Giving Haven in the U.S. to Hate-Persecuted Canadian Jews

Columbia University students maintained a protest encampment on their campus following arrest of more than 100 protesters. (Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

 

"[We appeal to you to expedite a method of entry into the United States for Jewish Canadians] who are experiencing persecution or who credibly fear for their safety because they are Jewish."

"[There exists] an alarming climate of harassment intimidation, vandalism, threats and violence [faced by Canadian families since the Hamas terrorist attacks of 7 October 2023]."

"Advocates working directly with these families report that more than 2,000 Jewish Canadians have expressed interest in relocating because of growing concerns for their safety."

"Accordingly, we respectfully ask that you direct the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security to identify and implement lawful, secure, and appropriately expedited pathways for eligible Jewish Canadian nationals and their immediate family members who face persecution."

National Association of Christian Lawmakers (NACL)

The NACL letter urged the administration to coordinate with state and local governments, Jewish organizations, churches, nonprofits and employers willing to help families establish new lives in the United States.

 

This Christian group forwarded a proposal to the White House, attention of the President of the United States, appealing for a legal pathway to welcome Jewish Canadians fearing for their safety during a renascent flood of antisemitism whose effects have impacted the sense of security of Canadian Jews for the past three years and more. Led by Palestinian student groups, fuelled by hatred of Israel, incited and paid for from abroad through the Muslim Brotherhood and its sponsor Qatar, manifestations of that in-your-face antisemitism have taken place in the streets through mass protests, on university campuses and has seeped into public medical institutions where Jews now fear being treated in hospitals that employ Muslim medical staff where they are met with hostility.

 

There have been far too many instances of vandalism perpetrated against Jewish-owned businesses and institutions, in Canada, with Jewish parochial schools and community centers and synagogues being targeted with the violence of being shot at, vandalized, and fire-bombed. Crowds of Jew-hating Muslims and leftist allies have marched through Jewish neighbourhoods in Toronto and Montreal, shouting invective, chorusing 'Globalize the Intifada', 'Final Solution', and 'From the River to the Sea', terrorizing the residents, with insufficient response from municipal authorities and related police services.

 

Christian organizations like that of the NACL have expressed their sympathy at the plight of Jews in North America and Europe being verbally attacked and facing violent threats. Their empathetic responses, fellowship and offers of assistance have been heart-warming and serve as a balm to the wounded sentiments of Jews everywhere. However, the solution sought here, to encourage and formalize a system whereby Jews can leave Canada for haven in the United States, while a kindly gesture, would only move Jews from one threatened place to another, since American Jews are also facing very similar circumstances of exposure to racist hatred from the very same sources.

 

Trump shared a link to the report on Truth Social on Sunday evening, but did not comment on the contents.

 

The letter, sent to the attention of President Donald Trump, signed by Jason Rapert, founder and president of NACL, along with state representatives and religious leaders, with copies to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other U.S. senators and representatives, expresses a heartfelt concern with the hope of ameliorating the pain and vulnerability being felt by some Jews in Canada who have expressed a wish to leave the country for another that they believe promises them greater safety, respect and dignity. Yet, there too the harassment and hatred will assail them. Just as fundamentalist Muslims in Canada preach hatred of Jews, so too do those in the United States.

 

People set up a makeshift memorial for the hostages taken in the Oct. 7 Hamas-led militant attacks on Israel near an ongoing pro-Palestinian protest encampment on the Columbia University campus. (Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

 

As good-hearted as the move by the Christian group is, in the expression of its concern for a beleaguered community with which they feel a brotherhood, it is but a band-aid solution to a serious disease immune to band-aid responses. Calling for the Trump administration to cooperate with states, local governments, Jewish organizations, churches, non-profits and employers willing to assist arriving families does nothing to solve the larger issue. That issue is the presence of antagonistic, hostile religious exponents of fundamentalist Islam for whom obligatory jihad for the faithful begins with expunging the presence of Jews.

 

Statistics Canada's latest data reflect that 71 percent of religious hate crimes in the country targeted its Jewish population. In the United States, the Anti-Defamation League's August report highlighted that 63 percent of all reported religion-based hate crimes in 2025 targeted American Jews, according to data from the FBI, making 2025 the third-highest year on record of anti-Jewish hate crimes in America. "We believe this moment presents another opportunity for America to demonstrate those principles" of "America's historic commitment to stand against religious persecution", the letter states.

 

CHRISTIAN LEADERS HOLD EMERGENCY SUMMIT IN JERUSALEM TO CONFRONT GLOBAL RISE IN ANTISEMITISM   Fox News

 

"For generations, America has served as a refuge for people fleeing religious persecution."

"We urge you to ensure that, consistent with federal law and the security interests of the United States, that door remains open to our Jewish brothers and sisters in Canada who need it today."

National Association of Christian Lawmakers (NACL) 

Students demonstrate on the campus of Atlanta's Emory University on Thursday as campus protests across the U.S. lead to confrontational standoffs with police, mass arrests and accusations of antisemitism. (Elijah Nouvelage/AFP/Getty Images)

 

 

Designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a Terrorist Organization

"We need urgent action by our government to protect all Canadians now. Designate Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization now."

"[The Muslim Brotherhood is a] real and immediate threat [to Canada's democracy]."

"Canada will undoubtedly fall [if the government does not act against] Canadian Islamist organizations connected to the Muslim Brotherhood."

Amir Epstein, Tafsik executive director

 

"Chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood purport to be legitimate civic organizations while, behind the scenes, they explicitly and enthusiastically support terrorist groups like Hamas."

U.S. Treasury Department  

The White House

"The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, has developed into a transnational network with chapters across the Middle East and beyond.  Relevant here, its chapters in Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt engage in or facilitate and support violence and destabilization campaigns that harm their own regions, United States citizens, and United States interests. "

"For example, in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, attack in Israel, the military wing of the Lebanese chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood joined Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian factions to launch multiple rocket attacks against both civilian and military targets within Israel."

"A senior leader of the Egyptian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood, on October 7, 2023, called for violent attacks against United States partners and interests, and Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood leaders have long provided material support to the militant wing of Hamas.  Such activities threaten the security of American civilians in the Levant and other parts of the Middle East, as well as the safety and stability of our regional partners."

The White House  

B'nai Brith and other Jewish groups have called on the government of Canada for years, to list the Muslim Brotherhood as a  terrorist organization. Those calls have increased since the terrorist attack in southern Israel of October 7, 2023, when six thousand Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PLFP and Fatah streamed across the border from Gaza in an orgy of sadistic mass rape, torture and slaughter of 1,200 Israelis, along with the  hostage-taking of 250 children, women, the elderly civilians, soldiers and foreign farm workers.  

"Unlike Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood has evolved and learned the hard way that the use of violence will be met with superior violence by state actors. The clever thing to do, it now turns out, was to be patient and invest in a bottom-up movement rather than a commando structure that risked being wiped out by stronger forces."

" Besides, the gradualist approach is far more likely to win the prize of state power. All that Khomeini did before he came to power in Iran was to preach the merits of a society based on Islamic law. He did not engage in terrorism. Yet he and his followers took over Iran – a feat far greater than bin Laden ever achieved. In Iran the violence came later."

Ayyan Hirsi Ali, resident scholar, American Enterprise Institute, Washington 

Policy Alert: New Report Sheds Light on Muslim Brotherhood Terror Ties  Foundation for Defense of Democracies

 

More latterly, members of the Jewish advocacy group Tafsik called on Canada's Liberal government to finally follow the lead of the United States in designating the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. While the MB does not itself act as a terrorist group, it is the founding enterprise that has launched countless terrorist groups whose violence on display with the hard power of jihad complements the MB's jihadist soft power. Hamas itself is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. 

 

By stealth and presenting as a reasonable alternative to democracy's secular rule, the Muslim Brotherhood portrays Islam as a gentle, peace-loving religion, omitting its instructions to the faithful to dedicate themselves to jihad, Islam's deep drive to convert the world to the worship of Islam through a type of proselytism unique to its founder, the Prophet Mohammad who launched countless wars of conquest, a heritage that encompassed the Middle East, stretched into North Africa, India, Spain, France and the Balkans.

 

Originating in the 1920s in Egypt, the century-old movement employs gentle 'suasion, establishing mosques, hospitals and social centres in the non-Muslim-majority countries it enters to extend its goodwill and influence as far as its  tentacles can reach. And they reach the very heart of governments, social welfare, elite society and the news media through operative contacts made by its adherents with key sympathizers.  

 

The U.S. took the step last month of designating the Lebanese, Egyptian and Jordanian branches of the Muslim Brotherhood, giving them the status of Specially Designated Global Terrorists. A report prepared last year by two French civil servants for the government of France issued a warning that the Muslim Brotherhood movement represented a "threat to national cohesion within the country". France is a country overrun with Muslims, and among them are ample numbers of groups hostile to French values, laws and culture. 

 

Groups linked with and originating from the Muslim Brotherhood, recognized as terrorist organizations, have been listed as such in Canada, including Hamas which, according to the listing identifies Hamas as having "emerged from the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1987". According to Middle East researcher Thomas Juneau, the Muslim Brotherhood is a complex movement with individual chapters in multiple countries worldwide. Its very complexity in relation to its offshoots makes it difficult to list the MB. 

"[Some of those offshoots are] undeniably [terrorist organizations, but others are not]." 

"Even individual chapters are often more loose movements than unified groups."

"Some Muslim Brotherhood groups are clearly not violent, they are clearly not terrorists."

"They adhere to a fairly conservative and pious version of political Islam, but they are not terrorists."

Prof.Thomas Juneau, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa  

Imam Mohammad Tawhidi/Imam of Peace, while acknowledging the complexity of designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist entity, nevertheless pressed Canada to make the move to identify it formally as a terrorist group as a reflection of its stealth influence, its undeniable links to violent groups that reflect its totalitarian quest for dominance using the hard power of jihadist terror, while behind the scenes as an innocent, well-meaning interlocutor for Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood does its part on the 'diplomatic' front. 

 

 

"Just because they are difficult to put a finger on, and it's somewhat technically challenging to designate the entire organization ... it does not mean that we do nothing about it at all."

"Ultimately, the Muslim Brotherhood will be designated. The question is, when will the courageous people, the lawmakers, take this stand?"

Mohammad Tawhidi, Imam of Peace 

Canada, Diminished and Faltering

"One could argue that we've lost that unifying sense of right and wrong."

"The very sense of [the] liberal, permissive, non-judgmentally embracing society that our countries were fundamentally founded on is now being openly exploited for the purpose  of reshifting the balance." 

Former Vice-Chief of the Canadian Defence Staff, Mark Norman

 

"Symbolic politics has never been sufficient, it is a sign of weak leadership. Condemnations without enforcement, statements without consequences and gestures without policy are not leadership."

"Canadians do not need additional legislation layered over existing statutes. We need the consistent application of the laws already in force.e"

"Canada is lost and no longer immune. A nation cannot remain open if it forgets how to be a nation. The choice is not between tolerance and cohesion. It is between a confident pluralism anchored in shared civic norms, and a politics of endless accommodation that dissolves the very framework that makes diversity possible."

Larry Maher, CEO, Exigent Foundation

Anti-Israel protesters block a downtown Toronto street to pray as police watch. Photo by Caryma Sa’d/X

 

It took no more than a  decade to fundamentally alter Canada, reverse many of its values, not the least the outstanding human right assurance of equality and rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. With that assurance came the expected responsibility of each member of society to respect the social contract that ensured equal opportunities (if not equal outcomes) to succeed and prosper for Canadian citizens who obeyed Canadian laws and whose experience in the general education system helped them to understand their citizen obligations to the country. 

 

In an earlier era those rights and obligations were unevenly applied and issues of discrimination against minority groups reflected a European heritage of entitlement and belittlement of the exotic 'others' who had made their way into North America, many as refugees fleeing persecution and conflict. Under moderately good governance evinced by leaders who at best understood their own guiding obligations to the people they served, laws were passed that ushered Canada into an era of fair justice and social cohesion.

 

Migrants from abroad who entered Canada in the first half of the 20th century as immigrants from impoverished backgrounds to make a home for themselves in a new country where opportunities abounded worked hard, obeyed laws, and accommodated themselves to a new culture with values that suited their own notions of being and belonging. Canadian authorities refined immigration rules to eventually reflect Canada's needs in a point system that rewarded education, professional qualifications, age suitability and an assessed philosophical fit.

 

A succession of Liberal governments in more recent times gradually morphed toward the kind of liberal progressivism that loosened qualifications and requirements of suitability to join the Canadian population. Sympathy for people searching for haven from authoritarian governments, from endemic poverty, from societal crime rates, from conflict zones opened the gates of entry to Canada wide, including the refugee class and illegal migrants who bypassed normal entrance procedures to declare themselves refugees. 

 

Prime Minister Mark Carney, left, is greeted by Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, centre, as he arrives in Doha on Jan. 18. Photo by Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

 

The intake swelled, fulfilling what government and business leaders professed to be a need to replace an aging, low-child-bearing population with new recruits to build Canada's working population. Entry to the country no longer relied on screening for adaptability and suitability for integration into the prevailing culture, its values and its laws. To the point where landed immigrants and new citizens openly declared their defiance of those values and accompanying laws, bringing havoc and division and open discrimination to the very streets of the cities throughout the country where they settled in influential numbers.

 

Newcomers to the country felt no loyalty to the country that had adopted them and there were no expectations from government that they should integrate and accept the prevailing social order as it was. Instead religious and ideological divisions erupted and with no amending reaction from government and institutions at any level, those divisions deepened, becoming more publicly expressed, including through deliberate acts of law-breaking.   

 

Canadians of long standing were treated to displays of overt challenges to the  public order in universities and cultural institutions where mass protests took to the streets, bringing foreign campaigns, conflicts, ideological convictions averse to Canada's own, to the fore, with no government intervention at any level. All the while Canada congratulated itself as a bastion of liberal democracy. Politicians rather than applying themselves to Canada's and its populations' defense, eyeing the numbers of voluble protests and the votes they represented, chose appeasement of activist groups.

 

Canadian PM Mark Carney : China's President Xi Jinping AP

 

And from the outside world, lax attention to the actions of foreign powers that invaded Canada's sovereignty through the infiltration of foreign agents acting on their behalf on the social, academic and political levels exercised the 'soft power' of authoritarian regimes and of extremist movements, effectively interfering in Canada's politics as well as the social contract unique to Canada. Russia, China, Iran, 
Qatar, Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood all have made an indelible impact within Canada with their malign presence. 

 

The moral, institutional foundations of Canada's principles of equality and human rights have been assailed by Islamist, Marxist, socialist and other radical engagements in destabilizing Canada, as well as other Western nations they have entered both legally and under the radar. What all these Western nations appear to have in common is an attitude of oblivious disinterest in the interference and subtle changes being wrought in normalizing abnormal social behaviour and its effect on their institutions.

 

The exploitation of liberal societies, priding themselves on their Democratic principles of inclusion appear willing to accept the slow erosion of their adherence to the public weal rather than risk being labelled racist, exclusionary or 'Islamophobic'. Identity politics, moral relativism, and DEI guide governments content to do nothing in response to the unravelling of their nations' stability and social coherence. If there is a solution to Western democracies' inaction in the face of this dilemma, it has not yet shown its face. 

 

Canadian universities have seen a surge of pro-Palestinian protests following similar demonstrations across North America.  University Affairs

 

Historical Wrecking Balls

"We will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make."

"Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."

U.S. President George W. Bush, post 9/11

 

"Canada condemns Israel's strikes in Qatar -- an intolerable expansion of violence and an affront to Qatar's sovereignty."

"Regardless of their objectives, such attacks pose a grave risk of escalating conflict throughout the region, and directly imperil efforts to advance peace and security, secure the release of all hostages, and achieve a lasting ceasefire -- efforts in which Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani plays a highly constructive role."

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney

AFPTV footage shows smoke billowing after Tuesday's explosions in Qatar's capital Doha  Getty Images

 

In 2001, Canada, all the Western world, NATO and the United Nations were 'with' the United States. The international community, those most tied to the United States as democratic allies sent their military forces, their diplomats and NGOs arrived to provide humanitarian services in 2001 when Afghanistan was invaded after its Taliban leaders refused to surrender al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, responsible for the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Towers, the Pentagon and the overpowered terrorists that led to another plane crash in Pennsylvania. 

 

Britain, Spain and France all experienced their own Islamist terror attacks, when the world became familiar with the rise of  'political', 'radicalized' Islam. But no country has ever experienced the level and number of attacks that Israel  has been exposed to -- by its neighbour-states and by terrorist groups fostered, armed, trained and funded by the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Shia theocracy has its laser focus on Israel's destruction, and has never been modest in airing that ambition even in the hallowed chambers of the United Nations whose function is to promote peace among nations.

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, is accompanied by U.S. President Donald Trump, center, at a dinner in the Blue Room of the White House  Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

 

Iran is supported in its aspiration of genocidal obliteration of Jews by Qatar, which acts as a covert bland buffer between the Republic and its Sunni majority neighbours, while presenting itself as a trusted intermediary to the West. Qatar's vast oil-resourced treasury serves as a silver salver to entree in the United States, funding universities and supporting the infiltration of a fellow Islamist generator of antisemitic assaults among the large and growing Muslim diaspora settling in the West, the Muslim Brotherhood. 

 

Qatar has dedicated itself to the stealth promotion of terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, in tandem with the Islamic Republic of Iran. More latterly, Turkey, a risible member of NATO, has joined them in their nefarious schemes against Israel. Both Turkey and Qatar have shielded Islamist terrorism, given them haven, described them as loyal servants of Islam, upholding its most sacred precepts. The Palestinian Authority has done likewise, but it is in sharp competition with Hamas for leadership of the Palestinians.

 

This handout picture released by Qatar’s Amiri Diwan shows Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani (right), meeting with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan in Doha, on September 10, 2025. (Qatar Amiri Diwan / AFP)

 

Israel, on the other hand, has since its re-emergence as a Jewish state on the geographic terrain of its ancestral heritage, has been forced repeatedly to emphasize its right of existence by defending itself militarily and in the process defeating its regional enemies. The attacks, once conducted by states now reconciled to Israel's indomitable presence, have been dominated by death-cult groups whose focus is trained solely on Israel's dismemberment while the Muslim Brotherhood and indeed Iran/Qatar have longer-range missions; world domination in the name of Islam, the 'religion of peace'. 

 

And it is the Islamist powers that Canada, France, Spain, Ireland, Britain, Norway, Australia and others cater to. Not only because they fail to look behind and beyond the facade spoonfed them by skilled propagandists, but as a result of having been flooded by emigrants, migrants and refugees from the Islamic world who now constitute in numbers a powerful incentive to cater to them as a voting bloc. They take seriously Qatar's presentation as a skilled mediator in talks between embattled Israel and the Palestinian terror group Hamas whose leaders reside in palatial comfort far from the fray while dictating to the Palestinian population to remain defiant (as does certainly the Palestinian Authority/Fatah/Mahmoud Abbas) and accept their sublime fate as martyrs for Islam.

 

This handout picture provided by the Palestinian Authority's press office shows Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (L) received by Qatar's Deputy Prime Minister Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani upon arrival in Doha on September 14, 2025, ahead of an Arab-Islamic emergency summit. (Thaer GHANAIM / PPO / AFP)

 

It is these sanctimonious actors presenting themselves as innocent of any sinister, underhanded plans to disrupt the West, to replace democracy and rule of law with Islamist Sharia law, while in practise inciting hate and suspicion and infecting a wide segment of the West with the viral affliction of violent antisemitism that have gained the support of those who -- as defenders of Judeo-Christian values should be alert to the danger posed -- cite Israel and its presence in the Middle East as the problem, and have abandoned Israel and their own national Jewish populations to a fate they cannot contemplate, soon to arrive on their own shores.

 

Qatar's Emir is furious that Israel attacked Doha for the purpose of using stealth bombers to pinpoint the presence of elite leaders of Hamas and eliminate them. Invoking the sanctity of the state against attacks on its sovereignty, he is adamant that the international community must sanction and punish Israel for this violation of international law. In fact, international law fully supports such an attack on any country that harbors and shields terrorists threatening another nation. Even so, Qatar's Emir has the ear of those like Canada's Prime Minister Carney, eager to support Qatar and condemn Israel.

 

Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thanii chairs a preparatory meeting in Doha on September 14, 2025 [Qatar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs via AFP]

 

Egyptian neo-terrorism

Wednesday, 17 July 2013 -- Al Aribaya

Sonia Farid

It was 2:00 p.m. in the city where 2:00 a.m. is as safe and lively. I was driving along a road that I have been frequenting for the past ten years or so. On my rear glass was a sticker that said “go down on June 30” and which I had decided to leave there for some time in tribute to that memorable day. A young man, possibly in his twenties, spotted the sticker and quickly beckoned his comrades, who seemed to have sprouted from the ground and in no time, they were blocking my way, each brandishing a knife. They started banging on the windows while shouting and cursing. I am not sure I was able to discern the names they called me, but I knew for a fact they were related to that sticker and I only remember one sentence that they yelled in unison like a professional chorus: “let them come to your rescue now!”

I was certain they would break the window any second and it was then that I remembered the advice I have heard repeatedly about running over whoever blocks your way regardless of what the consequences would be. I was not, however, ready to take anybody’s life even if it was in self-defense, so I just pressed the gas pedal slowly hoping this would scare them away. I actually hit one of them in the leg and when he fell the others were even more provoked so one of them knelt and tried to tear the tire.

My white knight

A few seconds later a car parked next to mine and out came a man. He opened the trunk, got out a machine gun, and chased the boys while swearing to tear them to pieces and “throw their bodies to the dogs.” They magically vanished so that at a certain moment I started doubting they had actually existed. The man came to me and asked if I was alright. As far as I remembered, I stared at him and did not utter a word. He offered to stay in his car until I drove away and he did. He even followed me for a few minutes until he made sure I was able to drive which I miraculously managed to do until I got home. I did not even get the chance to thank him.

This, together with other attacks we have been hearing about lately, is part of an organized vengeance scheme that ushers a new era of terror and a new type of terrorism.

Sonia Farid

It is pointless to try to describe how I felt in those few minutes, but suffice it to say that a couple of days earlier a woman from Alexandria faced the exact same situation, but was not as lucky I was. The stabs she got were enough to end her life and there was obviously no brave and armed passerby to intervene in the last split second. This woman’s fate did not only haunt me because it might have been mine too, but I was also tormented by what felt like a survivor’s guilt as I could not help but wonder why she died and I survived. It got much worse when the initial personal agony gave way to the more general picture, for at the end of the day it was neither about me, nor about her, nor were the two of us the victims of random crimes that you can report at a police station, in the hope of having something stolen from you returned or of seeing a person who hurt you behind bars.

Organized vengeance

This, together with other attacks we have been hearing about lately, is part of an organized vengeance scheme that ushers a new era of terror and a new type of terrorism. Back in the 1990s, we all lived through the “no one is safe” nightmare, but it felt like there was a clearly defined enemy against which all the people were united, which is by no means the case at the moment.

I don’t think it matters much whether the men who attacked me and the Alexandrian woman and a whole lot of Egyptians who declared in one way or another their support for the ouster of the president are true believers in the “cause” or were hired to do the job. What matters most is the fact that civilians are assaulted, at times killed, for their political affiliations and that this is done by their fellow civilians who at a first glance do not seem to pose any kind of threat. The traditional image of extremist militants seeking refuge in the middle of mountains and chased across rugged terrains, has become confined to the Sinai Peninsula which is now replacing Upper Egypt as the hotbed of terrorism while cities are currently being infested by what can be termed “neo-terrorists.”

Neo-Nazism?

Like Neo-Nazism, this emerging trend seeks to revive an old practice in an innovative manner that is basically characterized by the absence of a direct confrontation between two conflicting parties so that the adversary remains nobody and everybody and so that all demarcation lines are too blurred to determine when and if the battle has come to an end and who has emerged victorious. It is a type of terrorism that makes of every spot an operational territory and renders precautions a matter of formality for in addition to blocking roads and attacking “opposition” motorists, there have been several incidents that involve storming houses in areas surrounding Islamist sit-ins and torturing, sometimes to death, potential “spies,” and shooting at bystanders who seem to belong to the other camp.

By virtue of being a loosely-structured group whose members do not necessarily follow a specific leadership, the neo-terrorists act with remarkable impunity and most of them have so far succeeded in getting away with their crimes. Their job is also much easier because of the apparent self-restraint lately exercised by the army and the police, both apparently keen on eschewing further accusations of human rights abuses following international criticism over excessive use of force against supporters of the ousted president as they attempted to “liberate” him from a military facility. Even when this policy changes, it will still be hard to track them down and prove their involvement in acts that are too politicized to be only criminal and too haphazard to be purely terrorist.

Unlike conventional terrorism, neo-terrorism attempts to change the balance of power in a more subtle way since its main objective is intimidation rather than killing. Even those who are actually killed are not targeted as persons, but are rather presented as examples. Unfortunately, this tactic cannot be deemed a failure. I, for one, removed the sticker right after the incident and was advised to tell this story to everyone I know so they can follow suit. I wouldn’t go as far as labeling this reaction cowardly even though I couldn’t help seeing it that way for a while, but I have to admit that they managed to rob many of us of a right as basic as a sticker on the glass of your own car.

True we don’t fight for stickers. We fight for causes. But then again what is the use of fighting for a cause if you cannot declare you are doing so!
_____
Sonia Farid, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of English Literature at Cairo University. She is a translator, editor, and political activist. Her social work focuses on political awareness and women’s rights and her writing interests include society, politics, and security in Egypt. She took part in a number of local and international conferences and published several academic papers. She can be reached at soniafarid@gmail.com.

"Women cause rape upon themselves" says Egyptian Human Rights Committee

Egypt's Shura Council is blaming women and 'Western values' for an increasing number of rapes within protests in Tahrir Square

by The Commentator on 11 February 2013 17:19

Egypt's 'Shura Council Human Rights Committee' today addressed the recent wave of sexual harassment proliferating during mass protests, calling for specific places of protest for females in a move that is being interpreted as gender segregation.

Daily News Egypt reports that Reda Al-Hefnawy, Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) member said, “Women should not mingle with men during protests. How can the Ministry of Interior be tasked with protecting a lady who stands among a group of men?”

Adel Afifi, a prominent board member of the Salafi Party Al-Asala, apparently blamed women for the sexual harassment phenomenon. “A woman who joins protests among thugs and street inhabitants should protect herself before asking the Ministry of Interior to offer her protection,” Afifi said, adding that police officers are incapable of protecting themselves - hinting at a growing inability of the Egyptian regime to 'control' the protests.

“Women sometimes cause rape upon themselves through putting themselves in a position which makes them subject to rape,” Afifi said. He called for punishing the “children” who commit such acts even if their punishment breaches international conventions.

“The woman bears the offence when she chooses to protest in places filled with thugs,” said Salafi Al-Nour Party member Salah Abdel Salam.

“Some foreign-funded organisations are imposing Western beliefs upon us; tents present in some squares witness prostitution,” he said.

Committee head Ezz al-Din Al-Komy stated during the session that 24 acts of systematic rape cases have been observed in Tahrir Square recently. Al-Komy criticised state-owned and independent media outlets, accusing them of “putting the dragged protester Hamada Saber under the spotlights while ignoring the sexually assaulted girls”.

Issues surrounding sexual assault in Egypt came to the forefront of international reporting in 2011 when American journalist Lara Logan was sexually assaulted while reporting in the area.

“What came out of the Shura Council today is horrible,” said Sally Zohney, a women’s rights activist. “Those statements are inhumane, to say the least.”

Zohney stated she doesn’t expect the Shura Council, the current legislative authority, to issue a law banning sexual harassment. She said she saw no point in engaging in a hearing session with the council about sexual harassment, describing the hearing as “a waste of time”.

 ”The council knows quite well the problem of sexual harassment,” she said. “They won’t put themselves in any hassle coupled with issuing laws as long as a Peoples’ Assembly is expected to replace them soon.”

An international march condemning sexual harassment in Egypt is scheduled to take place worldwide on Tuesday. Protesters are expected to rally outside Egyptian embassies throughout the world, and in Egyptian squares nationwide. Zohney expected the protests to gain momentum as a result of the statements issued during the Shura Council’s session.

Read more on: shura council, lara logan, egyptian army, egyptian revolution, rape, and muslim brotherhood

‘Boob Job’: Egypt’s PM says ‘unclean breasts’ can cause diarrhoea

Tuesday, 05 February 2013

The PhD holding prime minister somehow related the lack of clean water to the lack of clean breasts in one speech. (Reuters)

By Al Arabiya

inShare

Cabinet meetings usually discuss the state of economy, wars and general matters of governance. However, Egypt's Prime Minister Hisham Qandil recently utilized a meeting to talk about the dangers of “unclean” breasts.

The PhD holding prime minister who studied water resources, somehow, related the lack of clean water to the lack of clean breasts in one speech. While meeting with his cabinet members he spoke in an emotional manner as he recounted the struggle of the villagers he witnessed on his trips as a minister.

He narrated his experience as a middle-class Egyptian who traveled to the rural areas of the country where he saw the suffering of newborns having to deal with diarrhoea after being breast fed.

The prime minister claimed that the reason behind the diarrhoea epidemic in rural Egypt is that some female villagers are too ignorant to clean their breasts before feeding their babies.

A couple of females in the cabinet meeting seemed uncomfortable during these remarks. The unpopular prime minister could create a huge controversy in the villages to which he refers, which will add to the unstable situation in Egypt that is currently hosting the Islamic Summit.

Hisham Qandil was appointed by, the recently elected, President Mursi in July 2012.

He used to be the Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation. The 50 year old Qandil has a PhD in in biological and agricultural engineering with a minor in water resources from the United States.