kneel Except before God."

"Islamists are going so fast," a leader of the HRC told me. "They are not waiting. A few days ago Hizbultahrir put up flag of Islam, but everybody knows that this slogan is for Hizbultahrir. Hizbultahrir started recruiting, they were arrested in previous years, and now they started again building their networks. They started working with armed groups. Financing them. Other Islamists also started working, they believe the regime is about to fall and they started building their relationships."

CAIRO — The Islamist party that leads the new Egyptian Parliament is threatening to review the 1979 peace treaty with Israel if the United States cuts off aid to the country over a crackdown on American-backed nonprofit groups here.

The Obama administration and Congressional leaders have already warned Egypt that the United States might cut off its annual aid to the country, which in the most recent budget came to $1.3 billion in military supplies and about $250 million in other subsidies, including some money directed to the nonprofit groups under investigation. At least two senators have introduced legislation that could curtail the aid, and the Brotherhood released its statements on Thursday as the House Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing on the matter.

"The opposition that has money is the Muslim Brotherhood, [radical Saudi-based Sunni cleric Sheikh Adnan] Arour, and the Free Syrian Army command. Forget about them, they won't help you," the doctor says. "The Free Syrian Army in Turkey is a game, a façade to tell the world that that there is a command. I am here to tell you that nobody on the outside says you are militias, everybody knows that [Turkey-based FSA commander] Riad al-Asaad is controlled by the Turks, the Syrian National Council (the de facto opposition group) represents itself. The revolution inside must unite and every area should set up an operations command center. I'm here to help you with that."

"I'm just waiting for a gun," Omar says. "We will today accept weapons from [former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon, should he wake from his coma and offer them to us. When you see children killed, that's what you do."

The men, all devout Sunni Muslims, blame the Muslim Brotherhood. They are deeply suspicious of its role in the revolution. Some say it is arming its supporters but not helping them attack loyalist troops. Rather, most suspect it is creating sleeper cells that will be activated after Syrian President Bashar Assad falls.

"I was around in the 80s. They sold us then and they'll sell us again," the doctor says. "The Ikhwan [that is, the Muslim Brotherhood] and [its exiled leader Ali Sadreddine] Bayanouni sold us."

"If I see one of those men in the national council after the revolution strut in and try to claim a role, I swear I will kill him," Jihad says.

"I have three ships full of Libyan weapons but I can't get even a Kalashnikov to you," the doctor says, "because [Turkish Prime Minister Recip Tayyip] Erdogan won't let them in. We've talked to [other Arab leaders TIME was asked not to identify], but it's hard.

"Doctor, if this continues for another three months we will have something worse than Al-Qaeda to deal with. The drunks, the womanisers, they're not only devout now, they're becoming extremists," the captain says. "Won't that scare Western capitals into helping us?"

"Europe is about interests, that's it," the doctor says. "They worked with [Libyan revolutionary Abdelhakim] Belhadj, I know him and he is practically Al-Qaeda, they don't care. They just want somebody organized to deal with."

It's not only Muqdad whose initial optimism regarding Syria's organized opposition has faded. A wide range of activists and diplomats are voicing concerns with the SNC, criticizing its lack of cohesion and effectiveness. While the majority of them have not given up on the council, they paint a picture of an organization out of touch with the protesters on the ground and dominated by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.

“There’s a difference between Syria and Egypt,” Ya’alon said, referring to the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, adding that the “Brotherhood’s power in Syria is much less significant.”

“I don’t see a Muslim Brotherhood regime [rising in Syria], I see a relatively moderate Sunni regime based on an intellectual middle class, not the Muslim Brotherhood,” Ya’alon added.

Amid new strains in U.S.-Egypt ties, some in Washington are studying the tensions and results of recent voting for indications that democracy can take hold. Those who say the Muslim Brotherhood is showing new signs of moderation should compare its message to outsiders, in English, with its message to Egyptians and other Arabs, in Arabic.

Take the Brotherhood’s official English and Arabic Web sites, IkhwanWeb and IkhwanOnline, from one day this month. In English, the home page featured no fewer than eight articles on the solicitude of the Brotherhood toward Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority. The Arabic home page, by contrast, included just two small pieces on this theme. The contrast is sharper on other key issues. On democracy, the English home page one January day featured several articles with headlines such as “Why Islamists Are Better Democrats” and “Democracy: One of the Objectives of Shariah?” There was nothing comparable in Arabic. Instead, Arabic readers saw three pieces against freedom of the press, attacking two top independent Egyptian dailies for printing criticisms of the Brotherhood.

This kind of double talk is part of a pattern. Last February, right after Hosni Mubarak was overthrown, the Brotherhood published what it called an English-language version of Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie’s message to the Egyptian people, celebrating their revolution. In that version, he supposedly spoke mainly of democracy, tolerance, pluralism and coexistence between Egypt’s Muslims and Christians. But the text of his statement, published simultaneously in Arabic, had a totally different tone. In his authentic message, Badie wrote at great length on how Egypt’s uprising was a blessing from Allah — and how much Egyptians needed to stay firm in their Muslim faith to reap its real rewards.

As such, the ballots cast in Egypt's parliamentary election likely reflect a vote of confidence for the parties perceived as best able to deliver on the public's priorities for the next government -- priorities that are not necessarily ideological. This means that the new government must focus on their constituents' main concerns, which, whether they support liberals or Islamists, focus on economic development, employment, and stability, not saving Egyptians from moral decay.

While the hand-wringing in many Western capitals over the defeat of the liberals in favor of Islamists assumes these groups are starkly different on key issues of Western interest, this is likely not the case, according to Gallup's research. Supporters of secular and religious parties are remarkably similar on many of the key questions facing Egypt, from domestic priorities to foreign policy.

Again, supporters of the Freedom and Justice Party are virtually identical to those of the Free Egyptians Party on questions of women's rights, even those explicitly regulated by religious guidelines like divorce.

Supporters of the conservative al-Nour Party, as well as those of the Freedom and Justice Party, are little different from those of the Free Egyptians Party, a group founded by Naguib Sawiris, a Christian, on reported interreligious acceptance.

Egypt's foreign policy, however -- principally maintaining its peace treaty with Israel -- is the key concern for many international observers. While the public is split on whether the Camp David Accords are good or bad for the country, this same divide cuts across political persuasions. This suggests that Israel and its supporters will need to engage the Egyptian public on the future of relations between the two countries, rather than seek to empower a particular political party believed to be friendlier to Egypt's Jewish neighbor.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Hadas has called for parliament to be dissolved on the basis that it must be rid of al-Mohammed’s “bribed MPs.” Al-Hirbish, now the main figure of Hadas, led those calls in press releases in the past months alongside Mohammed al-Dalal, the Hadas spokesman candidate in the coming parliamentary elections. This is a clear attempt to use al-Mohammed’s exit and the party’s revamped image as an opportunity to bolster their numbers in the upcoming February 4 elections, and one that may succeed.

On the other hand, liberals are expected to lose seats, as Hadas and the Popular Action Bloc have attacked them for being passive towards the prime minister. Although the liberal Kuwait Nationalist Bloc took a clear stance against al-Mohammed and voted against him in the no-confidence vote last January, it failed to organize public protests. Rather than form their own campaigns and call for public support in the last days of al-Mohammed, liberals piggybacked off other opposition movements. And they denounced the storming incident of the parliament saying it is illegal to break in a public property. Their popular base has interpreted these moves as a sign of weakness and hesitation.

"הם חושבים שהם ורק הם מייצגים אותנו ומדברים בשמנו. הם לא נמצאים ברחובות שלנו, הם לא גרים בכפרים שלנו, הם לא מתהלכים בכפרים הקטנים שלנו,הם לא לובשים את הבגדים שלנו, לא אוכלים את הלחם שלנו, לא שותים את המים המזוהמים שלנו, לא חיים בביוב שאנחנו חיים בו ולא חווים את חיי האומללות והקושי של האנשים", אמר שייח שעבאן דארוויש, חבר מפלגת אל-נור, במהלך נאום בחירות באחד הכפרים (הציטוט לקוח מתוך הכתבה המעולה של דיוויד ד. קיקפטריק בניו יורק טיימס). לאור ציטוט זה הופכת עלייתם של הסלפים למפתיעה פחות. כזכור, חלק מרכזי מדרישות המחאה בתחריר היו דרישות חברתיות-כלכליות וחלק נאה מהמפגינים היו גם פועלים, חקלאים ואנשים משכבות מוחלשות. אולם, לאחר המהפכה נדמה היה שעובדה זו נשתכחה מלבם של מקבלי ההחלטות וכל הבטחה לשיפור חייהם של התושבים שבכפרים נמוגה. יציאתם של הסלפיסטים נגד האליטה המצרית ושימת הדגש על היותם חלק מהעם, מהווה חלק חיוני מהצלחתם בבחירות. בעוד שהאחים המוסלמים מרבים להזכיר את פועלם למען עניים (והוא איננו מבוטל, כמובן), מדובר במפלגה אשר נשלטת על ידי אנשי המעמד הבינוני שלא נוהגים לדבר על עצמם כחלק אינהרנטי מהקהילות שלמענן הם נלחמים.

הדמוקרטיה המערבית היא יצור מגזרי. באירופה היא היתה משאת נפש של המעמד הבינוני המדוכא, כמו באביב הערבי. אך לתפישת אבינרי, דמוקרטיה שאינה נתמכת על ידי כל העם היא דמוקרטיה שיסודותיה לקויים. הנחת היסוד המובלעת כאן גובלת בגזענות. המהות הערבית, רומז אבינרי, היא אותנטית. אם הפלאחים המייצגים את האותנטיות אינם תומכים בדמוקרטיה, כל תמיכה ממקור אחר איננה "אמיתית". הערבים האמיתיים מעדיפים בכלל דיקטטורים.

נדמה כי אין היום כמעט איש, במזרח התיכון או בעולם, שיהיה מוכן להקל ראש בשינוי העובר על החברה הערבית. אנחנו חוזים, אולי בפעם הראשונה במאה השנים האחרונות, התפרצות של המציאות אל תוך ההוויה הערבית. הקיבעון של הדיקטטורות טיפח אשליה שנמשכה כמה עשורים. האביב הערבי קיבץ אנשים מכל גוני הקשת החברתית, חילונים כאיסלאמיסטים, נשים כגברים, צעירים כמבוגרים, עירוניים ככפריים, בתביעה שתינתן להם האפשרות לחיות במציאות.

במצב הנוכחי, הפיכתה של הככר למטרה במקום לאמצעי, רק תוביל לאנרכיה של עימותים פנימיים ולהעדר יציבות, דבר שעלול להביא בסופו של חשבון לנסיגה של העם מהמהפכה, ולחיפוש של יד חזקה שתחזיר את השקט לרחובות מצרים. האינטרס של המהפכה הוא לפעול להקמת משטר חדש ולקיום בחירות דמוקרטיות, כך שייווצר בסיס חוקתי חדש המסתמך על המהפכה, אשר יבטיח את החרויות הבסיסיות, ביניהן חופש הדעה והארגון. כל העיניים בעולם, ובמיוחד בעולם הערבי, נשואות כעת למצרים ולמהפכתה. חובתם של המהפכנים היא לפעול בחכמה ואחריות להצלת המהפכה, ולא להגזים בהעמסת מטרות גבוהות מדי על מהפכה שרק החלה את צעדיה הראשונים במצעד של אלף המיל לכוון השינוי החברתי השורשי.

היוקרה של שופט בינלאומי בתפקיד ראש הממשלה נתפסה כנראה על ידי המלך כנכס בניסיון לשכנע את הירדנים, כי הממשלה תילחם בשחיתות ותהפוך שקופה יותר. המניע הנוסף שעמד מאחורי מינוי חסאוונה לתפקיד היה הניסיון לרכוש את תמיכת האחים המוסלמים במאמצי המלך להנהיג רפורמות מסוימות בחוקה ובחוקי הבוחרים. חסאוונה לא הסתיר את דעותיו על כך שהוצאת החמאס אל מחוץ לחוק בירדן בשנת 1999 הייתה טעות, והוא שמר על יחסים טובים עם האחים המוסלמים. יחד עם זאת, ייתכן כי לא יהיה די במינויו של חסאוונה, בפרט אם האחים המוסלמים בירדן – לצד שאר העולם – יחזו בהצלחתם הפוליטית של סניפי התנועה במדינות ערביות אחרות.

President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan has issued an order to withdraw citizenship from six naturalised persons for committing acts posing threat to the State's security and safety, a source at the General Administration for Naturalisation, Residency and Ports Affairs, has stated.

The unexpected electoral success of the Salafis — reported to have won about 25 percent of the votes in the first round of the elections, second only to the roughly 40 percent for the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party — is terrifying Egyptian liberals and troubling the West. But their new clout is also presenting a challenge to the Muslim Brotherhood, in part by plunging it into a polarizing Islamist-against-Islamist debate over the application of Islamic law in Egypt’s promised democracy, a debate the Brotherhood had worked hard to avoid.

“The Salafis want to have that conversation right now, and the Brotherhood doesn’t,” said Shadi Hamid, a researcher with the Brookings Doha Center, a Brookings Institution project in Qatar. “The Brotherhood is not interested in talking about Islamic law right now because they have other priorities that are more important. But the Salafis are going to insist on putting religion in the forefront of the debate, and that will be very difficult for the Brotherhood to ignore.”

“The revival of Islamic spirit in the region is a direct threat to Israel and the future of the Western civilization, Europe and the U.S.,” he said, asserting that “the enemy media” were already saying that “those who love Jews, the United States and Europe should make every effort to keep the Islamic spirit dormant. Look at the conspiracy!”

But moments later, the main speaker and the top candidate on his party’s list, Essam el-Erian, declared that the party believed only in nonsectarian citizenship for all, that Christians and Muslims should enjoy equal rights as “sons of the nation” in the eyes of a neutral state and that the next constitution should protect free expression. And he pledged warm relations with any nation that respected Egypt’s “independence and culture.”

The most liberal — like the former Brotherhood members in the Center Party and the presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, both breakaways from the Brotherhood — advocate essentially secular-liberal states, arguing that government should not get involved in interpreting Islam.

The Salafis, on the other hand, often favor the idea that a specialized council of religious scholars should advise the Parliament or review its legislation to ensure compliance with Islamic law.

The Brotherhood debated similar ideas as recently as a few years ago.

This year, however, the Freedom and Justice Party has sought a middle approach. Its platform calls for Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court to rule on compliance with Shariah. But that stance is essentially without consequence because the court already had that power under Mr. Mubarak, and the judiciary is a bastion of liberalism whose views of Islamic law are highly flexible, to say the least.

The chart shows the degree to which voters went for Islamist parties generally — over half in most places and about two-thirds generally, and then the split among Islamist parties between the Salafists and the rest (i.e. mainly the Muslim Brotherhood.) What's striking here is that while the Brothers have the lead generally, their margin (the non-Salafi Win Differential) is quite small along the northern Delta and in the Fayoum — all places where the Brothers have a long-established presence. We still have much to learn about the Salafist electoral machine, but that alone is quite an achievement considering they never ran for office before. Whether it's grassroots, money or effective campaigning remains a mystery to me.

Muslim Brotherhood spokesmen, as well as Palestinian guest speakers, made explicit calls for Jihad and for liberating the whole of Palestine. Time and again, a Koran quote vowing that "one day we shall kill all the Jews" was uttered at the site. Meanwhile, businessmen in the crowd were urged to invest funds in Jerusalem in order to prevent the acquisition of land and homes by Jews.


Throughout the event, Muslim Brotherhood activists chanted: "Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, judgment day has come."

בניגוד לתפיסה בישראל, האחים המוסלמים מעדיפים להוריד פרופיל ולא לעורר עוד מהומות אזרחיות. אחרי הכל, אם הבחירות לפרלמנט אכן יתקיימו בעוד שישה ימים, הם אלה שירוויחו, בזמן שהעם עוד מחפש מנהיגות אלטרנטיבית שלא מהתנועות האסלאמיסטיות

For days, as the skirmishes in Tahrir have heated up, the party establishment made its position clear, sending messages via Facebook and Twitter that have been ambiguously worded but plainly anti-demonstration.

When Mohammed Badie, the "general guide" of the Brotherhood, took to his Twitter page on Sunday to discuss the protests, he wrote that while he condemned the use of force against "peaceful protesters," all sides must use more restraint and refrain from damaging property.

In a remark that seems to have been primarily directed at the protesters, he added, "I call for all those loyal sons of Egypt to be extremely patient and not to allow our enemies, and those who want to delay our great revolution, to be allowed to do so."

In a visit Sunday to the headquarters of the FJP, The Huffington Post was told that the party's position was not to encourage any attempts to interfere with the stable and effective exercise of the election, a thinly veiled way of saying that the protests should cease.

"There was no way the Brotherhood was going to support the Tahrir protesters yesterday," Hamid told The Huffington Post. "That's not what the Brotherhood does. The Brotherhood is a smart and cautious movement, and they're not going to put their weight behind a small group of protesters. That's the last thing they want to do right before election day."

But, Hamid went on, "There definitely is a tension between some of the younger members and the older leadership. I don't think that most Brotherhood youth have that position [of supporting the protestors], just a certain subsection of youth who tend to be in Cairo or Alexandria."

Since January 25, the beginning of Egypt’s pro-democratic uprising, at least five Christian churches have been looted and burned. One is known to have been leveled by angry mobs. Witnesses say the attackers in one instance were Islamists who charged that a church held a Muslim woman hostage and tried to force her to recant her faith in Allah. In another, a Christian from committed adultery with a Muslim woman. Additional attacks were triggered by some of the churches allegedly having been built without government approval. On September 30, the El-Marinab Church in Aswan burned, the last church to be set ablaze this year since the protests began..

In recent weeks, communities of Copts have discussed their options. El Rashidi has attended meetings where many have considered emigration.

“The unity of Tahrir Square,” El Rashidi said, “the focus of Tahrir Square is gone and right now ours is a fragmented society in a security vacuum.”

“It’s the worst backlash in 40 years,” said University of Sussex political ethnographer and Institute for Development Studies research fellow Mariz Tadros. Tadros says the Egyptian government and the governates share some of the blame for failing to investigate church burnings and make arrests. In some cases, she said authorities turned matters over to reconciliation councils headed by Muslim religious leaders who made no effort to punish perpetrators of the violence.

Following the referendum on the constitutional amendments, and the resounding defeat of those who wanted a new constitution before parliamentary elections, a compromise was suggested. A document containing the basic principles of the coming constitution, whether in general guidelines or in the actual verbatim phrasing in which they are supposed to be incorporated within the actual constitution, would be drafted. This document would be undersigned by all/most political forces in Egypt as a binding commitment by them towards these principles and articles, in an effort to diffuse any volcanic future debates on the issue, and severe polarisation. In addition to liberals essentially pushing for the idea, certain conservatives saw in it a chance to block any movements towards a fully secular constitution, though its appeal was much lesser for the conservatives who were confident of their parliamentary majority.

But then the SCAF decided to add articles and clauses that were not popular from the first moments they were initially suggested. SCAF suggested articles granting it constitutional powers, setting it as the "Guarantor of Constitutional Legitimacy", allowing it to veto warfare, handle 'alone" all legislation related to the armed forced, and have the sole right of seeing & debating the military budget. Even more, it added clauses on the make up of the Constitutional Assembly, rather than leaving that to the elected parliament as expected. What became the final straw was the idea that SCAF would then adopt the document as a binding Constitutional Declaration on everyone as a charter of "Entrenched Constitutional Clauses", rather than a document of voluntary association among political forces. That was when the document turned into "dictation from above" as some had put it, a phenomenon whose continuation was not exactly the point of the January Revolution.

Liberals were slightly less furious than the Islamists to be sure, as they agreed with most of the principles, some even liked the idea of the army as "saviour of last resort", but eventually they came on board the opposition's side. Islamists (both the MB and, more adamantly, the Salafis) threatened a mass million-man protest on November 18th unless the document is withdrawn and Ali El Selmi resigns.

Senior Israeli defense official Amos Gilad said on Wednesday that the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime “will lead to a catastrophe that will put an end to Israel” due to the rise of an “Islamic empire” led by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Jordan and Syria.

Gilad, the head of the political-security branch of the Defense Ministry, also said that the presence of Assad’s regime in Syria “serves the interest of Israel.

However, success for traditional and well organised Islamist parties does not necessarily translate into success for Islamism. What we are really witnessing is the emergence of post-Islamism in the Arab world. Post-Islamism is the position that an increasing number of the more moderate Islamist parties are arriving at after being exposed to the reality of politics.

Post-Islamist parties tend to retain an emotional attachment to faith and seek to create a cultural shift towards Islamic principles (as defined by them) rather than imposing a prefabricated political model deemed to be an Islamic one. In other words, they still envisage a society where Islam guides public policy but without dictating it in a dogmatic and dictatorial fashion. Post-Islamists are Islamists mugged by reality.

The electoral system that the SCAF has chosen for the forthcoming election is a departure from Egypt's historical practice. Egyptian elections have typically been governed by a majoritarian system in smaller constituencies (222 in total). Such a system traditionally made voting a choice between individual candidates rather than parties' programs, which put a premium on coming from a strong local tribe or from a wealthy background. The small size of constituencies made this possible because it increased the electoral weight of extended families and tribes, especially in rural constituencies.
The new law creates a mixed system, which reserves one-third of the lower house's 498 seats to be contested by a majoritarian system in 83 two-member constituencies (with each constituency more than double the size of the previous ones). The remaining two-thirds (332 seats) will be contested according to a Proportional Representation (PR) system in larger constituencies where the district magnitude ranges between 4 and 12 seats. The districts for the two systems are not identical, which means that voters will be casting votes and candidates will be campaigning in potentially radically different districts.

The closed party lists that will be used to choose two-thirds of the seats restrict personalized voting in such constituencies. From a normative perspective, this is not bad at all -- in fact personalized voting was always cited as one of the major deficiencies of voting behavior in the pre-revolution era. But in practice it means that the balance will tip in the Islamists' favor. The new secular parties are still quite weak organizationally. They had no time to build party organizations capable of getting out sizable crowds to support party labels. Many of the secular parties have no option but to try to get traditional local leaders on their list (the chiefs of local tribes and wealthy families in rural constituencies). The local clout of such figures, however, would hardly make a difference in the large PR constituencies. Instead, party organization and a clear ideological profile would be the greater asset, especially the type of organization that stretches over extended regions. In Egypt right now, only Islamists possess those advantages.

The enlarged majoritarian constituencies are also likely to harm the electoral chances of the revolutionaries. The reason is that many of them are likely to run as independents -- either because they failed to found their own parties or because they resent many of the established ones. Running as independents would not work in their favor, however, because only quite a few of them enjoy enough name recognition on the constituency level. In addition, the majority of them lack any experience whatsoever in running elections the Egyptian way; something that requires money and strong local connections -- both of which many of them lack.

At the outset, the activists organized themselves into small local committees to document and publicize the uprisings. Over time, they have evolved into a web of commissions, councils, and unions formally grouped around three coalitions: the Syrian Revolution General Commission (SRGC), the Ghad alliance (including the Local Coordinating Committees or LCCS), and the Higher Council of the Syrian Revolution. While all three groups have pledged their support for the Syrian National Council, only the latter two have formal representatives. The Higher Council of the Syrian Revolution is mainly Islamist in its orientation. Its leading activists originally hail from Homs and its suburbs as well as Idlib. Of the three coalitions, the SRCG and Ghad are the better organized, have good media outreach, and have bureaus and networks in different parts of Syria. Activists in all three coalitions oppose the NCC's call for dialogue with the regime.

The other two groups of Islamists are Syrian based Islamist scholars and activists and the Salafis. The scholars and activists lie at the moderate and liberal end of the spectrum of Arab Islamist parties. The Salafis constitute the smallest group of the Islamists, and are based in Deir El-Zor, Jisr Al Shoghour, and Syrian towns bordering northern Lebanon. In the past, many of these Salafis were given safe haven by Syrian intelligence services that relied on their services and networks to field suicide bombers and fighters into Iraq. Since the start of the Syrian uprisings, these groups have turned against their former masters and according to unconfirmed reports, have been involved in some sectarian revenge killings. There are also claims by that regime that this group consists of former Al-Qaeda.

According to activists working inside Syria, defections happen on a daily basis. An FSA officer told me that the rate and pace of defections has recently accelerated to the point that it is becoming difficult for the FSA leadership to keep track of them. Yet, these defections occur on a small-scale involving few officers and soldiers at a time. There have been two recorded incidents of battalion-level defections in Dera'a both of which were quickly crushed by the Syrian security services.

Some SNC members say the council must be careful not to support the FSA since it should not side with the defectors against the large bulk of Syrian soldiers. As one SNC member put it, "the others [soldiers] in the army are our sons too." Another SNC member argued that the FSA could represent the military wing of the Syrian opposition. To-date, there have been no official contacts between the SNC and the FSA despite the latter's call for the SNC to send a delegation to Turkey for negotiations.

Since the revolution, international support for this fight has significantly waned. Political instability has led to a 75 percent cut in Egypt’s FGM-related donor funds to the United Nations since January, according to Marta Agosti, the head of the anti-FGM program for the U.N.Changeover among government ministers has also slowed official work. The National Council for Childhood and Motherhood, the government body charged with addressing the problem, was shuttered after the revolution, and there is concern among activists that the capacity of the Council will shrink in its new home under the Ministry of Health. Instability and a lack of funds have curtailed the day-to-day work of NGOs; less field work and fewer workshops are taking place, according to Agosti.

In addition to the general shrinking of U.N. and NGO funds and efforts, the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood as one of the strongest political forces attempting to fill the void left by Mubarak’s departure presents potential obstacles to the campaign to end FGM. While the Muslim Brotherhood does not have an official position on FGM, the group has, in the past, opposed a complete ban on the practice. “Nothing in Islam forbids circumcision,” said Saad El Katani, the leader of the Brotherhood in parliament in 2008.

Ex-Mossad chief criticizes prisoner swap deal, says 'a state should not do everything' to release a captive; claims deal bolstered Hamas, weakened PA

The former Mossad man also commented on the revolution in Egypt estimating that the Muslim Brotherhood will not take over the country.



"It will hurt economy, tourism, Suez, everything that turns a profit," he said. "The US will cut funding. Gas and petrol are running out that is why it's easy for them to halt supply to Israel, they are trying to get more out of what's left."


Dagan also estimated that Cairo will not abolish the peace treaty with Israel and that Omar Suleiman will be Egypt's next ruler.

Egypt’s government is designed for a dictatorship: It is extremely centralised and tightly controlled by national policy, and local councils are void of power. Although Cairo’s three governorates have separate budgets and various departments, they largely depend on the country’s ministries, led by presidentially appointed ministers, to care for essential elements of the urban environment: housing, schooling, transport, parks, healthcare, etc. Governorate budgets largely go to paying salaries rather than public spending. There is no unified city government with elected local officials and a mandate to effectively manage the city. Instead, governors do the occasional ribbon-cutting, and make hollow announcements regarding randomly selected projects that suit their whimsy.

Local councils that should directly manage a neighbourhood such as Mounib are firmly in the hands of members and friends of the now disbanded National Democratic Party (NDP). Over the past 30 years, local politics were dominated by personal relationships with party officials. Council seats were purchased and influential families controlled entire districts.

Since February, 50 political parties have been registered and numerous political figures have emerged. Dominating public discourse have been voices from the Islamist side of the spectrum, who have insisted on keeping the conversation on issues of identity. The everyday concerns of citizens and inhabitants of Cairo such as transport, housing and waste have been conspicuously absent. When I last visited Mounib, residents were not concerned with national identity, the dichotomy between liberals and Islamists, the threat of a military regime or American interests in the region. They were concerned with the polluted canal, the uncollected waste, the mosquitoes infesting the area and the lack of official response. There is a deliberate gap that has been created between the people and the powerful, and the current transitional government is maintaining that gap.

We want constitutional guarantees. If there are constitutional guarantees, one cannot take away our rights so easily. If the constitution states that the Kurds are a second nation within the state, it is easier to establish all other national rights. Our second most important demand is a solution to the national Kurdish question. Here the Kurdish Patriotic Movement has different goals. For example, we are calling for the self-government of Syrian Kurdistan. Moreover, we want Kurdish to be the second official language in Syria. Other Kurdish parties want self-administration; others want a regional self-administration; yet others only want cultural and political rights.

Two members of the military council that took power after the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak said for the first time in interviews this week that they planned to retain full control of the Egyptian government even after the election of a new Parliament begins in November. The legislature will remain in a subordinate role similar to Mr. Mubarak’s former Parliament, they said, with the military council appointing the prime minister and cabinet.

“We will keep the power until we have a president,” Maj. Gen. Mahmoud Hegazy said. The military had pledged in formal communiqués last March to hold the presidential election by September. But the generals now say that will come only after the election of a Parliament, the formation of a constitutional assembly and the ratification of a new constitution — a process that could stretch into 2013 or longer.

The United States, where concerns run high that early elections could bring unfriendly Islamists to power, has so far signaled approval of the military’s slower approach to handing over authority. In an appearance this week with the Egyptian foreign minister, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged an early end to the emergency law but called the plan for elections “an appropriate timetable.”

Citing a series of public hints as well as pattern of actions, activists and analysts now say they believe that the military is seeking to slow down a democratic transition until it feels certain that its position and privileges will remain unassailable even under civilian rule.

Some now call the military’s deadly violence against the Coptic protesters a wake-up call for such liberals. “The liberal elite was so blinded by the fear of Islamists’ taking over that they were willing to accept the security blanket of the army,” said Mr. Bahgat of the Egyptian Initiative for Individual Rights. “But Sunday’s massacre was a turning point because they saw what the army was capable of — brutality that came as a very early reminder of what things were like under Mubarak.”

the overwhelming thrust of eyewitness accounts, from both Muslims and Christians, is that the army initiated the violence, first throwing stones, then wielding batons, then firing live ammunition, before taking the grim final step of grinding protesters into the pavement. Certainly, several protesters threw stones as well, but eyewitnesses are adamant that they did so in response to the bullets being shot at them.

The pope pointed out that forensic reports indicate that two thirds of the dead were killed by live ammunition, with the remaining third crushed to death.

What is most disconcerting is that the deadliest clashes since the downfall of Mubarak have not been a wakeup call for the country as a whole. By and large, Egyptian public opinion is sympathetic (if quietly) to the army’s version of events and susceptible to believing that the army may have been, in some sense, the victim.

October 9 is not, in fact, the first date on which the army has discharged live ammunition at peaceful Coptic demonstrators. In March 2011, soldiers fired upon the garbage collectors of Muqattam, who were protesting the burning of another church in Sol, and other soldiers shot at monks at a monastery in February. The armed forces and transitional government have responded to Islamist attacks on churches and Christian-owned property with a collective shrug, either ignoring the incidents entirely or compounding the injustice by sponsoring “reconciliation committees” administered by salafi leaders whose discourse on non-Muslims in mosques has been deeply disquieting.

Ankara has asked Damascus to offer the Muslim Brotherhood government posts in exchange for Turkey's support in ending rallies in Syria, an offer rejected by Bashar al-Assad, officials and diplomats said.

The plan, which would have required that at least a quarter of ministerial positions went to the currently banned organisation, was initially mooted over the summer.

It was the latest in a series of meetings in Istanbul among mostly exiled Syrian opposition figures. While Kurds have been awarded a key demand – to be recognized as a distinct ethnic group in an interim constitution if the regime falls – the gatherings have also raised fears that Arab nationalists and Islamists are dominating the opposition.

Barzan Bahram, a Syrian Kurdish writer, accused the Muslim Brotherhood of controlling plans for Syria’s future and the opposition.

International travel agencies have rejected proposals from the Muslim Brotherhood regarding restrictions on the behaviour of tourists visiting Egypt, claiming that the proposals could cost the Egyptian economy some US$12.5 billion in annual losses.

Travel industry representatives were responding to the comments of Mohamed Saad al-Katatny, secretary general of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, who addressed representitves of the tourism industry on Monday, saying, "Beach tourism must take the values and norms of our society into account. We must place regulations on tourists wishing to visit Egypt, which we will announce in advance," he continued suggesting that the regulations concern bathing suits and bikinis.

The Islamists do not need to push for the revolution’s demands and bother SCAF because they are the biggest winners of January’s revolution. They are very organized, very well funded and they’re believed to be on their way to big gains in the upcoming elections. So why bother with pushing for the revolution demands?

The revolution youth remain to be the only entity that still pushes for the revolution demands. They are basically living in a constant state of revolution. Yet they are very disorganized and underfunded. And worse, they are out of touch with an increasingly weary and scared general population. This misunderstanding between the youth and the general public has enabled SCAF to create a rift between Egyptians and the most genuine people who risk their life for them.

Many liberals and leftists considered this to be a bit of an ambush. Look at it from the Salafi point of view, though. They are already worried that the established political forces, none of whom have got to where they are through elections, are going to shape the constitution behind their backs. They finally get a chance to organize an Islamist show of force to insist that they be listened to, but then it is decided that they cannot actually be Islamist at it. So, it would have been a minor miracle had the Salafis stuck to the program, and chanted only anodyne, uncontroversial slogans.

is. But if all the Salafis together are pushed out of the dialogue surrounding the constitution, either by supra-constitutional principles or by any other means, Friday's demonstrations show that they can probably cause some masssive disruptions. Again and again, Salafis have asked me: Isn't Egypt now supposed to be democratic? Shouldn't our voices be heard too?

As the day was passing I noticed something very interesting. The square was totally dominated by Salafis. Where was the Muslim Brotherhood? They did build a huge stage, but their numbers in the square was not as evident as the Salafis. When the Ikhwan stage chanted “Muslims and Christians are one hand,” they were drowned by roars of “Islamic, Islamic” coming from the Salafis.

I believe the Brotherhood, being the most organized and experienced political movement in Egypt, have set a trap for their fellow Islamists. The Ikhwan wanted the Salafis to fill the square and do their crap so the Ikhwan appears as the “moderate alternative” to the radical Salafis.

The Salafis terrorizing takeover of Tahrir was the perfect gift for SCAF. Everyone scared from the bearded guys in white robes, from Christians to the occupant of the White House, will now run to SCAF perceiving they are the last standing bulwark against an Iranian-style rule in the cradle of civilization, Egypt.

The obsession with religious parties is at times almost humorous. In popular outlets, sensationalism and exaggeration are the rule, this is especially true. This being said, Max Fisher writes:

The liberals have satellite channels to reflect their opinions, but their main two problems:
Some former regime members (folool) and business tycoons try to masquerade as liberals, and speak in their names. That's why some so called elites, are considered to be representatives of the liberal stream, and they call for stuff that may repel the people away from them. Most of the time those anti-democratic - sometimes even anti-liberal - demands they make are made because they are afraid of other majorities on the ground, especially the Islamists.
The other problem is that almost all of their demands are too ideological to attract real voters compared to stuff like minimum wages or applying Islamic shariaa.

Mobs of ordinary Egyptians joined with soldiers to drive pro-democracy protesters from their encampment in Tahrir Square here Monday, showing how far the uprising's early heroes have fallen in the eyes of the public.

Six months after young, liberal activists helped lead the popular movement that ousted President Hosni Mubarak, the hard core of these protesters was forcibly dispersed by the troops. Some Egyptians lined the street to applaud the army. Others ganged up on the activists as they retreated from the square that has come to symbolize the Arab Spring.

As the countdown to Friday started, shuttle talks were taking place between protest leaders, representatives from leftist, liberal and secular groups with officials from the Islamist groups including the Gamaa Islamiya, Salafi Nour Party and last but not least, the Muslim Brotherhood. An agreement was announced yesterday whereby the Islamists vowed not to include the application of sharia on the list of their demands and not to attack or provoke any secular protesters. In exchange, the leftist and liberal groups agreed not to engage in the “Elections First” or “Constitution First” debate and promised not to chant against SCAF (liberals in general are not those who meant by the agreement, it was largely the leftists, since the liberals are cowing down everyday to SCAF). A statement was issued, with a list of demands agreed by all parties.

May 27 was an eye opener.  The lesson we all got from the day was this: Egypt does have an alternative to the Muslim Brotherhood and its radical siblings. There is another camp besides the deposed National Democratic Party and the religious parties. A camp composed of people who believe that finishing what we started on January 25 is much more important than any political ambition. A camp that includes people from all the political spectrum, and also people who do not have any political affiliation or conviction. A camp that includes the great Muslim Brotherhood youth, the group whom we all hope will one day replace the arrogant bogeymen who run the organization today.

Charm offensives like these are a novelty for many citizens, who used to equate elections with vote buying, ballot stuffing and intimidation by Mubarak supporters.

The Brotherhood expelled Abul Futuh on June 18 after he defied its pledge not to run for the presidency, but analysts say he still has support from former colleagues.

"Islamists have an advantage because they have a strong organisation that is capable of helping them reach out to the masses," said political analyst and university professor Mustapha al-Sayyid, who estimated that only 6 million of Egypt's 80 million population uses the Internet.

Some are also teaching the uneducated about their civic duties to try to head off attempts by local dignitaries to win them over using bribes and stop Islamists luring the population by advertising themselves as God's chosen candidates.

Hussein further stated that this call comes as a response to what he described as "attempts by a number of groups to circumvent the will of the people by taking away their right which was reflected in the referendum in March and resulted in a roadmap and timetable for the procedures for transferring power from the military to civilian authority elected by the people ."

He added that their call for a mass protest comes as a result of the “attempts by some to impose certain articles they call "supra-constitutional" upon the foundational body of the constitution, disregarding the sovereignty of the people and their right to be granted their own constitution, drafted in accordance with the people’s free will which no one should detract from.

Based on the tentative (and now-canonical) conclusions of Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe Schmitter, a transition away from authoritarianism in Egypt was and remains unlikely.[5] Events to date strongly support that prognosis. Egypt’s popular uprising did not produce widespread elite defections or divide or paralyze the security apparatus.

This situation of “unequal civilian accommodation” bodes poorly for a rapid shift from persistent authoritarianism to fledgling democracy. Egypt’s military expresses a mix of the old (external security) and new (internal security) professionalisms described by Stepan, and gives little sign that it embraces “democratic professionalism.” Coupled with the limited civilian push for military disengagement from politics, this posture may portend continued military dominance

The Muslim Brotherhood’s official news outlet, Ikhwan Online, is reporting that “the remnants of the dissolved National Democratic Party, the state security apparatus and their Zionist allies” are trying to destabilize Egypt by infiltrating an ongoing sit-in protest in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

The news from yesterday’s alliance of 12 parties with the Muslim Brotherhood for a unified election front and a single candidate list came as a surprise to many, since the alliance included parties such as Masr Al Horreyah and AlAdl party.

But since one expected the parties to join the alliance with the MB to be the old weak parties that were known to strike deals with the NDP to allow them to win a seat or two, and therefore ones that couldn’t win without the MB support anyway, like Eltagamo3 and ElWafd, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a party like Masr AlHorreyah joined up... The Second Problem with this alliance is its intentions: The parties involved just want to divide the electoral map of Egypt, and divvy up the seats they will win from before the elections by having the other parties not compete on them and quite possibly having their people voting for the party running in that district.

But it’s a mistake to assume that the external opposition is exerting much influence on the Syrian street. Immediately after the fall of Mubarak the external opposition organised a Syrian Day of Rage on Facebook. Inside Syria, nobody turned up. The first demonstration was triggered not by an Islamist in London or a liberal in Washington but by an act of police brutality in Hareeqa, Damascus. The Dera’a demonstrations were caused by the arrest of schoolchildren in the city. The national demonstrations were provoked by the murder of protestors in Dera’a.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology is attractive to many Syrians; after the dictatorship, therefore, the movement must be permitted to operate freely. It should recognise, however, the many errors it has made in the past, and must assure minorities and secularists of its committment to their rights. Together the minorities and non-Islamist Sunnis form a majority of Syrians, and they are often deeply suspicious of the Brotherhood.

The real pressure on the Sudanese Government solely led by President Bashir’s National Congress Party (NCP) following their recognition of the referendum seems to come more from the politico, than from the population. From various moderate voices, trying to reach a diplomatic solution for the North through political measures, to hardliners more worried about sovereignty and self survival than political compromises. Recently these hardliners have chosen to be more confrontational, preferring a tougher stand against the SPLM in the South. A tougher stand including military display and engagement, as seen with the violent takeover of Abyei recently and the escalating fighting in South Kordofan State. President Bashir may initially have tried to satisfy both, but after receiving international recognition and the reopening of some diplomatic channels following his acceptance of the referendum result, he has slowly but safely opted for appeasing the hardliners.

This ongoing movement in Kuwait might be aiming for reforms but it also reflects a clash within the ruling family. In order to win the battle, members of the ruling family chose to form alliances with parliament members. As a result, Salafis now support and serve the interests of Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad while the Kuwaiti Muslim Brotherhood focuses on expanding its base by being part of the opposition.

It is obvious that Kuwaiti Islamists have been badly affected by their loss in 2009. We are witnessing an opposition Islamic movement based on strong alliances and the public thirst for charismatic Islamic opposition figures. All those factors put together can explain the current tactics that the Islamists are using in the parliament to demand the removal of the Prime Minister.

Unlike most other Islamist parties, the manifesto of Hizb Al-Tayyar Al-Masry (meaning Egyptian Current Party) does not mention Islamic sharia as its frame of reference; it only refers to the Arab Islamic civilization. “We cannot refer to the Islamic sharia because this is not an Islamist party, and it is not a party for the Muslim Brotherhood youth,” said Mohamed Shams, a 24-year-old co-founder of the party. “Not all founders belong to the Muslim Brotherhood.”

The statement also envisions a larger role for young people. “We want the party to express the spirit of the revolution, which means we want most of its leaders to be young,” said Mohamed Affan, a 30-year-old brother and a co-founder of the party.

Speaking last month to Al-Masry Al-Youm, Affan said: “The feuds between the youth and the group’s leadership have almost reached a deadlock. Now we are thinking of creating some independent entity of our own.”

the fear-mongering tactics that some religious leaders adopted to encourage voters to approve the constitutional amendments has helped polarize the Egyptian political community once again across the Islamist/non-Islamist divide.

By making legislative elections the main vehicle for advancing efforts to write a constitution agreeable to all members of Egypt’s diverse political community, SCAF is in effect attempting to achieve consensus through a process that is bound to generate competition and disagreement.

By not running for more seats in parliament, the Brothers appear to exercising restraint but in effect are positioning themselves as power brokers in the races in which they don't run. Let's assume the next elections will be under the same constituency-based system as before. In many constituencies, there will be a block of voters who would have voted for the MB which will become available as a voting block to give to another party's candidate. The negotiations to grab that voting bloc will make the Brotherhood a key influence in local politics (and indirectly in parliament), because they probably represent the single largest such bloc even if they can only get a maximum of 15-30%
The same principle applies for the presidency... The MB will be in the position to be a kingmaker, not because it is so strong, but because it is the largest and most disciplined part of a very fragmented political system.

Mr. Al Ghazali Harb said he fears Islamists would place a permanent mark on Egypt's political future by drafting a constitution that limits personal freedoms and human rights.

The Islamists want to stick with the current plan, and accuse those who wish to change it of opposing the democratic process. "They have the right to say what they want but the decision is to the people, not to them," said Essam El Erian, deputy head of Freedom and Justice.

The so-called Constitution First movement has been embraced by several secular-minded political parties, youth protest groups and prominent presidential candidates such as Amr Moussa and Mohamed ElBaradei. Proponents of the plan have petitioned the military council and have threatened to bring their numbers into Tahrir Square next month for protests.

In Tunisia the prominent Nahdha party has benefited from Gulf (especially Qatari) patronage in media and propaganda contributing to its edge over the numerous secular and leftist parties emerging there. Several Islamist parties have emerged since the fall of Ben Ali, some coming out of historic tendencies like Nahdha or more recent and more conservative trends which lack deep appeal among the Tunisian masses. The Islamists’ strongest competitors are left-wing parties, which will very likely be important in the July polls by forming coalitions (to counter an-Nahdha) and by shifting alliances between coalitions with Islamists and other leftist and secular parties. In Egypt several leftist parties have emerged which appear likely to be able to capitalize on the growing workers’ movement there and coming into open competition with the Brotherhood.

תקופת החסד של אסד נגמרה ב-1976. המשבר, שעתיד היה להימשך שש שנים, התחיל בהחלטה לפלוש ללבנון ולהתערב במלחמת האזרחים שבה. הבחירה של אסד לתמוך בממשלה נוצרית, מארונית וימנית נגד הפלסטינים ונגד השמאל עוררה גל סרבנות אדיר בצבא, וקצינים, חיילים, ולפעמים אף יחידות שלמות סירבו להילחם.

גלי טיהורים, מעצרים, וחיזוק הגורמים העלאווים במערכת לא הצליחה לעצור את המרד בצבא, שלא הפך ללוחמה-פנימית ממש, אבל הבהיר לאסד שוב עד כמה חשוב לחזק את השליטה בגוף החזק ביותר במדינה. עד סוף שנות שלטונו יהפכו העלאווים, שמהווים כזכור רק 7% מאזרחי המדינה, ל-70% מחיילי הקבע, ול-80% מהקצונה, וזאת בצבא שהגיוס אליו הוא חובה על כלל האזרחים.

הפלישה ללבנון והסרבנות בצבא הציתו את אש המרד בכל רחבי המדינה, לאחר כמה שנים בהן הרפורמות הסוציאליסטיות צומצמו על ידי אסד. פליטים לבנונים זועמים התחילו בלוחמת גרילה נגד השלטון, ובמקביל אליהם התחילו גם האחים המוסלמים – עדיין בני בריתה של האצולה הישנה, שהתחילו בשנים אלה להתקרב גם לשכבות אחרות באוכלוסייה – בלוחמה משלהם.

Basma Moussa, a spokeswoman for the Baha'i community that was formed in Egypt in the 19th century, opined that an Islamic government would not likely be fair to religious minorities.

“Their statements indicate so,” she said, criticizing the media for highlighting certain religious trends and ignoring others that might better adopt the principles of human rights.

The Baha'is were not officially recognized under former Egyptian regimes, and thus were not included in censuses, but according to press reports, the last official count of 1950 estimated the community had 5000 members.

The real reason that Saudi Arabia has not seen major protests is that the Saudi regime has effectively co-opted the Sahwa, the powerful Islamist network which would have to play a major role in any sustained mobilization of protests.

Like the Brotherhood in Egypt, the Sahwa in Saudi Arabia is by far the largest and best organized non-state group, with arguably hundreds of thousands of members. Its mobilizing capacity is huge, far ahead of any other group, including the tribes which have for the last few decades lost a lot of their political relevance.

There is an organic, almost incestuous, relationship that exists between the Sahwa and the Saudi state. While Islamist movements in most countries developed on the margins of the state and against it, the Sahwa was the product of the cooptation of foreign members of the Muslim Brotherhood into the Saudi state in the 1950s and 1960s.

"We only use Islam as the basis of our party ... which means that our general framework is Islamic sharia ... We don't issue religious rules in individual cases," said Mohamed Mursi, head of the Brotherhood's newly formed Justice and Freedom Party, which will contest the vote.

Baha’i is not a religion, according to Sobhi Saleh, a lawyer and prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Saleh said Baha’i cannot be considered a religion or an ideology, and said Islam is committed to the rights of all monotheistic religions.

The pull of Islamist factions in general (whether in Tunisia, Egypt, Mauritania or elsewhere) should not be overstated: young people, largest part of the Arab public, very often have limited experience with the major Islamists groups whose heyday was often during their childhood or before, as has been noted by keen observers, and others have been unimpressed by the compromising tendency of Islamist parties in the last ten years. Additionally, internal ideological and generational tensions within older Islamist parties and competition from other emergent Islamist parties is likely to dampen their ability to deliver sweeping results (especially if parts of them break off to form new parties), especially if non-Islamist parties and factions organize effectively. Furthermore, the behavior of particularly conservative factions, like that of Salafi groups in Egypt who have victimized Coptic Christians in recent weeks, may alienate them from key demographics

Afterwards, the broken Brotherhood split and rebuilt; the Damascus faction had been proven right. If change were to come, it would be by the ballot, not the bullet. In exile, they began to work towards that day.

Except not all the Brothers saw it that way. One faction made the point that the reason they had failed was because the so-called Islamic Republic in Iran had supported the ultra-secularist pro-Soviet Baath over an Islamic movement; that moment spelled the end of any real notion of Iran leading a pan-Islamic revolution or exporting anything beyond the scattered Imami Shia ….

Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan referred to the possibility a future Israeli Air Force attack on Iranian nuclear facilities as "the stupidest thing I have ever heard" during a conference held at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem on Friday.

Dagan said that Iran has a clandestine nuclear infrastructure which functions alongside its legitimate, civil infrastructure. It is the legitimate infrastructure, he said, that is under international supervision by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Any strike on this legitimate infrastructure would be "patently illegal under international law," according to Dagan.

Israel is also afraid that if Syria’s Sunni majority were to replace the Alawite minority now in charge, it would give the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood a dominant role in the country. Even if the Sunni leadership were secular, analysts in Israel said they are likely to take even more of a hard line against Israel because of historic ties to Sunni Muslims in the Palestinian territories.