HISHAM MELHEM

American foreign policy towards Egypt, even before the Arab Spring, was tentative. When the Muslim Brotherhood moved against the NGOs—many of whom were American, President Obama, instead of raising Hell, raised questions.

Religion cannot and should not be understood by their texts alone. The lived history of a community of believers defines a religion; a great deal depends on how the custodians of the faith chose to interpret, defend and exploit or abuse its sacred texts.

The Crusaders who slaughtered their way to Jerusalem in 1099 were as Christian as the Christians of the Renaissance and of today.

The unimaginable brutality of this latest manifestation of Political Islam in the Arab world is too much to bear for many Muslim Arab

The Iranians and the Syrians, sipping their coffee in their cafes discussing politics, want to fight the Israelis to the last Lebanese and the last Palestinian.

Arab civilization has collapsed. It won’t recover in my lifetime.

The good thing about Egypt is, between the two World Wars, Egypt was - had a liberal society. It has a political life. It has parties. It was not - it was dysfunctional in many ways, but it was not a very repressive regime. Egypt, at one time, was the bellwether of the Arab world, was the trendsetter, created great culture, movies, cinema, you name it.

If you create enough space in Egypt, civil society will revive itself, and then will you have all of these secular forces, liberals, nationalists and others, compete with the Islamists. And then you will see the Islamists reduced to their size.

The Crusaders who slaughtered their way to Jerusalem in 1099 were as Christian as the Christians of the Renaissance and of today.

Religion cannot and should not be understood by their texts alone. The lived history of a community of believers defines a religion; a great deal depends on how the custodians of the faith chose to interpret, defend and exploit or abuse its sacred texts.

The Iranians and the Syrians, sipping their coffee in their cafes discussing politics, want to fight the Israelis to the last Lebanese and the last Palestinian.

American foreign policy towards Egypt, even before the Arab Spring, was tentative. When the Muslim Brotherhood moved against the NGOs—many of whom were American, President Obama, instead of raising Hell, raised questions.

The unimaginable brutality of this latest manifestation of Political Islam in the Arab world is too much to bear for many Muslim Arab

The good thing about Egypt is, between the two World Wars, Egypt was - had a liberal society. It has a political life. It has parties. It was not - it was dysfunctional in many ways, but it was not a very repressive regime. Egypt, at one time, was the bellwether of the Arab world, was the trendsetter, created great culture, movies, cinema, you name it.

If you create enough space in Egypt, civil society will revive itself, and then will you have all of these secular forces, liberals, nationalists and others, compete with the Islamists. And then you will see the Islamists reduced to their size.

Arab civilization has collapsed. It won’t recover in my lifetime.