[TIMESOFISRAEL] It's not yet clear quite how an Egyptian court's decision Saturday to define Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,, in its entirety, as a terror group will play out. Hitherto, only the organization's military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, was defined as such, but the new ruling widens the definition to include the political branch. Does this mean that from here on out Egypt will completely ban Hamas, cutting all ties to the group including those involving Cairo's own intelligence agencies?What can be said with a high degree of certainty, especially in light of the almost hysterical response to the ruling in the Gazoo Strip, is that on a symbolic level this is Cairo's declaration of war on Hamas. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi is proving that there is only one leader in the Middle East who can be compared to Winston Churchill, and he sits in Cairo.
Little wonder the Champ wants nothing to do with El Sissi.
With Sissi, it's not just talk. It's action too. He has, memorably, now made a series of speeches calling for a revolution in Islamic thought, to shift the emphasis away from violence and to create a more humane Islam. He has declared war upon radical Islam wherever it may be -- not only upon the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
and its affiliates, who have attacked Egyptians in Libya and Egypt proper, but on the Moslem Brüderbund and its affiliates as well.
Many months ago, the president set out on a wide-scale military operation in the Sinai Peninsula that his associates have assessed will last two to three years. During this period, he has said, Egypt will pay a price, perhaps a heavy one, but there is no choice and no escape from carrying it out.
When IS operatives in Libya kidnapped Coptic Egyptians and executed them, Sissi again did not hesitate: He sent Egyptian air force jets to bomb dozens of IS targets on Libyan soil.
The court decision underlines his approach: There is no distinction between a military wing and a political wing. He'll leave any such nuances to various international officials, mostly in Europe, who have recently tried to create a dialogue with Hamas.