MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By Jack Shenker and Abdel-Rahman Hussein, The Guardian – “The Muslim Brotherhood has vowed to face down Egypt’s ruling generals in a ‘life or death’ struggle over the country’s political future, after declaring that its candidate had won the presidential election and would refuse to accept the junta’s last-ditch attempts to engineer a constitutional coup.

As final ballot results trickled in and unofficial tallies suggested that Mohamed Morsi had secured approximately 52% of the popular vote, the Brotherhood deployed its harshest language yet against the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf), promising to bring millions of Egyptians back on to the streets if attempts to rebuild the old regime continued.

‘Over the past 18 months we were very keen to avoid any clashes or confrontations with other components of Egypt’s political system because we felt that it would have negative consequences for the democratic system and for society as a whole,’ said Fatema AbouZeid, a senior policy researcher for the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice party and a media co-ordinator for the Morsi campaign. ‘But now it’s very clear that Scaf and other institutions of the state are determined to stand in the way of what we’re trying to achieve, and we won’t accept this any more. Egypt will not go back to the old regime through any means, legal or illegal.

‘If we find that Scaf stands firm against us as we try to fulfil the demands of the revolution, we will go back to the streets and escalate things peacefully to the highest possible stage,’ she said. ‘Now we have a new factor in Egyptian politics, the Egyptian people themselves, who will not accept a return to the old regime in any form, not after so much Egyptian blood was shed to remove it.

‘The revolution is facing a life or death moment and the Egyptian people have put their faith in Dr Morsi to represent them at this time.’

On Monday the parliamentary speaker, Saad el-Katatni, a Brotherhood veteran, said he did not recognise last week’s decision by Mubarak-era judges in Egypt’s supreme constitutional court to dissolve the legislature, a move widely viewed as highly politicised and designed to bolster the generals. Katatni said MPs planned to attend parliament – which was surrounded by armed soldiers – as usual on Tuesday or convene in nearby Tahrir Square, setting the stage for a showdown between the generals who have held sway for six decades and the long-outlawed Islamist movement now on the brink of political control.” Read more.

Iran was right, America was wrong, and history is being repeated yet again …

By Raymond Ibrahim, Frontpagemag.com – “Many are the lessons to be learned between the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the current revolutions of the Arab world.

Consider the issue of the hijab, the female ‘veil’—the proliferation of which, according to one former Islamist and associate of al-Qaeda’s Ayman Zawahiri, is associated with a Muslim society’s downward spiral into oppression and terror.

Prior to Egypt’s presidential elections, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Muhammad Morsi, assured the nation’s liberals and secularists that, as president, he would certainly not enforce the hijab: ‘Many people are speaking nonsense, saying that I will impose the hijab against the will of the people; no one is going to force anyone to wear a specific uniform.’

These are famous words, spoken almost verbatim some 33 years earlier, in Iran, at the time of the 1979 revolution. In fact, during the early days of the revolution, Ayatollah Mahmud Taleghani, a popular mullah of the revolution, in an article meant to reassure the secularists who participated in the overthrow of the Shah that an Islamic government would certainly not interfere with their freedoms, declared in the March 11, 1979 edition of Iran’s newspaper, Ettela’at, that ‘The hijab will not be a matter of coercion.’

The rest is history. Within months of the founding of the Islamic Republic, the 1967 Family Protection Law was repealed, female government workers were made to wear the hijab, women were barred from becoming judges, sex-segregation laws were promulgated, the marriage age for girls was dropped to 13, and married women were barred from attending regular schools. Today, Iranian women are regularly beaten if they are not dressed in appropriate hijab.

The parallels between Iran and Egypt do not end with the hijab. While today it is standard to think of the 1979 Iranian revolution as a purely Islamic affair, in fact, many of the revolutionaries were secular, liberal, Marxist, non-Muslim, etc. The one goal that glued them altogether was the Read more…

By Yoav Zitun, YNET – “The IDF has deployed Armored forces near the Israel-Egypt border, moving tanks closer to the fence, Ynet has learned. The unusual move followed Monday’s terror attack on defense contractor crews building the new security fence.

The attack claimed the life of Said Phashpashe, 36, from Haifa. Golani soldiers who were scrambled to the area killed two terrorists.

Ynet was able to document the presence of Israeli tanks in close proximity to the border – maneuvers which are barred by Jerusalem’s peace treaty with Cairo.

The last time the IDF boosted its front-line combat vehicle presence in the sector was in August 2011, following a murderous terror attack by the Islamic Jihad, which left nine Israelis dead.

At the time, the military deployed several armored personnel carriers along the border, as part of the heightened security measures in the sensitive area.

Ynet’s chief military commentator Ron Ben Yishai noted that several months ago, Israel and Egypt arrived at an agreement by which Cairo would be able to deploy 20 tanks near the border, to ward off attacks by Bedouins on Egyptian forces, despite the fact that such a move contradicts the peace treaty.

It is likely that the deal also allowed Israel to do the same in favor of increased protection for the area’s communities.” Read more.

By Avi Issacharoff and Gili Cohen – “Israeli security officials say that the rockets that landed on Friday in the area near Ovda and Mitzpeh Ramon, were launched after a request by senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. According to these officials, the rockets were launched from the Sinai Peninsula by a Bedouin unit, according to Hamas orders, even though Hamas itself wasn’t the initiator of the launching, but responded to the request of the Brotherhood, who wanted such an event on the eve of the second round of presidential elections in Egypt. It is yet unclear why the Brotherhood requested such an unusual action, a first military strike against Israel, or whether the strike was aimed at specific sites in the area.

So far, the Muslim Brotherhood leaders have presented a moderate stance towards Israel in their talks with the international community, stressing that they had to intention of annulling the peace accords, a position reiterated by presidential candidate, Mohamed Morsi. Still, in the buildup to the elections, Brotherhood speakers have been known to speak fiercely against Israel. In one gathering, in the beginning of May at El-Mahalla El-Kubra, Brotherhood leaders promised, in the presence of Morsi, that the object of the Brotherhood is to liberate Jerusalem. The main speaker at that gathering, Sifwat Hijazi, said that Morsi would liberate Jerusalem and that the Brotherhood’s dream was the creation of the ‘united Arab nations,’ with Jerusalem as its capital. ‘Our capital won’t be Mecca or Medina, but Jerusalem, millions of shahids will march on the city’ shouted Hijazi, ‘the whole world should know – and we say it clearly – our goal is Jerusalem, we shall pray in Jerusalem, and if not – we shall die as martyrs on its ruins.'” Read more.

At least two rockets fired into southern Israel on Saturday – “Remnants of a grad rocket were found Saturday morning in Ovda, north of Eilat in the southern Negev. No one was wounded by the rocket, nor was any damage caused. Security forces began scanning the area after an explosion was heard on Friday night. Initial investigations indicate that the rocket had a diameter of 122 millimeters. The incident was particularly unordinary, for this was the first time a rocket had ever been fired toward this area. The source of the rocket is unknown thus far, but investigations are taking place to inspect whether it was launched from the direction of Jordan or from the Sinai Peninsula.” Read more.

Flashback: Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood Holds Venomous Anti-Israel Rally, Vows to ‘One Day Kill All Jews’ – “Arab hate: A Muslim Brotherhood rally in Cairo’s most prominent mosque Friday turned into a venomous anti-Israel protest, with attendants vowing to ‘one day kill all Jews.’ Some 5,000 people joined the rally, called to promote the ‘battle against Jerusalem’s Judaization.’ The event coincided with the anniversary of the United Nations’ partition plan in 1947, which called for the establishment of a Jewish state… Speakers at the event delivered impassioned, hateful speeches against Israel, slamming the ‘Zionist occupiers’ and the ‘treacherous Jews.’” Read more.

Flashback: ‘Egypt will never be the friend, partner or ally of the Zionist entity which we consider as the first enemy of Egypt’ – “It’s amazing what ‘freedom’ has brought to Egypt. Rejecting $1 billion in US aid would almost be laughable, if the possible implications were not so serious. Last month the Muslim Brotherhood had apparently come to the conclusion that it was Halal to extort the United States by threatening, for all intents and purposes, to wage war against Israel if America cut off aid to Egypt. Now they’re threatening to reject it all together, and all this while making it loud and clear that Egypt will ‘never be the friend, partner or ally of the Zionist entity’, even moving to halt all gas exports to ‘the first enemy of Egypt’. It almost seems to me like the Islamists are itching for that war after all.” Read more.

RT – “Israeli authorities are prepared to completely evacuate Tel Aviv in the event of a missile attack, especially one deploying ‘unconventional’ warheads, a commander heading the country’s central region has said.

Fears within Israel of a military backlash amid threats of a unilateral strike against Iran over the country’s uranium enrichment program seem to be coming to a head.

Today, ‘every civilian is threatened in Israel,’ Colonel Adam Zusman, chief of the Home Front Command in the Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area, told AFP.

‘In case of a missile attack on the center of Israel, especially unconventional, the population from Tel Aviv and other cities will be evacuated and relocated in other areas of the country,’ he warned.

‘Massive evacuations will take place in case of unconventional attacks and if buildings are destroyed by a missile,’ Zusman continued.

The colonel echoed past claims that the country is under continual regional threats from Iran and its allies, specifically the Lebanese-based Hezbollah and a Gaza Strip under Hamas control.

However, Zusman made no mention of the fact that any Iranian attack against Israel would likely be retaliatory, as the country’s Prime Minister Netanyahu warned ‘the threat of a nuclear Iran must be turned aside.’

Netanyahu further intonated that such a strike ‘is not days or weeks away, but neither is it years away.’

Zusman said that despite the fact that Israel touts the Iron Dome rocket shield – the ‘most sophisticated’ anti-aircraft system in the world – no system could provide total protection.” Read more. Tip of the hat to Kurt J. for the link …

Missile attacks could force mass evacuation of Tel Aviv to the desert of southern Israel – “The officer did not say to where the roughly two million inhabitants of the Dan region’s core towns of Tel Aviv, Bat Yam, Holon, Petakh Tikva, Ramat Hasharon, Ramat Gan, Givatayim, Bein Brak, Herzliya, Or Yehuda, Givat Shmuel and Kiryat Ono, would be evacuated. debkafile’s military sources estimate they will be relocated in the southern mostly desert Negev region. The outer Gush Dan ring includes some 3 million people… ‘In the next war, nobody will be able to drink a coffee in Dizengoff,’ he said, referring to a popular street in downtown Tel Aviv. ‘Israeli civilians will have to face the threat. Today, every civilian is threatened in Israel.'” Read more.