Egypt: Morsi Engineering a Train Wreck

by Michael Armanious
December 6, 2012 at 5:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3484/egypt-morsi-train-wreck

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While Egypt was unable to supply medicine to the victims of the crash at Assiut, it has sent millions of dollars worth of medicine to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. How about making sure the hospitals in Egypt have enough medicine to treat Egyptians? Morsi is not governing the country for the benefit of its citizens. He is using it as a platform to implement the objectives of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi fled the presidential palace in Cairo and returned, in the face of huge opposition to his attempt to turn his country into an Islamist state, but he is not out of the picture -- not by a long shot.
Yes, some police officers have sided with the protesters, but Morsi, (who will likely lay low for a while so as to not offend his political and financial patrons in the West), still has a huge base of support in the Muslim Brotherhood, which seeks to dominate the largest Arab country in the world. The Muslim Brotherhood, which has been on the sidelines of power since its founding in the 1920s, will stop at nothing to maintain its power. Credible reports indicate the organization has sent out teams of thugs to attack their secularist opponents in Tahrir Square and in front of presidential palace.
These are the tactics of fascism; and while Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood will stop at nothing to remain in power, it is clear that they, like all fascist movements, have no interest or desire to wield power for the benefit of the people they govern, but are instead intent on using the country they dominate to create an Islamic millennial utopia, through violence if necessary.
Morsi's indifference to the well-being of Egyptian citizens became evident in the aftermath of a train accident that took place in the Egyptian province of Assiut on Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012. CNN provided details about the accident, which killed more than fifty people, mostly elementary school children: "The train dragged the bus for nearly half a mile. Children's shoes, books and school bags were strewn across the tracks. The twisted shell of the bus was left under the train."
One father, Hamada Noor Abdul El-Rashid, lost his four children. He stated that he was thankful that he found their bodies in one piece, unlike many other parents.
The cause of the accident is still being investigated, but it appears that the attendant responsible for lowering the gate to stop automobile traffic from crossing the tracks when trains approach was taking drugs prior to the collision. The prospect of that the attendant was under the influence of drugs threatens to obscure another scandal.
Why is it that Egypt, one of the leading countries in the Middle East, is relying on an antiquated manual system to manage its railroad crossings? It's part of a bigger problem of unsafe railways and roads that has plagued Egypt ever since the British were tossed out in the 1950s.
Egypt's medical system is also in shambles. The survivors of the Nov. 17 accident were rushed to nearby hospitals that lacked the medicine needed to treat them. Parents and doctors were frantically looking for medical supplies and the necessarily medications -- especially the ones that stop bleeding -- to help the children.
While Egypt was unable to provide medicine to the victims of the crash in Assiut, it has sent millions of dollars worth of medicine to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
On October 24 2012, when it was becoming increasingly evident that a showdown between Hamas and Israel was imminent, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi gave a major speech from Al Azhar University in Cairo, in which he promised to send tons of medical supplies to Hamas in Gaza. He said that supporting Gaza in its fight with Israel is a religious and political duty.
How about fixing the roads in Egypt? And how about making sure that the hospitals in the country have the medicine they need to treat Egyptians? Morsi may be president of Egypt, but he is not governing the country for the benefit of its citizens. He is using it as a platform to implement the objectives of the Muslim Brotherhood.
This is also evident in the content of Morsi's public speeches. The day before the accident, he gave a speech in which he condemned Israel in angry and emotional terms for 25 minutes. The day of the accident in Assiut, Morsi spoke about the tragedy for about two minutes, in rambling and incoherent terms.
Dealing with the material needs of the Egyptian people is not high on Morsi's agenda. A few weeks ago, his government indicated its goal of raising $100 million dollars to block pornographic websites in Egypt. However, they have done little, if anything about Egypt's major drug problem, which apparently played a role in the tragedy in Assiut.
Morsi's actions and public statements demonstrate that he and the Muslim Brotherhood are committed to furthering the international Islamist agenda – not Egypt's well-being. The Brotherhood's main objectives are to restore a caliphate, drive the kuffars [infidels] out of the Middle East and spread Islam to the rest of the world. Those who will not convert to Islam must, under shariah [Islamic religious law], accept second-class status.
The Muslim Brotherhood's hands, in its efforts to achieve this agenda, are covered with Egyptian blood. A member of the Muslim Brotherhood is said to have killed Egypt's Prime Minister Mahmud Fahmi al-Nuqrashi in 1948. A few years later, members of the Brotherhood attacked Egyptian Jews and ransacked their businesses in Cairo to drive them from the country. Muslim Brothers plotted to kill President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1954. An offshoot group, Islamic Jihad, led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Al-Sadat in 1981, and tried multiple times to kill President Hosni Mubarak.
It continues: in the past few days, Islamists in Egypt have called for a jihad to assist Hamas. Mohammed Badie, the Muslim Brotherhood's supreme leader, a follower of Sayyd Qutb and, like many Muslim Brotherhood leaders, a jihadist who spent years fighting in Yemen, may have helped start the conflict between Hamas and Israel by calling for a jihad against Israel in July.
The Muslim Brotherhood simply cannot be trusted on either a domestic or international level. Dishonesty is part of the organization's DNA, as evidenced by its broken promises to the Egyptian electorate and by Morsi's double-dealing in regards to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip: first he allowed weapons into Gaza and encouraged Hamas; then, once the fighting started, he played the peacemaker. Before the last election that raised Morsi to the presidency, the group promised that if elected it would spend $200 billion dollars on repairing Egypt's infrastructure as part of a "Renaissance Project." Gamal Al Banna, the youngest brother of Hassan Al Banna, a prominent historical figure in the Muslim Brotherhood, warned Egyptians not to believe the organization's promises. Gamal was right. After the election, the group said its promises were just an idea that needed further development.
During the election, Morsi also promised that he would pick a Coptic Christian as his vice president. He did not. And since becoming president, he has given almost 60 speeches -- one almost every two and a half days -- mostly in mosques. Since becoming a President, he has yet to visit a church. He promised to attend the seating of the new Coptic Pope, but did not show up.
The Muslim Brotherhood has also deceived the international community, which is all too willing to view him as a pragmatic "peacemaker." Yes, Morsi engineered the ceasefire that brought an end to the recent fighting between Hamas and Israel, but it was he who helped bring the fighting about by allowing missiles built in Sudan's Yarmouk weapons factory to pass through Egypt on the way to the Gaza Strip. And before he brokered the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, he encouraged Hamas to start the aggression against Israel. He never objected to the many calls for jihad against Israel and the West.
Under the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood and its feckless president Mohammed Morsi, Egypt is headed for another train wreck that will devastate the lives of its own citizens, especially its Christian Copts, as well as the lives of its neighbors.
Western leaders cannot afford to sleep through this; the consequences are simply too grave.
Michael Armanious, a Coptic rights activist blogs at The New Egypt. His writings have appeared in The Boston Herald, PJ Media, and The Commentator.

Related Topics: Egypt | Michael Armanious

Britain's NHS: Not So Healthy

by Samuel Westrop
December 6, 2012 at 4:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3481/britain-nhs-ramadan-tv

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Britain's nationalized health service has been funding a television station whose presenters preach hatred against Jews, women and the West. There will always be groups out there trying to destroy us, but does that mean we should be financially supporting their work?

Ramadan TV, a platform for Islamist hate-preachers, refers to NHS North East London & The City as one of its sponsors [1]. In response to a Freedom of Information request, it has emerged that the NHS funded the television channel to the tune of £3,200 [2]. Contrary to the claims of the station, the NHS is quick to claim that it does "not sponsor Ramadan TV, but we work with them during this time to produce programmes with a health promotion message in an effective way to our target group"[3].
A very reasonable argument against Government grants is based on public bodies' habit of funding extremist organizations that encourage bigotry and provide a platform for pro-terror views. The latest culprit is a local trust of Britain's National Health Service [NHS], which this year sponsored a television channel with a penchant for hate preachers. The NHS has also previously accepted the services of Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin -- a leading British Islamist wanted for acts of genocide in his native Bangladesh -- as its "spiritual care" advisor. The consistent failure of public bodies to understand what taxpayers' money actually subsidizes is a source of great concern to the general public, moderate Muslims, and all activists working hard to fight the political and religious extremism that is working to destroy Western freedoms.
Ramadan TV promotes and provides a platform to the Islamic Education and Research Academy (iERA), a extreme pro-terror organization, the staff of which includes Islamist hate preachers such as Abdurraheem Green, Hamza Tzortzis and Yusuf Chambers ^[4]. The inclusion of these spiritual role models on the channel is widely advertised. Adnan Rashid, a senior researcher and lecturer from the iERA regularly publicizes that fact that Tzortzis and Green are speaking on Ramadan TV. Further, the iERA had previously set up on Facebook dedicated "event" webpages which have announced each time such speakers were to appear on the channel ^[5].
The iERA's collusion with Ramadan TV is not a new development. It is certainly a alliance that the NHS should have found disturbing. An unlisted video link (meaning only those with the URL can watch the video) shows extremist preacher Abdurraheem Green speaking on Ramadan TV in 2011 ^[6]. Green, a founding member and the current Chairman of the iERA ^[7] has a history of hate preaching. In the past, he has described non-Muslims as "evil people," and non-Muslim Australian schools as "sewers":
"If we leave [Muslims] in these [non-Muslim Australia] schools they will be destroyed … You know very well what takes place in these schools ... it is all about evolution, Christmas, Easter, St Valentine's Day -- a barrage. And you expect your children to survive? You think you live in a sewer and you come up smelling of roses? Merely living in the company of evil people will inevitably begin to rub off on us and we will begin to acquire their characteristics." [8]
Green has glorified the terrorist Ali al-Tamimi, stating:
"Sheikh Ali Tamimi [...] is a teacher and upholder of the aqeeda of ahl Sunnah wal Jammah. Importantly, he is also someone who understands the religious sciences and secular knowledge, the deen of Islam and the reality of the life in the West. He is in fact a treasure of this ummah [nation of Islam], but a treasure purposely buried by the opposers [sic] of divine guidance. Sheikh Ali Tamimi is someone I have benefited so much from over the years." [9]
Green has also blamed the 7/7 and 9/11 terrorist attacks on the Israeli intelligence agency, the Mossad and the CIA:
"There is an obstinate reluctance that I still find in many Muslims to accept that any Muslim could have perpetrated such acts. It is strange however, that there is not such reluctance amongst many non-Muslims to accept the idea that in fact their own governments are somehow behind, or even directly responsible for what is going on. I must confess that such ideas did spring to my mind. After 911, I suspected that at least Mossad and the CIA had foreknowledge of what was going to happen, and perhaps helped it to happen."^[10]
Another Ramadan TV favorite is Hamza Andreas Tzortzis. Tzortzis has previously been associated with Hizb-ut-Tahrir, another extremist organisation that campaigns for a global Islamist caliphate and is viciously hateful of Jews.^[11] Tzortzis chaired the launch event of the iERA. He is on record condemning democratic principles and advocating for a Sharia state:
We as Muslims reject the idea of freedom of speech, and even the idea of freedom. We see under the Khilafa (caliphate), when people used to engage in a positive way, this idea of freedom was redundant, it was unnecessary, because the society understood under the education system of the Khilafa state, and under the political framework of Islam, that people must engage with each other in a positive and productive way to produce results, as the Qur'an says, to get to know one another.
Yusuf Chambers, also a founding member of the iERA, is another regular guest on Ramadan TV ^[12]. In a recorded conversation conducted with Dr. Zakir Naik (who has been banned from entering Britain), Chambers specifically asks what the punishment for homosexuality should be (the answer is "Death"), and then asks Naik to refute suggestions that homosexuality has any natural or genetic origins [13]. In the same interview, Chambers agrees that adulterous women should be stoned to death.
Ramadan TV has also used Hussein Yee in its promotional material ^[14]. Yee has said that Jews are extremists, destined for hell, who enjoy killing above all else ^[15]. He also claims that Jews in America were 'happy' when the Twin Towers fell ^[16].
Other iERA speakers include Abdullah Hakim Quick, who has been condemned by New Zealand's broadcasting authority for his anti-gay tirades, which state that homosexuals must be killed, that they are "sick" and "not natural", and that "Muslims are going to have to take a stand [against homosexuals] and it's not enough to call names." He continues to hold this position: "They said 'what is the Islamic position [on homosexuality]?' And I told them. Put my name in the paper. The punishment is death. And I'm not going to change this religion."[17]
Shady Suleiman, another iERA representative, has stated:
"Remember that if there is an Islamic state the punishment of zina [sex outside marriage], the punishment of those who commit zina, if they have never been married before, they will be lashed 100 lashes. If they are married while they committed zina, or previously been married and divorced, and they committed zina, then their punishment is stoning to death."[18]
In the course of investigating these findings, the NHS has declined all requests for a statement. Further, it refuses to say that public money will no longer continue to fund Ramadan TV.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time the NHS has sought the services of extremists. Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin has been the Director of Muslim spiritual care provision in the NHS ^[19]. He is of Bangladeshi origin and is a trustee of Muslim Aid ^[20], a charity Spanish police have accused of having links with terror groups ^[21]. The Muslim Spiritual Care Provision in the NHS is managed by the Muslim Council of Britain, in line with the Department of Health's initiative to "empower Muslim chaplains in the health service"^[22].
Most alarmingly, Mueen-Uddin is wanted for war crimes in Bangladesh. The Law and Justice Minister in Bangladesh, Shafique Ahmed, has told The Daily Telegraph that Uddin was "an instrument of killing intellectuals. He will be charged, for sure."
The curse of good-intentions is that they are so easily exploited. British Government grants are consistently entreated by organizations which work against the democratic values that we elect our Governments to uphold and protect. Social 'cohesion', interfaith and even anti-extremism grants offered by public bodies are all particularly susceptible to the solicitations of extremist groups. Government, seemingly, loves to be regarded as well intentioned, even if the results are far from beneficial. In public bodies' haste to throw money at seemingly moral causes, too often the taxpayer ends up funding groups whose real aims are most destructive.
Government, and especially local authorities, need to be vastly more vigilant. One would hope Government already accepts that funding a platform for hate preachers is not a healthy use of taxpayers' money. It is now long overdue, however, that organisations which seek the partnership of Government should become the subject of comprehensive investigation before taxpayers' money is so inattentively allocated – no matter how innocent the recipient of the grant may appear. There will always be groups out there who wish to destroy us, but that does not mean we should be financially supporting their work.
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