Hamas Demands Egypt Open Border

By Micah Halpern

I've Been Thinking:

Hamas in Gaza is lashing out at the new Egypt. Hamas leadership is drawing direct parallels between Mubarak's Egypt and the new Egypt. Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hammad shouted:

"We suffered from the unjust regime of Mubarak that participated in the (Israeli) blockade of Gaza. Why should we suffer now in the era of Egypt's revolution and democracy?"

"The Egyptian leadership is requested to order the reopening of the Rafah crossing to alleviate the suffering of Palestinians wanting to travel, students, patients, residents in third countries and pilgrims," he added in a statement.

Egypt has not yet figured out how to deal with Hamas in Gaza. But at this stage, after it is 100% clear that the terror attack that killed 16 Egyptian soldiers came from Gaza and was Hamas affiliated, I doubt that there will be calm and friendly relations between these Mid East neighbors.

Micah@MicahHalpern.com 

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Changes in Egypt: Sacks Army

By Micah Halpern

 I've Been Thinking:

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy is making serious changes.

Yesterday he forced Field Marshal Tantawi to retire. Tantawi had been in charge of Egypt since the revolution and was the defense minister under Mubarak for over 21 years. He was the head of the Supreme Military Council. In effect, Tantawi and the military were the counter balance to Morsy.

Sacking Tantawi was a huge move. It was a move signaling independence.

In addition, Morsy announced new laws that put him in charge of everything. He is now head of the executive, the legislative and the military. Morsy can now issue new laws and annul old ones. And that is exactly what he is doing.

Morsy has effectively become a dictator - with no check and balances. Until now the balance was the army but Morsy ousted the entire upper echelon of the air force, the navy, the army and intelligence.

The impetus for these changes was the horrific terror attack that killed 16 soldiers during Ramadan.

We must wait and see what happens. But as of now, Egypt is looking very much like a dictatorship.

Micah@MicahHalpern.com 

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Qatar Lends Egypt $2 Bill

By Micah Halpern

I've Been Thinking:

Qatar just announced that they are giving Egypt a $2 billion loan. The exact terms of the loan were not made public.

The Emir of Qatar visited Egypt on Saturday and MENA, the Middle East News Agency, reported the news of the loan on Sunday. MENA is an official arm of the Egyptian government sponsored and paid for by government funds. In this case, we can certainly rely on the report.

In Egypt, independent news agencies are censored for insulting the president. Saturday’s edition of Al Dustor. a private newspaper owned by a Christian businessman, were confiscated before they were delivered and sold. The front page of the paper was dedicated to warning Egyptians that Egypt is becoming a Muslim Brotherhood state.

Egypt desperately needs the $2 billion. The question is whether they will invest it and build with it or just hand it out.

If they choose to hand out the money they will end up defaulting on the loan.

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Egypt Demands That Hamas Turn Over 3 Men

By Micah Halpern

I've Been Thinking:

Serious tensions are arising between Hamas and the new Egyptian government.

Egypt has demanded that Hamas hand over the 3 men who helped plan the attack that killed 16 Egyptian soldiers. Thus far, Hamas has refused.

According to a report in the Palestinian newspaper Al Quds the names of the men are Ayman Nufal, Raad al-Attar and Muhammad abu Smala.

Nufal was a commander of the Izza Din al Qassam brigades, the fighting unit of Hamas. He was arrested in Egypt in 2008, escaped from prison and smuggled back to Gaza last year during the uprising.
Al Attar and Abu Smala are commanders of the Rafah brigade, a highly efficient unit that strikes and attacks Israel regularly. Attar is believed to be the person who planned and executed the Gilad Shalit kidnapping.

There was a report that Hamas agreed to hand over the men but the men refused. They feared torture - and rightly so.

This is just the beginning. Egypt is very upset that Hamas is sheltering these murderers - men who killed Egyptians in order to use their weapons and vehicles to attack Israelis. Adding to their anger is the fact that the entire episode took place on Ramadan at the time of break fast.

This act of mass murder during Ramadan was tantamount to saying that Egyptian Muslims are not true Muslims. Egypt will fight this battle to the bitter end.

 Micah@MicahHalpern.com

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Another Virus Strikes-- Gauss

By Micah Halpern

I've Been Thinking:

Yet another cyber weapon virus has been discovered in the Middle East.

The Russian antivirus company Kaspersky announced yesterday that it had discovered another virus. They call this one Gauss, named after one of the 19th century's greatest mathematicians, Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss. They also, by the way, found and named hacking files for Kurt Godel and Joseph-Louis Lagrange. These men were all trail blazing math philosophers and theorists.

The largest and major hacking file Kapersky found was in the virus called Gauss.

Experts at Kaspersky are saying that it is abundantly clear that the Gauss virus was created by the same people who created Stuxnet, DUQU, Viper and Flame. There are too many similarities.
Other viruses probably self destroyed, but this new Gauss is very sophisticated and will take a long time to unravel and crack.

Gauss can record and break identities and assume identities. It looks like Gauss specializes in banks and accounts. It is probably not an attack virus but a spy and manipulate virus.

The Godel program is automatically transferred to a USB drive. It will only decompress when it hits its target. Godel is probably the attack virus. It will do dramatic harm if and when it is unleashed.

Micah@MicahHalpern.com 

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Abdullah of Jordan's Take on Syria

By Micah Halpern

I've Been Thinking:

Yesterday Jordan's King Abdullah said that the conflict in Syria could have a long term detrimental impact on the region.

King Abdullah went on to explain that he was worried that if Assad was unable to hold on to the entire state called Syria, Assad might carve out a smaller region which would be a safe haven for his own Alawite tribe.

The Alawites are a break off of Shiite Islam.

If that should happen it means that another state would emerge in the region, a state which is the sworn enemy of some of its neighbors.

This is not the King of Jordan's biggest worry. Abdullah's biggest fear is that the same type of al Qaeda sponsored unrest now in Syria will cross over the border into Jordan and attempt to oust him and his family from power.

There are so many people now coming across the border seeking refuge in Jordan and Abdullah knows that some are there to foment and organize a movement against him.

Will Abdullah learn the lessons of Mubarak and Assad, both of whom exercised moderate restraint? Or will Abdullah massively murder on the first day of an uprising the way his father did when he massacred anywhere between 3,400 - 10,000 Palestinians in 11 days to put down a coup. That period in Jordanian history is now and forever known as Black September.

Micah@MicahHalpern.com

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Egypt Does Not Get It

By Micah Halpern

I've Been Thinking:

Yesterday Morad Mowafi, head of Egyptian intelligence, admitted that Egypt had detailed and specific intelligence that a terror attack was to take place - they knew where, when and what. They had all the details.

He said: "Yes, we had detailed information about the attack, but we never imagined that a Muslim would kill a Muslim on the hour of breaking the fast in Ramadan."

All those details, and yet, unimaginably, the intelligence forces of Egypt did not believe that Muslim terrorists would murder Muslims on Ramadan at meal time to achieve their ends. In the end, sixteen Muslims were murdered by Muslim terrorists.

And then he said: "This incident should never raise any questions regarding the efficiency of the security forces in Sinai and their alertness."

Of course there are questions about Egypt's ability to secure their country against Muslim terrorists. Most essential is that it is now clear that Egyptian Intelligence knows so little about Islam that they believe they would not murder another Muslim on Ramadan.

This is the rule of: "if I would not do it then it could happen."
But the rule is false - that is why we have intelligence.

The only real way for Egyptians to understand what did happen is to blame it on the Israelis. And that's what they did.

But that does not take into consideration the 2000 Muslim terrorists, most of them al Qaeda trained and oriented, currently sitting in Sinai and waiting to strike.

The Egyptians will explain that one away, too.

Micah@MicahHalpern.com 

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