Democracy assistance groups are often cautioned against engaging political Islamists in the Middle East on the grounds that, even when self-professed reformists, they remain closet authoritarians holding unsavory political views. Better to support the region’s beleaguered liberals and democrats, we’re told.
But does that also apply to Arab liberals?
The “dirty little secret” of some leading Egyptian liberals, including well-known dissident Ayman Nour, is that they are “virulently anti-Semitic,” write Amr Bargisi and Samuel Tadros, senior partners with the Egyptian Union of Liberal Youth, a grantee of the National Endowment for Democracy. They write:
Immediately after his release earlier this year, [Nour] attended a celebration organized by opposition groups—including the Muslim Brotherhood—in the northern city of Port Said, commemorating “the first battalion of volunteers from the Egyptian People setting off to fight the Jews in 1948.” The word “Jews” was stressed in bolded black lettering on the otherwise blue and red banner hanging above the conference panel. Yet far from trying to distance himself from that message, Mr. Nour got into the spirit of the conference, talking not only about his solidarity with Palestinians but also “the value of standing up to this enemy, behind which lies all evils, conspiracies, and threats that are spawned against Egypt.”
They trace the endemic anti-Semitism to the penetration of European fascist ideas (which, incidentally, is the subject of an important new book detailing the prevalence and impact of Nazi broadcasting in the Arab world).
When Egypt’s monarchy was overthrown in 1952 by a military coup, anti-Semitism became an ideological pillar of the new totalitarian dispensation.
Since then, Egypt has evolved, coming to terms (of a sort) with Israel and adopting at least some elements of market-based economic principle. But anti-Semitism remains the political glue holding Egypt’s disparate political forces together. Paradoxically, this is especially true of the so-called liberals, who think they can traffic on their anti-Semitism to gain favor in quarters where they would otherwise be suspect or unpopular. They have taken to demonizing Jews with the proverbial zeal of a convert.
The union was established in 2007 by a group of Egyptian youth who belonged to ostensibly liberal political parties and were frustrated that these parties often expressed anti-liberal ideas and positions. It was recently selected as one of 16 recipients of the 2009 Templeton Freedom Awards for Excellence in Promoting Liberty of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, and it won the award in the “Special Achievement by a Young Institute” category, for its “Why Am I a Liberal?” essay competition which was funded by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation.
Democracy Digest understands that Ayman Nour has responded to the WSJ article with a letter stating that the statements attributed to him “referred to a specific context, namely the conduct of the state of Israel during the Gaza war, which in my opinion was highly objectionable” and that he regrets “that my comments were expressed in a way that was unclear that may have understandably offended.
He refers to an interview published in Commentary magazine recently in which he stated, “El-Ghad supports every treaty made by Egypt before and will keep it going. We want to ensure peace with every country in the world.”
Respect for religious freedom in Egypt has declined due to the government’s failure to investigate and prosecute perpetrators of sectarian violence, according to the US Department of State’s 2009 report on international religious freedom.
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