FREEDOM OF SPEECH, EGYPTIAN STYLE

All you need to know to understand the limits of freedom of speech in Mubarak's Egypt is this: the nation's leading democacy advocate, Saed Eddin Ibrahim, has been jailed for the crime of "sullying Egypt's reputation" in response to his center's publication of irregularities in Egyptian elections. With that in mind, here is an excerpt from op-ed piece that appeared in Egypt's government newspaper this Monday.

"Finally, they are accursed, fundamentally, because they are the plague of the generation and the bacterium of all time. Their history always was and always will be stained with treachery, falseness, and lying. Historical documents prove it."


"Thus, the Jews are accursed – the Jews of our time, those who preceded them and those who will come after them, if any Jews come after them."


"With regard to the fraud of the Holocaust... Many French studies have proven that this is no more than a fabrication, a lie, and a fraud!! That is, it is a 'scenario' the plot of which was carefully tailored, using several faked photos completely unconnected to the truth. Yes, it is a film, no more and no less. Hitler himself, whom they accuse of Nazism, is in my eyes no more than a modest 'pupil' in the world of murder and bloodshed. He is completely innocent of the charge of frying them in the hell of his false Holocaust!!"


"The entire matter, as many French and British scientists and researchers have proven, is nothing more than a huge Israeli plot aimed at extorting the German government in particular and the European countries in general. But I, personally and in light of this imaginary tale, complain to Hitler, even saying to him from the bottom of my heart, 'If only you had done it, brother, if only it had really happened, so that the world could sigh in relief [without] their evil and sin.'"

The fact that such bile is printed with the approval of the Egyptian government brings up the question of whether the Israel-Egypt peace treaty is worth the paper its written on. The Egyptian prime minister has offered to go to war with Israel if other Arab states offer to cover their expenses. This is peace? This is the government that has gotten billions of dollars of American aid as a consequence of such peace? We are bought far too easily. The time has long past come to attatch far more strings to the money we give Egypt. Jail your liberals, encourage Holocause denial through State media - your cut off. Mubarak's drive for self-preservation is strong enough to swallow such bitter pills. Is ours strong enough to force him to take them?