6-Aug-12: Conspiratorial Egyptians

Mustafa Bakri [Image Source]

It's been a big couple of days for journalist, sometime editor in chief of Al-Osboa newspaper and former Egyptian parliamentarian, Mustafa Bakri. He's in today's headlines because, in the wake of the Egyptian trauma caused by the deaths at the hands of Islamist terrorists of some 15 policemen in a Sinai police station, he's quoted saying in the Egyptian daily Al-Youm A-Sabi’ that last night's co-ordinated and ultimately unsuccessful attack was “a Zionist plot to bring Israel back to Sinai and expel Palestinians to Egyptian lands in Sinai.” 

The same article quotes his Twitter account where Bakri speculates that Israel would seize the opportunity and reoccupy Sinai. Israel’s warning last week to its citizens to leave the Sinai Peninsula [the one we blogged here] is proof, in Bakri's view, that it was aware of the terrorists’ plan. Being aware, in certain minds, means being behind the plot.

Back in February 2012, and speaking in the parliament while he was still an MP, Bakri pronounced [source] that Egypt's problems were the fault of the United States, Israel and the Mubarak regime. They were the cause of Egypt's "state of anarchy", and for good measure Mohamed ElBaradei was the one “directing” American agents to cause unrest. The riot in Port Said a day earlier that caused the deaths of 74 soccer fans and injured more than 1,000 "was part of the continued efforts of the United States and Israel to bring down the Egyptian government" [source] [video]. 

To balance the picture somewhat, Bakri the accuser himself came under attack yesterday, just hours before Sunday's terror attack, over allegations that he was part of a conspiracy. The Moslem Brotherhood’s Ali Khafagi accused Bakri and two others of turning people against the group and of 

"inciting to people to burn the party’s branches across Egypt... two of them have already been burnt down and at the exact same time... Both branches were attacked and burnt at 4:30 am and this shows that it is preplanned... I call upon the Prosecutor General to issue an arrest warrant for both.” [source]