Immigration Reform: If The Past Is Prologue...

M2RB:  Lynyrd Skynryd

Travelin' Man -- that's what I am
Guess I'll always be
Travelin' Man -- that's what I am
But at least I'm free

Balkanised North America

In 1980, Carter received 56% of the Hispanic vote while Reagan only got 37% — a difference of 19%.

In 1984, Mondale received 66% of the Hispanic vote while Reagan only got 34.82% — a difference of 31.18%.

In 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 a/k/a Simpson-Mazzilo into law, which granted amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants, the vast majority of which were Hispanic.

In 1988, Michael Dukakis won 70.15% of the Hispanic vote while the Vice-President of the man who legalised millions of Hispanics, George H W Bush, received a mere 30.85% — a difference of 39.3%.

If Hispanics could be purchased with amnesty, then they would have overwhelmingly voted Republican in 1988. They didn’t so that should tell the “brains” in the GOP something.

Continuing on…

In 1992, Bill Clinton won 61% of the Hispanic vote while President George H.W. Bush won 25% – a difference of 36%.

In 1996, President Bill Clinton won 72% of the Hispanic vote while Senator Bob Dole received a mere 21% – a difference of 51%.

In 2000, Vice-President Al Gore won 62% of the Hispanic vote while George W Bush won only 35% – a difference of 27%.

In 2004, Senator John Kerry won 58% of the Hispanic vote while President George W Bush won 40% – a difference of 18%.

In 2008, Senator Barack Obama, who voted AGAINST President Bush’s immigration reform, won 67% of the Hispanic vote while Senator John McAmnesty won a mere 31% – a difference of 36%.

In 2012, President Barack Obama won 71% of the Hispanic vote while Mitt Romney won only 27% – a difference of 44%.

Out with The Melting Pot!!!

Let's actually go back to 1965 and see what our then-rulers predicted would happen following the passage of the  The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965: 

“This bill that we will sign today is not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions. It will not reshape the structure of our daily lives or add importantly to either our wealth or our power..This bill says simply that from this day forth those wishing to immigrate to America shall be admitted on the basis of their skills and their close relationship to those already here. This is a simple test, and it is a fair test. Those who can contribute most to this country–to its growth, to its strength, to its spirit–will be the first that are admitted to this land…The days of unlimited immigration are past. But those who do come will come because of what they are, and not because of the land from which they sprung.”

- President Lyndon B Johnson, signing into law the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 at the base of the Statue of Liberty, Liberty Island, 3 October 1965.

 

“First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same … Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset … Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia … In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think…The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.” 

- Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, D.C., 10 February 1965. pp. 1-3

 

“I would say for the Asia-Pacific Triangle it [immigration] would be approximately 5,000, Mr. Chairman, after which immigration from that source would virtually disappear; 5,000 immigrants would come the first year, but we do not expect that there would be any great influx after that.” 

- Attorney General Robert Kennedy, testifying on immigration reform, U.S. Congress, House, 1964 hearings, p. 418 

 

“This bill is not designed to increase or accelerate the numbers of newcomers permitted to come to America. Indeed, this measure provides for an increase of only a small fraction in permissible immigration.” 

- Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, D.C., 10 February 1965, p.8

 

“The present estimate, based upon the best information we can get, is that there might be, say, 8,000 immigrants from India in the next five years … I don’t think we have a particular picture of a world situation where everybody is just straining to move to the United States … There is not a general move toward the United States.” 

- Secretary of State Dean Rusk – U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the Committee on the Judiciary, Washington D.C., 10 February 1965, p.65

 

“I am aware that this bill is more concerned with the equality of immigrants than with their numbers. It is obvious in any event that the great days of immigration have long since run their course. World population trends have changed, and changing economic and social conditions at home and abroad dictate a changing migratory pattern.”

- Rep. Sidney Yates (D-IL), Congressional Record, 25 August 1965, p. 21793 

 

“Contrary to the opinions of some of the misinformed, this legislation does not open the floodgates.” 

- Senator Claiborne Pell (D-RI), Congressional Record, 20 September 1965, p. 24480

 

 

 

 In with the Multi-Kulti Salad Bowl!!!  Yeah!

And, even Republicans either bought into the BS or were in on the deception:

 

"Asians represent six-tenths of 1 percent of the population of the United States … with respect to Japan, we estimate that there will be a total for the first 5 years of some 5,391 … the people from that part of the world will never reach 1 percent of the population .. .Our cultural pattern will never be changed as far as America is concerned.” 

- Senator Hiram Fong (R-HI), U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, D.C., 10 February 1965, pp.71, 119

“The preferences which would be established by this proposal are based, I believe, on sound reasoning and meritorious considerations, not entirely dissimilar in effect from those which underlie the national origins quotas of existing law.”

– Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC), Congressional Record, 17 September 1965, p. 24237

 

Sort of like when Senator Hubert Humphrey said “I’ll eat my hat if this leads to racial quotas” when the Senate was debating Affirmative Action.

 

A few people, who opposed The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, did see that the new system, even with tight controls to protect the labour force, would result in dramatic changes:

“We estimate that if the President gets his way, and the current immigration laws are repealed, the number of immigrants next year will increase threefold and in subsequent years will increase even more … shall we, instead, look at this situation realistically and begin solving our own unemployment problems before we start tackling the world’s?”

- Congressman William Miller (R-NY), Republican Vice Presidential candidate, The New York Times, 8 September 1964, p. 14

[Note: Although immigration did increase as dramatically as Rep. Miller predicted, it took longer than he thought. By 1968 — when the law fully took effect — the 1965 level of 290,697 had increased to 454,448, "only" a 56 percent increase.]

“What I object to is imposing no limitation insofar as areas of the earth are concerned, but saying that we are throwing the doors open and equally inviting people from the Orient, from the islands of the Pacific, from the subcontinent of Asia, from the Near East, from all of Africa, all of Europe, and all of the Western Hemisphere on exactly the same basis. I am inviting attention to the fact that this is a complete and radical departure from what has always heretofore been regarded as sound principles of immigration.”

- Sen. Spessard Holland (D-FL), Congressional Record, 22 September 1965, p. 24779

Among those who more accurately foresaw the future effects of the change in immigration law was a certain Myra C. Hacker, Vice President of the New Jersey Coalition, who testified at a Senate immigration subcommittee hearing: 

“In light of our 5 percent unemployment rate, our worries over the so called population explosion, and our menacingly mounting welfare costs, are we prepared to embrace so great a horde of the world’s unfortunates? At the very least, the hidden mathematics of the bill should be made clear to the public so that they may tell their Congressmen how they feel about providing jobs, schools, homes, security against want, citizen education, and a brotherly welcome … for an indeterminately enormous number of aliens from underprivileged lands….We should remember that people accustomed to such marginal existence in their own land will tend to live fully here, to hoard our bounteous minimum wages and our humanitarian welfare handouts … lower our wage and living standards, disrupt our cultural patterns …Whatever may be our benevolent intent toward many people, [the bill] fails to give due consideration to the economic needs, the cultural traditions, and the public sentiment of the citizens of the United States.” 

– Myra C. Hacker, Vice President of the New Jersey Coalition, U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, D.C., 10 February 1965, pp. 681-687 

 

Later, even renown Progressives rued the day that the Act became law:

"The United States cannot regain its competitive standing in the world by importing low wage workers from other countries.  On the one hand, it engenders conditions this country cannot and should not tolerate.  On the other hand, in the modern age, a nation's wealth and prosperity is secured by high worker productivity and capital investment, not by the availability of low-wage labour."

 - Senator Eugene McCarthy (D-MN), 1968 Democratic Presidential nominee

“The immigration Act of 1965 changed all previous patterns, and in so doing, probably changed the future of America … [it] was noble, revolutionary – and probably the most thoughtless of many acts of the Great Society.”

- Theodore White, American political journalist, historian, and novelist, Kennedy family intimate, coiner of the term "Camelot" to describe the Kennedy Administration, America in Search of Itself: The Making of the President 1956-1980, 1982

Related Reading:

 

Immigration Reform:  If the Past Is Prologue...

Yes, Immigration Can Bring Huge Benefits, But On This Scale And At This Speed, It's Too Much To Cope With

Adios, Adios, Miss American Pie?  Not Necessarily.

Immigration & The Town That Stopped Mincing Words

A Fair Warning To Those Promoting Open Borders, Amnesty, & Free Immigration

Civil Rights Commission:  "Granting Illegal Immigrants Effective Amnesty Would 'Harm Lower-Skilled, African-American"

Will Aging Childless Voters Enslave My Future Grandchildren?

The 1965 Immigration Reform and The New York Times: Context, Coverage and Long-Term Consequences

Economic Micawberism: The Left Expects Businesses To Place Progressive Ideals Above Economic Survival

The Surrealistic States of America

No, Rand Paul Is Not An Amnesty Shill Nor Are We Ever, Ever, Ever Going To Deport 12-20 Million Illegal Aliens

The Rise of Islamist Violence in the UK

After Arizona:  The Field, Still Unoccupied

A Fair Warning To Those Promoting Open Borders, Amnesty, & Free Immigration - Surprise! That “Permanent” coalition idea didn’t work out so well when Labour set out to do change the demographics of the country

 

Balkanisation will lead to??? ...

 

 

 

Travelin' Man - Lynyrd Skynyrd

I was born a travelin' man, that's all I'll ever be
Moving around from town to town is what makes me so free
My father was a trucker for the years of '23
On the day that I was born his blood was left to me
I'm a travelin' man
Travelin' Man -- that's what I am
Travelin' Man
Travelin' Man
That's what I am
Travelin' man -- that's what I am
No woman puts a hold on me
You'll see me once or maybe twice
That's all you'll see of me
All you pretty women Lord, I hope you understand
Don't be a fool Lord no, and put your heart in a travellin' man
I'm a travelin' man
Travelin' Man
Travelin' Man -- that's what I am
Travelin' Man
Travelin' Man -- that's what I am
Guess I'll always be
Travelin' Man -- that's what I am
But at least I'm free
Travelin' man
Oh - that's what I am
Travelin' man -- that's what I am, Lord I move so fast
I have had so many women, none of them have last
I am just a mover, moving fast as sound
Always free, sometimes lonely. Always movin' around
Travelin' Man
Travelin' Man -- that's what I am
Travelin' Man
Oh - that's what I am 

 

An Enclave Of Steelers Fans In Oregon? The Surprising Maps That Show How The Country Is Divided Over The NFL

New York University PhD candidate Sean Taylor has published a series of new maps based on Facebook figures that show a surprising social and geographical breakdown of NFL fans. About 35 million people on Facebook have 'liked' one of the 32 NFL teams, or roughly one out of every ten Americans. Those numbers now show a divided country loaded with random fan clusters and holdouts.

This map focuses on Facebook data during the playoffs. 'It's striking just how much geographic area of the country was rooting for the Denver Broncos come January,' Taylor says

Taylor created maps for the subsequent rounds of the playoffs to show how the fans of remaining teams were distributed geographically as the post-season progressed

With only two teams left for the Super Bowl, Taylor found the country divided more or less by geography, with 49ers fans dominating the West and the Ravens being the most popular in counties in the mid-Atlantic and Southern states

A nation is divided between Baltimore Raven (blue) and San Francisco 49ers (red) 

A Lib Dem MP Gives Voice To Britain's National Sickness

By Melanie Phillips

People have been expressing severe shock and revulsion at the ugly remarks by Lib Dem MP David Ward about Israel and the Holocaust.

As The Commentator reported, to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day Ward said the following:

  

‘Having visited Auschwitz twice – once with my family and once with local schools – I am saddened that the Jews, who suffered unbelievable levels of persecution during the Holocaust, could within a few years of liberation from the death camps be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new State of Israel and continue to do so on a daily basis in the West Bank and Gaza.’

He dug himself further into the hole with this interview with Sky News. As far as he is concerned, it appears he believes he has said nothing wrong.

The Liberal Democrat party has denounced his statements as ‘unacceptable’ and is reportedly considering stripping him of the Lib Dem whip. Such an action would nevertheless be merely cosmetic. For these ‘unacceptable’ attitudes are widespread in the Liberal Democrat party -- as illustrated by both the report on the furore and readers’ comments here on Liberal Democrat Voice.  

Moreover, much of the shock and outrage has missed the point. Ward’s offence, it would appear, was to have repeatedly blamed ‘the Jews’ for failing to learn the lessons of the Holocaust and inflicting atrocities upon the Palestinians. Apparently – as even the Sky interviewer seemed at one point to imply-- if he had blamed ‘the Israelis’ there wouldn’t have been a problem.

This is not just to fail to grasp the real obscenity of Ward’s comments, but to reveal that many of those expressing revulsion at his comments actually suffer from the same prejudice.
 

For the really terrible thing here is not the grotesque misuse of the Holocaust, nor the vicious suggestion that ‘the Jews’ are guilty of behaviour that is somehow analogous to the Nazi genocide inflicted upon them, nor even the sickening insult that they have to ‘learn the lessons’ of their own suffering.

No, the true venom of these remarks is the way they reverse the position of today’s Jewish victims – the Israeli survivors of the Holocaust and their children and grandchildren -- and their current would-be exterminators – the descendants of Hitler’s Nazi collaborators in Palestine during the Holocaust.

For the fact is that Israel is not trying to exterminate the Palestinians – indeed how could this possibly be the case, since the Palestinian population has more than quadrupled since the rebirth of Israel in 1948. Nor are the Israelis oppressing the Palestinians, who have benefited from some of the highest rises in GDP and lowest child mortality ratios in the Middle East.

Nor are the Israelis behaving inhumanely; it is the Palestinians who are committing crimes against humanity by targeting Israeli innocents for mass murder without remission, both from Gaza and from the West Bank. It is the Palestinians, in the West Bank as well as Gaza, who are brainwashed from the cradle to hate Jews and to believe that murdering Israelis is their highest glory. Which they have been doing in Israel and before that in Palestine for more than a century – despite the fact that, as the international community laid down in binding treaty in 1920, the Jews alone had the inalienable and historic right to settle throughout Palestine, including not just present-day Israel but also the West Bank and Gaza. 

 

Moreover, while the Jews accepted proposals for a Palestinian state first made in the 1930s and then in 1947, and while the Israelis offered them more than 95 per cent of the possible land for a state in 2000 and 2008, the Palestinians responded merely by murdering more Jews.

Despite all this, Israel behaves towards its genocidal Palestinian attackers with a humanity that is seen in no other conflict on the planet. Despite the rocket attacks and constant smuggling of ever more fearsome weapons to be aimed at its civilians, it allows humanitarian supplies into Gaza; despite the constant plotting in the West Bank to kill more Israelis, it allows Palestinians to work in Israel, and treats Palestinians from both the West Bank and Gaza alongside Israelis in Israeli hospitals. Yes of course there is Palestinian hardship caused by the checkpoints and security barrier. But the only reason these exist is to prevent Palestinians killing yet more Israelis. If the Palestinians and their Arab and Iranian backers stopped trying to wipe Israel off the map, there would be peace tomorrow.

The really appalling thing about Ward’s remarks is his hijacking of the Holocaust to reverse the position of Arab aggressors and their Jewish victims. But he also goes further than accusing Israel of such crimes in the West Bank and Gaza. He accuses it of

‘Inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new State of Israel.’

He thus appears to be accusing Israel of committing atrocities against its own Arab citizens. But this is just plain hallucinatory. There is nothing that could possibly be considered to be such. Arab Israelis have full civil rights in Israel; they serve as MPs, judges, even serve in the army; every day Arab Israelis peacefully go about their everyday lives.

The really chilling thing is this. Leave aside Ward’s particular offensiveness and idiocies. The insane belief that Israel is trying to wipe out the Palestinians or at the very least that it behaves savagely towards them, subjects them to ‘apartheid’ and ensures through its behaviour that there is no peace in the Middle East is now common currency in British progressive circles. While most would not use the Holocaust analogy and are careful to damn Israelis rather than ‘the Jews’, the entirely false belief that the Israelis have supplanted the indigenous people of Palestine and towards whom they are now behaving in an unconscionable way is now the default position amongst liberals and the left, and has also made serious inroads amongst the more isolationist and ignorant British conservatives.

 

The belief that, in Israel, the victims of one of the greatest crimes against humanity are themselves now guilty of crimes against humanity is the collective libel that has become the default position amongst the British intelligentsia. And as Ward suggested in his remarks on Sky, only those Jews who themselves endorse this libel by denouncing Israel are to be considered free of this taint. British Jews who support Israel and try to counter these Big Lies are quite simply treated as pariahs by baying mobs whose obsession with Israel has brought about nothing less than a mass derangement in British public debate.

The full, monstrous obscenity of both Ward’s remarks and the widespread British attitude to which he has given voice is no less than this: accusing the people who were the victims of genocide entirely falsely of committing crimes against humanity -- simply because they are trying to defend themselves from being wiped out again by those for whom the Holocaust is unfinished business. Self-defence against extermination is now considered a crime against humanity.

David Ward may have been particularly clumsy – but he has merely given voice to Britain’s national sickness and shame. 


Related:
 

British Yobs, Racial Slurs And Why I Fear For My Children: One British Mother's Utterly Shocking Account Of Tthe Anit-Semitism Her Children Suffer

Hitler's Ghost Haunts Europe

 

 

British Yobs, Racial Slurs And Why I Fear For My Children: One British Mother's Utterly Shocking Account Of The Anti-Semitism That Her Children Suffer

By Angela Epstein

Every weekday morning I drive to a building surrounded by razor wire. It has  bomb-proof windows, security guards posted next to its tall, iron gates, and sturdy fences that ring the perimeters. Access to anyone is by entry phone — or by convincing the guards you have a right to enter.

So do I work in a prison? No. I have children who attend a Jewish school near our home in Manchester.

Though the security at the school may sound shockingly heavy-handed, my sons barely notice it and we parents gratefully accept it. However, every so often I ask myself: is this how we really need to  protect a school in modern Britain?

Sadly, there is no choice. And after the horrific events in Toulouse, which saw the killing of three children and a rabbi at a Jewish school just like my children’s, I can’t see that changing.

I was driving when the news came through on the radio and, shaking hard, I just about managed to manoeuvre the car through the morning traffic as I fought to take it in. As soon as I could, I pulled over to phone my husband and tell him what had happened.

Not only was there deep shock and profound sorrow, there was something else, too — a cold dread that fingered the spine. Put simply, I was terrified.

For the sorry truth is that schools like my children’s would not need such protection if there was a not a genuine threat in  Britain, too. Don’t believe me? Three of my four children attend Jewish schools (the fourth is now on a gap year), and over recent years they, along with many of their friends and classmates, have been targets for anti-Semitic abuse.

Only recently, my 13-year-old son and his friends were walking home from the local Jewish high school when a group of  yobs from across the road taunted them by shouting: ‘You Jews, Zeig Heil! We  hate you, Jews.’

Ask any of the pupils about this kind of incident and they will tell you — to quote my 16-year-old son — that ‘it happens all the time’.

These are not teenagers who are ultra-orthodox, so there are no overt signs of their religion, except that they are  walking home from a Jewish school. They look like any other scruffy kids as they amble along with their skewed ties, untucked shirts, backpacks and pockets jammed with jaw-rotting sweets. But even that relative anonymity doesn’t  protect them.

The son of one friend of mine had eggs thrown at him by a group of youths as he made his way home, while another was actually set upon by a trio of mindless young idiots — though he managed to break free and run away, thankfully, with just a few bruises. Little wonder that on the afternoon of the Toulouse murders, as I went to collect my seven-year-old daughter from school, the atmosphere in the playground was febrile with what I can only describe as a collective terror.

For the tragedy in France has crystallised the fear of every Jewish parent in this country: that racial hatred takes no prisoners — even innocent ones — and can, in the worst-case scenario, lead to unimaginable tragedy.

Thank goodness that our  children, buoyed by youthful  optimism, seem almost to take it in their stride. Part of me admires their fortitude.

As a mother, I would fight like a lioness with anyone who threatened their safety.

But I don’t want my teenage sons yoked to my side by a prevailing fear of anti-Semitic attack. I want to raise them to hold their heads high, to be proud of their Jewish heritage, to contribute to and integrate with the wider community and, above all, to know who they are.

Unfortunately, being Jewish and going to a Jewish school puts them in the firing line for threatening and abusive behaviour.

Where I live, the situation is compounded by the fact that more anti-Semitic crime took place in Greater Manchester than London last year, despite seven times more Jews living in the capital.

There is no obvious reason for this except, perhaps, it is easier to target the tight-knit Jewish community in Manchester, which is concentrated in an area that is relatively small compared to  London’s sprawl.  In terms of the aggressors, there doesn’t seem to be any consistent racial or religious profile.

According to the Community Security Trust (CST), which provides additional protection at schools and communal events to the Jewish community across the country, the victims include two Jewish schoolgirls who were approached by two other youngsters who held cigarette lighters up to them and threatened to ‘burn you like Hitler’.

On another occasion, a lit firework was thrown from a car at three Jewish schoolchildren as they walked home. Let me ask the non-Jewish mothers and fathers reading this: wouldn’t your blood chill if pupils at your children’s school were being threatened  this way?

I try to give my sons obvious advice such as never allow yourselves to be goaded into a street fight, and if someone yells abuse from a car, try to get the number plate. (My friend’s son who was covered in eggs did this, and police tracked down and charged the culprit.)

So why is Britain’s 350,000-strong Jewish community — and particularly its children — under the kind of attack that has uncomfortable echoes of 1930s Germany? 

'My own children — along with many classmates — are only too happy to integrate' 

The simple answer could be that anyone who seems different will always be a butt for old-fashioned xenophobia, patriarchal bigotry and inherited prejudice.

Perhaps, and this is far more depressing, it’s down to a cultural hatred of Jews that has bled through the generations, creating an unapologetic loathing of anything to do with our religion.

Certainly I believe anti-Semitic attacks are influenced by events in Israel — the CST, which also  monitors incidents against Jewish people and organisations — said anti-Semitic incidents spiked during last year’s conflict in Gaza.

But the vitriolic feelings that manifest themselves in this country must be fuelled by something more than politics. I simply fail to understand how a tiny democracy in the Middle East, one that is no larger than Wales and surrounded by hostile neighbours, elicits  such loathing.

In the end, I’m afraid I believe  that our children are a target because no one fears a Jewish reprisal. As comedian Jackie Mason once said, ‘Nobody ever crossed the street to avoid a group of Jewish accountants.’

It sounds light-hearted but it’s true. We don’t make excessive demands for the State to absorb our culture. We just want to live a peaceful coexistence.

So what of the legacy of the terrible events in Toulouse? Well, security at our school could barely get any tighter. Though judging from the pale, pinched faces of parents on the school run this week, confidence in what is already a well-fortified system is understandably shaken.

Meanwhile, it doesn’t matter how hard we Jews work to feel part of a broader culture, there will always be others who won’t stop reminding our children that we’re not.

They attend a Jewish school because my husband and I want them to get a first-class secular education as well as knowledge of their heritage and tradition.

That way, as they make the journey to adulthood, they can have a foot in the Jewish and the non-Jewish world, with no recourse to mutual exclusivity.

What a pity the yobs who yell Nazi slurs at them as they make their way to and from school will never see it that way.


Related:

Hitler's Ghost Haunts Europe

A Lib Dem MP Gives Voice To Britain's National Sickness

Radical Past: Former Associate Calls Morsi a 'Master of Disguise'

M2RB:  Lady GaGa

Can't read my
Can't read my
No, Obama can't read my poker face...

Is Mohammed Morsi a peacebroker or a virulent anti-Semite? A former member of the Muslim Brotherhood, who has known Morsi for 13 years, believes that behind the Egyptian president's veneer of goodwill towards Israel lies a deep-seated hatred.

By Dieter Bednarz and Volkhard Windfuhr in Cairo

Mohammed Morsi can be very sympathetic, even toward Jews, as evidenced by an extremely friendly letter the Egyptian president sent to Israel last October. The president had personally written the letter of accreditation, for his new ambassador in Tel Aviv, to his counterpart Shimon Peres, whom he addressed as a "Dear Friend." In the letter, Morsi clearly invoked the "good relations" that "fortunately exist between our countries," and pledged to "preserve and strengthen" them. 

The government in Jerusalem had not expected such warm words from a president who had emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood. Unsure whether they were perhaps the victims of a forgery, the Israelis published the letter. But Cairo confirmed that it was indeed genuine, and Jerusalem reacted with relief. The Jewish state had lost a reliable partner with the ouster of Morsi's predecessor Hosni Mubarak, and now there was hope that perhaps Morsi would not confirm all of Israel's fears.

But the Egyptian president, who is visiting Berlin this week and will meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel, a champion of Israel, appears to be a man with two faces. He is conciliatory as Egypt's leader, saying that he wants to be the "president of all Egyptians," even though only about a quarter of the country's 50 million eligible voters voted for him. And, of course, he insists that his country will fulfill all of its obligations from the Mubarak era, including both the peace treaty with Israel and a policy of close cooperation with the United States.

In mid-January, however, Western diplomats and politicians saw a very different Mohammed Morsi, a man filled with hate for the "Zionist entity," the term Islamists use for the Jewish state. An almost three-year-old video, published by the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), depicts an Islamist who is practically foaming at the mouth, as he rants about the Israelis in an interview with an Arab network. Speaking in a deep and firm voice, he calls them "bloodsuckers" and "warmongers," and says that there can be no peace with these "descendants of apes and pigs."

It was apparently more than just a regrettable moment of madness for Morsi, claims a prominent former member of the Muslim Brotherhood. After all, he says, the current president served as general inspector of the Muslim Brotherhood for years, which put him in charge of the group's online service. That service includes quotes about Israelis and Jews that testify to the same hatred as the lapses in the video.

Despite outrage internationally and at the White House over the video, Morsi was unperturbed by the furor over his remarks. In the end, his spokesman said that Morsi's words had been taken out of context, but offered no further explanation or apology. When SPIEGEL reporters appeared at the presidential palace in the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis last week after having received approval for an interview with Morsi, they were turned away.

 

Here, Morsi can be seen in a 2010 photo standing next to Abdel-Jalil el-Sharnoubi. Sharnoubi says he isn't surprised by Morsi's old hate video. "Agitation against the Israelis is in keeping with the way Morsi thinks," he says. "For the Morsi I know, any cooperation with Israel is a serious sin, a crime."

 

All a Pretense

To comprehend the Egyptian president and grasp how the Muslim Brotherhood shapes its members, it helps to speak with men who knew Morsi during his time with the Islamist organization -- and who also have the courage to speak openly about the group. Abdel-Jalil el-Sharnoubi, 38, talks about how dangerous this can be. Last October, after he had spoken about quitting the Brotherhood to Egyptian newspapers and in TV appearances, masked men opened fire on Sharnoubi's car with submachine guns.

For Sharnoubi, a lanky man, keeping a constant eye out for suspicious characters has become second nature. He takes a cautious look around as he walks into the Café Riche in downtown Cairo, and when he sits down, he makes sure that he has a good view of the entire establishment. He orders tea, rolls himself a cigarette and then tells the story of his time with the Muslim Brotherhood and the current president, to whom he derisively refers as "doctor." 

When they first met in 2000, both men were already successful. Sharnoubi, the son of an imam in the Nile delta, joined the Brotherhood at 13. He eventually advanced within the regimented organization to become a member of its information committee. Morsi, for his part, had made it into the Egyptian parliament. Because members of the Muslim Brotherhood were not allowed to run for political office under Mubarak, Morsi masqueraded as an "independent." The two men had had "a lot of contact with each other" to further their goal of spreading the Brotherhood's message as widely as possible, says Sharnoubi.

For information expert Sharnoubi, Morsi was "a typical man from the country, a fellah with peasant origins who quickly integrated himself into the machine." At the time, claims Sharnoubi, Morsi was "downright submissive to the Brotherhood's leadership." Morsi was apparently completely opposed to the Brotherhood becoming more open, as Sharnoubi had advocated. "He fought against any internal democratization."

It seemed "inconceivable" to Sharnoubi that Morsi's group would one day assume power in Egypt. In fact, he says, he would have "found it even less likely" that Morsi, a modest member of parliament, would become president. Even in the highest government position, Morsi cannot have shed the Brotherhood's mission like an old suit, says Sharnoubi. "A man like Morsi, with such deep convictions, can't do that. If we hear anything else from him, it'll be a pretense." He explains that Morsi owes his survival under autocrat Mubarak to this "talent for assimilation," and that he is a "master of disguise."

'Any Cooperation with Israel is a Serious Sin'

There is too much at stake now, says Sharnoubi. There are the aid payments from Europe and the United States, which Egypt's ailing economy urgently needs. And Morsi himself also needs the West's goodwill. If there is a "power struggle with democratically minded forces," he says, the president will depend on intercession from Washington, Brussels and Berlin.

Sharnoubi wasn't surprised by the Morsi hate video. "Agitation against the Israelis is in keeping with the way Morsi thinks. For the Morsi I know, any cooperation with Israel is a serious sin, a crime." Morsi's choice of words is also nothing new, says Sharnoubi. As proof, he opens his black laptop and shows us evidence of the former Muslim Brotherhood member's true sentiments.

Indeed, the video gaffes do not appear to be a one-time occurrence. In 2004 Morsi, then a member of the Egyptian parliament, allegedly raged against the "descendants of apes and pigs," saying that there could be "no peace" with them. The remarks were made at a time when Israeli soldiers had accidentally shot and killed three Egyptian police officers. The source of the quote can hardly be suspected of incorrectly quoting fellow Brotherhood members: Ichwan Online, the Islamist organization's website.

Few people are as familiar with the contents of that website as Sharnoubi, who was the its editor-in-chief until 2011. The current president became the general inspector of the organization in 2007, says Sharnoubi. In this capacity, Morsi would have been partly responsible for the anti-Jewish propaganda on the website, which featured the "banner of jihad" at the time and saw "Jews and Zionists as archenemies." The threats are attributed to the undisputed leader of the Brotherhood, Mohammed Badi. According to the website, Badi's creed is: "Resistance is the only solution against Zionist-American arrogance and tyranny."

It was under the editorship of Sharnoubi, who stresses that he condemns the "Israeli government's settlement policy," that Morsi gave a self-promoting interview in May 2009. Referring to the Israelis, the current president said: "They all have the same nature. They are equally shaped by shrewdness, deception and hate." He added that their only objectives are "killing, aggression and subjugation."

 

 Tahrir Square, January 2013

Former fellow Muslim Brotherhood member Sharnoubi expects "no words of regret, at least not sincere ones," for his offensive remarks in the scandalous film. Anti-Israeli rhetoric, he says, is a "cornerstone of the Brotherhood's ideology."

Sharnoubi assumes that cordial moves like the letter to Peres have only one goal: "To secure and expand the dominance of the Brotherhood." Only recently, the president issued a decree that gave him absolute powers, and Morsi currently controls all three branches of government. "He has secured more power than his predecessor Mubarak ever had."

Sharnoubi's vision of a future Egypt under the Muslim Brotherhood is horrifying. "They will infiltrate all areas of our society: government offices and ministries, schools and universities, as well as the police and the military. They will eliminate their enemies."

Isn't he exaggerating?

"Not in the least," says Sharnoubi, noting that the Brotherhood is already infiltrating the security apparatus. "The Brotherhood will never give up its power without a fight."

When he leaves the café, Sharnoubi looks toward Tahrir Square, where there is no end to the turmoil. Last Friday, once again, there was rioting and there were clashes between Morsi opponents and the police, and some were killed or injured. For Sharnoubi, this is "merely a small foretaste of an imminent popular uprising."

Related:

 

Egyptian Press Confirms Washington Infiltrated By Islamists

 

Poker Face - Lady Gaga

Mum mum mum mah
Mum mum mum mah
I wanna hold em' like they do in Texas please
Fold em' let em' hit me raise it baby stay with me (I love it)
Luck and intuition play the cards with Spades to start
And after he's been hooked I'll play the one that's on his heart
Oh, oh, oh, oh, ohhhh, oh-oh-e-oh-oh-oh
I'll get him hot, show him what I've got
Oh, oh, oh, oh, ohhhh, oh-oh-e-oh-oh-oh,
I'll get him hot, show him what I've got
[Chorus:]
Can't read my,
Can't read my
No he can't read my poker face
(she's got me like nobody)
Can't read my
Can't read my
No he can't read my poker face
(she's got me like nobody)
P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face
(Mum mum mum mah)
P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face
(Mum mum mum mah)
I wanna roll with him a hard pair we will be
A little gambling is fun when you're with me (I love it)
Russian Roulette is not the same without a gun
And baby when it's love if its not rough it isn't fun, fun
Oh, oh, oh, oh, ohhhh, oh-oh-e-oh-oh-oh
I'll get him hot, show him what I've got
Oh, oh, oh, oh, ohhhh, oh-oh-e-oh-oh-oh,
I'll get him hot, show him what I've got
[Chorus]
P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face
(Mum mum mum mah)
P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face
(Mum mum mum mah)
I won't tell you that I love you
Kiss or hug you
Cause I'm bluffin' with my muffin
I'm not lying I'm just stunnin' with my love-glue-gunning
Just like a chick in the casino
Take your bank before I pay you out
I promise this, promise this
Check this hand cause I'm marvelous
[Chorus x3]
[x3]
P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face
(Mum mum mum mah)
P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face
(Mum mum mum mah)