Egyptian Narrative Saturday, January 29

By John Ballard

Too many items for blogging. All I have time for this morning is a running string of links.
I plan to update as I come across new items.

?Who's doing Mubarak's bidding in Washington? The Egyptian regime pays big money to lobbyists with big names -- like Podesta, Livingston -- from both parties
Hold your nose as you read.

?Tony Karon in Time, Egypt: Mubarak's Defiance Makes Life Harder for Obama

"America doesn't have friends," Henry Kissinger once observed, "America only has interests." By that logic, the Obama Administration may have been tempted, Friday, to cut President Hosni Mubarak loose � nothing personal, you understand...

?Israelis view the street protests in Egypt with both fear and indifference by Elizabeth Tsurkov

One would think Israelis, because of their geographic proximity,  would have more insights into the whats and whys of events in Egypt but one would be wrong. We shake out heads in wonder until we look around and see how separated, ignorant and indifferent Americans are from our Mexican neighbors on the other side of the  Berlin Wall  border.

?Officials: At least 35 dead in Egypt's protests, an AP report by Maggie Michael and Hamza Hendawi.

?WaPo -- In Egypt, should Internet access be an inalienable right? I saw a tweet last night that in response to blocked cell phones and Internet access, people with WiFi were removing password access from their routers to enable anyone in range to better access the Internet.  Apparently land lines still work.

?Tweet without any link to confirm: "A group of Bedouin has attacked state security headquarters in the town of Rafah near Egypt's border with Israel, killing three policemen, witnesses and a security source said." 

If this is true, it could be an opening move to completely open the Western end of Gaza, already porous, compromised by networked by a  network of tunnels. Such a breach of Israel's embargo of Hamas in Gaza could be seen as an existential threat to Israel.  Egypt in Suez has been playing both ends against the middle for years. We are not hearing as much from Suez as Cairo, but that part of Egypt could be a more dangerous flashpoint.

?Gaza youths use Facebook to lash out at Israel, Hamas - Feature
I came across other references to Gaza Youth Break Out (GYBO)  last week but the group seemed too small to be of consequence. Moreover, something about the links seemed not to ring true. It's possible but not likely that a group of young people might hatch a message like the group's "Manifesto" but it now seems to have had more exposure. The group apparently came into being toward the end of last year (Manifesto link) and from the tenor of comments left on Facebook is alert, aware and growing. Several links there suggest the group derives from old-fashioned Socialism. Their provenance corresponds with the onset of the now historic events in Tunisia.

The movement has rapidly gained momentum, with 18,637 web surfers approving of the virtual community by clicking Facebook's "like" box. The manifesto has been translated into 21 languages, including Chinese, Dutch and Icelandic.

"Fuck Hamas. Fuck Israel. Fuck Fatah. Fuck UN. Fuck UNWRA (The UN agency caring for Palestinian refugees). Fuck USA," says the strongly-worded manifesto.

The youths describe their lives under the Israeli blockade and an oppressive Islamic religious regime as "a nightmare within a nightmare."

"We are sick and tired of living a shitty life, being kept in jail by Israel, beaten up by Hamas and completely ignored by the rest of the world."

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I have to stop tracking now to go to today's assignment. I hope this little collection of snapshots has been helpful.

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Update...
I'm back. It's now nearly five o'clock where I am and it is night in Egypt.

?Egypt riots are an intelligence chief's nightmare Western intelligence in general and Israeli intelligence in particular did not foresee the scope of change in Egypt, which may require a reorganization of the IDF
This article from Ha'aretz points out security dangers to Israel as treaty agreements with Egypt unravel.

Western intelligence in general and Israeli intelligence in particular did not foresee the scope of change in Egypt (the eventual descriptor "revolution" will apparently have to wait a little longer). Likewise, almost all of the media analysis and academic experts got it wrong.

[...]
If the Mubarak regime is toppled, the quiet coordination of security between Israel and Egypt will quickly be negatively affected. It will affect relations between Cairo's relationship with the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, it will harm the international forces stationed in Sinai.

It will mean the refusal of Egypt to continue to allow the movement of Israeli ships carrying missiles through the Suez canal, which was permitted for the last two years, according to reports in the foreign press, in order to combat weapons smuggling from Sudan to Gaza. In the long run, Egypt's already-cold peace treaty with Israel will get even colder.

From the perspective of the IDF, the events are going to demand a complete reorganization. For the last 20 years, the IDF has not included a serious threat from Egypt in its operational plan.