Nasrallah's picture tarnished

Doaa El-Bey sees why it's not allowed to call Israel racist, and why in the good old days nobody would have dared violate Egypt's sovereignty

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The capture of a Hizbullah cell plotting inside Egypt is still raising questions about the security and stability of Egypt and the personality of the party leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Rifaat El-Said heaped criticism on Nasrallah who could not find any justification for his men who entered Egypt with fake passports except smuggling weapons to Hamas in Gaza. To him that was an excuse that is worse than a fault because Nasrallah forgot something called Egyptian national sovereignty and laws and gave himself the right to consider Egyptian land as a crossing and a venue to achieve his goals under the guise of providing weapons to the Palestinians.

El-Said said that excuse was repeatedly used by previous and present Muslim Brotherhood leaders to justify all the crimes they had committed. Thus, Nasrallah should have come up with a new excuse rather than using the same old story which proved to be mere lies to justify terrorism. "The Palestinian issue has always been the peg on which the Brotherhood used to hang all its plans and arrangements for terrorism," El-Said wrote in the official daily Al-Ahram.

Mohamed Boghdadi wrote that we still deal with pressing issues from a security point of view and consequently make the same mistake in handling issues of fundamentalist extremism and political Islamist terrorism, whether it is intellectual or actual terrorism, using chains, swords, dynamite and bombs.

Thus, articles full of insults and obscenities in official newspapers are not the best way to deal with Hizbullah's transgressions or with those who disrespect Egypt. Also, accusations of treason and cooperation with Iran will not maintain the safety and sovereignty of our land. Neither will bowing to the American-Zionist project prevent little foxes from playing in our backyard. The matter is bigger and at the same time, simpler than that.

Egypt's destiny is linked to its status as a regional country with a leading role, whether we like it or not, and it has responsibilities that it must carry out, whether we like it or not. Thus, since ancient times Egypt has never had the luxury of giving up its role in leading the Arab region and did not receive blessings to live without its historical and regional responsibilities in ancient as well as the modern Middle East.

So when Egypt voluntarily gives up its role as it did some 10 years ago it is demeaning its status and allowing little ones to play in its backyard.

"When Egypt was strong and the Palestine Liberation Organisation [PLO] was at the height of its power, none of its factions could violate Egypt's sovereignty or its national security, simply because they all knew that a strong speech made by Egypt or a strongly worded statement from Cairo was much more important than gunshots," Boghdadi wrote in the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Yom.

Mohamed El-Baz focussed on the effect of the capture of the Hizbullah cell on Nasrallah's popularity. He wrote that although Nasrallah was previously regarded as a hero and a symbol for resistance and dignity, his picture has recently been tarnished. He lost his popularity in the Egyptian street after it showed great enthusiasm for him in the past.

The writer added in the weekly newspaper Al-Fagr that probably that cell could be small and that it is not that dangerous, the problem is that Nasrallah momentarily lost his political intelligence and decided to play foul in a big state like Egypt. In addition, he saw no problem in deciding to carry some operations in Egypt without notifying the Egyptian authorities.

As a result, it seemed to the writer that whoever made Nasrallah a public figure wants to replace him after it was found out that he is not as astute as they thought because he exposed his men instead of protecting them by keeping quiet and leaving them to meet their destiny.

Sayed Abdel-Atti expressed his shock about the ferocious campaign waged against Nasrallah who became the arch enemy of Egypt overnight. There was not a similar campaign against the Zionist minister Avigdor Lieberman who threatened to demolish the High Dam, or against the US or Israeli embassies that are conducting intelligence activities inside Egypt.

Abdel-Atti said he was not defending Nasrallah, but believed he made two mistakes: when he described the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 as the first Arab victory against Israel, thus ignoring the October 1973 victory; and when he incited the Egyptian army to rebel against the government in January this year.

Still, "the campaign against Nasrallah is exaggerated and in the interest of Israel," Abdel-Atti wrote in the independent weekly Sawt Al-Umma.

He called on the Egyptian regime to deal with the issue in a sensible way away from threats and intimidation since Hizbullah is still part of the Arab resistance against the Zionist enemy.

Rifaat Fayad wrote that he was one of the admirers of Nasrallah together with many Egyptians who hailed his men's courage in southern Lebanon. However, Fayad was forced to think again of the aim of establishing Hizbullah when he remembered what the party did to various factions in Lebanon and how it threatened whoever opposed it, and threatened to occupy the whole of Lebanon if anybody drew near his weapons or members.

The party's show of power was further enhanced when it decided to enter Egypt illegally on the pretext of providing logistical support to Hamas in Gaza. Nasrallah's policies reminded the writer of the former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein who decided to free Palestine via occupying Kuwait, a neighbouring Arab state.

Fayad expressed his fear that Nasrallah would become as powerful and vain as Saddam and use his power in a way that causes destruction in Lebanon or in another state like Egypt by carrying out destructive operations on behalf of other states and shaking its stability and security. Fayad concluded in the weekly official newspaper Akhbar Al-Yom by warning Nasrallah that if he sticks to his present belief that he is the divine saviour of Gaza and that he should do this through Egypt, he could meet the same fate as Saddam.