a child will set them free...

So the 'young generation' of Egypt is claiming the mantel of revolution, removing the onus from their elders who are automatically scapegoated by the dictator and his military, his police, his spies who stroll around, who watch and listen. It seems only the young can accomplish revolution. Not because the old are not willing, not because we wont offer outselves up in sacrifice for freedom, I think a young mind has a kernel of a dream, an ideal still in their hearts that a tank, machine guns, gas, clubs would not fall quite so hard.
700 people gathered up by police on Wednesday. My last visit was in 2002, I'm sure alot has changed, certainly the garbage collectors who for generations collected and recycled those bags tossed from 8th floor buildings are out of work now. Bread probably has more non-flour elements baked into it as the price of wheat rises. But the government machine, not the clerk who peeled squash at her desk for that nights dinner or the woman who refused to look at the pile of forms as we stood after waiting 45 minutes for our turn to come to stand in front of her...no not these people who struggle even within a job to remain alive, to function within a dysfunctioning world of insanity. I use the term 'insanity' cautiously having spent time in Shubra elKhamra, read the translated works of Mahfouz and spending many evenings watching Mohamed Sobhi with his ensemble trying to make sense of the senseless ways Life can be in Egypt.
The obdurance is governmental for the most part,not the citizens. I was told an anecdote by an Egyptian who applied for the police academy who the system works within. New recruits are brutalized by senior classmen, ordered to do despicable things, beaten, humiliated and so it goes each level abuses the one beneath until graduation and then the rage is packaged with a uniform, complete with an idealogy that everything that policeman and the priviledges he enjoys at clubs, shopping as well as the respect all of it is predicated on his loyalty to the regime. If the regime topples, so goes his job.
And that is the unfortunate lie both the police and military are fed and believe. This brainwashing was effective when the regime came in 3 decades go before cell phones and online social media. Oxygen and light has exposed the stench of greed, theft, lies and betrayals...and worse. But as the current regime managed to play patty cake with the US they have been proped up, held together despite the internal misery to its citizens while US officials publically cry out for social justice in Egypt, they pay the regime to remain intact...because until now the US doesnt have an intellectual understanding (altho its getting better) of how people think, speak and do not speak while thinking to themselves.

The United States is at the same crossroad Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, Jordan, Syria finds themselves-except the US is an interloper now. It may not have been the intention to start, it has evolved into this role. It is not as Rand Paul suggested today that we de-fund all foreign aid, as our own economy can no longer handle borrowing from China to pay to prop up all these countries, the point is one of moral principle-we do not have anything to contribute now except more dirty money-the children have grown, they have seen online, spoken on their cells, texted images across continents without ever leaving their neighborhoods. Egyptians know the bogeyman sits in Egypt, not in the WH and finally realize, they dont have to take it anymore.

It's easy for all of us to sit and watch, those of us who are watching, and expect great human sacrifices might be required before change can happen. But Egypt is not Afghanistan or Pakistan. It is the nature of its people, a warmth, humor and human intelligence that allows them to endure long days and even longer nights, that will likely not leave room for sudden flourishing of jihadists that so worries the rest of the world when unrest rumbles in the ME.

This is such a moment of hope both for Egypt and other ME countries. In some ways the world needs to step aside and let the young of Egypt take their one chance...it may not come around again in their lifetime if their courage wavers. Step aside unless you can keep communication lines open (Twitter, FB etc), step aside with your vacuous patronizing comments Mrs. Clinton, this is a generation in search of its own hero, only G-d knows if a hero can exist to lead this generation to freedom without being martyred.

This is not about Islam, not about Bin Laden or hate, not about antisemitism...its about people wanting freedom to choose, think, speak without fear, to live and grow. How that cry for freedom does not resonate to the core of Americans and Jews in particular, is inexplicable for me.

Give a man a piece of bread to eat, you've filled his belly for a day. Give him seeds and a rake, you can show him how to feed himself and his family.

I could sit here and yammer on and on...there's so much to write and so much that is better left unsaid. But I feel Egypt and Israel and its a hard love to explain maybe unless you've been there...