Left Side of the Aisle #117 - Part 6

Update: Egypt

On another front, I said last week that people power does not always produce justice. Egypt continues to show that, as the military-controlled government continues to clamp down on dissent.

The public prosecutor has ordered the arrest of seven senior Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist figures over violence between Brotherhood supporters and opponents in the days before and after Mohamed Mursi was deposed as president.

The latest charges accuse them of "inciting violence, funding violent acts, and thuggery."

Now, the new cabinet in Egypt has been sworn in. It's comprised of what are called "relative liberals," but what that means in the context of Egypt is not immediately clear except that they are acceptable to the military. The Islamists who were elected last year shut out entirely.

Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood continues to protest. Like I said last week, watch this space.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/15/egypt-muslim-brotherhood-leaders-arrest_n_3599047.html
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/16/19500526-egypt-swears-in-new-liberal-cabinet-shutting-out-islamist-parties?lite

Left Side of the Aisle #117

Left Side of the Aisle
for the week of July 18-24, 2013

This week:

On the George Zimmerman verdict
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/13/19441838-jury-finds-george-zimmerman-not-guilty?lite
http://daisysdeadair.blogspot.com/2013/07/florida-rules-that-stalking-and-killing.html
http://abcnews.go.com/US/george-zimmerman-jury-asks-manslaughter-clarification/story?id=19657201#.UeVwYW1nB6K
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2013/07/qotd-jury-instructions.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/16/john-oliver-reacts-to-zimmerman-verdict_n_3603714.html
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-zimmerman-justice-20130717,0,5160145.story
http://forusa.org/blogs/john-lindsay-poland/impunity-oakland
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/23/kimani-gray-funeral-stop-and-frisk_n_2941145.html
http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2013/03/family_of_wendell_allen_fatall.html
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2013/05/30/news/terrance-franklin-shot-in-back-of-head
http://www.salon.com/2013/07/14/most_disgusting_reactions_to_zimmerman_acquittal/
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2013/07/trayvons_ghost.php
http://www.care2.com/causes/cops-choke-black-boy-holding-puppy-for-giving-them-dehumanizing-stares.html
http://newsone.com/2514992/tremaine-mcmillan-miami-police-brutality/
http://takimag.com/article/the_talk_nonblack_version_john_derbyshire#axzz1rflvuJxj
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/06/national-review-writer-race_n_1409413.html
http://www.salon.com/2013/03/14/nypd_make_5_millionth_stop_and_frisk_under_bloomberg/
http://gawker.com/bloomberg-on-stop-and-frisk-i-think-we-stop-minoritie-610142398
http://blog.metrotrends.org/2012/03/stand-ground-laws-miscarriages-justice/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/criminal-justice/is-there-racial-bias-in-stand-your-ground-laws/
http://www.salon.com/2013/07/14/zimmerman_saga_was_all_about_race/
Clown Award: Juror B37
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/07/george-zimmerman-juror-says-his-heart-was-in-the-right-place/
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/juror-b37-drops-trayvon-case-book-pitch-article-1.1400096

Outrage of the Week: Faux News spreads racial fears
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/fox-new-black-panthers-were-spark-behind-z
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/07/15/fox-promotes-conspiracy-theory-that-new-black-p/194873
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/some-odd-reason-fox-goes-silent-abou
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2000/fall/snarling-at-the-white-man

Some news on same-sex marriage
http://www.care2.com/causes/in-indiana-applying-for-a-gay-marriage-license-is-a-felony.html
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/penalties-await-gay-couples-trying-to-marry-in-indiana/article_3cca22e7-9915-5d26-b0b2-3980aa91afaa.html
http://www.care2.com/causes/pennsylvania-ag-refuses-to-defend-states-gay-marriage-ban.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/07/11/sources-pa-attorney-general-wont-defend-states-gay-marriage-ban/
http://www.aclupa.org/pressroom/aclupaacluandhangleyaronch.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/07/16/britain-same-sex-marriage-legalized/2522911/
http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-britain-gay-marriage,0,7549767.story

Update: Moral Monday
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/16/moral-monday-protests_n_3604046.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/12/pat-mccrory-motorcycle-abortion-bill_n_3588466.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/11/north-carolina-motorcycle-abortion_n_3582006.html

Update: Egypt
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/15/egypt-muslim-brotherhood-leaders-arrest_n_3599047.html
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/16/19500526-egypt-swears-in-new-liberal-cabinet-shutting-out-islamist-parties?lite

Update: Texas passes new abortion restrictions
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/13/texas-senate-abortion-bill_n_3587745.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/12/tampons-confiscated-texas_n_3588177.html

Left Side of the Aisle #116 - Part 6

Laugh so as not to weep

There is a sort of footnote to this, an example of “I laugh for fear of crying” courtesy of New York Times columnist David Brooks.

In a column last week defending the coup, Brooks declared that “It’s not that Egypt doesn’t have a recipe for a democratic transition. It seems to lack even the basic mental ingredients.”

That’s right, according to David Brooks, Egypt’s difficulties in establishing a real democracy are not due to decades of repressive government, not due to inexperience in self-government, but because the people of Egypt don’t possess the cognitive capacity to handle it.

And it’s not just Egypt, he says; indeed, Islamists in general “lack the mental equipment to govern. ... Incompetence is built into their intellectual DNA.” They are, he said, “incapable of running a modern government.”

As evidence, he cites the cases of Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Gaza, Palestine, and Algeria. Okay, forget Egypt: You can’t cite as evidence the very thing you’re trying to prove, which is that the coup was justified by the failings of the Egyptians. What of the rest?

Well, Turkey and Iran have both shown dramatic economic improvements, including in the lives of the poor, over the past 10 years. You can condemn both the increasing authoritarianism of the government of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the repression by the mullahs in Iran but you can’t call them incompetent.

In Gaza, Hamas actually has a solid reputation for being very good at delivering social services - again, there is no need to approve of a government to recognize its competency.

Finally, neither Palestine nor Algeria has or ever has had an Islamist government.

As is all too often true, David Brooks has no idea what the heck he is talking about. The man is a complete jackass - and when I think he is a regular columnist for the New York Times, I laugh so I don’t cry.

Sources:
http://www.salon.com/2013/07/05/david_brooks_bigoted_rant/
http://www.fair.org/blog/2013/07/05/david-brooks-mental-equipment/

Left Side of the Aisle #116 - Part 5

Egypt and American mythology

Two things should have become clear from events in Egypt, two treasured notions of American mythology brought into serious question: One, that elections equal freedom and two, that people power equals justice.

After the dictator Hosni Mubarek was brought down by, yes, people power backed up with some military support, Egypt had its first free elections. The outcome was the election of President Mohammed Morsi and domination of the parliament by the Freedom and Justice Party, the political arm of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

A new constitution was then drafted by an assembly chosen by the parliament and thus also dominated by Islamists - who, despite repeated their assurances of respect for religious and political minorities in Egypt, tried to ram through a document that made civil government subservient to Sharia law, that is, to fundamentalist Muslim religious law.

The assembly was controversial enough that the non-Islamists involved eventually just gave up and walked away and courts were considering whether to disband it. But Morsi decreed that they could not as his allies finalized the draft. The final version, with its strong Islamist flavor, passed in a referendum with around 60% of the vote but in an election with a turnout of only around 30%.

So first: Do not forget that Morsi had been democratically elected in Egypt’s first free election, an election that people power ultimately helped bring about. But the overall result was not freedom - not unless you think the word can comfortably be applied to a constitution and a government that was more oriented toward theocracy than democracy.

Dissatisfaction with Morsi’s rule grew until it finally exploded into the streets in an odd coalition of liberals, Christians, Mubarak supporters, Salafists, Al-Azhar scholars, and the military. People power again filled Tahrir Square with tens, hundreds of thousands demanding Morsi go.

And the result? Justice? Not what you would call it. It was a military coup that has arrested hundreds of Morsi supporters as well as shooting down more than 50 of them in one of the worst single incidents of bloodshed in the whole 2-1/2 years of turmoil. (And a coup which, by the way, the US refuses to call a coup because to do so would require cutting off the $1.3 billion in military aid that goes to Egypt each year, and no way does the US government want to do that).

People power is not in charge in Egypt, the military is. And the military has set up its own timetable for drafting yet another constitution and elections for yet another parliament, all within the next 6-1/2 months, the quick pace apparently intended to soothe the ruffled feathers of Western governments.

But there is where it gets extra interesting: Under the timetable issued Monday by interim president Adly Mansour, two appointed panels would be created. One, made up of judges, would come up with amendments. The other, larger body consisting of representatives of society and political movements would debate the amendments and approve them, with a referendum to follow.

Now, aside from the question of who gets to decide what “representatives of society and political movements” get to take part and how much say each of them has, the fact is that the judges who run Egypt's courts made their careers under Hosni Mubarak, and now they are the ones who will come up with the proposed amendments that the other panel will debate.

So do elections equal freedom? Not when they become the classic “tyranny of the majority.” Does people power produce justice? Not when it starts by saying the necessary “no” - and never goes beyond it.

Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood has rejected the whole new deal, calling it an attack on democracy and has called on its supporters to rise in protest. Which they have. As the saying goes, watch this space.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/09/egypt-political-roadmap_n_3565902.html?utm_hp_ref=world
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/08/egyptian-army-firing-at-crowd_n_3561467.html?utm_hp_ref=world
http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/08/world/meast/egypt-coup/index.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/egypt-transitional-government-pulls-in-mubarak-old-guard-and-salafists-a-910266.html#ref=nl-international

Left Side of the Aisle #84 - Part 3

Israel's refusal to make peace with US support

There are, as I record this show on November 28, negotiations going on in Cairo to settle specific details of the ceasefire agreement reached last week that ended the latest cycle of death in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Egypt is acting as a go-between for the two sides because Israel and Hamas refuse to deal with each other directly.

During the fighting, 167 Palestinians were killed, most all of them civilians, a good number of them children. That was as against six Israelis, four of them civilians - three of who Israeli authorities say died because they ignored warnings and failed to take shelter. That is a kill ratio of 28 to 1.

In fact, that has been the story for years. In the period September 29, 2000 to September 30, 2012, that is, over the past 12 years, 1097 Israelis, soldiers and civilians together, were killed by Palestinians. In that same time, 6622 Palestinians - over six times as many - were killed by Israelis. More Palestinian children were killed by the Israeli military in that time than the total of Israelis killed by Palestinians.

That's a bit of history, a bit of context, I bet you don't hear on the evening news. Here's another:

Start with the fact that there are two major political alignments among Palestinians: Fatah, which was Yassir Arafat's organization, and Hamas. In 2005 and 2006, the Palestinian Authority held a series of elections in the West Bank and Gaza for offices from local council to the presidency. Israel and the US had been demanding such elections as a precondition to continued negotiations because they believed that Fatah, which they regard as having become sufficiently malleable, would win. But when they happened, the results from the US-Israeli point of view were wholly unexpected: Hamas did quite well, even winning a majority of seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council.

In March 2007, after months of difficult negotiations, Hamas and Fatah announced the formation of a coalition government. The US and Israel flatly refused to deal with or even recognize that government; they had even declared that before the government was formed, demanding instead that Hamas be kicked out of it. Remember, this is a government that came into being as the result of elections with the US and Israel demanded. They didn't care: Their plan failed, their side didn't win, so elections no longer mattered.

In the face of that refusal, the coalition government broke down and a civil war broke out, the end result of which was that Hamas got forced out of the West Bank and Fatah got forced out of Gaza. That is why Hamas is in control in Gaza. Remember what I said last time about the Clock of History? This is the point when the US and Israel want the Clock of History to start with regard to Gaza. The fact that Hamas coming into control was the result of a civil war that broke out with the collapse of a government that occurred at least in significant part because the US and Israel would not accept the results of elections which they themselves demanded is to be shoved down the memory hole, forgotten, ignored. Well, Hamas's position was confirmed by elections that took place this past May and if the US and Israel don't like it, they should recall it was their own narrow-minded, pig-headed stupidity that caused it.

On the other hand, maybe it wasn't so pig-headed and maybe it wasn't so stupid: I'm certainly not the first to suggest that maybe Israel doesn't want peace. Nine years ago I said on my blog that it appeared that every time it looked like some real step toward peace might be taken, Israel undertook some action sure to provoke a response that could be used to justify a bigger Israeli counter and so undermine the chance of change. In that particular case the potential step was that an assembly of the most radical Palestinian groups was considering some form of recognition of Israel, something Fatah had already given. What was the step this time? Something else your mainstream news won't tell you unless you happened to see an op-ed in the New York Times.

It was by Gershon Baskin, co-chair of the Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information and a columnist for The Jerusalem Post who had previously successfully opened a back channel for negotiations with Hamas that lead to the release of a captured Israeli soldier.

If you saw last week's show you know that I blame Israel for this most recent cycle of retaliation, counter-retaliation, and counter-counter retaliation because Israel clearly broke a ceasefire that had been arranged by assassinating Ahmad al-Jabari, the head of Hamas' military, in a rocket attack.

Shortly before his murder, Baskin says, he (that is, Baskin) and Ghazi Hamad, the deputy foreign minister of Hamas, had worked out a draft agreement for a long-term ceasefire, one that included mechanisms to verify intentions and ensure compliance. It even included a dramatic understanding that if Israel had a genuine ticking bomb - clear evidence of people imminently preparing to launch a rocket - a strike on that target would not be considered a breach of the ceasefire.

As Baskin describes it, what had usually happened is this:

The Israeli Army takes pre-emptive action with an airstrike against the suspected terror cells, which are often made up of fighters from groups like Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees or Salafi groups not under Hamas’s control but functioning within its territory. These cells launch rockets into Israeli towns near Gaza, and they often miss their targets. The Israeli Air Force responds swiftly. The typical result is between 10 and 25 casualties in Gaza, zero casualties in Israel and huge amounts of property damage on both sides.

Jabari was not willing to give up resistance to Israel, but he - along with other leaders of Hamas - had come to realize the futility of rocket attacks that left no damage in Israel but dozens of casualties in Gaza. Not only was Jabari aware of the negotiations between Baskin and Hamad, he had told Hamad that he was interested in a long-term ceasefire and he would have been the one to enforce it.

On November 14, Jabari was presented with the draft agreement. A few hours later, he was dead. The highest levels of the Israeli government, aware of these contacts, aware of these negotiations, aware of the draft, faced the dire possibility that the military leader of Hamas might agree to a long-term, enforceable ceasefire - and they preferred to kill him.

As Robert Dreyfuss said in The Nation recently,

Israel’s far right, and much of the center, has long acted as if moderate Palestinians were the enemy. To the extent that Israel says it can’t negotiate with the Palestinians, killing their moderate and pro-peace leaders makes it a self-fulfilling policy. Israel thrives on radical Palestinians.

In fact, he adds, Israel helped create Hamas in the 1970s and 1980s as a counterweight to the PLO and Fatah and pulled out of Gaza in 2006 knowing Hamas would come to power there.

And that is the really big thing that you won't hear from your mainstream press, the thing they - along with our political leaders - are effectively forbidden to say: Israel, at least Israeli governments going back decades have not wanted peace; the Israeli government today does not want peace. For years, for decades following the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, it was the Arab states and then the radical Palestinians who were the obstacle to peace. That is no longer true and has not been true for years. Peace - not tranquility, not horizon to horizon quietude, but peace, recognized borders, trade, commerce, cultural exchanges, reasonable security, peace, is there to be had but Israel, for its own reasons, will not take it.

Its people have become as hard as its government. According to a poll of Israelis published just this week, 59% of Israeli Jews want preference in public jobs for Jews over Arabs. Nearly half - 49% - want the state to treat Jews better than Arabs. Fully a third object to Israeli Arabs having the right to vote even though they are citizens living within the proper bounds of Israel and make up 20% of the population. Some 69% object to giving Palestinians the right to vote if Israel annexes the West Bank. Vitrually three-quarters - 74% - support separate roads for Jews and Palestinians in the West Bank. And 42% object to their children going to the same schools as Arabs. Imagine the outcry if a poll of some other country had reported that 42% of the population objected to their children going to the same school as Jews.

American correspondents in Israel covering the most recent fighting found people offering genocidal statements unprompted. "Push delete on Gaza." "Make it disappear." "Kill them all." In that context, the recent comments of Gilad Sharon, son of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, that Israel should "flatten entire neighborhoods in Gaza" seems moderate by comparison.

But yes, Gaza. What of Gaza? What's it like there? We have heard much of Israelis in the southern part of Israel living under the threat of rocket fire - what of Palestinians in Gaza living under the threat of Israeli bombs?

For several years now, Gaza has been a huge, outdoor concentration camp. Not like a concentration camp, a concentration camp. Israel imposed a blockade on the area in 2007, essentially imprisoning the people there, and has been choking it ever since. Except for one small border crossing with Egypt, which Israel monitors, Israel controls the whole border of Gaza, including who and what goes in or out. The area is surrounded by an Israeli security perimeter. Palestinians who come with a couple of hundred yards of that perimeter can be - and have been - shot and killed. Israel controls the airspace and maintains a naval blockade. Israel is in control of Gaza's natural resources, power supply, and telecommunications. Israel strictly controls and limits what goods can go in; exports are virtually banned entirely.

Despite some recent economic growth fueled almost entirely by smuggling from Egypt, the UN says that the people of Gaza are worse off than they were in the 1990s and what's more, that recent growth is "unsustainable." Unemployment was at 29% in 2011 and rising, particularly among women and the young. Three in four residents rely on UN food aid to get by. The UN also reports that the coastal aquifer, the territory's only natural source of fresh water, may become unusable by 2016.

According to the UN, the Gaza Strip will not be "a liveable place" by 2020 unless action is taken to improve conditions and basic services there.

Gaza is a society that has been deliberately and consciously reduced to a state of abject destitution, its once productive people turned into aid-dependent paupers. And Israel's intention is to make it worse: Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai said that the goal is to "send Gaza back to the middle ages." All this is what's known as "collective punishment" and in addition to being manifestly cruel and unjust it is clearly illegal under international law.

Despite all that, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can look straight into a camera and tell the bold-faced lie that there "is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza" and accuse human rights activists and relief workers of trying "to provoke and slander Israel's name."

And what is our own government's response to this? The same as always: fawning, groveling endorsement of every lie the Israeli government tells and every crime it commits in support and pursuit of those lies.

Just consider the actions of the US as the latest round of violence in Gaza escalated. The US vetoed a UN Security Council ceasefire resolution on the ground, in essence, that it was too balanced: that is, it didn't put all the blame on Hamas. The State Department publicly attacked a NATO ally, Turkey, for condemning Israeli aggression. The Senate and House unanimously passed resolutions offering full-throated support for whatever Israel was doing and increased military aid is sure to follow. (To be precise, it was not quite unanimous: The House resolution was passed by voice vote and Dennis Kucinich said he would have objected but it came up and was done so fast he wasn't in the chamber at the time.)

And what of our Nobel Peace Prize winner?

The US is "fully supportive of Israel's right to defend itself," Obama declared. "No country on earth would tolerate missiles raining down." Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, echoed that "Israelis have endured far too much of a threat from these rockets for far too long."

The hypocrisy is hard to grasp, it is so large. Israelis have the right to defend themselves? Okay - why don't Palestinians? Speaking of that, why don't the people of Pakistan, of Afghanistan, of Somalia, of Yemen, of anywhere else that US rockets and drones have "rained down" have that right of self-defense? No, the right of self-defense belongs only to those we support and here that means only to Israel.

In our government and in our media, Israel - with the world's fourth largest military - is never the aggressor. It can't be the aggressor. It is defined as "not the aggressor," defined as the target, as the innocent victim of fanatics, as always "responding," as always and only "defending itself."

It gets even worse. Obama called on Egypt and Turkey to intervene on Israel's behalf. He said he told them that if there is

a further escalation of the situation in Gaza, then the likelihood of us getting back on any kind of peace track that leads to a two-state solution is going to be pushed off way into the future.

Whether that was meant as advice or - I think more likely - as a threat, it is in fact a hideous joke. A two-state solution has been talked about for decades - I first heard about the idea somewhere around 1970. It has supposedly been the goal of negotiations for 20 years now and is still no closer because Israel doesn't want it. So when was a Palestinian state not "way off in the future?" Raising that now, especially at a time when more and more analysts are calling a two-state solution no longer possible in light of the decades of illegal Israeli land seizures and illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank is not even a joke. It's asinine except to the extent it's being a ventriloquist's dummy for Israeli talking points.

Obama also said that peace in the region must begin with "no missiles being fired into Israel's territory." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reinforced that, declaring that the US’s position that “all rocket attacks must end.” This right after she got Egypt to remove any mention of the siege of Gaza from Egypt's ceasefire proposal, even as something to be discussed later.

Worse than worse? Try this: Something else absent from the final proposal was a requirement that as a part of a ceasefire that Israel halt assassinations of Hamas leaders. In other words, Israel's position, backed by the US, is to say to Hamas "We can continue to murder your officials, to blow them to pieces along with anyone else who happened to be in the vicinity and besides, that's their own fault because they should have known better than to be wherever it was they were at the time, we can murder your officials and you can't do anything about it because if you try to retaliate, that's breaking the ceasefire and then we can attack you."

Meanwhile, the White House said it would “use the opportunity offered by a ceasefire to intensify efforts to help Israel address its security needs, especially the issue of the smuggling of weapons and explosives into Gaza.” Obama will also seek ”additional funding for Iron Dome and other US-Israel missile defense programs,” apparently on top of the $100 million already requested for just that purpose - itself just part of the over $3 billion in military aid the US will send to Israel in Fiscal 2013.

In short, the Israeli - and the US - position is that Israel can murder leaders of Hamas with impunity and continue to degrade the people and destroy the land of Gaza while Palestinians must stand by and do nothing. They must simply allow it to happen because to resist, to defend themselves, to strike back in any way, is to "attack" Israel which will then "defend itself."

And the US will make damn sure Israel has the capability to do it.

You want solutions? I don't have them. There are no easy solutions here. But I'll tell you what should happen in the short term: A long-term ceasefire, a lifting of the siege of Gaza, US support for the Palestinians’ bid for nonmember observer status at the UN, an explicit recognition by Israel of the Palestinians' right to nationhood, and most importantly, a suspension of US military aid to Israel until these things happen.

In the longer run, Israel must face the question: Is it to be a Jewish state or a democratic one? As events and facts such as the poll I cited earlier are showing, it cannot long continue to claim to be both.

Sources:
http://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
http://www.btselem.org/
http://www.jewishpeacefellowship.org/
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2003/12/is-it-just-me.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_legislative_election,_2006
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_presidential_election,_2005
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_municipal_election,_2005
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2007/03/both-sides-against-middle-east-part-two.html
http://www.fair.org/blog/2012/11/15/justifying-certain-acts-of-violence/
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/israels-attack-underlines-helplessness-hopelessness-of-gaza-palestinians/article5363472/
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/history/origin.html
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2009/6/2/the-peril-of-forgetting-gaza-the/
http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2012/11/17/mouin-rabbani/bibis-first-war/
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/11/27/3112946/cease-fire-negotiations-with-israel-hamas-resume-in-cairo
http://old.btselem.org/statistics/english/Casualties.asp
http://pjmedia.com/blog/hamas-elections-solidify-split-from-palestinian-authority/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/opinion/israels-shortsighted-assassination.html
http://www.timesofisrael.com/jabari-supported-ceasefire-with-israel-claims-israeli-who-negotiated-with-hamas/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-new-israeli-apartheid-poll-reveals-widespread-jewish-support-for-policy-of-discrimination-against-arab-minority-8223548.html
http://my.firedoglake.com/edwardteller/2012/11/18/as-eliminationist-racism-explodes-in-israel-obama-defends-its-consequences/
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/iv-drip/flatten-all-of-gaza-says-son-of-ariel-sharon-8328228.html
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2012/11/19/obama-administrations-complicity-in-permitting-israel-to-escalate-its-bombing-of-gaza
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19391809
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/israeli-naval-vessels-make-contact-gaza-boat
http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/middle-east-north-africa/268893-kucinich-objects-to-unanimous-resolution-defending-israels-actions-in-gaza
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/21/israel-gaza-us-support
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/18/obama-israel-gaza_n_2154008.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-pounds-gaza-from-air-as-troops-assemble-8326924.html
http://www.fair.org/blog/2012/11/15/when-does-israelpalestine-violence-start/
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2012/11/21/israel-gaza-ceasefire-comes-with-pledge-from-obama-to-seek-more-defense-aid-for-israel/
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/usaid.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20121118/as-obama-israel/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/28/world/europe/france-says-it-will-vote-in-favor-of-palestinians-un-bid.html
http://www.ipcri.org/IPCRI/Home.html

Libya there

So at this point, as of this writing, Muammar Qaddafi is nowhere to be found - he may be in hiding, in flight, he may have already left the country, or he may be surrounded and trapped. Whichever, in a very real sense it doesn't matter: The regime of dictator Muammar Qaddafi is over. And none too soon.

Now comes the real battle.

Before getting to that, however, I want to point out that this is not the first time Qaddafi has been in our (that is, US) gunsights. We have bombed Tripoli (killing Qaddafi's daughter in the process) and twice have shot down Libyan fighter jets in the Gulf of Sidra.

On the other hand, as I wrote in February,

Qaddafi ingratiated himself with a West addicted to oil when he withdrew his support for various revolutionary (or "terrorist") groups around the world and shut down his nascent nuclear weapons program. But those same Western nations turned a blind eye to his continued violent repression of any opposition. And here, once again, our preference for stability over justice, for convenience over conscience, may well come around to bite us on the ass.

As in so many other cases, our view was based far more on our interests than those of the people of Libya, whose subjection did not end at those times. Even as Qaddafi was described, just as Saddam Hussein often enough was, as "taking steps in the right direction" and maybe he really wasn't such a bad guy after all, the fact remained that his doing what we liked did not change the character of the regime, a regime now happily ended.

The question now is what happens next and are Libyans going to, as a good many Iraqis did, wind up looking back with nostalgia on "the old days" of dictatorship that at least offered some stability. A senior American military officer was quoted as saying "There [is] no clear plan for a political succession or for maintaining security in the country. The [African and Arab] leaders I have talked to do not have a clear understanding how this will play out."

The immediate and perhaps biggest problem is that in the course of the months-long stalemate that preceded the collapse of the regime

three distinct rebel factions developed – all with disparate identities and different tribal roots.

There were the originals in the east, drawn largely from a rebellious middle class; a second group in the centre, who fought the war's most intense battles; and the mountain men from the west who saw getting to the capital first as their higher calling.

The government established by the rebels centered in Benghazi in the east calls itself the National Transitional Council. It's authority has been recognized by 32 countries, but it has yet to gain the full support of other factions. The members of the NTC apparently realize that time is critical: They have announced intentions to move to Tripoli as soon as possible and have already drafted a constitution.

The question is if such moves will be enough: Libya is a fiercely tribal nation, one where ties to family and clan can easily outweigh ties to the nation as a whole. And with some 140 tribes and clans, each of which wants to lay some claim to a role in the new Libya, producing a unified government will take more than good intentions or even good ideas.

As just one example of the conflicts,

[r]ebel forces in the western city of Misrata, Libya's third-biggest, have gone out of their way to register their contempt for the transitional council with foreign reporters, insisting that they refuse to take instructions from Benghazi.

A potentially even more serious one relates to the suspicious death of rebel military commander Abdel Fattah Younis. In late July, he was taken for questioning by his own side - and was killed. The NTC investigated and now says it knows who is guilty but won't immediately name them for fear of hurting the revolution; the fear probably is of sparking tribal divisions.

That doesn't sit well with leaders of the Obeidi tribe, of which Younis was a member. They are demanding that the killers be brought to justice by the NTC and say their patience is limited.

“If we [need] to take our justice by ourselves, we will do it,” [Obeidi leader Ali Senussi] says in a tent surrounded by fellow tribesmen in Benghazi, after breaking the Ramadan fast. A nearby tribal leader adds: “Tribal law is stronger than government law.”

But just raising Younis's name raises another question: The nature of the NTC itself. Back in April I noted how the emerging leaders of the NTC were not the students, professors, and so on who sparked revolution, but often were former supporters and even members of the Qaddafi regime from business and the military who saw which way the wind was blowing and switched sides with the intention of trying to preserve whatever part of their influence they could. I wondered just what they understood the word "freedom" to mean.

I still do - especially in light of the fact that the rebel cabinet was dissolved earlier this month and there has been no move to appoint a new one.

Well, Abdul Fatah Younis is a good illustration of those doubts: Before defecting to the rebels, Younis had been in charge of Libya's special forces for the past 41 years. He had served Qaddafi ever since the 1969 coup that brought the dictator to power. Despite the claims he made to the contrary, he seemed poor material for a devotee of democracy and political freedoms.

The truth is, whether we are actually seeing the emergence of a "new" Libya or just the layout of a new playing field on which competing tribal blocks are eager to test their relative strengths remains to be seen. We (and to be clear, I mean us as individuals, not as the US) have to keep watching, hoping to be of good aid where and how we can while knowing there may be nothing we can do.

But pay attention we must because it is too easy to lose the thread of a matter. Consider Egypt.

After the victory of what was not entirely but still essentially a nonviolent revolution, the media was drowning in stories about the "new, free" Egypt. Then, they essentially stopped paying attention except for the coverage focused on the trial of Hosni Mubarak. That he is getting a public trial - as opposed to just being put up against a wall and shot - is being trumpeted as a great proof of the success of the revolution.

But at the same time that media ignored - or mentioned only in passing - a more important, much more ominous, development: On August 1, police and the military forcibly removed democracy activists from Tahrir Square, the square famous as the focus, the epicenter, of the protests that lead to Mubarak's downfall. The square is now occupied by military and police and

[a]rmed forces now surround the central square area, literally taking up the space occupied by the democracy movement only a few days ago.

Even more ominously, a few days later, on August 5, the military made an unprovoked attack on a group of a few hundred unarmed, peaceful protesters. They were on a traffic island off the square, where they broke their Ramadan fast and held a brief rally. They had made it clear they inteded to demonstrate and then leave and had no intention of trying to re-occupy the square itself. No matter: They were attacked by the soldiers carrying clubs. In the words of an eyewitness:

The soliders beat dozens of protesters indiscriminately, most of whom were simply trying to escape. I repeatedly saw groups of five to ten soldiers chase down boys who couldn’t be any older than ten years old and beat them with yard-long sticks. The soldiers chased protesters many blocks from Tahrir Square, all the way to the Kasr-al-Nile Bridge half a mile away, for the purpose of beating them.

Many dozens of bullets were fired as the soldiers chased the protesters through the streets, presumably into the air. Though there haven’t been reports of anyone being shot, though many protesters were hospitalized from their beating injuries.

Clearly, the purpose of the attack was not just to clear that little island of the square. The level of brutality suggests that its true purpose was to strike fear in the hearts of anyone who wants to make public political expression in the main town square of Egypt.

That eyewitness said these events meant that the members of the ruling Egyptian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Hey, have we forgotten that the military is now in charge in Egypt?) "don’t understand the importance of that place for the democratic development of Egypt." On the contrary, I'd suggest that it means that they do understand its importance and intend to redefine that meaning - as well as the meaning of "freedom" - on their own terms.

It is always vital, absolutely vital, to remember, in Libya just like in Tunisia and in Egypt: The battle doesn’t end with the end of the battle.

"Be afraid" is always Option One

There is, of course, legitimate concern about how the revolution in Egypt will ultimately play out. While there is still good reason to think the the military will be true to its word about returning to civilian government (because, as I've argued previously, there really is no gain to the military to stay in power), there is also cause for concern, such the the military's declared intention to put and end to the strikes that arose as part of the protests.

However, our media can always find another reason to tremble. Friday's New York Times had an article that opened this way:

Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an influential Sunni cleric who is banned from the United States and Britain for supporting violence against Israel and American forces in Iraq, delivered his first public sermon here in 50 years on Friday, emerging as a powerful voice in the struggle to shape what kind of Egyptian state emerges from the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak.

So the very first thing it was felt necessary to say was "Ooh! Scary Muslim radical" and the second thing was "Ooh - Scary Muslim radical is a 'powerful voice' in shaping Egypt's future." Be afraid - be very afraid.

Then, after saying the scary Muslim radical addressed "a rapt audience of more than a million" (Ooh! Scary!), calling Qaradawi "an intellectual inspiration to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood" (Ooh! Scary!) and repeating the "supports violence" bit (Ooh! Still scary!), only then, in the seventh graph, does the article say this:

On Friday, he struck themes of democracy and pluralism, long hallmarks of his writing and preaching. He began his sermon by saying that he was discarding the customary opening “Oh Muslims,” in favor of “Oh Muslims and Copts”....

He urged the military officers governing Egypt to deliver on their promises of turning over power to “a civil government” founded on principles of pluralism, democracy and freedom. [Emphasis added.]

So the scary Muslim radical with the "powerful voice" and the "rapt audience" actually believes, according to scholars who have studied his work, that

Islamic law supports the idea of a pluralistic, multiparty, civil democracy.

But the NY Times couldn't lead with that, could it? After all, that would not have been scary.

Egypt on my mind

This is not going to be some in-depth analysis. Rather, it is just some general observations. I'm not entirely happy with the clarity or insight of what follows, some of which may prove in a rather short time to be jaw-droppingly naive, but it's what I have now.

The first thing is to point out, as others have, that what happened in Egypt was essentially and almost completely a nonviolent revolution. It was a revolution driven by emotion and passion, by courage and commitment, and not by guns or murder or bombings; indeed, its nonviolence stood firm even in the face of the murderous violence of the state and even on that one day and night of stones and Molotov cocktails being tossed back and forth it did not allow itself to lose so much control as to enable the state to justify the imposition of the most massive official repression. It was a demonstration of precisely what is so often denied: the power of the people, the power of unarmed determination, the power yes of nonviolence. Watching this unfold has been, well, frankly exhilarating.

At the same time I have to say that I am thoroughly sickened by hearing praise for the nonviolence of the demonstrators come out of the mouths of those who have been the architects of so much violence, the authors of so much blood, violence against the people of Iraq, of Afghanistan, of Pakistan; of hearing that praise come from those who preferred "stability" above freedom until it was politically inconvenient, who have coddled and condoned dictators (who were, we were told, not even really dictators), who have endorsed and financed the oppressors and the occupiers.

But enough of that for now. The important question, the one that actually matters, is what now? What happens in Egypt, what happens to the hopes and ideas and ideals of the protestors?

There is still a huge "if" hanging over the whole situation. The army, which took power when Mubarak was forced out by the protests, has in the wake of his downfall repeatedly done things or made statements that can be seen as encouraging or ominous depending on how you want to interpret them, and so far there simply is not enough experience of this new situation to favor one such view over the other.

For example, the army ruling council has promised elections within six months - which is actually a fairly short time line given that it requires a new, even if interim, constitution and more importantly, if the elections really are going to be free and fair, political parties and groupings that have been repressed for so long will need some time to get organized and establish a presence in order to effectively campaign.

On the other hand, six months is more than enough time for the military to establish a direct and firm grip on the country if it is of a mind to, something Robert Fisk fears is already happening. Additionally, it is easy to read a sinister meaning into the army's statement that

it intends to retain power for six months or longer while elections are scheduled and will rule by decree,

the phrase "or longer" being a loophole more than big enough to drive a military dictatorship through, especially one that has spent those months ruling by decree.

Combine that with the calls for "stability" and a declared intention to crack down on those the army accuses of creating "chaos and disorder" ("Plus ça change?" Fisk asks.) while effectively banning strikes and you have more than enough reason for concern.

Yet it must be said that the people of Egypt largely trust and respect the military and welcomed many of the moves, such as suspending the constitution and dissolving Mubarak's rubber-stamp parliament. I think it can be reasonably said that when the military declares that it fully intends to hand over control to a civilian government, most Egyptians honestly believe it. And, being as fair as I can, it should be noted that during the protests the military on the whole - not completely, surely, as there were several reports of the military arresting and even torturing protestors and turning them over to the police, but the qualified "on the whole" - tried to avoid taking sides. Which tells us little about longer-term intentions, but does at least suggest that the army is not particularly interested in being responsible for running the country, preferring its politically (and for officers, personally) comfortable role of "respected defender of the nation" to a "new boss, just like the old boss" status. It suggests, putting it another way, that the army is prepared to back up the state, but is not so much interested in formally being the state.

On the other other hand, some of the protestors are not satisfied, angry over the retention of Mubarak's cabinet and upset at the lack - at least so far - of civilian participation in the transition planning. Some of the organizers are trying to set up a civilian council to deal with the military and establish civilian control of the changeover. In the meanwhile, some protestors - I have seen numbers ranging from "hundreds" to "a few thousand" - have sworn to remain in Tahrir Square and continue to protest until there is civilian rule. Military attempts to push them out caused some scuffling but the BBC said this afternoon that "the situation on the square has become a good-natured standoff." Which again can be seen as either damning (the army tried to push them out) or encouraging (it's reluctant to push really hard).

(A related point here which I don't think I've seen mentioned elsewhere - although I'm sure it has been - is drawn from something I wrote in a post about Egypt sometime last century, i.e., about two weeks ago: Middle-ranking officers appeared to sympathize with the protestors while soldiers on the ground freely mingled unarmed among the crowds in the square. Does the upper echelon of the military really have complete confidence that if it did order a mass crackdown that it would not face some form of rebellion from within its own ranks?)

At this point, while I'm not as sure as I was about declaring that Mubarak was on the way out, I have a fair degree of confidence that the military will be true to its word and that a civilian government will emerge. Besides wanting to cling to a Pollyanna moment - I have few enough of them - the baseline reason is that the military has no reason to fear any threat to its position or its members (particularly, as always, high-ranking officers) from a civilian government. It has not been connected in the public mind with the repression and cruelties of the past decades and there is no reason to expect any investigations or prosecutions. So I don't see where the military would see any gain, any advantage, in retaining direct power with all the hassles of dealing with an energized citizenry and the undermining of public respect and confidence that would entail.

I think another week or two will tell the story. Does the military forcibly clear Tahrir Square? Does it aggressively break strikes? Or do the "good-natured standoffs" continue? Perhaps most significantly in the short-term, there have been calls for protests on Friday to continue to press for a rapid move to civilian government and to complain about the retention of Mubarak's cabinet. If those protests look like they are going to be large, what does the military do? Does it try to repress them? Disrupt them? Or not? If that civilian council comes together, does the army talk to it? Or not?

The move for change in Egypt has scored a major, potentially an historic, victory for sheer people power. But the cause is not complete and the song has not reached its coda. Perhaps the best source of hope is that I am quite sure that the people of Egypt know that.

Another passing thought

Frank Wisner, who had served as Barack Obama's special envoy for Egypt, told reporters in Germany on Saturday that "President Mubarak remains utterly critical in the days ahead." According to Al Jazeera (see 8:07pm at this link), he said

We need to get a national consensus around the pre-conditions for the next step forward. The president must stay in office to steer those changes.

How's that? He must stay in power to "steer the changes" toward a "national consensus" on "the pre-conditions" for "the next step?" How many months, how many years, are there in a "steer changes to national consensus on pre-conditions for the next step?"

So just a thought: How many weasel words can be fit into one statement? (And I didn't even include that ridiculous modern cliché "forward.")

Passing thought

In an interview with ABC reporter Christiane Amanpour, Hosni Murbarak was quoted as saying "I am fed up. After 62 years in public service, I have had enough. I want to go" before adding that he couldn't because "If I resign today, there will be chaos."

Beyond the extraordinary self-pity there, I can't be the only one who thought "Après moi, le déluge."

The quote, attributed to both Louis XV and his paramour Madame de Pompadour, has been understood a couple of ways but it always seemed to me to say, as Mubarak clearly did, "I'm all that stands between you and chaos."

And as a passing thought on the passing thought, if Mubarak quit, what would be immediately left behind? A vice-president and a new cabinet, all of which he hand-picked. It seems he doesn't have much faith in his own people.

Egypt

Watching the live video coming out of Egypt tonight reminded me of something I was thinking of including my earlier post on events there, something I should have included but didn't: Another tactic dictators often use when faced with mass opposition is to try to provoke violence specifically in order to justify a massive, severe, violent repression of the opposition in the name of "security" or "public safety" or some similar spurious crap.

I didn't include it for a couple of reasons, one being that I thought the post was already rather long but another being that, as I said there, such large-scale repression would require the cooperation of the military, a cooperation of which it certainly appears Mubarak can have no assurance.

Perhaps that's why when Mubarak's hired thugs and police goons attacked the protestors in Tahrir Square today, they weren't trying to provoke a violent reaction, they were trying to physically drive the protestors out of the square, to achieve a sort of overt physical victory over, a clear physical defeat of, the regime's opponents. That this was a coordinated, planned, assault can't be denied: An attack that comes "without warning," including riders on camels and horses, which includes

[r]egime supporters dropp[ing] concrete blocks on the opposition protesters from the roofs and balconies of surrounding buildings

doesn't occur spontaneously. Neither does what appears to be a planned intention to attack journalists. Meanwhile,

Mustafa el-Fiqqi, a top official from the ruling National Democratic Party, told The Associated Press that businessmen connected to the ruling party were responsible for what happened

and some government workers said they were ordered by their employers to participate in pro-government protests. Even the New York Times, hardly a friend to "instability," referred to Wednesday's events as Mubarak

unleashing waves of his supporters armed with clubs, rocks, knives and firebombs in a concerted assault on thousands of anti-government protesters.

The attackers, however, ultimately got more than they bargained for and were driven back out of and away from the square even as sporadic violence, driven by anger and a desire for revenge, continued through the night.

The position of the military remains a question. Journalists and other observers on the scene appear to agree that the army is trying to keep out of events, perhaps partly for fear of being seen as partisan and partly for fear of a rebellion within its own ranks if it did try to impose "calm" by force after having made much of saying how it will not fire on protestors. But that position is a difficult one: By not intervening, the army also risks being seen as partisan. The military leadership no doubt just wants the whole thing over with and just needs lets call it a nudge in the right direction.

So this is what I think should happen right now: The US has already broken with Mubarak, a fact made plain by Obama's deliberate use of the word "now" in referring to a "transition" in Egypt. (If there was any doubt that it was deliberate, Robert Gibbs made it plain: "Not September. Now means now.")

According to The Globe & Mail (Canada), a range of US officials, both civilian and military, are

all giving their Egyptian counterparts the same message. The Americans are warning of consequences – believed to be cuts in the $1.3-billion in military aid that provides Egypt’s officer corps with a privileged lifestyle in a society plagued by poverty.

“Officers throughout our command ranks have spoken to their counterparts … it's safe to say, again, each and every one of those conversations starts out with a conversation about restraint and non-violence,” Mr. Gibbs said.

It's time to go that one better. It's time for PHC* to tell Bob Gates to tell Mike Mullen to get on the phone to Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Sami Hafez Enan, Mullen's Egyptian equivalent, and tell him that the US has determined that it will be impossible for stability to return to Egypt so long as the Mubarak regime is in power and that we're so very sorry but, y'know, the US simply can't provide military aid to unstable governments. Put it as diplomatically and politely as you want, as you can, but make it clear: As long as the Mubarak regime is in power - and having Mubarak graciously "retire" seven months from now in another set of rigged elections designed to put his some Gamal in his place is not getting rid of the regime - there will be no more military aid.

See how long Hosni Mubarak stays around after that.

*PHC = President Hopey-Changey

State of de Nile

I haven't said anything about the events in Egypt, much as I'd like to and as much as I've been following them, because - well, for a couple of reasons, central to which in that it's not really a matter of separate "events" but of a single ongoing event. It's an admittedly weak analogy, but think of it like a beating heart: It pulses with a series of individual beats but they're not the point; it's the continuing series of them that's meaningful and you have to look at the whole to see what's really going on.

Considering that I'm surely not a source anyone looks to for up-to-the-minute coverage of events - nor should they - and the fact that the "whole" is constantly changing, it's hard for me to say anything worthwhile that others haven't said or won't say sooner and probably better. So consider what follows some blue-skying about the future.

My own impression is that Mubarak is going down and that his regime will not survive much longer. The first hint was when the government, faced with the single focused demand of "Mubarak must go" made some totally-unrelated changes and promises that would not impinge on his control. That is always - always - the first step, a clear sign of a regime that has realized that it faces a serious challenge and it is trying to buy off the opposition on the cheap. When that didn't work, the result was more promises combined with threats.

Government's like Mubarak's always face the same dilemma when faced with a mass protest movement - especially when those protests appear in multiple places - when that movement is not coupled with outright violent insurrection: Go easy, you might encourage more protest. Crack down, and you also might encourage more protest as the result of outrage. There is a risk either way. Most repressive governments, in such cases, wind up doing both. After the fig-leaf promises, comes the hope that the protests will fade away. When they don't, comes the crackdown.

Most cases, just like this one, run that same course. The break point comes when the crackdown turns from a show of force to real force, real state violence. What happens then often tells the future.

By the third day of the protests in Egypt, police were shooting demonstrators; by Sunday, when Mubarak gave the army orders to shoot to kill when it saw fit, at least 150 people already had been killed and thousands more wounded. But the demonstrations didn't stop. They kept right on going, even grew as the spirit grew. That's when I became convinced Mubarak was finished.

You want other signs beyond the on-going protests? How about this:

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, Syrian President Bashar Assad ... said that he will advocate for political and economic reform in Syria, following the massive protests that have recently swept the Middle East, which he said have ushered in a "new era."

Assad, that is, intends to be out in front of protests, to try on some reforms before the protests break out in Syria, the better to head them off. That's how seriously he takes what's going down in Egypt and how seriously he regards the potential of a threat to his own regime from the spread of protest, even as he also insists that his government is "more stable" than Mubarak's.

Here at home there is that fact that according to the Los Angeles Times, the Obama administration is

preparing for a post-Mubarak era after three decades. ...

As early as last Wednesday, the Obama administration recognized that they would not be able to prop up the Mubarak regime and keep it in power at all costs, [one former senior administration advisor] said.

"They don't want to push Mubarak over the cliff, but they understand that the Mubarak era is over...."

This in addition to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of the word "transition" and the reference to US aid to Egypt being "reviewed" as events unfold. The implied threat about aid is unlikely to be carried out, but it does signal to Mubarak that yes, he can go too far. Then there is the attitude of the US toward Mubarak's newly-sworn in cabinet, an attitude the Voice of America described as "dismissive." The US is hedging its bets in case Mubarak does manage to survive, but what's clear is that his biggest sponsor, his long-time backer, is more than ready to see him go.

Like the man said, the Mubarak era is over.

At this point, Mubarak's only remaining clear option if he wants to maintain his regime is large-scale violent repression, which would require the cooperation of the military. That cooperation appears unlikely to come, especially after the military issued this statement, as translated by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which I spell out because if I said ABC you'd get the wrong idea:

Your armed forces acknowledges the legitimacy of the people's demands and is adamant on carrying out its responsibilities and protecting the country and its citizens as ever.

The armed forces' presence on the Egyptian streets is for your own sake - safety and security. Your armed forces have not and will not resort to the use of force against this great people.

(Al-Jazeera had a slightly different version of the statement, which added the line that the army "affirms that freedom of expression through peaceful means is guaranteed to everybody.")

Mahmoud Shokry, a former Egyptian diplomat, declared the army "is not a puppet" in anyone's hands.

“The army does not want to confront the youth,” Mr. Shokry said. “If they think this will make a kind of civil war, they will ask Mr. Mubarak to leave the country, I am sure.”

Meanwhile, on the ground, the military allowed citizens gathered in Tahrir Square to ignore the curfew and the soldiers freely mingled unarmed among the crowds. Their immediate superiors, the middle-rank officers,

try to avoid talking about politics but appear to sympathize with the sentiments of the masses demanding the removal of President Hosni Mubarak.

Clearly, Mubarak can't count on the army to save his pitiful hide. In what can only be seen as a last-ditch attempt to save himself, minutes after the military released its statement, Mubarak had his new vice-president, Omar Suleiman, declare

"I was assigned by the president today to contact all the political forces to start a dialogue about all the raised issues concerning constitutional and legislative reform...."

With force having failed, it's back to placate and stall. But I strongly suspect it will not be enough. Al-Jazeera reports that opposition leaders in Cairo rejected the offer of negotiations, saying that the protestors "say it isn't an issue of a different approach from Mubarak, they just don't want Mubarak." As for the pledge to institute economic and political reforms, it's regarded as too little, too late. What's even more, Suleiman is damaged goods: His history of working with the CIA on rendition may not be widely known in Egypt, but his role in Mubarak's intelligence service surely is. Indeed, there is speculation that he was chosen as VP because it would please the army, with which Mubarak was and is trying to strengthen relations, rather than with any eye to pleasing the protestors.

All of this is not to say Mubarak is totally without friends, however: On Saturday night, the Israel Foreign Ministry

issued a directive to around a dozen key embassies in the United States, Canada, China, Russia and several European countries. The ambassadors were told to stress to their host countries the importance of Egypt's stability. In a special cable, they were told to get this word out as soon as possible.

Put more bluntly, Israel was telling its ambassadors to encourage other countries to "lay off Mubarak."

"The Americans and the Europeans are being pulled along by public opinion and aren't considering their genuine interests," one senior Israeli official said.

Apparently justice, freedom, democracy, human rights, economic improvement, and all the rest of that leftist rot are not to be counted among "genuine interests." The attitude of "Wait a minute - how does this affect me?" is not limited to Americans.

As I type in these last few lines, it is a little after 6am in Egypt and we are hours away from the "march of a million people." Al-Jazeera's live blog quotes one of its correspondents in Tahrir Square as saying

[t]he protesters seem to be increasingly energised this morning. They clearly are determined to get today's march starting with a big bang. The atmosphere on Tahrir Square is very good. People seem to feel that some sort of victory is the air.

Perhaps they're right. They well could be. The dying Mubarak regime is trying as best as it can to limit the size of the action by blocking transportation and communication: The internet is down, there are predictions that the mobile phone network will be shut off, and all train traffic has been stopped. But while those trains can be stopped, there is a bigger train here, the train of history. And while I freely admit I have been wrong, even embarrassingly wrong, in predictions before, I think that that train is not one that will be derailed.