British Reconsidering Decision to Arm Syrian Rebels

A leader of the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Free Syrian Army (FSA) has accused British Prime Minister David Cameron of betrayal in the wake of confirmation that the British will not be arming the rebel group.

This is despite last month's announcement by the United Kingdom, United States and nine other countries that they would provide advanced military aid to Syrian rebels. Cameron has faced significant opposition to arming the rebels from within his own Conservative Party due to fears the arms would fall into the hands of Al-Qaida.

Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reports that the British government has told the FSA that it will be limiting its aid to equipment to protect against chemical and biological weapons attacks.

"This decision paves the way for Al-Qaida to control opposition fighters," FSA Chief of Staff Gen. Salim Idris said. "The West promises and promises. This is a joke now.

"What are our friends in the West waiting for? For Iran and Hizballah to kill all the Syrian people?"

The British announced Tuesday that they would send 5,000 escape hoods, nerve-agent pre-treatment capsules and chemical-weapons detector paper to the rebels.

The greater irony in the British offer can be found in a Sky News report that British companies had sent the raw ingredients for chemical weapons such as sodium fluoride to Syria over the past few years.

Another FSA spokesman said the rebel group appreciated the British gesture, but it did not go far enough to stop the "criminal who is using these weapons."

Britain's outgoing armed forces chief, Gen. Sir David Richards, told the Daily Telegraph that direct military intervention by Britain and its allies is required to have a "material impact" on Bashar al-Assad's calculations. Such an intervention would mean knocking out the Syrian army's tanks and air defense and a no-fly zone would be insufficient.

Syrian government forces have made strides against the rebels in recent months with help from Hizballah and Iran.

Direct British intervention was unlikely, British Secretary of State for Defense Philip Hammond told The Guardian Thursday.

"We are not taking anything off the table, but we are being very cautious for reasons I am sure everyone will understand."

Egyptian General: Hamas Smuggled Rockets to Muslim Brotherhood

A high-ranking Egyptian general on Wednesday accused Hamas of smuggling rockets into Egypt for use by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Hamas started out as an offshoot of the Egyptian Brotherhood and maintained close ties with the deposed Egyptian regime led by Brotherhood member Mohamed Morsi.

Maj. Gen. Osama Askar, commander of Egypt's Third Army, accused Hamas's armed wing, the Izz ad-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, of smuggling 19 Grad rockets. Egyptian soldiers intercepted the rocket shipment along the Suez-Cairo highway, which Askar charged was on its way to Cairo to help the Muslim Brotherhood.

"The confiscated rockets were enough to destroy an entire neighborhood, indicating they were on their way to be used in terror activities against the Egyptian people," Askar told reporters.

The captured rockets are the same type used by the Qassam Brigades against Israel.

Egyptian troops also discovered military uniforms last Sunday that that Askar said were "enough for an entire army."

The Egyptian army has taken control of 39 smuggling tunnel opening between the Sinai and Gaza since early June amid escalating terrorist and criminal activities. Many tunnels have been destroyed, prompting Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh to complain Gaza's economy is being strangled. "We appreciate that Egypt has security needs," he said, "but at the same time the needs of our people that should not be affected."

Hamas has repeatedly denied meddling in Egypt's internal affairs despite regular accusations in the Egyptian press. An Egyptian court implicated Hamas last month in the jailbreak that freed ousted Morsi in 2011.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zahri dismissed the accusations in a post on the Qassam Brigades website on Sunday, saying Hamas foes were trying to import the Egyptian crisis into the Palestinian context.

Another spokesman, Ihab Ghosein, claimed Hamas was being targeted by a campaign by certain Egyptian politicians to discredit the terror group. "They only beneficiary of this is the Israeli occupation, which rejoices at the divide within the Arab and Islamic nation," Ghosein said.

Copts Face Violent Onslaught in Wake of Morsi Ouster

Violence by Islamic radicals aimed at Egypt's Coptic Christian minority has increased in the wake of the military's July 3 ouster of President Mohamed Morsi.

Muslim Brotherhood supporters blame Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II for supporting the Egyptian military's removal of Morsi.

"What is disturbing is the failure of the security apparatus to act -- which at times looks like collusion -- to protect citizens and their property who are being targeted on the basis of their religion, Ishak Ibrahim of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) told Agence France Presse (AFP). "Copts are paying the price of the inflammatory rhetoric against them coming from some Islamist leaders and supporters of the former president, who accuse Coptic spiritual leaders of conspiring to foment army intervention to remove Dr Morsi."

The Daily Mail reported Saturday about a "frenzied" attack on an elderly Coptic priest who refused to disclose the location of a Muslim woman who had converted to Christianity. The priest is in hiding, and his family fears for their safety. His son, a shop owner, cannot appear in public since he was arrested and tortured by Egyptian police sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Copts in the Sinai, which has been ravaged by Islamic extremists, have particularly found themselves vulnerable.

A mob wielding axes, clubs and tree limbs rampaged through the southern Egyptian village of Nagaa Hasan, attacking a Coptic businessman and his nephew, the Associated Press reported July 10. The mob hacked and beat the Copts, killing the businessman, identified as Emile Naseem, 41. He had been the village's most prominent proponent of ousting Morsi. His nephew survived with wounds to his shoulders and head.

The mob also burned dozens of Christian homes and stabbed three other Copts to death.

Magdy Habashi, a Christian merchant in the northern Sinai peninsula, was kidnapped and later found beheaded in a cemetery with his arms tied behind his back.

A priest reportedly was killed by Muslim gunmen who opened fire during a weekly trip to the grocery store. Fr. Youssef Souby Zaky, a friend of the slain priest, reluctantly left his church in the northern Sinai after it was ransacked and torched, telling the Daily Mail it was unsafe for Christians to remain in his town.

Naguib Gobarail, a Christian who heads the Human Rights Federation, described what has been happening as "ethnic cleansing."

"It's a pogrom. I have three sons I their late 20s, and they all emigrated with their families since Morsi took power. I've been threatened with death and my office burned three times."

Muslim Brotherhood Dissidents Call for Leadership's Ouster

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood faces a split in its ranks in the wake of the army's July 3 ouster of President Mohamed Morsi.

A group of 1,400 Brotherhood members calling themselves "The Brotherhood Without Violence" is challenging the previously unquestioned leadership of Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie. It has called on Badie and members of the Brotherhood's Guidance Office, which includes the Brotherhood's senior leadership, to resign.

The faction hopes to reform the Brotherhood from within, the Egyptian newspaper Almasry al-Youm reports, emphasizing the more tolerant teachings within Islam and the need for dialogue with non-Islamists.

"We temporarily revoked our pledge to show 'blind obedience' to the group's leader and we call for a fresh reformist leadership to run the group and rescue its declining popularity," the breakaway faction said in a statement last week, according to Gulf News.

The faction's logo replaces the Brotherhood's swords with olive branches and a flying dove bearing the Egyptian national flag.

"After [Morsi's government] came to power, they changed and forgot about Islam and tolerance, and the call to Islam, and entered into a stage of how to protect themselves, find a safe exit and regain power," Ahmed Yehia, "Brotherhood Without Violence" leader, told a popular liberal Egyptian satellite channel on Friday.

Yehia says his breaking point came on July 8, when 50 Brotherhood protesters and four soldiers were killed in a gun battle outside Egyptian Republican Guard headquarters. He holds Badie and the Brotherhood leadership responsible because they told Brotherhood sympathizers they had to get Morsi out with their own "body and blood."

Gamal Abdel Gawad, a political science professor at the American University of Cairo, told NBC News that the "Brothers Without Violence" faction could transform the Brotherhood.

"It is beginning to be serious now," Gawad said. "Critics are really vocal these days … people who have strong credentials within the organization, not the secular enemy. This kind of criticism is feeding into new feelings of disappointment among members and has taken the shape of [opposition] groups, beginning a long process of transformation [and] disintegration."

Brotherhood figures, however, are dismissive of the "Brothers Without Violence" group, with one Brotherhood government minister calling them "imaginary."

Report: MB Book Urges Jihad in Egypt

A book recovered by Egyptian news media at Monday's sit-in outside the besieged Republican Guard headquarters in support of ousted President Mohamed Morsi includes multiple calls for jihad.

More than 50 people were killed at the army building, with protesters and Morsi supporters blaming each other for instigating the violence. Muslim Brotherhood officials have repeatedly spoken of shedding blood to defend Morsi's rule, so the discovery of the booklet called by the news website Youm7 fits the overall rhetoric being used.

Youm7 described the publication as a Muslim Brotherhood book and posted excerpts from it, including a section called "Women who preceded their husbands."

"You, my sister, do not think yourself far from this field, excused to sit out a fight, where is your living heart then about what is happening to the offspring of Muslims?" it says. "Shall you not wage Jihad on our enemy even if only by sincere intention?!" The author goes on to discuss the "virtue of Razzia (a plundering raid) and Jihad even if only by intention."

Youm7 has taken a stand against Morsi's regime. The article quotes an Islamic intellectual named Hassan Ammar Hassan, who said the book's presence outside Republican Guard headquarters is no coincidence. "The purpose of distributing to the protesters in front of the headquarters of the Republican Guard is to create a psychology for organized and armed action against the Republican Guard, involving Hadith about encampment, Jihad and false feelings that he who believes it will necessarily be right, and anyone else wrong."

Indications of Syrian, Palestinian role in Egypt Street Violence

Late last month, as millions of protesters converged in Cairo's Tahrir Square and other Egyptian cities demanding President Mohamad Morsi's ouster, tens were killed and hundreds injured, many of them by pro-Morsi gunmen firing into crowds (one such volley can be heard in video footage of a protest in Assiut, where four people were killed). Rumors began circulating that some of the shooters were Syrians and Palestinians paid by the Brotherhood to disrupt the protests.

There is growing evidence that the rumors are true. On July 6, the Central Cairo Prosecution announced that it had a Syrian national in custody, Mohamed Hassan al-Berdkany, who was arrested a day earlier while firing birdshot at protestors from Qasr Al-Nile bridge leading to Tahrir Square. Berdkany, who fled with his family from Syria after the start of its civil war, admitted to receiving cash and a shotgun from the Brotherhood. He named another Syrian, Ahmed al-Soury, as a key figure recruiting Syrians to join Brotherhood protests. He also identified a Palestinian, Bassel al-Feroun, as responsible for paying Palestinians to take part.

Little information about the investigation has been made public, and it is not clear how extensive foreign involvement in the Egypt crisis has been or whether senior Brotherhood leaders signed off on it. Nevertheless, Egypt's new interim government appears to be taking the threat very seriously. The Interior Ministry released a statement advising Arab expatriates to avoid demonstrations, ostensibly for their own safety. On July 8, authorities issued a decree requiring Syrian nationals to obtain a visa and security permit before entering the country (under Morsi they were allowed in unconditionally) and began enforcing it a few hours later by deporting 276 Syrians who had just arrived from Damascus and Beirut.

The concern seems to be that Syrian refugees in Egypt (more than 77,000, according to UNHCR; other estimates put the number at over 150,000) constitute a ready pool of recruitment for Islamist provocateurs eager to maintain plausible deniability. Most are relatively poor Sunni Muslims, have no prior connection to the Brotherhood infrastructure in Egypt, and are concentrated in urban areas where major protests take place. They are generally sympathetic to Morsi, who went to bat for them in June by closing the Egyptian embassy in Damascus and calling for a no-fly zone in Syria, despite the fact that there is less (and less intense) popular support for the rebels in Egypt than in many other Arab states (evident from polling and the breakdown of non-Syrian Arabs killed fighting for the rebels).

Tariq Ramadan Blames US and Zionists For Brotherhood Woes

According to Tariq Ramadan, all roads lead not to Rome but to America. A long-winded piece by Ramadan, the grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, (first noted by the Global Muslim Brotherhood Watch) uses circuitous logic and conspiracy theories ("It was as though people had been deprived of the basic necessities in order to drive them into the streets") to blame last week's ouster of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi on an ongoing US-Zionist conspiracy (in cahoots with Salafi co-conspirators no less).

Ramadan attributes so much to the Americans, one is left to wonder what, if anything, is Morsi's fault besides "simple-mindedness, and lack of experience." Morsi's overtures at political unity " were rejected out of hand, with the opposition bitterly opposing his every initiative Worse, he portrays Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood as naïve pawns of the US backed military.

"The naivety of the president, of his government and of the Muslim Brotherhood has been stunning. After sixty years of opposition and military repression (with the direct and indirect benediction of the US Administration and the West), how could they possibly have imagined that their former adversaries would support their rise to power, invoking democracy all the while?"

Ramadan blames the United States for its long support for the Egyptian army, which forced Morsi out after one year in office. Key officers, including General Abdul Fatah al-Sisi, were trained in America and have close relationships with officers here and in Israel. "It would hardly be an understatement to say that Israel, like the United States, could only look favorably upon developments in Egypt," Ramadan wrote.

He also criticizes ultraconservative Salafis and leaders of the Gulf Arab states for supporting Morsi's ouster. They are American allies more interested in undermining "the religious credibility of the Muslim Brotherhood, and to force it into extreme positions." In addition, the move splits Islamist factions, weakening the movement.

Last but not least, Ramadan also implicates the International Monetary Fund, which would not grant billions in loans to help Egypt's crumbling economy without better political stability. But that and other IMF demands "placed the state in an untenable position: the Morsi government believed that the international institution would support it. It is only today, now that President Morsi has fallen, that the IMF appears prepared to remove what were previously insurmountable obstacles. This, coming a mere three days after the overthrow of a democratically elected government."

Ominously summing up, Ramadan admonishes that "The situation is grave; the silence of Western governments tells us all we need to know." In 2,200 words, Ramadan never found time to assess Morsi's attempts to monopolize power for the Muslim Brotherhood, or the vast frustration shared by Egyptians that his Islamist agenda was making things worse.

That tells us all we need to know.

Report: PA TV Teaching Kids to Hate Jews

A report by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) shows a recent pattern of anti-Semitic messages aimed at children on the Palestinian Authority's official TV station as recently as last week.

On July 3, the Palestinian Authority's official TV station broadcast an interview with a little girl who invoked Quranic language to describe Jews as "barbaric monkeys" and "wretched pigs," the Palestinian Media Watch report shows. She told the interviewer that she "did not fear the rifle," implying her willingness to die fighting Israel.

The Palestinian Authority received billions in U.S. foreign aid since signing the 1994 Oslo Accord – including $500 million this year – yet it has been a major culprit when it comes to indoctrinating Palestinian children to hate Jews and support terrorism.

Despite the Palestinian Authority's recognition of Israel's right to exist under the Oslo Accord, a February segment of its children's program "The Best Home" featured the host promising children they would eventually recover all of Israel from the Jews.

"And of course we will never forget that we have land that was occupied in 1948 (the establishment of the State of Israel), which will return to us one day," the host said.

The PMW report cites other examples of Palestinian Authority propagandizing Palestinian children against the Israelis, including on its Facebook page, which ran a pictures of children holding automatic rifles calling them to fight against Israel.

Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV also features segments showing small children singing about or celebrating "martyrdom." Back in 2009 the Hamas channel featured a slickly produced music video of children singing a song titled "When We Seek Martyrdom" produced by an outfit called "Birds of Paradise." The song's video even showed child actors carrying out simulated terrorist attacks on other children dressed as Israeli soldiers.

Saudi writer Fauzia Naseer al-Neem warned: "It encourages the use of arms, killing, explosives, shedding blood and terrorism with all its synonyms. Our children parrot what they hear, and it enters their minds."

In May, Hamas's Al-Qassam Brigades posted a photo of three children playing "Martyrdom" on its Twitter feed. One child is shown playing dead on a stretcher draped with the Palestinian flag being held aloft by his playmates.

"Like this our children play, they love Shahada 'martyrdom,'" the photo's caption said.

Sympathetic MB Coverage Triggers Al Jazeera Backlash, Resignations

The Muslim Brotherhood isn't the only entity to see its popular support bottom out in Egypt. Al Jazeera, the Qatari-financed international news network, has become a pariah in Cairo, triggering cheers among other journalists when its correspondents were booted from a news conference Monday.

Qatar, which finances Al Jazeera, is a strong supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood and ousted President Mohamed Morsi, and critics believe the network provided the Egyptian government with sympathetic coverage. According to a Russia Today report, a journalist demanded Al Jazeera's crew be kicked out of the news conference, called to discuss Monday's violence that left more than 50 Morsi supporters dead.

Other reporters expressed agreement with the demand and chanted "Out! Out!" as the Al Jazeera crew left the room.

And that disenchantment infected the network's own people, as 22 staff members quit Al Jazeera Monday in protest of its "biased coverage" of Egypt's massive public backlash against the Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi. Outgoing anchor Karem Mahmoud said favorable coverage for the Muslim Brotherhood was a formal network policy. "[T]here are instructions to us to telecast certain news," he said.

"The management in Doha provokes sedition among the Egyptian people and has an agenda against Egypt and other Arab countries," Mahmoud said.

This comes as the network prepares an ambitious plan to expand its audience in the United States, having bought out former Vice President Al Gore's Current TV network, and expanding its reach to about 50 million American homes, the Washington Post reports.

The article cites Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) Executive Director Steven Stalinsky, who has observed a definite pro-Morsi spin on Al Jazeera. Pro-Morsi voices dominate among network pundits. And Al Jazeera officials and correspondents have Muslim Brotherhood ties, Stalinsky notes, and Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi hosts a popular talk show despite a long record showing he is "anti-Western, anti-Semitic and anti-American."

Tunisian Islamist Leader Urges Egyptians to Defend MB Rule

"Moderate" is a term frequently attributed to Rashid al-Ghannouchi and his ruling Tunisian Ennahda Party. But Ghannouchi's perception of Islamic rule does not differ much from his radical counterparts.

Ennahda is regarded as the Muslim Brotherhood party's equivalent in Tunisia. In solidarity with his fellow Muslim Brotherhood supporters, Ghannouchi is calling for pro-Morsi demonstrators to remain in the streets and demand Morsi's reinstatement.

As political scientist Martin Kramer points out, Ghannouchi has a long history of radical speech and anti-Semitism. Ghannouchi's Facebook page advocated for the people to "put the train of freedom and democracy back on track."

In 2009, he called on Palestinians to "strike terror" in the hearts of Israelis with rockets. Furthermore, in June 2001, he blessed the mothers of Palestinian suicide bombers on an al-Jazeera program:

"I would like to send my blessings to the mothers of those youth, those men who succeeded in creating a new balance of power…I bless the mothers who planted in the blessed land of Palestine the amazing seeds of these youths, who taught the international system and the Israel [sic] arrogance, supported by the US, an important lesson. The Palestinian woman, mother of the Shahids (martyrs), is a martyr herself, and she has created a new model of woman."

Ghannouchi is previously called for the destruction of Israel, which he predicts could "disappear" by 2027.

Millions of Egyptians took to the streets to protest Mohamed Morsi's government for placing theocratic aims above the immediate socio-economic needs of the people. More people signed petitions calling for Morsi's removal than voted for him a year earlier.

But Ghannouchi similarly is trying to protect long term political power for Islamists above the clearly articulated will of the masses. That is how Islamists defend democracy.

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