The Muslim Brotherhood government of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi is moving tanks and heavy arms towards the northern Sinai towards possible all-out battle with a gang that   kidnapped seven Egyptian security personnel four days ago.

Morsi has ruled out negotiating, saying there was “no room for dialogue with the criminals.” and that his government would not surrender to “blackmail.”

The abductors have not been identified but are thought to be jihadists who are demanding that Egypt release of political detainees.

The kidnap victims were seen on video, blindfolded and with their hands on their heads. One of them appealed to Morsi to agree to the captors’ demands.

The Sinai has fallen into anarchy the past several years, particularly since the beginning of the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Bedouin tribes and  Al Qaeda and Hamas terrorists have carved out several areas of control in the Sinai, a major route for salve trade and trafficking in drugs and weapons.

As was reported by countless news sources, the main reason cited by Secretary of State John Kerry for endowing Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi with close to $200 million to solve his immediate budgetary issues was “to encourage the work that he did with Israelis in getting the Gaza cease-fire.” Kerry was referring to an Egyptian-mediated truce that ended eight days of fighting in November between Israel and Hamas.

But on Thursday, a Hamas official spokesman announced that Egypt never asked Hamas to abandon its armed struggle against Israel.

“Hamas will not leave the armed struggle, and will not respond to this fabricated news,” Salah al-Bardawil told Ma’an.

This could very well be an attempt on the part of Hamas to make things a bit harder for Morsi in his recent flirtation with U.S. foreign policymakers. From where Hamas is standing, Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood have given them nothing but trouble in recent months.

Ynet reported on Thursday that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood leadership and Morsi have been telling Hamas: Take an example from us, and “implement jihad in other ways.”

“The Egyptian leadership knows quite well that it is unacceptable to ask the Palestinian people to abandon their key tool to defeat the occupation,” al-Bardawil said.

In fact, since early February, the Egyptian Army, with or without the consent of the Brotherhood, has been flooding, with sewer water, the smuggling tunnels through which millions of dollars in goods and military equipment are imported into Gaza with import fees going into the Hamas coffers.

The Egyptian government said it was cutting arms smuggling that was destabilizing the Sinai peninsula, but it also cut a lifeline to the enclave’s blockaded residents.

Still, the Hamas official spokesman said the media campaign in Egypt and Israel is attacking the leadership both in Cairo and Gaza. The Egyptian opposition wants to undermine the Muslim Brotherhood by portraying Hamas as a burden to Egypt’s security, he said.

Al-Bardawil said the tunnel network was a response to exceptional circumstances due to Israel’s blockade, but insisted it did not undermine Egypt’s security.

Hamas seeks to preserve Egypt’s security as it maintains Palestine’s security, he added.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry carried his “cash for promises” plan to Egypt on Sunday, granting the stumbling Muslim Brotherhood regime $190 million immediately following Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi’s “promises” to carry out economic and political reforms.

The money is part of $450 million commitment by the Obama administration to help out the regime, whose economy is in shambles two years after the Arab Spring rebellion resulted in the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Kerry explained that Cairo needs the money now because of the country’s “extreme needs” and that Mori’s promises to enact reforms, which he promised to do when elected last year. Instead, he tried to usurp even more power for himself while the post-Mubarak economy disintegrated.

The new Secretary of State is outdoing his predecessors in his optimism. He said that the American government also is setting up a separate $60 million funds for direct support to Egyptian businessmen and young people.

Morsi’s promises will satisfy conditions for a $4.8 billion in loans from the International Monetary Fund loans, according to Kerry. Two of those conditions are to raise taxes and reduced energy subsidies.

With parliamentary elections coming up in April, those moves would infuriate an already angry public.

The loans are considered to be a seal of approval that Egypt is on the way to recovery.

Kerry has called his 11-day junket to nine countries a “listening tour.” and said in Cairo, “I emphasize again, as strongly as I can, we’re not here to interfere, I’m here to listen.”

However, not everyone wants to talk to Kerry. Several opposition parties refused to meet with hymn because of the Obama administration’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood regime. Even before the regime took over, President Barack Obama broke precedent by sending American officials, including then-Senator Kerry, to meet with Muslim Brotherhood officials, who formerly had been blackballed.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Amr welcomed Kerry as “friend” and said Egypt has certain expectations from the United States, such as to make sure that to “rid the Middle East area from nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction in genera.” That is diplomatic language for forcing Israel to own up to its nuclear capacity and to surrender them – at the same Iran is playing for time in its race for a nuclear weapon, which presumably would be aimed at Israel.

An Egyptian court Tuesday threw out a lawsuit to cancel the 1979 peace treaty with Israel, but the ruling left an opening for breaking the pact. It ruled that the court simply has no jurisdiction over the issue, which it said involves state sovereignty.

The suit claimed that Israel is violating the treaty and UN conventions by allegedly destroying Islamic holy sites and building in Judea and Samaria, according to the Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice political party said its legal committee is preparing to send Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi a proposal to amend the treaty.

The U.S. State Department has told Egypt it is “extremely disturbed” by the video of Egyptian police brutally beating and dragging a naked activist near the presidential palace as the Muslim Brotherhood makes the Obama administration’s enthusiastic welcome of the regime more problematic.

While the State Dept, omitted any terms such as “outrage” or “barbaric” in order not to offend Cairo, Egyptian media reported there have been at least two death-by-torture incidents. Many others are “missing.”

The State. Dept. was “extremely disturbed” only after a video was shown of the beating of the naked activist, Hamda Saber, but there has been no lack of evidence of previous brutality, similar if not worse than that imposed by Mubarak’s police force.

More than 60 people were killed in clashes against the Morsi regime the past several weeks.

The “new” Egypt now has to explain the death of Popular Current party activist Mohammed El-Gendy, 28, who was at Cairo’s Tahrir Square eight days ago. He died Monday following multiple fractures and brain damage, and Morsi has gone through the motions of ordering an investigation.

Also on Monday, 20-year-old Amr Saade died after clashes with the police outside the presidential palace.

“While many have been shocked by El-Gendy’s death, he is not the first to die of torture during Morsi’s rule,” human rights activist Hossam Bahgat said via Twitter. “You only know his name because he’s a political activist.”

The April 6 Youth Movement said on Sunday asserting that one of its members, Hossam El-Din Abdel-Hamid, was missing after having been detained by police.

“Abdel-Hamid was brutally beaten and is suffering from a severe injury and has not been referred to the prosecution until this minute,” April 6 stated. ”

“Most of those arrested [estimated at more than 600 since 25 January] are now being detained in… camps that are not made or equipped for detention,” Malek Adly, a rights lawyer told Ahram Online. “Unlike prisons or police stations, these camps aren’t equipped to provide prisoners with meals, so detainees are often left without food or water for long periods.”

With Egypt facing bankruptcy and political chaos, two years after the Arab Spring revolution that deposed Hosni Mubarak, Morsi faces increased opposition as Egyptian media leak details of police brutality against those who oppose him. The United States applauded the results of last year’s election because it was “democratic.”

The first American venture into making democracy safe for the Middle East was then-Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice’s excitement over the first – and last – democratic elections in the Palestinian Authority eight years ago. Hamas won.

Just when you think you have everything pretty much figured out in the Middle East, someone throws you a curve. At least that’s what happened to me last week.

In what has to be the most surprising development thus far in the so called Arab Spring – Egypt’s new freely elected President, Mohammed Morsi, has sent a friendly letter to Israeli President Shimon Peres on the occasion of the exchange of ambassadors. How friendly? From the Times of Israel:

The letter began by calling Peres a “great and good friend,” and went on to express a desire for “maintaining and strengthening the cordial relations which so happily exist between our two countries.” Morsi closed his letter, which largely followed standard diplomatic language for the exchange of ambassadors, by expressing “highest esteem and consideration

…In July, Peres’s office reported that it had received a friendly letter from Morsi in which the Egyptian leader expressed hopes for regional stability and “deep thanks” for Peres’s Ramadan good wishes. In that note, Morsi also said his country was committed to regional security and stability, including for the Israeli people.

This comes as quite a shock to me considering his political affiliation. He is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, a fanatical Islamist group who considers the existence of Israel an abomination – and an affront to their fundamentalist beliefs. Their views match those of Hamas and Hezbollah. I don’t think there can be much dispute about that.

In fact when the letter was first made public, it was followed by denials from Brotherhood officials – pretty much claiming it to be a fabrication.

But it wasn’t.

This is a good sign. Despite the overt hatred of the Jewish State among most Islamists which comprise organizations like the Brotherhood, Hamas and Hezbollah, it is clear that Egypt has no interest in hostilities between the two countries. Despite Mosri’s obviously deep religious beliefs, he seems to be a pragmatist interested in developing his country – making it a better place to live for his people. To that extent, he seems to have made the friendliest statement toward Israel I have ever heard from a Muslim leader – with the possible exception of Anwar Sadat.

Does this mean that Israel can put away their guns? Of course not. They need to maintain their military edge. I believe Morsi. Islamists say what they mean.They are not reticent about expressing their true feeling about us. That he did something that so obviously upsets his co-coreligionists means something in my view.

It isn’t that I think he now loves Israel unconditionally. Far from it. I do not doubt for a minute that if Mosri thought he could win a war with Israel militarily, he would not hesitate to attack. But as a pragmatist – the reason he wants to have friendly relations with Israel is he knows he can’t win a war with them. And it would be far too too costly in both Egyptian blood and treasure to try. Which is why it is important for Israel to maintain its military edge… and important for him to maintain a peace treaty.

This is good news. Can we trust him? I think so. He has not hesitated to state his own true feelings about Israel.

The recent violent protests at the American embassy there shows that there is still plenty of popular hostility there against the US – and most certainly Israel. Nonetheless, I think I can safely say that for now, Morsi is at least on the same page with Mubarak with respect to the Jewish state.

Hopefully the new regimes in other Arab countries will have the same approach – including in an eventual post Assad Syria. Perhaps that is too much to hope for, but at this point all hope is definitely not lost. If a member of the Muslim Brotherhood can say such good things to an Israel President perhaps there will be other fundamentalist leaders that will follow suit.

Perhaps we are finally seeing a new world order among Arabs who will focus their leaders on the welfare of their people instead of hatred of Israel. Is that too much to hope for? Maybe. But one can hope. That said the threat of terror from Israel’s terrorist neighbors is still very much alive and well. As far as the immediate big picture is concerned, not much has really changed.

How does this all this impact on my choice for President? I don’t know. I still have to think about who I will endorse in the upcoming election. At this point, I am going to wait for the final debate between the two candidates. It is supposed to focus on foreign policy. I will make my decision after that.

Nonetheless I am still very glad about to hear about this news. It gives me a glimmer of hope about the future. But only a glimmer.

Visit Emes Ve-Emunah.

A third of a century ago Israel wanted peace with Egypt and Israel actually believed there could be peace with Egypt. So did Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and perhaps even the Egyptian people.

But what a difference 33 years makes.

We’ve discovered since then that we got a bum deal. We signed with an unreliable and unfaithful partner who did not meet its obligations. And though we got at least got a 33-year cease-fire out of it, we did not get peace.

Instead, the Egyptians spent 33-years ever-escalating their hatred of Israel while missing the opportunity to drag themselves up from being a third world country. And while it’s easy to blame former Egyptian president Mubarak for the hatred, Mubarak’s enemies on both side of the religious spectrum, the Muslim Brotherhood and Egyptian secular pseudo-intellectuals, such as historical revisionist Abdel Wahab El-Messiri did their part too.

DESPITE EGYPT’S failure to deliver on its own side of the bargain, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy recently said he wants to reopen up the Israel-Egyptian peace treaty, to renegotiate and link peace to Palestinian statehood, and to remilitarize the Sinai. For Morsy this is a one-way street: Egypt will demand and Israel will give.

If only Morsy had actually read the Egyptian-Israel peace treaty.

There were, in fact, two agreements signed by Israel and Egypt. As international law expert, Professor Avi Bell, has recently explained,

“The 1979 Israel-Egypt peace treaty and the 1978 “Framework for Peace in the Middle East” are not the same treaty. However Morsy may [choose to] misinterpret the 1978 Framework for Peace in the Middle East agreement, it has nothing to do with Egypt’s obligations to uphold its treaty obligations in the 1979 peace treaty.”

It is the 1979 peace treaty that requires Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai, the demilitarization of the Sinai, and of course normalization of relations between the two countries – the last being something the Egyptians never properly implemented. The 1978 treaty deals with “negotiations on the resolution of the Palestinian problem.”

Bell argues that,

“If Morsy believes that the 1978 Agreement is not merely an agreed upon framework for future negotiations, but a binding treaty still in force, Morsy must abandon several anti-Israel positions adopted by Egypt and the United States in recent years”

That’s because, as Bell explains, the 1978 Agreement recognizes U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 as the basis for resolution of the conflict. That resolution recognizes Israel’s right to secure boundaries, but fails to mention Palestinian statehood or the Palestinians at all. While it calls for an Israeli withdrawal from terrotories captured in 1967, as part of the establishing a “just and lasting peace” it does not describe the extent of the withdrawal and many of the documents drafters have said that the word “all” was left out so that Israel would not be required to withdraw from all the territory, but only some of it based on negotiations with Jordan, Syria and Egypt.

The Road Map (Bush’s plan for a democratic Palestinian state), U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194 (the partition resolution), the 2002 Arab League decision (Israeli return to the pre-67 borders), the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1397 (envisioning a Palestinian state and recalling 242) as well as recent “U.S. efforts to state that final status negotiations should be on the basis of the “1967 borders” or presumed Palestinian statehood,” all conflict with Resolution 242.

In short, Egypt’s stated positions and actions are in direct contradiction and violation of the signed peace treaty, including the one which Morsi is claiming Israel is not fulfilling.

In addition, the 1978 agreement does not discuss or require an Israel withdrawal from Judea and Samaria or Gaza. Instead it only discusses setting up a “self-governing authority,” “autonomy,” and “self-government” for the Palestinians in those areas – for a five-year period. It does not discuss or require the establishment of a Palestinian state nor does it require that the Palestinians shall continue to have autonomy at the end of the five-year period.

Like the Oslo Accords, it confirms that Israel will retain a military presence in “specified security locations” in the disputed territories, and recognizes that, “All necessary measures will be taken and provisions made to assure the security of Israel.”

In what many, including legal scholar Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, call “unconstitutional” restrictions on free speech, the board of the New York City Transportation Authority unanimously passed a new set of regulations governing the kinds of advertisements it will accept. The MTA is now empowered to ban any ad the  MTA

reasonably foresees would imminently incite or provoke violence or other immediate breach of the peace.

The new regulations also require disclaimers to be included in any political, religious or morality-based ads, stating  that they do not represent the views of the MTA.

These new regulations were announced on Thursday, September 27, just three days after the American Freedom Defense Initiative ads were put up after a lengthy and costly court battle brought by AFDI and its executive and associate directors, Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, to enforce their First Amendment right to free speech.  That ad appears in 10 subway stations in the New York subway system.  It reads, “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.  Support Israel.  Defeat Jihad.”

The spokesman for the MTA, Aaron Donovan, admitted to a reporter from The Blaze that the changes came in response to AFDI’s anti-Jihad ads and the ensuing litigation.

Initial reports were that commuters were passing by the ads without any noticeable responses, but apparently there were complaints that instilled fear in MTA board members.

There was at least one widely publicized attack against the ad, engaged in by Egyptian-American activist Mona Eltahawy. That attack was motivated by the woman, who has only been a U.S. citizen for one year.  Eltahawy claimed that her acts of criminal vandalism, which were caught on videotape by The New York Post, were legitimate acts of free speech and non-violent protest.

Eltahawy was arrested and charged with various offenses.  When she was released from prison the next day, Eltahawy was critical of her time in jail.  However, Eltahawy  neglected to mention that when she was detained by Egyptian police during the Arab Spring uprisings, her arm and her wrist were broken and she claimed the police repeatedly physically and sexually assaulted her.

The newly-elected Egyptian president, former Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi, instructed the Egyptian Consul General, Zousef Zada, to monitor Eltahawy’s case.

The New York Times reported on the new restrictions, without any comment regarding the potentially unconstitutional regulations.

Instead, the venerable leader against the assault on the First Amendment – The New York Times - merely reported the outlandish statements made at a press conference announcing the changes, by the MTA chairman, Joseph J. Lhota.   “We’ve gotten to the point where we needed to take action today,” Lhota said, in what must have been a reference to anger directed at the anti-Jihad ads, “You deal with a free speech issue with more free speech.”   Like Eltahawy, Lhota appears to believe that free speech includes official action taken to restrict free speech.

The MTA may hope it has avoided a First Amendment challenge because its restriction is “viewpoint neutral.” This is because the new regulation does not overtly single out any special group or groups for special treatment, which was the fatal flaw pointed out by Judge Englemayer in his July 20 ruling which forced the MTA to finally post them, after a year-long delay caused by their rejection of that ad on grounds determined to be unconstitutional.

The new restriction is sure to inspire potent legal challenges on other constitutional grounds.  For example, can one “reasonably foresee” what kind of ad will “incite violence” or a “breach of the peace”?  A legal challenge on numerous grounds should be anticipated, as predicted by Dershowitz in an interview with The Algemeiner, in which he referred to the new rules as not only “unconstitutional,” but also “plain dumb.”

And to argue that ads, such as the anti-Jihad ones, will incite violence, whereas the pro-Israel ones would not, because they did not, might lead to an argument underscoring the point of Geller’s ads. That ads perceived by Muslims, to be anti-Muslim, such that they justify violence, could conceivably be used to prove that Muslims are unable to tolerate First Amendment norms in the same way as do other ethnic groups.  And that argument itself might, under this theory, incite violence.