Egyptian Leader Mohamed Morsi on the Jews and Israel

Chilling.

Does being in power moderate a former firebrand and anti-Semite? We can hope. And aside from genuine moderation, we can hope that the massive aid Egypt gets from the U.S. will temper the position of the Morsi government.

But still, chilling.

That Video That’s Getting People Killed in the Middle East

We aren’t absolutely sure what video violent Islamist types have been protesting, but a good guess is that it’s this one, scenes from which have been posted on Buzzfeed.

So this is an insult to The Prophet?

More like an insult to the audience. And taking it at all seriously is an insult to The Prophet.

As Bizzfeed notes:

The anti-Muslim “movie” that served as the spark or pretext for a wave of violent unrest in Egypt and Libya may not be a movie at all.

As the video above — cut from the YouTube video tied to a global controversy — shows, nearly all of the names in the movie’s “trailer” are overdubbed. The video is a compilation of the most clumsily overdubbed moments from what is in reality an incoherent, haphazardly-edited set of scenes. Among the overdubbed words is “Mohammed,” suggesting that the footage was taken from a film about something else entirely. The footage also suggests multiple video sources — there are obvious and jarring discrepancies among actors and locations.

However, CNN has reported that the cast and crew disavowed the movie, and the overdubbing could also have been to conceal the content from the cast itself. Gawker interviewed a woman who played a part in the movie, who said that she had had no idea what it was about when she was hired.

As The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg reported today, the supposed filmmaker, “Sam Bacile,” appears not to be a real person — or at least not the director of the movie. A consultant to the movie, Steve Klein, told Goldberg that he didn’t know Bacile’s real name and that he wasn’t Israeli as reported.

The person using Bacile’s name told the Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal that the film had been made using $5 million from those donors, as well as a sizable crew of 45 people behind the camera and nearly 60 actors. The film’s low production values make those numbers risible. Five million dollars is more than the budget of some reputable independent films, and could certainly buy a better production than what went into the Mohammad film.

The film ranks with the infamous “Plan 9 from Outer Space” as a movie that’s actually fun to watch.

You won’t be laughing with it. You’ll be laughing at it.

Roundtable on Egypt Tomorrow Afternoon

The Department of Political Science and the
Political Science Graduate Student Association

PRESENT A ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION ON:

The Crisis in Egypt:
What Happened, and What Does It
Mean for Egypt and the Middle East?

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011
3:00–4:30 p.m.
William Wehr Physics Bldg., Room 141

Roundtable Participants:

Moderator
Prof. Barry McCormick, Department of Political Science

Speakers
Prof. Risa Brooks, Department of Political Science
“Explaining the Role of Egypt’s Military in the Uprising”

Prof. Philip Naylor, Department of History
“Egypt’s Upheaval in Historical Context”

Riman Barakat, Department of Political Science
“Youth and Technology in Egypt’s Uprising”

The presenters will make brief presentations, and discussion with the audience will follow. Refreshments will be provided.

---

The recent (or perhaps “ongoing”) revolution in Egypt is either (most likely) the best thing ever to happen to that very important nation, or (possibly) another disaster of the magnitude that brought the Mullahs to power in Iran.

We’re talking monumentally important stuff here, and we wouldn’t dream of missing this.

Obama and Egypt

From Al Jazeera (yes, Al Jazeera):

President Obama, say the ‘D-Word’

It’s incredible, really. The president of the United States can’t bring himself to talk about democracy in the Middle East. He can dance around it, use euphemisms, throw out words like “freedom” and “tolerance” and “non-violent” and especially “reform,” but he can’t say the one word that really matters: democracy.

How did this happen? After all, in his famous 2009 Cairo speech to the Muslim world, Obama spoke the word loudly and clearly - at least once.

“The fourth issue that I will address is democracy,” he declared, before explaining that while the United States won’t impose its own system, it was committed to governments that “reflect the will of the people... I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.”

“No matter where it takes hold,” the president concluded, “government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power.”

Simply rhetoric?

Of course, this was just rhetoric, however lofty, reflecting a moment when no one was rebelling against the undemocratic governments of our allies - at least not openly and in a manner that demanded international media coverage.

Now it’s for real.

And “democracy” is scarcely to be heard on the lips of the president or his most senior officials.

In fact, newly released WikiLeaks cables show that from the moment it assumed power, the Obama administration specifically toned down public criticism of Mubarak. The US ambassador to Egypt advised secretary of state Hillary Clinton to avoid even the mention of former presidential candidate Ayman Nour, jailed and abused for years after running against Mubarak in part on America’s encouragement.

Not surprisingly, when the protests began, Clinton declared that Egypt was “stable” and an important US ally, sending a strong signal that the US would not support the protesters if they tried to topple the regime. Indeed, Clinton has repeatedly described Mubarak as a family friend. Perhaps Ms Clinton should choose her friends more wisely.

Similarly, president Obama has refused to take a strong stand in support of the burgeoning pro-democracy movement and has been no more discriminating in his public characterisation of American support for its Egyptian “ally.” Mubarak continued through yesterday to be praised as a crucial partner of the US. Most important, there has been absolutely no call for real democracy.

Rather, only “reform” has been suggested to the Egyptian government so that, in Obama’s words, “people have mechanisms in order to express legitimate grievances.”

“I’ve always said to him that making sure that they are moving forward on reform - political reform, economic reform - is absolutely critical for the long-term well-being of Egypt,” advised the president, although vice-president Joe Biden has refused to refer to Mubarak as a dictator, leading one to wonder how bad a leader must be to deserve the title.

We don’t agree with all of the article (feel free to read the rest here), but the writer (a professor of history at University of California, Irvine) has a point.

It is important to avoid cheap-shot criticism of Obama. Like every American president he has to balance human rights against American interests. And indeed, American interests are often consistent with the interests of the world (in not wanting radical Islamic regimes, for example).

Further, no US president, including those like Carter and George W. Bush who have rhetorically supported democracy, has anything close to a pristine record of supporting democracy.

But Obama promised “hope and change.” Obama went around the world apologizing for America’s supposed faults.

But now it appears that he’s no visionary. And not only is he no visionary, he’s less the visionary than was George W. Bush.

The fact that he doesn’s believe in American exceptionalism may be a large factor here. Whatever he may say about “democracy” and “human rights,” he simply has trouble believing that the American way is better, and that America’s enemies are usually bad people.

Muslim Violence in Middle East Targets Christians

From Christianity Today, the fact that Muslim violence in the Middle East, which usually seems to target Jews (in Israel) and fellow Muslims (in Iraq) also targets Christians.

1. Lebanon gets worse as Christians targeted

Two commuter buses were bombed Tuesday in the small Christian village of Ain Alak (photos). “Many residents simply shrugged over the culprit’s identity, a seeming gesture of weariness over a crisis that has brought Lebanon perilously close to civil war,” The Washington Post reports. But everyone agrees that the target was Lebanon’s Christian community, and the victims were among the poorer members of that community.

“The buses were packed with students, blue-collar workers, Sri Lankan maids and women making their way to Christian theology lessons,” the Los Angeles Times notes.

“The attacks, spaced 10 minutes apart … appeared to mark a new chapter in Lebanon’s months-old crisis, with the aim shorn of any apparent political objective beyond killing civilians,” says the Post.

If you haven’t read our recent coverage of the Lebanon crisis from the perspective of two Lebanese evangelicals, be sure to read Martin Accad’s “The ‘Jesus Manifesto’ for Lebanon” and Riad Kassis’ “The Colors of Lebanon.”

2. Coptic Christians attacked again in Egypt

It seems not to take much for Muslims in southern Egypt to attack Christians in the area. Reuters reports that “rumors of a love affair between a Muslim woman and a Coptic Christian man” set off a riot in Armant, with Muslims attacking Christian shops and a minivan. Eight Muslim men (who are permitted to marry Christian women, but whose daughters are not allowed to marry Christian men) were arrested.

Of course, conservative American Christians are much more likely to side with the Jewish victims of terrorism than more secular Americans, and more likely to favor a tough line against terrorism anywhere.

But if there remain any Christians who are (illogically) thinking “this terrorism stuff is just a threat to other people,” the only advice we can give is “wake up!”