Bottom lines

---

Click to view caption

Mohamed Omar in Egypt's weekly magazine Akher Saa on the holy fasting month of Ramadan which begins next week, just about the only time of the year when people are nice to each other. 'You have a whole month ahead... you'll find that everybody likes you, wants to make you happy, will invite you for meals and the TV will entertain you' In the UAE daily Al-Ittihad Hamid says the world had Israel on a key chain in 1948, the year of its creation. Since then, Israel has grown considerably in size, strength and influence

"The formulation of a strong, progressive, popular movement for change is a long, hard battle but the alternative is Mahdi Akef [Muslim Brotherhood], Gamal Mubarak [NDP] and Ayman Nour [Ghad], all of which represent the hegemony of international, American, European, Israeli and Gulf capitalist interests in the name of a false democracy and religion." -- Sherif Hetata, Al-Ahali

"The real problem in Egypt is its intellectuals. If we consider all the crises Egypt has gone through over the past 50 years we will find that intellectuals -- or some of them -- have played the worst role with their nifaq (hypocrisy) and corruption." -- Magdi Mehanna , Al-Masri Al-Youm

"Arab countries do not really have relations with the Iraqi government as such and so they cannot really be of much help to the state. They also do not have close relations with the Iraqi society. For its part the Arab League does not go beyond criticising developments in Iraq and issuing negative statements." -- Ahmed Al-Robai, Asharq Al-Awsat

"Some Arab countries believe that their strength comes from their ability to threaten the US and that their failure would simply bring about radical and certainly hardline regimes." -- Joseph Samaha, As-Safir