By Mahmoud Al Abed
English News Editor
Albawaba.com - Amman
In Arab culture, there is nothing so humiliating as having to beg for your daily bread from anyone, even your brother, let alone a stranger who demands daily praise for providing a crumb of bread that isn’t really even free.
As Arabs follow the US media and the White House’s threats to cut aid to Egypt, feelings of humiliation and inferiority are sure to erupt. Egypt, is, after all, the fortress on the front line of the Arab World, and no one wants to see her walls crumble and her people suffer.
And yet there are some in the West who think that Egyptians, after years of trying to toe the US line, deserve to go hungry.
“No Free Lunch for Egypt,” reads the headline of a Washington Post opinion piece by US Senator Mitch McConnell that appeared Monday.
McConnell’s piece is only the tip of an iceberg of hatred for Egypt for committing the sin of standing by the occupied, oppressed Palestinians.
Egypt has not declared war against Israel for killing, by the latest count, over 520 Palestinians, including nearly 100 children. Nor has Egypt severed ties with the Jewish state. Trying to balance justice with necessity, it has merely withdrawn its ambassador from Tel Aviv, and pledged $30 million to support the Palestinians.
Here we go. By the implicit logic of McConnell and his ilk, Egypt should be punished and made an example of, should any Arab country mull any action against America’s spoiled stepchild, Israel, which receives about $6 billion in US taxpayers’ money each year.
After years of ignoring everything that went on inside Egypt, no matter how awful or shocking, US lawmakers and the mostly Zionist-controlled US media have suddenly discovered that Egypt is dead wrong. Egypt is building an arsenal of missiles with the help of North Korea. Egypt has a horrible human rights record, including the imprisonment of an activist who received a fair trial and was convicted according to the law.
Suddenly, US lawmakers and the media have become aware that Nawal Saadawi, a feminist who insulted Islam, has been mistreated.
They have, to their surprise, discovered that the Copts are being discriminated against, and so a US panel of religious freedom experts had to come to Egypt to save the poor Christians from the oppression of their Muslim countrymen.
And guess what? The Copts, who have lived peacefully alongside their Muslim brothers, abruptly clashed with the security forces over a tabloid sex scandal. Suddenly, a paper run by a notoriously mercenary editor gets ahold of shocking pictures of a former Coptic monk and publishes them. How? Only God and those working to undermine what Egypt has accomplished know.
Suddenly, and to the complete surprise of the US lawmakers and media, Egypt is discovered to launder money for the mafia and drug traffickers, and violate copyright laws.
Based on these sudden “revelations,” the following penalties should be inflicted on Egypt, unless she returns to the path of the righteous, which seems to lead to Tel Aviv:
- US military aid to Egypt should be slashed by $100 million.
- Any aid given to Egypt must jump through bureaucratic hoops based on America’s sudden interest in human rights.
- US businesspeople must think of a more obedient country in which to invest.
In McConnell’s word’s, “The time is ripe for the United States to send a clear message to Egypt that US assistance is not a handout. As the appropriations process moves forward, I intend to reexamine our foreign assistance to Egypt with a view to sending such a message.”
“To paraphrase president Ronald Reagan, when it comes to US foreign aid, all nations should understand that loyalty will be matched by loyalty. Egypt should keep this in mind, whether working for peace in the region or against stability through the development of ballistic missiles, using North Korean technology.”
One can imagine a few measures by which Egypt could clear her name and make the world’s master happy again.
First, appoint a new ambassador to Israel immediately. And to make sure that the US and Israel are happy, why not move him from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem?
Second, cancel any material or moral assistance to the Palestinians. Better still, refuse to receive Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, unless he makes sure that no Israeli is hurt by a Palestinian struggling for the freedom of his country.
Third, crack down on any newspaper whose articles and cartoons contain a whiff of anti-Semitism.
Fourth, police Egyptian culture so that all anti-Israeli statements, especially the likes of Shaaban Abdel Rahim’s pop hit, I Hate Israel and Love Amr Moussa, are eliminated.
Fifth, follow in the footsteps of the Turkish military junta and ensure that Islamists and other opposition figures quietly “disappear” from the political scene.
A word of sincere advice to Egypt: remember that the road from ally to enemy is a short one in the US book. Remember that many countries once received shiploads of US tax dollars, only to be labeled child-slaughtering demons when they no longer promoted US and Israeli interests. Remember that there is no free lunch, any more than there is a free world.
Another word of sincere advice to Egypt: don’t spurn American handouts hoping that some of your Arab brothers will make up the difference. After all, petrodollars are in short supply this year, and replacing the $2.6 billion in US aid with Arab money is just a dream that nearly every Arab has.
