Weekend News Round-up: Egypt and Amira Haas

Article from the Egyptian Mail Newspaper mentioning Dennis Kucinich's wife, Amira Hass

The Egyptian Mail

"Dispatches from the front... lobby!

By Emad El-Din Aysha
A mixture of wonderful and terrible things have been happening in the intellectual war for Palestine which, as usual, the Westerners, Jews and Israelis have been fighting on our behalf more effectively than we ever do. A victim of the whole anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism shebang that - predictably - hasn't got any attention here is Norman Finklestein, who is being fought tooth and claw over tenure at his native DePaul University....


(Please see Reggie Dylan, “For Concerned Academics in Defense of Dissent and Critical Thinking in Academia”, criticalxthinking@yahoo.com)....

In fact, while I'm in recrimination mode I'd like to note that practically the only place in the Western world where you can be allowed to be anti-Zionist at the level of political organization, accusations of anti-Semitisim not withstanding, is Israel! ... As Amira Hass has documented and revealed, the reparation payments Germany has had to make to Holocaust survivors involve a proviso concerning whether they belong to the “circle of German culture” or not. (Please see Amira Hass, “The Holocaust as political asset”, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/ spages/849669.html). That is, non-Germanic Jews who were concentration camped in the Second World War get a measly 5 marks a day! And where is the Israeli Government on all this? They seem to be unconcerned because they see Holocaust survivors as second-class Jews!! Oh, and Amira Hass has no problem distinguishing anti-Zionism from anti-Semitism and is very critical of this deliberate association on the part of the Israelis and AIPAC, not to mention that she's quite capable of accusing Israel of increasingly becoming a Nazi state. On the other side of the world, the latest positive move comes from the Democrat presidential nominee, Dennis J. Kucinich, who proposes to impeach Vice-President Dick Cheney. (Please see Marie Horrigan, “Kucinich's Impeachment Proposal Takes Antiwar Stand to New Lengths”, Congressional Quarterly, April 24, 2007)."

Two articles from the Christian Science Monitor. One about a discussion between Egyptian and American students; The second article regards Egypt's war on child mortality, written by Jill Carroll who is now their correspondent living in Egypt.
Young Americans and Egyptians talk, but don't see eye to eye
From jihad to occupation – East and West define the basic terms of the Middle East debate differently.
By Dan Murphy


Egypt's child healthcare lessons
A 68 percent improvement in child mortality rates places Egypt second only to the Czech Republic in making progress caring for mothers and infants, a UN study shows.
By Jill Carroll | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor



Last, but not least, and most recent, The MEMRI Blog has several blurbs and a cartoon on Egyptian internal and regional politics. Anyone who's interested can go directly to the MEMRI Org. site, Egypt (Middle East Media Research Institute) for more news listings.

MEMRI describes itself:

"The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) explores the Middle East through the region's media. MEMRI bridges the language gap which exists between the West and the Middle East, providing timely translations of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish media, as well as original analysis of political, ideological, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious trends in the Middle East.

Founded in February 1998 to inform the debate over U.S. policy in the Middle East, MEMRI is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501 (c)3 organization. MEMRI's headquarters is located in Washington, DC with branch offices in Berlin, London, Tokyo and Jerusalem. MEMRI research is translated to English, German, Hebrew, Italian, French, Spanish and Japanese."

They have listings for individual countries except those in N. Africa (Egypt is separate) and the Gulf Countries are grouped together. MEMRITV has interesting videos, including the one seen on MSNBC, A Mickey Mouse Character on Hamas TV Teaches Children about Islamic Rule of the World. Another titled, Saudi Women, Oppressed by Husbands, Turn to Stripping in Internet Chat Rooms in Search of Admiration. Don't worry folks, there's no skin shown in the videos - mainly just a throwing off of the veil. All the videos I've seen have English subtitles.