Bruised but defiant: Mona Eltahawy on her assault by Egyptian security forces update 20th June 2014

The price of protest: writer Mona Eltahawy with her arms in casts after they were broken by Egyptian security forces in Cairo. 'Our dictators tailor wounds to suit their victims’ occupations,' she says. Photograph: Dan Callister for the Guardian

Bruised but defiant: Mona Eltahawy on her assault by Egyptian security forces

Further Down

Egypt’s Sexual Violence

By MONA ELTAHAWY JUNE 20, 2014

Mona Eltahawy's tweets about her assault in Cairo made global headlines. Here she tells her full, extraordinary story for the first time

Mona Eltahawy
guardian.co.uk, Friday 23 December 2011 17.56 GMT
 
The price of protest: writer Mona Eltahawy with her arms in casts after they were broken by Egyptian security forces in Cairo. 'Our dictators tailor wounds to suit their victims’ occupations,' she says. Photograph: Dan Callister for the Guardian

The last thing I remember before the riot police surrounded me was punching a man who had groped me. Who the hell thinks of copping a feel as you're taking shelter from bullets? Another man tried to protect him by standing between us, but I was enraged, and kept going back for more. A third man was trying to snatch my smartphone out of my other hand. He was the one who had pulled my friend Maged Butter and me into an abandoned shop – supposedly for safety's sake – and he wouldn't let go of my hand.

It was November. Maged and I had come from Tahrir Square to Mohamed Mahmoud Street, the frontline of clashes between protesters and the military, following a violent invasion of Tahrir by police and soldiers a few days earlier. Almost 40 people had died – including a distant relative – and 3,000 were wounded.

Maged tried to pull me away. "Enough smacking the groper, let the phone go." It's clear to us both now that those men we'd met among the protesters on Mohamed Mahmoud Street had entrapped us. They worked with the security services, who were a few metres away, just beyond no man's land, and their job was to hold on to us until the riot police came.

And when they did come, I was the only one left in the deserted shop. I thought Maged had managed to escape, but he later told me he was nearby being beaten, able to see riot police beat me, too. "You were smart to defend your head," he said. He needed stitches to his face, and still has contusions to his head and chest.

I suffered a broken left arm and right hand. The Egyptian security forces' brutality is always ugly, often random and occasionally poetic. Initially, I assumed my experience was random, but a veteran human rights activist told me they knew exactly who I was and what they were doing to my writing arms when they sent riot police conscripts to that deserted shop. Bashar al-Assad's henchmen stomped on the hands of famed Syrian cartoonist Ali Farzat. Our dictators tailor wounds to suit their victims' occupations.

As the nightsticks whacked at my arms, legs and the top of my head (in the week that followed, I would discover new bruises every day), two things were at the front of my mind: the pain and my smartphone.

The viciousness of their attack took me aback. Yes, I confess, this feminist thought they wouldn't beat a woman so hard. But I wasn't just a woman. My body had become Tahrir Square, and it was time for revenge against the revolution that had broken and humiliated Hosni Mubarak's police. And it continues. We've all seen that painfully iconic photograph of the woman who was beaten and stripped to her underwear by soldiers in Tahrir Square. Did you notice the soldier who was about to stomp on her exposed midriff? How could you not?

My phone fell as the four or five riot policemen beat me and then started to drag me towards no man's land. "My phone, I have to get my phone," I said, and reached down to try to retrieve it. It wasn't the Twitterholic in me that threw herself after the phone, but the survivor. For the first three or four hours of detention, I knew they could do anything and no one would know. In the event, it was near-miraculous that, while I was at the ministry, an activist with a smartphone came to discuss setting up a truce between protesters and security. As soon as he signed me in to Twitter, I sent out, "beaten arrested at interior ministry". And then his phone battery died.

Most people detained the same week I was taken in ended up at a police station or jail, but for some reason I was taken to the interior ministry and was then handed over to military intelligence for almost 12 hours. The sexual assault couldn't have lasted more than a few minutes, but the psychic bruise remains the freshest.

The orange midnight air – a cocktail of street lights, an adjacent school on fire, and air that was more tear gas than oxygen – and the black outlines of the helmeted riot policemen invade my thoughts every day, but I feel as though I have dissociated myself from what happened. I read news reports about a journalist whose arms were broken by Egyptian police, but I don't connect them to the splints around my arms that allow only one-finger typing on a touchpad, nor with the titanium plate that will remain in my left arm for a year, to help a displaced fracture align and fuse.

But the hands on my breasts, in between my legs and inside my trousers – that, I know, happened to me. Sometimes I think of them as ravens plucking at my body. Calling me a whore. Pulling my hair. All the while beating me. At one point I fell. Eye-level with their boots, all I thought was: "Get up or you will die."

They dragged me to the interior ministry, past men in plain clothes who were wearing the same surgical masks that we Tahrir-side civilians had worn against the tear gas. I almost shouted out, "Are you friend or foe?" Their eyes, dead to my assault, were my answer.

"Shit, I've been caught." I began to panic. "Shit, they're probably going to charge me with spying." I had lived in Israel for a period, where I had worked as a Reuters correspondent.

"You're safe now, I'll protect you." A senior plainclothes officer reassured me. "If I wasn't here, there would be no one protecting you from them. See them, over there? Do you know what they'd do to you?" He was pointing to a mob just steps away, itching to get at me. Even as the officer offered hollow protection, the men who had brought me in still went at my breasts. He did nothing.

It was an older man, from the military, who ended it. "Get her out."

"Why are you at war with the people?" I asked him. He looked me square in the eyes, fought his tears and swallowed. He couldn't speak. Others asked me again and again: "Why were you there?"

"I'm a journalist, I'm a writer, I'm an analyst," I said. But really I wanted to tell them I had longed to touch courage. It lived on Mohamed Mahmoud Street where young men – just boys in many cases, with their mothers' numbers written on their forearms in case they ended up in a morgue – would face off with security forces. Some of those who survived the tear gas and the bullets – rubber-coated and live – lost eyes. Security sharpshooters liked to aim for the head.

For months, Tahrir Square had been my mental touchstone: in New York City, where I live, and wherever I travelled to lecture on the revolution. But it was impossible just to stand by in the square and watch as the Motorbike Angels – volunteers who came on bikes to aid the overworked medics – zipped towards the field hospitals with their unconscious passengers, asphyxiated from the tear gas – and often worse – from the Mohamed Mahmoud frontline.

"If I die, I want to be buried in my Moroccan djellaba. It's laid out on my bed, ready," tweeted blogger and activist Mohamed "Gemyhood" Beshir. The hits of tear gas he inhaled pushed him back, so younger men would break his fall and fill in for him on the frontline until he recovered.

Throughout my detention, I demanded medical care for my arms, and showed my captors the increasingly dramatic bruises developing on my hand and arm. Most asked me to make a fist. "See, it's just a bruise. You wouldn't be able to make a fist if you had a fracture."

And I told them deliberately graphic details about the sexual assault. Eyes would twitch and look away. No one wanted to hear. "Why's a good girl like you talking about hands in your trousers? Shut up and silence your shame," I imagined them saying.

I'll be damned if I carry this alone,I thought. And so I went on and on, until finally they heard, and one of them yelled out: "Our society has a sickness. Those riot police conscripts who assaulted you, do you know what we've done for them? We've lifted them out of their villages, scrubbed them clean and opened a tiny door in their minds."

"That's exactly why we're having a revolution," I responded. "No one should have to live like that. Who created that misery they live in that you 'rescued' them from?"

I also let it be known that I was a US citizen, and asked for a consular representative to be called. I knew that, as an Egyptian-American (I moved to the US in 2000), I would be spared many horrors that countless unnamed Egyptians suffer. But I also anticipated the flip side. "Aren't you proud of being Egyptian? Do you want to renounce your citizenship," the military intelligence officer asked me.

Blindfolded, bone-tired and in agony from my fractures, I replied: "If your fellow Egyptians break your arms and sexually assault you, you'd want someone in the room you can trust."

The sadistic violence the security forces and army unleashed on Mohamed Mahmoud Street has ripped asunder naive notions that the military were "guardians of the revolution", or that the "army and the people are one hand". No, they broke my hand.

Last week's images from Egypt of the woman stripped down to her underwear and beaten have further unmasked the brutality of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the military junta that runs Egypt and which must be tried with crimes against the Egyptian people. I'm unable to look at any of those images of beatings because I feel the nightsticks fracturing my arms all over again. If I hadn't got up when I fell, they would have stomped on me as they stomped on that woman.

I spent the first two weeks back in New York on a painkiller high. It numbed the pain, as well as my ability to write. Once a week I see a psychologist who specialises in trauma; an orthopaedic surgeon has operated on my left arm to realign the ulnar shaft and fix it in place with a titanium plate and screws, and I have regular physiotherapy. But this week's massive women's march in Tahrir has sharpened my focus once again. When a woman who took part wrote to tell me I'd helped to inspire the march because I'd spoken out on Egyptian TV about my beating and assault, I was finally able to cry. They were the tears of a survivor, not a victim.

The Mubarak regime used systematic sexual violence against female activists and journalists, and here's the SCAF upholding that ignoble legacy. But to quote the women in Tahrir this week: "The women of Egypt are a red line." My body, and mind, belong to me. That's the gem at the heart of the revolution. And until I return to Egypt in January, healed once again, I will tell that to the SCAF over and over. One finger at a time.

How Mona tweeted her arrest and assault

The night of 23 November, as violence builds in the Egyptian capital, Eltahawy is reported missing. From prison she borrows a phone to tweet:

"Beaten arrested in interior ministry"


A campaign to free her begins to gather momentum, then on Eltahawy's feed:

"I AM FREE"


"12 hours with Interior Ministry bastards and military intelligence combined. Can barely type – must go xray arms after CSF pigs beat me"


"5 or 6 surrounded me, groped and prodded my breasts, grabbed my genital area and I lost count how many hands tried to get into my trousers"


"@Sarahngb is coming to kindly take me to the hospital. Besides beating me, the dogs of CSF subjected me to the worst sexual assault ever"


"Didn't want to go with military intelligence but one MP said either come politely or not. Those guys didn't beat or assault me"


"Instead, blindfolded me for 2 hrs, after keeping me waiting for 3. At 1st answered Qs bec passport wasn't w me but then refused as civilian"


And then...

"The whole time I was thinking about article I would write; just you fuckers wait"
© 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights  reserved.

Egypt’s Sexual Violence

By MONA ELTAHAWYJUNE 20, 2014

CAIRO — There is a fierce battle raging in Egypt, and it’s not the one between Islamists and military rulers — the two factions that dominate most coverage of my country these days. The real battle, the one that will determine whether Egypt frees itself of authoritarianism, is between the patriarchy — established and upheld by the state, the street and at home — and women, who will no longer accept this status quo.

In recent weeks, Egypt has criminalized the physical and verbal harassment of women, setting unprecedented penalties for such crimes. But celebrations for the election and inauguration of our new president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, were marred by sexual assaults, including a gang rape, in Tahrir Square. Last week, Human Rights Watch released a report on what it has called an “epidemic of sexual violence” in Egypt. A few days later, yet more sexual violence took place at a march against sexual violence.

In March, I interviewed dozens of women in Egypt, Jordan, Libya and Tunisia for a BBC World Service radio documentary called “The Women of the Arab Spring.” Many told me that very few things had changed for the better in their lives since the uprisings that began in Tunisia in December 2010, but that the revolutions had created a new and combustible power: the power of their rage and the need to use it.

Photo

A mural on a wall in Cairo read ‘‘no harassment,’’ in Arabic. Credit Hassan Ammar/Associated Press Photo

“My personal revolution began 11 years ago, when I began to say ‘no’ to many things in my family,” said Nesma el-Khattab, 24, a lawyer who works at a center for women and children in a disadvantaged neighborhood in northern Cairo. “Then the revolution came and I began to say ‘I demand.”’ Ms. Khattab was subjected to genital cutting at age 9, and says she has threatened to “turn the house upside down” if her younger sisters are also cut. According to a 2008 demographic health survey in Egypt, 91.1 percent of women ages 15 to 49 had been subjected to genital mutilation.

Genital cutting is one of the patriarchy’s violations of female bodies at home. It does not spare them in public, either. Witness the mob sexual assaults that hound women whenever they congregate in large numbers, be it to celebrate or to protest. Between February 2011 and January 2014, at least 500 women were sexually assaulted by mobs in Egypt and thousands of women were subjected to sexual harassment, according to Egyptian rights groups.

Sexual violence is not exclusive to Egypt, of course. The phrase “rape culture” is used to connect examples of sexual violence around the world because it is important that discussions are not reduced to “their men: bad” and “our men: good.” But it is equally important to examine the particulars of sexual violence in Egypt.

In November 2011, during protests on Mohamed Mahmoud Street, near Tahrir Square, riot police officers beat me, broke my left arm and my right hand and sexually assaulted me; their supervising officer threatened me with gang rape. I was detained for six hours by the Interior Ministry, and for another six by military intelligence officers who blindfolded and interrogated me. I was denied medical attention during those 12 hours.

Egypt’s traditional, conservative culture teaches us not just that speaking out about such assaults is shameful, but that being the victim of sexual assault is shameful. Since 2011, however, more women are voicing anger. After a female TV journalist reported on last week’s gang rape at Tahrir, a female news anchor giggled on air and said that people were just having fun. A huge outcry led to her suspension.

Mr. Sisi became the first Egyptian president to acknowledge sexual violence when he paid a visit to the victim of that gang rape, who was recovering in a hospital, and apologized to her. Mr. Sisi vowed to take “very decisive measures” to combat sexual violence and, addressing Egypt’s judges, said, “our honor is being violated on the streets, and that is not right.” But it is women’s bodies that are being violated, not our “honor” or Egypt’s honor.

Mr. Sisi was the head of military intelligence in March 2011 when 17 female activists detained at protests were subjected to “virginity tests” by the military. The women were vaginally examined against their will by military doctors. Mr. Sisi justified the tests at the time, saying they were to safeguard the military against accusations of rape — as if only virgins could technically be raped. In other words, the Egyptian military sexually assaulted Egyptian women so that they could not “falsely” accuse officers of sexual assault.

Since Mr. Sisi overthrew President Mohamed Morsi, women who are affiliated with Mr. Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood movement — which has been outlawed as a “terrorist group” — have also said they have been subjected to “virginity tests.” It does not matter where you stand on Egypt’s political spectrum: If you are a woman, your body is not safe.

During a 2005 protest, our former dictator, Hosni Mubarak, used pro-regime thugs to sexually assault female journalists and activists. Police officers themselves also routinely sexually harass women. And at the state-authorized march against sexual violence last Saturday, two activists were detained for holding banners that read, “Remember Interior Ministry harassment.” When the state violates women with such impunity, it should not come as a shock when the street does as well.

We need a comprehensive campaign that tackles sexual violence with a focus on aiding the survivor rather than blaming her. It was good to see the attorney general call for an investigation into a hospital that reportedly refused to treat a sexual assault survivor last week. Hospitals do not have rape kits, and medical personnel are unprepared to deal with survivors of sexual violence. After my release from detention, when I told the E.R. nurse who treated me that the police had sexually assaulted me, she asked, “Why didn’t you resist?”

Mohamed Ibrahim, the interior minister, said this week that he would create a new department to combat violence, including sexual assault and harassment, against women. But throwing men in jail must not be considered a panacea. Accountability is necessary, but we also need a societal shift that aims for both justice and respect for women. I know that will take a long time.

We must connect domestic violence, marital rape and female genital mutilation with street sexual violence and clearly call them all crimes against women. And just as we stood next to men to overthrow President Mubarak, we need men to stand alongside us now. Where is their outrage? Do they want to be synonymous with a hatred of women?

“The revolution hasn’t reached our homes yet,” said Amira, 34, who attended a recent self-defense event in Cairo with her 4-year-old daughter, Fairouz. “Because some of the men who participated in the revolution, who act like liberals outside the house — inside the house they are no liberals.”

Mona Eltahawy is an Egyptian-American writer and the author of the forthcoming book “Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution.”

Buthaina Dabit July 15th 2011 Jerusalem

15th July 2011- Free Palestine- Jerusalem

Thousands of Israelis and Arabs march in Jerusalem to support Palestinian independence  I was there too

Several MKs participate in the 'March for Independence,' the first such Jewish-Arab event in 20 years.

Several MKs participated in the march, including Zehava Galon of Meretz and Dov Hanin of Hadash. Other prominent public figures took part as well, such as former Speaker of the Knesset Avraham Burg and former Attorney General Michael Ben Yair.
The march took a symbolic route, following the green line that used to divide East and West Jerusalem before the Six Day War in 1967. It began at Jaffa Gate and ended at the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, the opposite route taken by right-wing activists during Jerusalem Day last month.
Avner Inbar, Solidarity movement spokesman, said that the declaration of independence in September is "an act of people who crave freedom." He added that "Palestinian independence is not only the natural right of the Palestinian people. It is the only solution that can prevent another wave of violence between Israelis and Palestinians. This march proves that a joint, Jewish-Arab struggle is the way to end the occupation."

 

Assy Dayan July 2011 - Lior Dayan- Maariv Friday.

טיפות דם על סדינים לבנים: ראיון  עם אסי דיין

"אחרי ארבעה נישואים, x ילדים, Y פרידות, 30 אשפוזים במחלקות פסיכיאטריות, 70 סרטים, שלוש מלחמות ועוד שלוש שנים וחצי במצטבר של ימי מילואים, יש לי את הזכות להיות עייף, פשוט להיות עייף מהחיים". ליאור דיין מדבר עם אבא אסי על הסרטים שעשה, הנשים שנטשו, הבדידות שאין ממנה מוצא וניסיון ההתאבדות האחרון שממנו ניצל על ידי המטפל הפיליפיני שלו

ליאור דיין | 8/7/2011 6:39

תגיות: אסי דיין,ליאור דיין

בצהריים. דירת שלושה חדרים ברמת אביב. 70 מטרים מרובעים של רהיטים, תמונות, ציורים, ספרים - הרבה הרבה ספריםערימות דפים וכמה מוצרי חשמל. הרחוב שקט, גם השכנים, מוזיאון ארץ ישראל הסמוך שומר על שקט עקרוני, אפילו נהגי המוניות הנמהרים ביותר לא צופרים ומחכים בסבלנות שהנוסע שלהם ייצא מביתו. אין ספק, השתיקה יפה לרחוב הזה.

בתוך הדירה יש פיליפיני בשם מינו שמכין שתי כוסות קפה ומוציא מהמקפיא גלידת שוקולד ושם אותה בשתי קערות. אני די בטוח שלפני שמינו הגיע ארצה הוא לא ידע מה מחכה לו, או יותר נכון מי מחכה לו. אולי הוא חשב לעצמו שיטפל בקשיש חביב שלא ידבר הרבה ויחרבן בניחותא בטיטול למבוגרים, מקסימום הוא יהיה שוליה של איזה פנסיונר חובב צפרות. הוא בטח לא חשב שהוא הולך להיכנס אל תוך חייו של אחד האנשים הסוערים ביותר במדינת היהודים, אדם שכל יום שלו מכיל אינסוף אפשרויות וכל רגע מפורק אחר כך והופך לתסריטים, שירים, פזמונים, ספרים, ציורים ובלוגים. אדם בשם אסי דיין. אני בטוח שבפיליפינים של מינו אין מקבילה לאסי דיין. מקסימום גרסה חיוורת, מנומסת, יותר ידידותית למשתמש של המקור. יש אנשים שאי אפשר לשכפל. ויש טירוף שאי אפשר להעתיק.

אנחנו יושבים בסלון, מינו מביא לנו את הקפה והגלידה, ואני שואל את אבא: "אז מה קרה באותו יום לפני כמה שבועות שבו ניסית להתאבד?".

הוא מדליק סיגריה, נשען לאחור, מסדר את הכרית של הספה בצורה האופטימלית לשיחה מהסוג הזה, ומתחיל לדבר: "טוב, זה קטע פסיכוטי, אין לזה גיבוי בהיגיון, פשוט לקחתי סכין יפנית דפוקה והתחלתי לחתוך את עצמי ביד לכאן ולכאן. ואחרי זה חשבתי לעצמי שאני אכתוב פוסט משעשע (לאתר "תפוז", שם הוא כותב בלוג שבועי - ל"ד) על זה שנראיתי כאילו אני מעצב מצעים עם טיפות הדם שנפלו על הסדין. תחשוב על זה רגע מבחינה עיצובית: הרבה טיפות דם אדומות על מצעים לבנים, נראה לא רע. לדעתי, אני יכול לעצב לכיתן דימונה את קולקציית המצעים. אבל מה שרציתי לכתוב בבלוג הוא שזה כנראה הפרינציפ של המוות שלי: עיצוב מצעים. מה אני אגיד לך? אני לא הפסקתי ליצור עד הרגע האחרון".

מתי בדיוק זה קרה? באיזו שעה?
"זה היה בעשר בבוקר. אני לא יודע, זה לא היה אחרי שום אירוע שהוא יותר טראומטי משאר האירועים שקרו בחמש השנים האחרונות. 'שאר האירועים' זה הבדידות שלי קודם כל, זה הרס אותי. חלק מזה זה בגלל שאתה לא היית כאן שנתיים - שגם זה היה יותר מדי. וחלק מזה זה כמובן כל הנשים בחיי, ועל זה כתבתי בפירוט בבלוג שלי בתפוז. זה לא ממש חשוב, זה יותר רכילות, אבל באופן סיסטמטי ננטשתי על ידי כל הנשים האלה: אשתי לשעבר, העורכת של הסרט שלי, החברה שלי לשעבר".

זה היה הדבר שהפריע לך באמת, ענייני הנשים?
"לא, זה היה הסך הכל. מה שהפריע לי קודם כל זה הירידה בערך עצמי. אמרתי: 'אני כנראה דוחה. אני שמן, אני נוטף כולי, מזיע, ואין פלא שאני פשוט דוחה נשים'. מבחינת הזהות הגופנית שלי הייתי אבוד. זה חלק ממחלת הבורדר ליין שלי - הדבלואציה הזו שאני עושה לעצמי. וזה חוץ מהעובדה שהייתי בדיוק אחרי צילומי הסרט ("ד"ר פומרנץ") שגמר אותי מכל בחינה. הרגשתי פתאום שכאילו עזוב סרט, מה יהיה? מה? בפילוסופיה קיומית, אקזיסטנציאליזם וכן הלאה, מדברים בעיקר על אותנטיות, על כך שאם תהיה אותנטי תצא לחופשי, תתגבר על האימה הקיומית. אבל אני חושב שזה לא נכון. לפי ההשקפה הפילוסופית שלי, המרכיבים שקובעים מה יהיה בחיים שלנו הם הארעי, האקראי והסתמי. ועל זה אני חוזר כבר מגיל אפס. לא ייאמן מתי התחלתי להתעסק עם החומרים האלה. כבר בספר הראשון שלי (הכוונה לספר השירים שהוציא בגיל 15 - ל"ד) מופיעים האלמנטים האלה. אז עוד לא ידעתי בדיוק איך לחבר אותם, אבל כבר שם מופיע העניין הזה של הארעיות והסתמיות של הקיום שלנו.

מה שהפריע לי קודם כל זה הירידה בערך עצמי. אסי דיין ראובן קסטרו

"וחוץ מזה, אם אני בודק אחורנית, אחרי ארבעה נישואים, X ילדים, Y פרידות, איזה 30 אשפוזים במחלקות פסיכיאטריות, 70 סרטים - גם כתיבה, גם בימוי וגם משחק-שירות בצנחנים, שלוש מלחמות ועוד שלוש וחצי שנים במצטבר של מילואים - אחרי כל זה יש לי את הזכות להיות עייף, פשוט להיות עייף מהחיים. בלי שום פילוסופיה. אמנם יש לי פילוסופיה, אבל מעבר לרציו, מעבר לקוגניטיביות, אני ממש מרגיש פיזית רצון עז לפרוש. העייפות מהחיים מציפה אותי כל הזמן".

ובכל זאת, אתה עדיין איתנו. "הנה, אני עכשיו עושה את הסדרה הביוגרפית לערוץ 8 ("החיים כשמועה" שמיועדת ל-2012 - ל"ד) וזה יוצא כאילו שמדברים על ארבעה בני אדם עם ארבע ביוגרפיות שונות, זה פשוט לא ייאמן. וכאילו קצתי בזה. אני מרגיש שעשיתי מספיק בחיי והגיע הזמן לעצור. אפילו אמרתי את זה בקול רם מול כמה בני משפחה לא מזמן, אמרתי להם, 'אני רוצה למות, זה פשוט וקל: אני רוצה למות. אני מתעקש על זה ואני אמצא את הדרך לעשות זאת בלי להגיד לכם'".

בוא נחזור לאותו היום בו ניסית להתאבד. מה קרה אחרי שחתכת את הוורידים? מינו מצא אותך?
"לא, הוא ישן, אז אמרתי לעצמי שאני לא אעיר אותו".

אז איך בכל זאת ניצלת?
"בסוף קראתי לו. ראיתי שזה לא הולך. תראה, היפנים נכשלו פה בגדול עם הסכין היפנית שלהם, היא לא חתכה מספיק וזה גם התחיל להיות אווילי, כי חשבתי שבסלאש אחד אגיע לעורק - לא לווריד - אבל זה אפילו לא התקרב לשם. זה לא כאב, אבל התחיל להיות לכלוך, הדם פשוט התחיל ללכלך את המצעים והכל, ואמרתי שאני חייב להעיר את מינו. הוא נתן קפיצה כשהוא ראה אותי ובא מהר וייבש לי את היד עם מגבת. הוא לא היה צריך להרגיע אותי, הייתי רגוע מאוד. ואז זה הסתיים".

ואז מה חשבת? "חשבתי על איזו ציטטה של מישהו שאמר:'אין לך דבר יותר פאתטי מניסיון התאבדות שנכשל'. ואז חשבתי שכאילו גם את הדבר הפשוט הזה אני לא מסוגל לעשות. חשבתי לעצמי שעל ניסיון ההתאבדות הזה אני לא אקבל לא אוסקר ולא מפעל חיים".

ומה היחס שלך למוות היום?
"בנקודה זו הוא נודד אל עבר שולחן העבודה שלו, לוקח דף נייר מתוך ערימת הניירות שמונחים שם, מתעלם משאלתי, ומכריז: "יש לי פה את קטע הווייס אובר שיופיע בסרט 'ד"ר פומרנץ', קצת לפני ההתאבדות של ד"ר פומרנץ. זה קטע יפה. תקשיב: 'עכשיו אתה קופץ מגובהם הננסי של חייך, אל הפטור ממסים וההיסטוריה על פי 'מעריב', בתור אחד שממש לא משנה אם הוא חי או מת. עולם הפסיכולוגיה לא ישלח את תנחומיו, אבל אני ההוכחה שהחיים מתנהלים תחת שלושה זרזים: הסתמי, המקרי והארעי. זהו, הגיע הזמן לבטל את הכל'".

באותו יום כתבת מכתב התאבדות?
"מה שקרה הוא שנזכרתי ברגע האחרון שאני צריך להשאיר משהו אחריי, איזו מילה רעה על מישהו, אז רצתי מהר ומצאתי טוש כזה וכתבתי בכתב יד איום ונורא את השמות של כל הנשים שאכזבו אותי. רק את השמות, בלי פירוט. בדרך כלל כולם כותבים במכתבי התאבדות: 'מצטערים' ו'סליחה' ו'לא התכוונתי', אבל אני להפך, רוצה להעמיד את כולם לדין. ולמה? כי כל הנשים הללו שהיה לי איתן סיפור אהבה דו צדדי, היום הן בסיפור אחר עם גברים שאני מכנה אותם'ננו
בורגנים'. לא יכול להיות שהצלחתי לכוון את עצמי להיות דווקא עם נשים שלא העריכו אותי בגרם אחד כשברחוב אנשים צועקים לי: 'אתה הגדול מכולם', 'הגאון הכי הגדול', או כותבים לי את זה בטוקבקים. איך דווקא אני נפלתי על נשים כאלה שעכשיו הן עם חברים אדמיניסטרטורים קטנים, לא אמנים, לא כלום? מתברר שבחירת האהבה שלי בנשים לא הייתה קשורה בכלל באמנות. אבל חשוב להזכיר שהכישלון הוא שלי, לא שלהן. הכישלון הוא בבחירה שלי בנשים האלה".

אתה כרגע במצב נפשי כזה שאתה עלול להתעורר מחר בבוקר ושוב לחתוך את הוורידים?
"לא. אני לא מאמין".

למה?
"זה יישמע קפקאי אבל מותק, קבעתי פגישות".

דיסציפלינה אחרת

אתה יודע, הרבה אנשים היו אומרים שאדם כמוך הוא האחרון שיש לו סיבה להתאבד. אתה בין היוצרים הבולטים בארץ, אתה מקבל פרסים על ימין ועל שמאל, אתה בן אדם מוכר ומצליח. מה אתה אומר לאנשים שאומרים לך דבר כזה? "אני אומר להם דבר כזה: תראו, מבחינת האגו, כבר כשנולדתי הייתי קצת מחוסל, כי נולדתי לנפוליאון הישראלי. ומאותו הרגע אתה צריך להחליט אם אתה משנה את שמך לאסי כהן - למרות שיש כבר מישהו עם שם כזה והוא מוצלח מאוד - ומנסה כמו הילדים של הרצל לברוח מהשם בדרכים משונות, או שאתה נשאר עם שם המשפחה ומקבל את הדין. כלומר, אי אפשר לשכנע אותי שאני מוצלח כשגדלתי תחת אישיות שהייתה מגה מגה היסטורית, לא סתם אישיות, זה הישראלי היחיד לדעתי שהופיע פעמיים על השער של 'טיים' ופעמיים על השער של 'ניוזוויק' ועל מה לא. אבל זה לא אומר שום דבר על הקשרים האישיים ביני ובינו. זה פשוט שם לי רף כזה שאני לא יכול לעבור. ואין לי שום עניין בזה, זה לא סוג האמביציה שיש לי. אני, יש לי מין אמביציה קטנה כזו בצד, לרדת על כל מיני אנשים כמו אבי נשר וסידר ושמידר וכל האידיוטים האלו. הם לא אמנים והם לא אנשים שיכולים לכתוב שורה אחת מוצלחת. אני מתייחס בזלזול, ובצדק, לאנשים כמוהם שלא באו לקולנוע מדיסציפלינה אחרת. אני למשל בא מדיסציפלינה אחרת".

מה זאת אומרת "דיסציפלינה אחרת"? "זאת אומרת שאני בא לקולנוע מדיסציפלינה אחרת של פילוסופיה וידע די רחב בפסיכיאטריה ובפסיכולוגיה ובספרות ובהיסטוריה ובאמנות, וכיוון שאני בא משם אני משקיע בסרטים שלי רק את המינימום ההכרחי. לא כמו האידיוט הזה, החתיכת בהמה הזה, שעשה את 'אווטאר' ו'טיטאניק', ג'יימס קמרון הזה. זה עניין אידיוטי לחלוטין שאתה צריך ללבוש את המשקפיים הטיפשיים האלה בשביל לראות איזה כריש קופץ עליך בשלושה ממדים. ג'יימס קמרון הזה לא בא מדיסציפלינה אחרת. יש מעט מאוד במאים שאני מעריך, אחד מהם זה סטנלי קובריק, שבאמת לקח ספרים בינוניים והביא אותם לאזורים אחרים. הוא היחידי שאני יכול להגיד עליו שהוא במאי-במאי, שהתואר 'במאי' באמת מגיע לו. 'התפוז המכני' ו'אודיסאה בחלל' הם סרטים אדירים. אבל אם אתה שואל אותי, קולנוע זה לא ממש אמנות, זה הרבה הרבה בירוקרטיה, הרבה עבודת שלישות וניהול, 50 איש עובדים מתחתיך על הסט וכולם רוצים לדעת באיזה צבע יהיה הארון המזוין".

כשהתקשרת אליי וסיפרת לי על ניסיון ההתאבדות אמרת שאתה לא רוצה להתאשפז. אתה עדיין מרגיש ככה? "כן, באמת נורא פחדתי מזה. פחדתי שכשאמי תשמע על זה היא ישר תרים טלפון לד"ר כספי, וד"ר כספי ירים טלפון לפסיכיאטר המחוזי ואז היו שולחים הנה אמבולנס לאשפז אותי בכוח, בכפייה. זה נוהל קבוע, ככה מונעים מבני אדם לאבד את חייהם. מאשפזים אותם בכוח ואז סוגרים אותם ומזריקים להם אטומין או נוזינן, כדי שקודם כל ישנו 24 שעות, שלא יהיו כל כך בהכרה, ואז מתחיל הטיפול הרגיל. בדרך כלל זה לא עוזר. ולא משנה אם זה תל השומר או גהה, זה תמיד אותו הדבר.
"היה לי פעם ויכוח עם פרופ' יורם יובל ואמרתי לו: 'ההמצאה הזו שלכם, התרופות האנטי-פסיכוטיות, יש לי שני דברים להגיד עליהן: אחד זה שהן הורגות, אוברדוז קטן ואתה מת. ודבר שני זה שאתה מאבד את הזהות שלך כשאתה לוקח אותן. אבל לא זו הסיבה שבגללה לא רציתי להתאשפז, לא רציתי להתאשפז כי אין לזה סוף. כי אחרי האשפוז מתחילים המשפטים, זאת אומרת אתה צריך לבוא לוועדה ולנסות לשכנע אותה שאתה לא במצב פסיכוטי, אתה לא מסוכן לעצמך, אתה לא מסוכן לאחרים, ואתה יכול להשתחרר. זה סיפור שלם".

לא רוצה להתאשפז. אסי דיין ראובן קסטרו

מה תגיד למישהו שיאמר לך שהחיים טובים? "אפתח בפניו את הפילוסופיה שלי באשר לסתמיות ולאקראיות של החיים, ואגדיר לו את זה דרך הביטוי 'אני אפתח יומן', שזה הביטוי הביוגרפי הכי שולי ונבזי ואידיוטי וטיפשי וחזירי שכולם משתמשים בו כל הזמן. כשמישהי אומרת לי,'מותק אני תכף חוזרת אלייך, אני רק אפתח את היומן', אני ישר חושב לעצמי: מה זאת אומרת יומן? מה, את אנה פרנק?".

טוב, אני אשאל אותך שאלה טיפה בומבסטית: מה חסר לך בחיים? "פעם פרופ' מדיני שטיפל בי, סיפר לי שהוא הלך עם הנכדה שלו יום אחד והיא אמרה לו: 'כל מה שאני רוצה זה חיבוקי ונישוקי'. זה מה שבעיקרון אני רוצה, זה הדבר שחסר לי. הנה, היום שאלה אותי מישהי שפגשתי מה מכביד עליי ואמרתי לה: קודם כל זה שאין לי אהבה, אהבה דו סטרית. אני מרגיש שאצלי הצורך באהבה הפך לאחד מהצרכים ההישרדותיים כמו רעב או צמא. יש אנשים שיכולים לחיות בלי זה וזה לא מעניין אותם, כל מה שהם רוצים זה לזיין. אני לא כזה. בקיצור, ההרגשה הזו שאני מהווה טרחה בזה שאני מבקש אהבה, כאילו הפכתי לליצן שייקספירי שמתחנן על נפשו, שמבקש שיאהבו אותו ושיצחקו מהבדיחות שלו, היא הרגשה מעיקה מאוד. והלבדיות הזו שלי היא עוד יותר קשה. מתברר שקרוב למיליון וחצי איש בעולם מתאבדים כל שנה ואצל רובם זה כתוצאה מבדידות".

לא מזמן אמרת לי שבשנתיים וחצי האחרונות אתה הבן אדם הכי בודד בעולם. אתה עדיין מרגיש ככה?
"כן, זה נכון וזה עדיין ככה. תמיד יש נשים או גברים שרוצים ממני משהו, אבל זה תמיד על בסיס של זה שאני אסדר להם תפקיד בסרט או משהו בסגנון הזה. אתה יודע, זה יכול להיות גם אפילו משהו כמו מישהי שבאה ואומרת לי שיש לה תסריט שכתבה ושהיא רוצה שאני אעבור אליו ואגיד לה מה דעתי, ובאותו הזמן לעשות את זה בטון שנותן לי את ההרגשה המטומטמת שזה יכול להיות גם רומנטי. וזה ממש לא רומנטי".

מיד בסיום המשפט הוא קם ממקומו, הולך אל חדר השינה, מייבא משם חפיסת סיגריות, מדליק סיגריה ופתאום משנה גישה: "אבל אתה יודע מה? האמת שחשבתי על זה לא מזמן ופתאום שמתי לב שזה עניין קצת משונה: מצד אחד אני כל הזמן מתלונן בצורה ניג'סית ואומר שאף אחד לא מתקשר אליי אלא אם כן זה בענייני סרטים או דבר שקשור לזה, ולעומת זאת, כשכן באים בכמויות ויושבים כאן אצלי אני מתעייף נורא מהר. זה קצת כמו אבא שלי, סבא שלך, שהיה חסר סבלנות באופן נוראי, תמיד אחרי חמש דקות הוא היה אומר: 'מישהו צריך אותי? כי אני קופץ לישון. אני לא באמת נחוץ פה'".

יש צדדים טובים לבדידות הזו שלך?
"הצד הטוב שבבדידות, זה שאני כל הזמן מטעין איזו בטרייה מוזרה, את המוח שלי, בידע בנושאים שאני אף פעם לא מסוגל לדבר עליהם עם ידידים או חברים. עיר המקלט שלי זה הדמיון שלי והידע שלי. אלו שני מחוזות שונים, המחוז של הדמיון יותר קשור ל'עבודה', אבל המחוז של הידע הוא שונה, שם אני קולט דברים, שם אני ממש כמו פאקמן, רק תנו לי לבלוע חומרים עיוניים, בפילוסופיה בעיקר".

יצא לך לחשוב איזו מורשת אתה משאיר מאחוריך?
"לא ממש. אבל אני חושב שמה שאמרתי לך על הפילוסופיה שלי באשר ל'ארעי, האקראי והסתמי' זה דבר שאני כן אשאיר מאחוריי, למרות שאני מרגיש שעוד לא ניסחתי את זה בצורה מספיק חדה. וגם בסוף, אחרי שאנסח את זה כמו שצריך, אשאיר את זה אחריי לשלושה תלמידים שבאמת רוצים ללמוד פילוסופיה. אולי מבחינת קולנוע אני אשאיר משהו מאחוריי, משהו'בשביל העולם'. אין לי ספק, ואני יכול להשתחצן פה כמה שאני רוצה, כי יש קבלות, שהסרטים שעשיתי היו במרחק שנות אור מסרטים ישראליים אחרים. סרטים כמו 'החיים על פי אגפא', 'מר באום', 'שמיכה חשמלית ושמה משה' ו'חגיגה לעיניים'. ומצד שני, הסרט הכי פופולרי בכל הזמנים זה בכל זאת 'גבעת חלפון אינה עונה' שאני כתבתי וביימתי".

אתה לא שם את "החיים על פי אגפא" ו"חגיגה לעיניים" באותה קטגוריה עם "גבעת חלפון". זה בעינייך סרט פחות טוב? "כן, במקום מסוים. את 'גבעת חלפון' וסרטים בסגנון הזה כמו 'שלאגר' היה לי הרבה יותר קל לי לכתוב".

בשלב הזה הוא שוב קם ממקומו ומרים את שפופרת הטלפון שמצלצל. הוא עונה בחוסר חשק ואומר לאדם שנמצא בצד השני, "אני עם הבן שלי עכשיו" ומנתק את השיחה. לאחר שהוא מסיים הוא מסביר לי שזו הייתה מישהי שהחליטה להתעלק עליו לאחרונה והיא מתקשרת ובאה אליו, ללא הזמנה, כל שעה שנייה. הוא מכריז: "זו מישהי מטורפת כמו טקילה מזרחי, בא לי להקיא מזה". האמת היא שיש הרבה כאלה, נשים ששמו להן מטרה לצוד את אסי דיין ומנסות להידבק אליו בכל דרך אפשרית. "אבל זו לא האהבה שאני מדבר עליה, זה סתם אהבה מטורפת, זה לא מה שאני צריך", הוא אומר ואז מברר איתי אם "זה הכל? נראה לי שכיסינו את רוב הנושאים שצריך לדבר עליהם. מה עוד אתה צריך? כי אני רוצה ללכת לישון קצת".

טוב, עוד שתי שאלות. הראשונה היא אם יצא לך להרהר, ביום שבו ניסית להתאבד, מה יחשבו האנשים סביבך אם תמות. נניח, מה סבתא תחשוב? מה אני אחשוב?
"לא, אבל אני חושב שעקרונית זה כל הזמן עובר לכם בראש כי אני כל הזמן מטפל במוות, עשיתי לו שירות גדול והפצתי את שמו ברבים. אבל אגיד לך את האמת: אני לא ראיתי בדמיון שלי מישהו מהמשפחה בוכה. כמו שתמיד הייתי אומר לאשתי לשעבר: 'תעשי לי טובה, רק אל תלבשי את משקפי השמש האלה בלוויה. כאילו, מה את מנסה להסתיר? הרי את לא תבכי'. לי בכלל נראה שהמשפחה תשמח להיפטר ממני. אני חושב שבניתי הקדמה לעניין הזה, הקדמה כזו ארוכה, שזה כמעט הולך להיות הבטחה שלא קוימה. עוד יגידו לי: 'רגע, אבל קבענו איתך שתתאבד בגיל 65, אז מה אתה עוד מסתובב פה?'".

זה לא נכון. אני יכול להבטיח לך שאנשים במשפחה לא היו לוקחים דבר כזה בקלות. בטח לא אני.
"לא, אתה בטח שלא, את זה אני יודע. ופה אני חייב להודות שהיחסים איתך זה דבר שהוא בכלל חריג בכל קנה מידה של הורות, כי אנחנו חיינו איזה שנתיים ביחד והתגלגלנו מצחוק ובילינו ושיגענו את העולם ואת עצמנו. בעיניי זה היה קטע מופלא ביחסים בין אבא ובן, וזה נשאר ככה, רק שאני פחות דואג לך היום, זה נכון, כי אני רואה שבסך הכל עברת כבר את הנורא מכל. באמת, שנתיים להיות במוסד גמילה בלוס אנג'לס זה לא צחוק. אבל אני באמת שמח לראות שאתה מאושר".

שאלה אחרונה: מה אני יכול לעשות בשביל לעזור לך, אבא?
"בוא נגיד את זה בצורה סבירה ואנושית: לשמור על קשר. תאמין לי, זה כדאי. תראה, נעים פה, הפיליפיני פה, יש פה גלידות

Yossi Beilin from peace activist to businessman, 2011

• Published 02:13 14.06.11

Yossi Beilin, from peace activist to businessman:-Haaretz

And so, if you, too, have despaired of the whole peace thing and you're interested in the agriculture business, give him a call. Yossi Beilink, that's the name now.

By Alon Idan

Yossi Beilin still wears a black suit and a red tie. In the photograph accompanying the interview in the Hebrew edition of MarkerWeek on June 9, we could see Beilin's hair was still carefully styled, his hands clapsed as a sign of restraint. His statements are as eloquent as always, linked by infinitely passionate logic.
The photograph revealed the essential backdrop - an overflowing bookshelf as befitting an intellectual. At least three of the titles, the picture showed, pertained to his spiritual grandfather, David Ben-Gurion. Also in the shot were another book, bound in purple and displaying the word, "hope," in big letters, a small sculpture of a scale and another of Auguste Rodin's The Thinker, and two red notebooks stuffed with documents.
Yes, it looks more or less like the same old Beilin, the one from the peace business.
But Beilin is no longer in the peace business. He has replaced peace with agriculture, water and domestic security - and, to a lesser extent, health too. He has established Beilink, a company that promotes private firms in foreign countries, a kind of a "foreign ministry for business."
The method is simple: "I know what the Foreign Ministry is and is not allowed to give." Beilin provides what the Foreign Ministry cannot.
He does so by means of the political connections he wove over the years. He cooperates with a worldwide network of former senior politicians, the good folk from the peace business - Madeleine Albright, Sandy Berger, Joschka Fischer, Igor Ivanov, Bernard Kouchner. "No one will ever demand that a person erase his connections," Beilin says. "Am I a baby who has nothing and is just beginning to travel the world?"
He certainly is no baby. He is 63 years old, and after decades in one position, he has the right to hold another, more profitable one. And Beilin is indeed pleased with his career change. "I don't miss the world of politics," he says. "When I was there, I felt almost as if I was doing a shift."
If so, the shift is over.
The original objects of Beilin's passions have found themselves suitable replacements. The satisfaction he derived from the possibility of making peace in a blood-soaked region is now derived from "giving clients in Israel experience and connections with entities abroad."
He has substituted the Geneva Initiative with a joint initiative with former MK Rafi Elul to promote agricultural businesses in Arab countries; the spark that burned in him when he put together the "Beilin-Abu Mazen understandings" now does so when his company helps an Indian get a loan from a certain European country; his inexhaustible subversiveness on the way to the end of the conflict has been exchanged for the aspiration to connect Israelis to profit-making real estate across the sea.
"The field is so varied that it drives me out of my mind," Beilin says with pleasure.
Of course, Beilin, like any careful craftsman, "takes only what interests me, that is a challenge and of whose value I'm certain." He has his red lines, and naturally, they all touch on the moral realm. "We will never deal in offensive weaponry... We will not make deals with pariah countries... We will not accept unethical payments."
He looks well, Beilin does. Still in his black suit and red tie. Still carefully coiffed. Still with his fluent text, his clapsed hands and his restrained tone. Still with Madeleine Albright and Joschka Fischer. Still a kind of foreign minister, albeit somewhat differently so.
And so, if you, too, have despaired of the whole peace thing and you're interested in the agriculture business, give him a call. Yossi Beilink, that's the name now. It's written the same way - only with an invoice at the end.

Irshad Manji Allah, Liberty, and Love 2011, 3 Myths

3 myths about Muslims:
Myth: “I’m just one person; I can’t make a difference.”
In Allah, Liberty and Love, I tell the story of “just one person” who became Islam’s Gandhi. Never heard of him? Neither have most Muslims. That’s why, as “one person,” you can approach your local school to include the Muslim Gandhi in its curriculum. Allah, Liberty and Love offers many more tips to advance reconciliation, whether you’re an individual or joining hands with others.
Myth: “I’m not a Muslim, so I’m not allowed to say anything.”
Hooey. As I explain, Martin Luther King Jr. himself faced the charge of being an “outside agitator” because he dared to cross state lines. As Rev. King reminded the critics, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality; tied in a single garment of destiny.” Similarly, what takes place among Muslims today affects countless lives outside the fold. Non-Muslims have a right—and responsibility—to be part of this urgent conversation.
Myth: “Interfaith dialog is the answer.”
Too often, interfaith dialog degenerates into an exchange of platitudes. But Allah, Liberty and Love gives you the permission to ask uncomfortable questions, which shows faith in our capacity to think. Questions also show respect: You’re honoring me when you refuse to infantilize me.
            Ultimately, Allah, Liberty and Love will equip readers to develop “moral courage”—the willingness to speak up when everyone else wants to shut you up. This can be fun: At the end of the book, I publish my recipe for spiced chai tea as a delicious incentive to get together with friends, share these ideas and support each other in the journey of moral courage—a journey that, taken by enough of us, will transport Muslims and non-Muslims to a peace worth having.

Tzipi Livni

9th May 2014

לבני: "מקורם של מבצעי תג מחיר בגרעין הקשה של ההתנחלויות"

למרות שבית המשפט שחרר שניים מתושבי יצהר שנעצרו על ידי המשטרה סביב אירועי תג מחיר והסתה, שרת המשפטים לבני אמרה בראיון לגלי צה"ל כי "המתנחלים רוצים למנוע מאתנו לחיות בצורה סבירה. הם לא מקבלים את מרות החוק"

תמר ירושלמי

בית משפט השלום בנצרת האריך אתמול (חמישי) בשבעה ימים את מעצרו של החשוד בביצוע פשעי השנאה ביקנעם. הוא המשיך להכחיש כל קשר למעשים אך השופט התרשם מהתשתית הראייתית שהציגה המשטרה והאריך את מעצרו.
בירושלים, לעומת זאת, לא התרשם בית המשפט מהראיות שהציגה המשטרה והוחלט לשחרר את עמיחי מתוקי, תושב ההתנחלות יצהר החשוד בהצתת דלת המסגד באום אל-פחם. הוא הציג אליבי ושוחרר. כמו כן, שלשום שוחררה למעצר בית אלירז פיין, גם היא תושבת יצהר, אשר תמכה בתכתובת פנימית בהריגת חיילי צה"ל.
השחרורים של תושבי יצהר הם מכה למאמצי המשטרה, אך במערכת האכיפה ממשיכים להביע נחישות למגר את תופעת תג המחיר. בדיון חירום שנערך שלשום במשרד המשפטים הביעו כל הגורמים, השרים ציפי לבני ויצחק אהרונוביץ', היועץ המשפטי לממשלה, פרקליט המדינה וכן נציגים של השב"כ, המשטרה וצה"ל מחויבות למיגור פשעי השנאה הללו.
בתום הדיון הודיעו שרת המשפטים לבני והשר לביטחון הפנים אהרונוביץ' שיפנו לקבינט בבקשה להגדיר את פעולות תג המחיר כארגון טרור, ולא כהתאחדות בלתי מותרת. זה מהלך שכבר ניסו לקדם בשנה שעברה והוא סוכל על ידי ראש הממשלה בנימין נתניהו.
הייעוץ המשפטי לא התנגד למהלך בזמנו וגם בישיבה שלשום הם אמרו שאין הבדל ממשי מבחינת סל הכלים שאפשר להשתמש בהם בין שתי ההגדרות. עם זאת נראה שהתעקשותם של לבני ואהרונוביץ' על השינוי הסמנטי יוכל ליצור גם שינוי מבחינה תודעתית.
בנוסף הגורמים הבכירים בישיבה החליטו לבחון העמקה של המעורבות של הפרקליטות בתיקים נגד מבצעי "תג מחיר" ולהרחיב את השימוש בכלים מנהליים.
בראיון לתכניתנו "בוקר טוב ישראל" עם ספי עובדיה התייחסה השרה ציפי לבני לפעולות המכונות "תג מחיר" ואמרה כי "מדובר בקבוצה אידאולוגית קשה שמרכזה בהתנחלויות מסוימות ביהודה ושומרון שלא מקבלת עליה שום מרות". עוד אמרה לבני כי "הם רוצים למנוע מאתנו לחיות פה בצורה סבירה, ומתנגדים לערכים של מדינת ישאל שאנחנו מאמינים בהם. גם פוליטית - הם אלו שימנעו מאתנו הסדר".

09/05/14

Interview: Tzipi Livni

by Michelle GoldbergMay 29, 2011

Ziv Koren / Polaris

Israel's Foreign Minister and Kadima Party leader Tzipi Livni.

As President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spar over a plan for the Middle East, Israel’s opposition leader talks about her country’s future and her own.

Are you worried about tension between the Israeli government and President Obama?

The last thing that Israel needs is to be part of the internal agenda in the United States between Republicans and Democrats. The relations with Israel should be bipartisan, and I hope that this is how it will be in the future.

Has the marriage of rivals Fatah and Hamas affected your faith in negotiations with the Palestinians?

It’s not a marriage yet. It’s only an engagement. The government has not been established yet. It was bad news, this agreement. But I think we need to ask ourselves, how can we work with those who hopefully are willing to end the conflict with us?

What do you make of the Palestinian plan to seek a unilateral declaration of statehood from the U.N. in September?

I believe that the goal is to achieve peace and to end the conflict, and I don’t think that September is going to help in achieving peace. The real question is not who is right and who is wrong but, can we create a different trend? At the end of the day, the United Nations is not going to establish a state. It’s going to make a declaration. Even after September, something will need to be done in order to establish a state.

Is the Arab Spring good for Israel?

It depends whether it’s spring or autumn, whether we are going to face summer or winter. There are two different possibilities. The best-case scenario is that these young people that took to the streets looking for their rights are going to change their own states, and we are going to see more democracy. This can help us to make peace not only with leaders but also between peoples. But the other [possibility] is that extremists will take over and abuse the democratic system in order to spread an agenda which is completely antidemocratic.

You were a spy in Paris in your early 20s, yes?

I worked in the Mossad for a few years.

Will you write about it someday in your memoirs?

After I retire, I have my own vision, which is not connected to the state of Israel. It’s about me, living near the sea, and maybe writing something about the past. Now I need to write for the future.

 

Financial Times FT.com

Tzipi Livni talks to Simon Schama April 2011

By Simon Schama
Published: April 15 2011 22:01 | Last updated: April 15 2011 22:01

‘I don’t do interim’: Tzipi Livni in her office in the Israeli parliament, Jerusalem

It’s a long, lonely walk to the entrance of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset. You cross a bald plateau of paving alongside an avenue of Star of David flags, and on the way try to fight off an attack of seasonal metaphors. But you fail, for it’s spring in Jerusalem. Sprays of almond blossom riot against the blonde limestone walls. “Hatikvah”, the Israeli national anthem, means hope, and, however many times it’s been dashed, this is the season when it’s no shame to fall for it all over again, what with multiple sproutings going on from the Maghreb to the Gulf. Could Passover, the freedom festival, herald liberation from the bondage of defensive assumptions, starting with the received wisdom that any serious move towards peace with the Palestinians is bound to deliver more jeopardy than security?
The party Tzipi Livni leads calls itself Kadima – Forward – a name which turns a military order into an exhortation to break with dead-end truisms; a march to the future. No one could accuse its first leader, Ariel Sharon, the epitome of military ferocity, or its third, Livni, the ex-Mossad agent, of being soft touches. But she wants to redefine bravery as more than reflex military impulse; rather as the co-existence of Palestine and Israel: “two states for two peoples”.
“Time is not on our side” is one of the refrains of her conversation. The possibility that the United Nations General Assembly will independently recognise a Palestinian state in September has given the need for movement on the negotiation front a burst of urgency. It is beginning to sink in that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s default mode of standing pat could confront Israel with unpalatable alternatives: either the acceptance of imposed borders, or the drastic consequences of refusing to recognise the frontiers of a sovereign fellow member of the UN.

The Zionist Revisionist Ze’ev Jabotinsky

Even without this incentive to action, Livni, who has a son in the Israeli army, does not believe that a perennial defence of the status quo best serves the survival, let alone the prospering, of the Jewish state. She makes no secret of her frustration with Netanyahu, whose opposition to the talks that she and the former Kadima prime minister Ehud Olmert had with the Palestinian leadership in 2007 and 2008 was, she believes, expedient rather than principled. “I have no idea (other than rejectionism) what he wanted,” she says, a bemused smile settling on her face. “Actually, I still don’t know.”
Their difference has the unforgiving sharpness of a family feud, but the family in question is ideological. Both “Bibi” Netanyahu and Livni come from the same political cradle: the Revisionist party founded by the charismatic orator and writer Ze’ev Jabotinsky in the 1920s out of disgust with what he thought was mainstream Zionism’s cowardly pragmatism; its refusal to embrace a sovereign Jewish state – on both sides of the Jordan – as the unequivocal goal of the movement. Bibi’s father, Benzion Netanyahu, a distinguished historian of the fate of Jews under the Spanish Inquisition, who celebrated his 101st birthday last month, was Jabotinsky’s secretary, a pedigree that gives the Netanyahus an almost dynastic claim to the succession of hardline Zionism.

Irgun commander Menachem Begin

But Livni’s father, Eitan, the operations chief for the Revisionists’ paramilitary wing, the Irgun, was hardly a compromiser. It was the Irgun that blew up Jerusalem’s King David Hotel in July 1946, and today it would unquestionably be classified as a terrorist organisation. But when Livni argues to the Israeli people that their true security is best served by evolving away from a dug-in obduracy, she can invoke her father’s Irgun commander, Menachem Begin, whose history of militancy did not prevent him from evacuating the Sinai Peninsula, shaking the hand of Anwar Sadat and signing a treaty of peace with Egypt in 1979. It was that larger vision, she thinks, that was the stamp of true leadership. By contrast, Netanyahu’s outlook seems morally puny and historically self-defeating.
Livni points to another hard man of the right – Sharon, who was prepared to uproot settlers from Gaza – as an additional precedent for the courage of changed minds; Revisionism revised. If the ultimate goal is the simultaneous preservation of Israel as a Jewish state and a democracy, then the Land will have to be divided. Otherwise demography will destroy democracy.
She knows this is a hard sell, especially in light of a recent upsurge in atrocious violence. This month, an anti-tank missile launched from Gaza fell on an Israeli school bus. The subsequent counter-strike killed several Palestinian civilians. In March, Livni went to the shiva mourning at the West Bank settlement of Itamar for the Fogel family, whose slaughtered included small children, the youngest three months old, throats cut as they slept in their beds. “Though the settlers have very different views, I had to go, to express my grief and that of the nation,” she says.
The bereaved told her that at such a time she and her party should unite with the government. She tried to explain that murder only deepened her conviction that there could be no papering over the profound differences between which policies would deliver true security.
. . .

Almost the first thing the smiling Livni asks me as she comes into her modest office is whether I’d seen the framed document on the wall. I had been too busy looking at the photographs of her handsome, hawk-faced father and her mother, Sarah, to pay the letter much attention. But now I saw it was dated 1929 and was from Jabotinsky himself. My ragged Hebrew made out the word “nashim” – women – but not a lot more. Livni smiles again. “He’s writing to the town council to say he wouldn’t be paying any more taxes until women were hired.” “Was he true to his word?” I ask. “I bet!” she laughs.
Tough women are Israel’s history. Golda Meir, whose successor as prime minister Livni hopes to be, existed on a diet of cigarettes and six-inch nails for breakfast and made veteran generals look limp-wristed in comparison. Sarah Livni (née Rosenberg) with her thick knot of swept-up hair, wide, dark eyes and a delicate button nose, is drop-dead beautiful. I say so, and the daughter enjoys telling me about the firebrand’s vanity. “She lied about her age.” “How much?” I wonder. “A lot!” At Sarah’s shiva a few years ago, veteran comrades from the Irgun made sure to tell Livni that some people called the dead Sarah “the mother of the traitor”. “Did you find out what she said in reply?” I ask. “Yes, they told me that my mother said ‘she’s my daughter and my daughter is always right.’”

Livni’s parents, Sarah and Eitan, in 1949

Tzipporah means bird in Hebrew, and the daughter has her father’s prominent, slightly beaky nose and the keen, intensely blue eyes that give her a look of avian alertness. The plumage is elegant: a sweater-dress in the black the photographers had expressly banned. She laughs at her disobedience, knowing that the stretch fabric shows off her trim, curvy figure. She wears indigo-blue tights and strappy grey suede shoes brightened with a little inset band of gold. The mother of two boys, she looks a lot younger than her 52 years and acts young too; merrily tough, easy body language. In conversation she’s animated and relaxed, the unhesitant English running along like water over stones. I had been warned by friends in the Israeli media that our conversation would be stolidly unmemorable. “That Livni,” said one of them, “she’s less than meets the eye.” Boy, was he wrong.
In Israel, politics invariably comes back to families, solid and fractured, devastated and enduring. Tzipi Livni is no exception. “You know how my mother and father met? In a train robbery!” Women were recruited by the Irgun to join the heists so that they could stuff the loot inside their clothes and pass – so the folklore has it – for pregnant. Both Eitan and Sarah were subsequently arrested and imprisoned, but it took more than barbed wire to keep Livni’s mother cooped. Incarcerated, Sarah found someone to spike her milk with whatever it took to mimic the symptoms of appendicitis. Transferred to hospital, she jumped from the second-storey window of her ward to liberty. Livni would later meet someone who took her mother in while on the run, still in her hospital pyjamas. Songs were written about the exploits of the legendary “Sarah katon” – little Sarah. “Want to hear one?” asks Tzipi, switching on her iPod. On comes the marching song and massed chorus, over which the daughter translates the lyrics of sentimental martyrdom … “If they are going to hang me, don’t cry. This is my fate; instead of tears, take your gun close to your heart.”

Jerusalem’s King David Hotel, which was bombed in 1946

Eitan, who made his own escape in the Acre prison break in 1947, was the hardest of the hard. Serving for many years in the Knesset as a Herut (the forebear of Likud) party member, he was displeased by Begin’s peace deal but abstained rather than vote against, “out of respect” for his old commander. His will specified that his gravestone should bear the emblem of the Irgun, a raised rifle over the “greater” Eretz Israel along with the slogan “Rak kach” – “Only thus”. Perhaps it’s exactly this family history of fanatical militancy that makes it possible for Livni to understand the Palestinian version, and to be so committed to getting beyond the romance of blood.
In any case, she says, the likes of her parents were less hypocritical in their daily dealings with Palestinian Arabs than the self-righteous Mapai party-affiliated left that dominated Israeli politics and governing institutions in the first three decades of Israel’s existence. Tzipi grew up in a Tel Aviv district where politically correct neighbours were disconcerted to see Arabs coming to tea with Eitan, who spoke their language. “As a kid, I led a double-life,” she says. It didn’t do to own up to a Herut family when all of her friends were Mapai. Betar, the youth movement inaugurated in Israel by Menachem Begin, had been notorious for kitting out its cadets in brown shirts, chosen to symbolise the soil of the Land of Israel but, as the Mapai-niks were quick to remind anyone, bearing a telling resemblance to the uniform of the Nazi SA stormtroopers. Baffled by being called a “brownshirt” at school, when she was wearing the revised uniform of blue (for the skies of Zion, naturally), Tzipi came home to ask her parents what this was all about, and got from them, she says, a strong sense of a marginalised minority. Occasionally, the young Tzipi made a stand. In observance of May Day – a socialist occasion which, to her parents’ indignation, had been turned into a national holiday, Israeli schools were shut. “I demonstrated against this.” “How?” I ask, hoping for some act of hellfire revolt. “By going to school!”
Tzipi would not stay so well-behaved, joining the Mossad at 22, just out of the army. Around the time she was with the Israeli intelligence agency, in the early 1980s, an atomic scientist working in Iraq showed up dead in Paris. Although she may have been nothing more than a safe-house manager, it’s not hard to imagine Tzipi glamorously dangerous. Since there’s no point trying to get anything out of her about the Mossad years we talk of more important things, none more so than the clandestine discussions with the Palestinian Authority leadership undertaken in 2007 and 2008 by Olmert and herself, details of which were leaked earlier this year by al-Jazeera.
. . .

Tzipi Livni, then Israeli foreign minister, with Mahmoud Abbas at a 2008 peace conference in Sharm el Sheikh

For a long time, it was an article of faith for almost all Israeli governments that the hardest issues – the fate of the settlements, the military status of Palestine and, above all, the possibility of Jerusalem being something other than the exclusive and unified capital of Israel – should be set aside pending some sort of preliminary agreement. But, Livni says, “I don’t do interim.” Postponing the hard stuff was not only cowardly; it would guarantee the unravelling of any more generalised agreement. In Sharm el Sheikh, Olmert and Livni said farewell to procrastination. Nothing, not even Jerusalem, was off the table. She stresses that an agreement over the city was not reached between her and the Palestinians; and that if she is to respect the promises of confidentiality made to their leadership, she can’t discuss any details of the al-Jazeera leaks, which they themselves have not put on the record. But her revolutionary willingness to countenance the possibility of a shared Jerusalem is the reason why Livni is not prime minister today. The price of forming a coalition with the ultra-orthodox Shas party was to take the indivisibility of Jerusalem off the table – and this she steadfastly refuses to do.
The breakthrough at Sharm el Sheikh with Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad was one of psychological temper. Livni insists, refreshingly, that peace, or even the cessation of mutual mutilations, cannot turn on a choice of competing narratives; that the endless competition of unspeakable calamities, such as the Holocaust and Nakba, was a ball and chain that would hobble the lives of children yet to be born. Enough already!

Livni conducts a press conference with Hillary Clinton in 2009

“We began by talking about rights,” she says, “our rights, their rights,” and then decided to stop doing that and talk instead about possibilities. “It’s said that the devil is in the details, but in our case it was God instead … We made lists – the kind of lists, for example, of the kind of weapons they would need to defend themselves and the weapons we couldn’t let them have, and we found we could do those lists!” “Did their flexibility on these kind of matters surprise you?” I ask. She gives me one of her high-wattage smiles: “This wasn’t the first time I met with them.”
She gives me an example of the difference this made on one notoriously thorny issue: the demilitarization of Palestine. To ask as much was, initially, an outrage to the Palestinian leaders, who retorted they would never accept being a “minus state”. “At that point we could just have given up, and left the room, but we didn’t. We talked history. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘has Germany been an impotent “minus state” for limiting its army and armaments? Has Egypt been disadvantaged by a demilitarized Sinai?’” And so they hashed out those lists. The same concrete approach went for territorial exchanges. What seemed irreconcilable changed when representatives from both sides went to walk the line, to physically look at villages, olive groves, roads.
You get the feeling Livni thinks this kind of bargaining can make headway on all the issues that conventional wisdom has for so long decreed to be unresolvable. And that while men like to thump the table and shout grievances, women get on with the mundane practical matters in hand that constitute the realities of daily life. So she thinks about what those realities might be like for Palestinians as well as Israelis. “It’s not in our interest that Palestine should be a failed state.” Or, she adds, “an extremist state”. That, she explains, is the true conflict at the heart of the Middle East, one even bigger than the enmity of Jew and Arab: the genuinely irreconcilable clash between theocratic and autocratic regimes, and liberal democracies. Right now, and for a little time perhaps, an Israeli party of reason might be able to make the peace with its Palestinian counterpart. Evidently there has been something like a meeting of minds across the “security fence”. But not forever. No one knows which side – Islamic militancy or democratic secularism – will emerge from the Arab spring. But that uncertainty only makes the need for an early settlement more, not less, pressing.
Not least because Israel, too, has a domestic cultural conflict on its hands that is undoing assumptions about what kind of Jewishness the Jewish state is supposed to embody. Between the Jerusalem ultra-orthodox Haredim, for whom the only true Jewish state is one based on rigid obedience to halacha, the precepts of the religion, and those whose Israel is pluralist and secular, there is as wide a gulf as between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Tweeters of Tahrir Square. The two crises – of the outer borders of the Jewish state and its inner identity – Livni sees as organically connected. It says something about her forthrightness as well as her optimism that Livni wants a written Israeli constitution that would make a clear demarcation between synagogue and state.
But then she is a great believer in the strength of principle, championing an international code of practice to govern elections in newly born democracies. Recalling that in Israel the expulsionist Kach party was disbarred from participating in elections, she wants the same principle to apply to parties in Muslim countries that use democratic means to overthrow democracy. Hitler, she remembers, came to power through the ballot box. “This would not be patronising or imperialist,” she says. “They can all do what they like. But if they want to participate in an international community they should abide by those conventions.”
It’s this kind of reflectiveness that makes one feel Livni is a mould-breaker, even though when you say this around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, you are met with sceptical chuckles. But perhaps it’s the worldly straightforwardness of Tzipi Livni’s emotions that might make it possible for her to translate political heresies into a working version of what the majority of Israelis crave, the shalom, the salaam that is the first thing out of the mouths of Jews and Arabs alike. Don’t tell me gender has nothing to do with this; the difference between Netanyahu’s reverence for his father and his famous hero-brother Yonatan, killed in the 1976 Entebbe raid, and Livni’s life as a Mossad agent become mother. A few weeks ago, she went to see her younger son, Yuval, graduate as an officer in an elite combat unit of the army. To make the moment more intense he had signed on for a four-and-half-year service rather than the mandatory three. Talking about this, her face softens and she reaches into her wallet to show me a photo of handsome Yuval and his curly-haired elder sibling Omri. The ceremony was in the Negev desert but it was a chill winter day. “Of course I was conflicted. I was so proud of him but my heart was in terrible pain so I added my tears to the rain.”
There’s nothing trite about this. What Livni wants for herself, for Yuval, for Israel, she wants so that the tears, as well as the blood, might finally have some chance of stopping.
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Mona Eltahawy Next Revolution 2013- September 2012 -I tell fellow Egyptians and fellow Americans it's about us, not about them 14 09 2012

 

I tell fellow Egyptians and fellow Americans it's about us, not about them

After this week's Middle East protests we must move beyond the deceptive simplicity of the question: 'Why do they hate us?'

• 

• Mona Eltahawy

• • guardian.co.uk, Friday 14 September 2012 11.39 EDT

Protesters set fire to police vehicles during clashes with riot police near the US embassy in Cairo on 13 September. Photograph: Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters

When my father came home from Friday prayers, I was eager to know what the sermon had been about. We'd all been following three days of protests outside the US embassy in Cairo, ostensibly over a film deemed offensive to the Prophet Muhammad that was posted on YouTube. More protests were expected in several countries after Friday prayers.

"The regular imam wasn't there, so the muezzin stepped in and told us the best way to honour the prophet was to live by his teachings," my dad said. I carry that breathtaking simplicity in my emotional suitcase with me when I travel back and forth between the US, where I've lived for the past 12 years, and Egypt, the country of my birth, to which I'm returning to fight for the social and cultural revolution we desperately need in order for our political revolution to succeed.

When my fellow Americans ask me that tired question, "Why do they hate us?", my initial response is usually: "It's not about you." When a fellow Egyptian wants to talk about hating the US, I flip that response on its head and tell her: "It's not about America – it's about you." The truth is somewhere in the middle, but too many people are willing to use it as a football in an endless match of political manipulation.

For a slightly subtler response, I tell my fellow Americans that "they" don't hate them for their freedom but, rather, because successive US governments all too willingly and knowingly supported dictators who denied their populations any kind of freedom. As a US citizen, I cherish the first amendment. It's what I whipped out as I stood alongside Muslims and non-Muslims in Lower Manhattan in 2010 to defend the right of anIslamic community centre to open close to Ground Zero. We told those who opposed the centre that that first amendment was what gave them the right to protest and at the same time guaranteed freedom to worship right there on that spot.

How could a country that cherishes such freedom be so willing to support dictators all too eager to deny that same freedom to their people? Even President Barack Obama, who spoke so eloquently about dignity and freedom in his 2009 Cairo speech, disappointingly dragged his feet when it was time to decide between Mubarak and the people rising up for that very same freedom and dignity.

Anti-US sentiment has been born out of many grievances – support and weapons for such dictators as Mubarak, unquestionable support for Israel in its occupation of Palestine, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen that kill more civilians than intended targets.

And, paradoxically – or perhaps fittingly – that anti-US sentiment was played on dictators such as Mubarak, who was happy to pocket US aid in return for maintaining Egypt's peace treaty with Israel and buying US weapons, and yet used the state-controlled media to fan hatred of the US. Mubarak was adept, as were many other US-backed dictators, at playing the sane middle to the "lunatics with beards" he so often used as bogeymen to guarantee the support of foreign allies.

Mubarak is gone, and Egypt's president is from the Muslim Brotherhood movement – long vilified as the "lunatics with beards". It is at this point that I tell fellow Egyptians it's about them, and not about America.

That YouTube film – not made or distributed by the US government – was posted at least two months before ultra-conservative Salafists called for protests at the US embassy. Why? Understanding that the president, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, must now occupy that same middle ground as Mubarak did, the Salafists are all too happy to flex rightwing political muscle. Why else did they call their protest in Cairo on the anniversary of the attacks on 11 September 2001?

Morsi, not wanting to concede the moral high ground, remained silent for too long, stuck between his memory of being the opposition and an awareness that he's now the president. That's what I mean when I tell fellow Egyptians that it's about us, not America.

Mubarak could and did ban films. That's why many genuinely offended Muslims in Egypt and other countries so quickly ask why the American government can't do the same. Of course, he also gave the green light to messages of antisemitism and hatred against Egypt's Christians.

As an Egyptian-American, I want both sides of that hyphen to enjoy the forms of freedom guaranteed by the first amendment, as I want both sides of that hyphen to move beyond the deceptive simplicity of the question, "Why do they hate us?"

Egypt’s Sexual Violence

By MONA ELTAHAWYJUNE 20, 2014

--------------

Egyptian Combats Both Army and Islamists

By KRISTEN McTIGHE

Published: July 18, 2012

CAIRO — The white scars on Mona Eltahawy’s arms are fading, but her determination to fight to bring Egypt a bright future through a constitution that broadly embraces human rights is not.

Enlarge This Image

Ramzi Haidar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“A revolution isn’t finished in 18 months,” said Ms. Eltahawy at a cafe in Zamalek, the upscale Cairo neighborhood on an island in the Nile.

“For me, the Constitution is how we are going to dismantle military rule, and we have to fight for it to be written by Egyptians — not by military and not by the Islamists, but by all Egyptians.”

A writer and former Reuters journalist, who has written for the International Herald Tribune, Ms. Eltahawy, 44, is a contemporary, feminist version of the Egyptian intellectuals who have long been a thorn in the flesh of their rulers — going back to the days when Britain was the colonial power.

She was a scourge of the regime of Hosni Mubarak as a columnist and op-ed writer, supporting the movement that eventually coalesced and ousted Mr. Mubarak last year. She continues to haunt his successors.

She has put herself on the line for her beliefs. She was beaten and sexually assaulted on a side street of Cairo’s Tahrir Square after Mr. Mubarak's ouster.

Undaunted, Ms. Eltahawy continues to denounce military rule. While the power struggle between the newly elected Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, and the ruling military junta plays out in the courts and on the streets, she — like many others — is focusing on the country’s future constitution.

Ms. Eltahawy is an example of people with connections to Egypt who have returned to the country following the revolution and are trying to help shape its future. Ms. Eltahawy, who was born in Port Said, Egypt, was educated at the American University in Cairo. She was living in New York when the revolution occurred. Unable to witness the momentous events at first hand, she began to speak out.

“It was crushing and burning and heart-wrenching and it was driving me insane because this is something I’ve dreamt of all my life,” said Ms. Eltahawy. “But I was engaged in what I could by media, trying to amplify the voices I was hearing from Egypt to make the world take our revolution seriously.”

She made appearances on television and wrote for the op-ed pages of newspapers such as The Guardian in Britain and The Washington Post. She also used social media to support the revolution. Speaking out from abroad was not enough. Soon she began traveling back to her country.

In November, clashes broke out in Cairo when security forces violently dispersed a sit-in of family members of victims of the revolution. Scheduled to speak in Brussels on women in the revolution, Ms. Eltahawy canceled her appearance and flew to Egypt.

Upon arrival, she immediately went to the streets. While recording the action with a smart phone, she was pulled into a store by plainclothes security officers.

They held her until riot police came and beat her with batons. She raised her arms to protect her head but both her right hand and left arm were broken.

“I’m a feminist, but I say this again and again, I never imagined they would beat a woman this bad,” said Ms. Eltahawy. “But it wasn’t me they were beating up, it was Tahrir. Our bodies now are stages or substitutes for Tahrir, and they extract this revenge on our bodies for what we did, for the walls we broke down.”

Ms. Eltahawy alleges officers began sexually assaulting her as well.

“I had hands on my breasts, in between my legs, I was pulling hands out of my trousers. All this time they are calling me a whore, saying ‘what are you doing here,”’ said Ms. Eltahawy.

“A voice inside me just told me, if you don’t get up now, you are going to die.”

She says she was kept in the Interior Ministry for six hours and denied medical treatment, despite being visibly injured. She had lost her phone but an activist, who was there to discuss a truce between the police and protesters, offered her his device.

When officers looked away, she was able to send a single tweet, writing, “Beaten arrested in the Interior Ministry.”

Within 15 minutes, the hashtag #FreeMona was trending globally.

Soon, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, and the U.S. State Department heard about her misfortune. She was eventually released.

“I recognized I was cushioned and protected by various levels of privilege, the fact that I am a writer, the fact that I have access to the media, the fact that I am known, the fact that I have an American passport,” said Ms. Eltahawy.

“If I were an average Egyptian woman, I could still be in jail, I could have been raped, I could have been dead, so I wanted to use what happened to me to shed light on the fact that there are so many Egyptians that worse happens to, but they suffer in silence.”

Ms. Eltahawy continued to speak out in Egypt and abroad. In April, she started a major controversy with an article she wrote for Foreign Policy called “Why Do They Hate Us?” It discussed alleged hatred of women in the Arab world.

Both conservatives and feminists criticized the article with some saying it made sweeping generalizations and others calling it neo-colonialist. Ms. Eltahawy, though, said people needed to be shocked.

When the firestorm settled, Ms. Eltahawy returned to speaking out on other issues facing Egypt. Now, she is back in Egypt having returned for the elections — although she did not vote.

“I call it boycott by divine intervention. I hated them both,” she said of the two candidates. She says she was unable to register because of problems with the Web site for Egyptians abroad.

Ms. Eltahawy is now focused on the constitution. She says women’s rights, freedom of expression and freedom of religion, can and must be protected.

“I want the Constitution to guarantee the rights of all Egyptians, women, minorities, Christians, everyone, I want the Constitution to guarantee a free and fair transfer of power, should our next elections get rid of the president,” said Ms. Eltahawy.

She worries about a recent debate over language in the draft constitution that Islamist purists want hardened to make sure judges use Shariah, or Islamic law.

“The kind of rhetoric we are hearing from the constitutional assembly about what religions are to be recognized, whether or not they recognize them, that is all deeply troubling,”’ said Ms. Eltahawy.

Meanwhile, the military and the new president are jockeying for control. Just days before the elections, the Supreme Constitutional Court — a body composed mainly of Mubarak-era judges — dissolved Parliament.

When Mr. Morsi took office, he struck back with a decree reinstating Parliament. The two sides are now locked in a power struggle.

Egypt’s top military officer, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, heightened tensions with the Muslim Brotherhood when he said on July 15 that the armed forces would not allow a “certain group” to dominate the country.

Ms. Eltahawy fears that this muscle-flexing is distracting from more important matters.

“The Muslim Brotherhood and the military junta are gearing up for some sort of struggle,” said Ms. Eltahawy. “And I think that the ultimate losers in the end are the Egyptian people.”

Others have voiced frustration with the drafting process.

“They aren’t focusing on things that actually matter, like the economy, health care, all the problems we have, they aren’t prioritizing,” said Ahmad Aggour, a blogger and supporter of the revolution.

“A lot of the discussion is being directed to things that aren’t really important to most Egyptians,” said Shadi Hamid, a researcher at the Brookings Institution in Doha, Qatar. “Does it really matter in the daily lives of most Egyptians what Article 2 says about the role of Shariah? No, it’s a symbolic debate. Has there been a real discussion about other aspects in the Constitution? That’s been lacking in the public discourse.”

Mr. Hamid said that Ms. Eltahawy's concerns about human rights and women's issues are not those of the majority of Egyptians.

“The call for a bill of rights is not a popular one. It comes from an elite group of people,” said Mr. Hamid. “The ordinary Egyptians have no idea about what is being discussed.”

Ms. Eltahawy, though, thinks that the moment is at hand for Egypt to shed military rule and still avoid domination by the Islamists.

“People have stood up to them in unprecedented ways,” she says. “We’re at a position in Egyptian history where the military that has ruled us since 1952, and the Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest opposition group since 1928, these longstanding institutions are facing huge challenges and they are threatened,” she says.

So at a time when many revolutionaries feel disillusioned, Ms. Eltahawy says she remains deeply optimistic.

“After my attack, I learned the price that people pay to stand up to the regime, and it makes me even more optimistic,” she said.

“Egypt is changed forever, we have diminished the power of the military and the Muslim Brotherhood. We said ‘No!’, we said ‘we are going to hold everyone accountable’, and the military and the Muslim Brotherhood both know this,” she said.

“I think people end up focusing on the negatives and failures and we forget to say we achieved something,” she said. 

==========================================================

 Egyptians don't care about Hosni Mubarak's health scares 2012 June 23rd Tahrir

Mubarak might be on his back but his regime is very much on its legs, upright and determined to crush our revolution

•  

• 
• • Mona Eltahawy
  • guardian.co.uk, Saturday 23 June 2012 10.00 BST
  •   


Hosni Mubarak, pictured here in January, 'will be remembered as the most bland of those military men turned dictators.' Photograph: Mohammed Al-Law/AP
Hosni Mubarak, our 84-year old ousted dictator, has spent another night outside the prison cell where he's been sentenced to spend whatever remains of his life. A health scare that began as a stroke, according to state-controlled media, but ended up being attributed by his lawyer to a "slip in the bathroom", ensured that he was moved into the welcoming environs of a military hospital.
It was not the first time that Mubarak has supposedly suffered a stroke, fallen into a coma, been on life support or all of the above. Ever since street protests forced the ruling military junta to put him on trial last year, he has been on the verge of death so many times that once he actually does die it is easy to imagine that the news will be greeted in much the same way as this latest health scare: we don't care.
It might sound heartless to brush off an old man's maybe-maybe-not health issues but our hearts have been smashed, worn out and driven to the verge of death countless times by the 19 Mubaraks who comprise the Supreme Council of Armed Forces, the military junta that took over the country after the revolution forced Mubarak to step down on 11 February 2011. Mubarak might be on his back but his regime is very much on its legs, upright and determined to crush our revolution, never mind our hearts.
The miracle isn't that several times a month Mubarak falls into and out of near-death health scares, it is the Egyptians' ability to have survived the past 60 years of a military rule that has snuffed out so much of what used to make Egypt such a vibrant heart of the Arab world. Ever since a group of army officers staged a coup in 1952 and allowed one of their own to put aside his military garb and wear a suit instead to serve as our civilian dictator, the ageing generals at the helm thrive and live in comfort at the expense of our young – the majority of Egyptians are younger than 30.
When Mubarak does die, he will be remembered as the most bland of those military men turned dictators: compare him with Gamal Abdel-Nasser and Anwar Sadat. The legacies most associated with him are a network of bridges and highways and "stability". The revolution ousted him but one of its main goals was to end military rule so our fight against him is a fight against his regime.
It is not just Mubarak who is supposedly fighting for his life; that military rule too is determined to hold on. A series of blatant power grabs over the past couple of weeks that have dissolved parliament and attempt to curb the powers of whoever is our next president, are also reminders that the military junta feels the need to remind us that it's in charge.
The Muslim Brotherhood movement – whose heart, let's be honest, was never fully into the revolution but whose candidate Mohamed Morsi might be that next president – has since Mubarak's ouster been busy with its own power grabbing and on-again-off-again ability or willingness to stand up to the military junta and for the goals of our revolution: bread, liberty and social justice.
So you'll excuse us if Mubarak's health "scares" are less significant to most people here in Egypt than they are to the foreign media. The man whose regime crushed the dreams and futures of so many Egyptians is very much alive and kicking.
For a more poignant reminder, look beyond the rollercoaster of presidential election results and rumours and witness the resumption of a trial on Monday that sets into tragic relief the price the revolution has exacted.
As Mubarak enjoys the comfort of military hospital instead of jail, eight young men will testify in the latest session of the trial of 73 suspects accused of involvement in the Port Said football disaster. On 1 February, at least 74 football fans were killed in violence after a match between Cairo team Ahly and Masry of Port Said.
Many of us believe the Ahly football fans were set upon deliberately – as police and security did nothing to end the violence – to punish their fan club the ultras for taking part in the revolution. Many people entered the stadium with weapons, the stadium's steel doors were locked during the massacre and the lights were turned off.
A survivor has described to me seeing seven of his friends being killed in front of him and carrying out 12 corpses. Many of those who died were in their late teens or early 20s. "If our hearts were crushed before Port Said, they died at the stadium," another survivor told me.
So once again, you'll excuse us if the on-again off-again health issues of an cctogenarian are not our priority. Send to a friend

Back to Revolutionary Woman vs Burqa Woman

Revolutionary Woman vs Burqa Woman

March 17, 2011
Mona Eltahawy

Mona Eltahawy

Supplied Photo

NEW YORK—As if further proof were needed of the intellectual as well as physical cave Al Qaeda inhabits, their new online magazine “Al Shamikha” (Majestic Woman) is the latest reminder.
As women and men, passionate for freedom and dignity, fuel uprisings and revolutions that are sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa, one wonders who wants to read that a “Majestic Woman” does not “go out except when necessary” and that she always wears a face-covering niqab for protection from the sun. Call it SPF:Niqab.
What a laughable idea when you see a photograph of a woman in niqab hugging a Coptic priest in Cairo during the Egyptian revolution that ended Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule. Try telling her or any of the other women in headscarves and those women not wearing any kinds of veil that they shouldn’t “go out except when necessary”. They would laugh at you and remind you that they marched and chanted alongside men in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemeni and most recently Gaza, the West Bank and Syria.
With such a breathtaking display of women and men power, surely Al Qaeda realizes the market — albeit the literally radical fashion niche one — is shrinking by the minute.
Al Qaeda espouses an ultra-orthodox interpretation of Islam which extols “out of sight and voiceless” as its ethos for women because it considers a woman’s face and voice objects of desire to be covered and silenced. Otherwise, the group steadfastly ignored women until it became convenient to recruit them to blow themselves and others to pieces in Iraq and elsewhere where the head-to-toe covering could get them into places men fitted with a suicide belt could not.
How on earth, one wonders, could its magazine marry such an ideology with the flipped-on-its head brew of women’s magazines: fashion, sex and starvation?
Getting a man is still the goal. The right man for a “Majestic Woman” is of course a “mujahid” (warrior in the name of Islam). In one interview, a woman extols her glorious marriage to a jihad fighter who was killed and how she broke the happy news to her children.
Flipping through its online pages, I couldn’t help but think one has to have been living under a rock inside that cave to think Al Shamikha’s market is anything but a quickly shrinking one. Al Qaeda and its message that only violence can bring about change is irrelevant. The role models for millions of young women and men — not just Muslims but all across the world — are those revolutionaries in Egypt who showed how non-violence could end decades of a dictator’s rule in just 18 days.
Look no further than Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world where Al Qaeda does have a presence. The truly “Majestic Woman” is Tawakul Karaman. Dubbed one of Time magazine’s “16 of History’s Most Rebellious Women,” she was the first Yemeni female journalist to remove her face veil on the job. As chair of Women Journalists without Chains, she defends human rights and freedom of expression and has been protesting outside of Sanaa University every Tuesday since 2007.
Her goal — and the uprising that she helped to start on Feb. 10 after a boost of inspiration from Tunisia and Egypt — is to end the rule of Ali Abdullah Saleh, in power since 1978. Karaman has been jailed several times, including just days before the start of the uprising.
Who do you think young Muslim women are most drawn to? Al Qaeda’s out-of-sight “Majestic Woman: or a woman whose fierce majesty (Yemeni friends love to share videos of Karaman leading protests with her chants) poses one of the most serious challenges to a dictator in 33 years?

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Mona Eltahawy on Egypt’s Next Revolution

The Egyptian-American activist speaks out on the dangers women still face in a changing Mideast

• By Ron Rosenbaum
• Smithsonian magazine, May 2013,

Why are you so willing to head back into danger?” I ask Mona Eltahawy.
We’re sitting in a café on the Upper West Side of New York City, not far from her Harlem apartment, and the brutal reality of the political violence she’s been subjected to seems far away. But the fiery Egyptian-born journalist-activist has been living on the bleeding edge of history since 2005, a prominent voice in the movement that led to the dramatic Arab Spring uprising, climaxing with the 2011 fall of the Egypt’s modern pharaoh, Hosni Mubarak.
And the bleeding edge is still bloody, now that the “Arab Spring” has entered perhaps its most dangerous and unpredictable phase. In Egypt, some of the original revolutionaries, such as Mona, are now turning on the new rulers, President Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood, who they believe have hijacked the uprising and betrayed its democratic ideals. Eltahawy has been there for all that and now, she tells me, she’s heading back to the streets of Cairo, where she has suffered torture, sexual assault and broken bones from beatings.
The historical stakes are high in this critical phase of the struggle. Will the hopes awakened by the Arab Spring be crushed the way they were in Iran after the overthrow of the shah?
I’d met Eltahawy a couple of months earlier, at a dinner party hosted by Jesse Sheidlower, American editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. Although texting is a dinner-party faux pas, even in Manhattan, her dinner companions understood her compulsion: She was urgently communicating with fellow activists who were at that moment clashing with the police in the streets of Cairo. The ongoing social media revolution leaping halfway around the world in real time.
The dinner captured her dual identity perfectly. She was dressed in a stylish black with a silver necklace representing the ancient figure of Fatima, “protection against the evil eye,” she said. And at one point she rolled up her right sleeve to show off a new tattoo on her forearm, an image of the goddess Sekhmet, one of the oldest female deities of one of the oldest civilizations on earth. “She represents sex and retribution,” Eltahawy explained. She’d gotten the tattoo to mark the place where the Egyptian secret police had broken a bone.
In the café, when I ask her about the violence she was flying back into, she is nonplused. “I have a lot of friends and family who are very concerned about me,” she says, “But I try not to think about it. I’ve already had my arms broken and I’ve been sexually assaulted, so I’m hoping they’re not going to do any more than that.”
She’s not exactly self-protective.
“Look,” she says, “it’s dangerous for everybody in Egypt right now. Everyone who wants to stand up to the government, the state, the regime, the military, the Muslim Brotherhood—call it whatever you want. And we’ve been hearing about activists who are abducted, tortured, dumped in the desert naked.” In other words, meet the new boss, same as the old boss, only worse because you helped get the new boss his job.
***
Born in Port Said to parents who were both physicians, Eltahawy studied journalism at the American University in Cairo and began her career writing for a dissident English-language Egyptian newspaper that had to smuggle its copy out to Cyprus to be printed and then smuggle it back in. She became a globe-trotting foreign correspondent for Western outlets like Reuters and the Guardian, and gradually made the transition from journalist to journalist-activist. “I used my journalism as much as I could to expose human rights abuses, to expose women’s right abuses,” she says. “I was called into State Security for interrogation several times,” she tells me. “At one point a State Security officer whose nom de guerre was Omar Sharif—though he looked nothing like the actor—showed me my security files, and he said, ‘You see how much trouble you are? These are the files to have you followed, to have your home tapped.’” She married and moved to America in 2000 (she now holds dual citizenship), continued writing but, she says, “9/11 killed objectivity for me.”
“What do you mean, it ‘killed objectivity?’” I ask.
“When 9/11 happened I thought I’m not hearing from Muslims like ourselves,” she says, meaning liberal and moderate types. “I’d only hear from old men and conservative women. So I started writing opinion pieces. I wanted to get another voice out there to show that, look, 9/11 doesn’t represent all Islam.”
Soon afterward, her marriage ended and she flew back to Cairo, where she came into contact with the beginnings of the social media protest movement there. “I went to visit my family in Cairo but also took it as a chance to meet a lot of bloggers—a new thing, bloggers in the Middle East, that I was getting to know about. And in June of ’05, one of them asked me, ‘Do you want to come to a protest?’ And I said I’d love to! And it was the first time in my life that I’ve marched in Cairo and chanted ‘Down! Down! with Hosni Mubarak!’ There were only 100 of us. People were looking at us as if we were insane.”
There has been a major ongoing debate in foreign policy and technology circles over how decisive a role social media played in the Arab Spring uprisings.
“For many years now, social media in the Middle East and North Africa were tools and weapons,” Eltahawy says. “Social media created a space that didn’t exist in the real world because the regime didn’t allow it—the space where people could connect and talk about demonstrations and talk about organizing demonstrations. But they were not the reason the revolution happened. The revolution is people out on the street, not on their computer screens. They took it out into the real world.”
“And it started with bloggers and moved to Facebook?”
“Yeah, and it was also very important the way they used YouTube. Because the police, for some twisted reason, would use their smartphones to film themselves torturing jailed people. And they would send those videos to those who knew the victim—to intimidate and humiliate. And these videos would get out, and bloggers would put them on YouTube to expose the brutality of the Mubarak regime.”
The fact that social media can be a two-way street, with the side in power using it to terrorize, is often a neglected side of the equation. But social media is an explosive force, difficult to control, and this time it backfired.
“Something very interesting happened in the summer of 2010,” Eltahawy continues, “six months before the revolution began. People have died because of police torture in Egypt for many years. But this young man in Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast, Khaled Said, was beaten to death by police. And pictures of him before and after began to appear on Facebook. And this man became an icon. Why? Because he represented the background many people on Facebook came from—a comfortable, affluent background, one that had not experienced the brutality of the Mubarak regime and hoped that if they were quiet and didn’t engage politically, they would be OK. So you got all these young people on Facebook who saw him and saw that they could be him. So they began to join protests as well. That was a pivotal moment.”
***
Eltahawy takes pride that though she became an activist, a frequent TV talking head opining about the Arab Spring, she has remained a writer. Indeed, she was recently signed by the distinguished publishing house Farrar, Straus & Giroux to write a book about her experiences and the plight of women in the Mideast, including her opposition to female genital mutilation. (Her working title is Headscarves and Hymens.)
“When they attacked me at the end of 2011,” she tells me, “I couldn’t write because both my arms were in casts. I could only tweet and use a touchpad with one finger. I understood then that my body was as much a medium as my words. Because I would appear on television with the casts on and I would talk about what happened to me and that was just as powerful as the words that I wrote.”
I asked her to describe the assaults that had led to that point, and it was a frightening and sinister episode in the modern battle between social media protest and old-school police state tactics.
“This happened,” Mona tells me, “during protests on a street called Mohamed Mahmoud. On November 18, 2011 [nine months after Mubarak’s resignation], the army and the police very violently broke up a peaceful protest in Tahrir [Square].”
The demonstrators were marching against the military junta then ruling Egypt.
“I was traveling at the time in Morocco to give a lecture, and then I was supposed to go to the European Parliament to give a talk there about women in revolution—but with what was happening in Egypt, I couldn’t. I needed to be in Cairo to be a part of this, but also to honor the courage of the men and women on that street fighting to defend Tahrir. I was reading about stories of boys as young as 12 going to the streets, and writing their mothers’ phone numbers on their arms with Sharpies, so that if they ended up in the morgue, people would know who to call.
“I was in Tahrir Square about 24 hours,” she continues, “when I went to meet a friend. He said, ‘Do you want to go to Mohamed Mahmoud [street]?’ and I said, ‘Yes, this is why I came.’ All I remember is lots of tear gas, lots of sirens, and we kept pushing and pushing until we got to the front line. I stood on a rock to take pictures of the security, because the front line was mobbed by this kind of metal grating and then an empty space—a no man’s land—and the security people were on the other side, the police and the soldiers. So I stood on the rock and was taking pictures with my smartphone, and they began to shoot at us. I don’t know if it was live ammunition or if it was pellets, buckshot. So we all ducked.”
At this point, as often happens in espionage dramas, a kindly stranger appears to offer a helping hand.
“There was this man who said, ‘I’ll help you if you want to stand on the rock. I’ll hold your hand.’ They started shooting again so he told me and my friend, ‘Let’s go hide in this store.’
“So we’re sitting there in the store waiting for the shooting to stop, and then I noticed that this man was holding onto me and it was very strange, because men and women don’t hold hands in public in Egypt. The shooting was getting closer and closer so we ran farther into the store. More men came in. And one of the guys groped my breast.
“So I began to punch the guy who groped me, because I couldn’t believe—who gropes a woman’s breast as we’re being shot at? I mean, who?! My friend tried to pull me away. He said, ‘Mona, we’ve got to run, we’ve got to run.’ Because he could see that the police were getting closer.
“And then the riot police come and everyone runs away, and I understood that these guys had entrapped us. They were plainclothes security or thugs. And they kept us there until the police came. I thought my friend had managed to escape, but they took him to a place where he could see me getting beaten and they beat him as they were beating me.”
“Oh, my God.”
“So I was surrounded by about four or five of the riot police who had nightsticks and they were beating me. It was really painful. So to protect my head I went like this [putting her arms in front of her head], which is why my arm was broken here and my hand broke here and here. As they were beating me, my phone fell, so I didn’t have my smartphone anymore, and then they started to drag me away, and I actually said, ‘I gotta get my phone, I gotta get my phone,’ because I understood without this phone, I couldn’t tell what happened to the outside world.
“They wouldn’t let me get my phone, of course. Then they dragged me into the no man’s land where they sexually assaulted me. I had hands all over my body, I was pulling hands off my trousers. They were pulling my hair, they were calling me a whore, the daughter of a whore, everything. And at one point, I fell to the ground and something inside me said if you don’t get up now, you’re going to die. I don’t know how I got up. Because if I hadn’t gotten up—you know that picture of the woman they stripped down to her underwear and they were stomping on her in Tahrir—did you see that picture?”
“I didn’t see that.”
“It became known as ‘blue bra girl,’ it was a very unfortunate name. Because they stripped her down and she was wearing a blue bra. But the soldiers were stomping on her chest.”
“Where does this behavior come from?”
“Oh, my God. It’s rage, rage that the people rose up and were able to do something.”
“And their privileged position was being threatened as well?”
“Exactly. So I managed to get up somehow. And they drive me to the Interior Ministry and all the way, their hands are still all over my body.”
“You must have been terrified.”
“I didn’t know what the hell was going to happen to me. We passed all of these men coming out of the Interior Ministry and I thought, ‘someone is going to stop this.’ I mean, they can see what they’re doing to me. Nothing. It’s like their eyes are dead to me.
“So they take me to their supervising officer. This man in a leather jacket—plainclothes. He says to me, ‘You’re safe now. I’m going to take care of you. You see those guys over there?’ And there’s a mob of riot police just waving their arms like this. He said, ‘You know what would happen to you if I wasn’t here?’ So he’s basically threatening me with gang rape. And he’s saying this, ‘I’m protecting you,’ and their hands are still all over my body.
“This only stopped when a man from the military, an older man from the military in fatigues said, ‘Take her away.’ And I thought they were going to let me go. But they took me inside the Interior Ministry. I spent six hours in the Interior Ministry and three hours into it, an activist came from Tahrir to try and negotiate a truce, and he didn’t know me and I didn’t know him, but he had a smartphone. So I asked if I could use it.”
Here at last, Twitter to the rescue.
“By that time they weren’t paying too much attention to me, and I managed to tweet, ‘beaten, arrested, Interior Ministry.’ And that’s how I got the word out. I was told afterward that in 15 minutes, #FreeMona was trending globally. Al Jazeera and the Guardian reported my arrest and the State Department tweeted back, We hear you and we’re on this.”
America comes through, I say.
“Yes, I know! But that’s why I say I must speak about what happened to me very, very openly because I have a privileged position. Because of who I am, because of my profile, Al Jazeera, the Guardian and the State Department paid attention. How many thousands of Egyptian women and men and children go through this anonymously?”
“Very upsetting to hear.”
“I got off lightly, Ron. Human rights groups continue to document this torture to this day, despite the elections we’ve had. And this Interior Ministry where I was kept, they had cells there for what has been described as sexual torture, of men, women and children.
“Six hours into this detention—now, remember my arms are broken, yeh? I kept telling them, ‘I need medical care.’ Nothing.”
“You must have been in great pain.”
“It felt like hell. And I also told every single man who tried to talk to me or interrogate me, that I was sexually assaulted, because I wanted them to know. This is not my shame, this is their shame. Because this is how they train them.
“And then at one point, the big guy, the big boss now, dressed in a nice suit, he thought that because I look like I come from a privileged background, that we could identify. So he says to me, ‘You know those men who did this to you?’ This is the riot police. He said, ‘You know who they are? They are from the dregs of society. We lifted them up, we scrubbed them clean, and we opened the door this much in their minds.’ And he thought I was going to say ‘of course, these barbarians.’
“‘Why do you think we’re having a revolution?’ I asked him. ‘Who let them live like this?’ So I ended up defending the men who broke my arms and sexually assaulted me against this bastard who thought I was going to play the class card.”
Remarkable she had the self-possession to argue politics at such a moment.
“This is the reality of what’s happening in Egypt. But they use this against each other. They treat these men like animals and they turn them against us, and we have to break that by saying, ‘you have made them live like this and you use them against us. You are the enemy, not them.’”
“So in other words, even after Mubarak left...”
“Even to this day when we have a democratically (quote, unquote) ‘elected president.’ This happens.”
“This still goes on.”
***
A year or so ago, Foreign Policy magazine asked Eltahawy to write an essay analyzing the question of Islamists and women. She called it “Why Do They Hate Us?”
It was a play upon the title of a semi-famous post-9/11 Fareed Zakaria piece with nearly the same title, his about why the Muslim world, or at least the Islamist faction of it, “hates” the U.S. For our freedoms, he said, basically. (“Islamists” is a term used not for Muslims in general or mainstream Islam, but for extremists willing to use violence to establish theocratic regimes.)
Mona’s piece was about why she believes Islamists and their regimes hate women. Beneath the title was a graphic picture of “blue bra girl” in the process of being stomped to death. Strong stuff. As were its words: “An entire political and economic system—one that treats half of humanity [meaning women] like animals—must be destroyed.”
Tell us how you really feel, Mona.
“You still have hope then?” I ask.
“What we need even more than regime change,” she tells me, “is a social and a sexual revolution that believes in individual freedoms, that believes essentially in removing the internal Mubarak. The regime oppressed everyone—but beneath that the culture repressed women. It’s a toxic mix of culture and religion and we have to change that. And if we don’t do it, the political revolution will not succeed.
“It’s going to be a mess for a few years, but it’s a necessary mess because we have to mature....But I remain optimistic because I’m looking five to ten years from now and I’m insistent that we organize so that we provide an alternative to Islamists.”
Her sensitivity to those who she believes would conflate Islam with Islamists inspired her to take an action last year that received worldwide attention. The spark was a poster put up around New York City subway stations by a right-wing pro-Israel group. The poster attacked jihadists and labeled them “savages.”
“Did you wake up one morning and read about this?” I asked her.
“And snapped,” she said. “What really upset me was that this campaign was for me the latest example of an attempt to bully Muslims. Ever since 9/11 Muslims in this country who had nothing to do with 9/11 because the guys who took part in that came from other countries—none of them was an American Muslim. But we’ve been paying the price for it ever since.”
We talk about the disturbed woman who pushed a Hindu man in front of a subway killing him because she thought he was Muslim or Hindu and they all should be blamed for 9/11. Weirdly both Mona and I knew the unfortunate victim. “Sen!” she said. He worked in a copy shop I used. It was shocking to learn someone you knew as a gentle soul had been struck by a lightning bolt of mad hatred.
The posters also made her frustrated with social media. “I felt I hit the wall with it,” she says, because it was all atwitter about the outrage, but nothing was being done. She felt she had to take direct action—take the fight to the streets. She went out, got some spray paint, and started painting over posters.
But she didn’t black out the posters—she used pink spray paint. “People have accused me of trying to shut down speech. But I chose pink for a reason, Ron: because it was see-through. And I wanted people to see the words underneath. I considered this nonviolent civil disobedience. I love the First Amendment. I believe in the right to offend. I received my first death threat after I defended the Danish cartoons against the prophet. [Back in 2005 a Danish newspaper published a series of images of Muhammad, considered blasphemy to most orthodox Muslims.] I considered the ads hate speech.”
Eltahawy was arrested for the act. She was eventually offered a plea bargain to a minor violation but refused the deal and demanded a trial, which has yet to take place.
Ever the optimist, she is convinced she’ll win: “If a judge in New York considers hate speech [the posters] political speech then my protest of hate speech should also be protected political speech.”
While she’s been attacked for the poster action, she’s an equal opportunity offender—she’s also been attacked for making one of the most important, and courageous, statements about the vexed Israel question I’ve come across from an Islamic activist: She called the Arab world’s preoccupation with the Israel-Palestine problem “the opium of the Arabs.”
Yes, she supports the Palestinian position (she’s been attacked for tweeting support of the hunger strike of a jailed jihadist in Israel) but, she says, “getting rid of this opium would involve disenabling our regimes from using Israel as a distraction from their own crimes against us.”
Toward the end of our talk, I found myself asking her, “What made you Mona?” How did she become the unique voice she’s become. It turns out a secret stash of feminist literature in Saudi Arabia did the trick.
“I think several things [made me different],” she says. “First that I grew up with parents who were equals because my parents met in medical school. When we moved to the UK, I often say that I learned to become a minority. I understood that wow, people expect Muslim women to be nothing, but I have a mother who’s doing a PhD. What is this?
“And then we moved to Saudi when I was 15, and this was a huge schism in my life. My world turned upside down in Saudi Arabia because my frustration at the way women were so badly treated there. It finally found an outlet when I was 18 or 19 and I found ...feminist literature in the library of my university.”
“In Saudi Arabia?”
“Yeah, some professor had put feminist journals up there—[in the city of] Jeddah . It saved me. And I often say that as a woman, you either lose your mind or you become a feminist. And so I began using my mind. I fell into a terrible depression. But I was saved by feminism. That was a real pivotal moment in my life. Becoming a feminist in Saudi Arabia.”
Before she left to pack for her trip back to the violent streets of Cairo, Mona showed me again the tattoo of a goddess she had inscribed on her arm where the police had broken it. “Sekhmet,” she said, “very much a woman. The head of a lioness.”
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