- CAIRO (SAPA) -- A state-owned
Egyptian newspaper on Saturday said US President George W Bush's drive
for democracy in the Middle East was an Israeli-inspired idea aimed against
countries hostile to Israel.
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- Akhbar Elyom's chairperson and chief editor Ibrahim Saada,
a man close to President Hosni Mubarak, said in an opinion piece covering
the entire front page that Bush's message was also an attempt to divert
Americans' attention from the Iraqi "swamp."
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- "I don't rule out that the Israelis were the ones
to have advised President Bush to announce this important discovery, that
is democracy, and his invitation for implementing it in the Arab world
and Iran as well as other countries hostile to both the United States and
Israel," wrote Saada.
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- "I also do not rule out that the US Jewish lobby
stands behind this invitation that contains attacks against Arab governments
with which it (Washington) has old ties," in order to damage those
relations, he said.
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- "I tend, indeed, to believe ... that the content
of Bush's speech is an attempt to divert the attention of his people away
from the tragedy of the attrition swamp in which the US soldiers have fallen
in occupied Iraq.
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- "But it will he a failed attempt. Nobody's attention
will be diverted and it will only lead to more Arab hatred towards the
United States and its government," he added.
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- Bush, in a speech on Thursday, urged Middle East leaders
to embrace democracy, and repudiated 60 years of US help for illiberal
regimes that "did nothing to make us safe" from terrorism.
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- Saada responded to this argument, writing: "We,
in turn, say that our policy towards the United States over the past half
a century was a failure because we, Arabs, have given our trust to somebody
who does not deserve it ... somebody who covers all the wrongdoings of
Israel, at the expenses of the rights and humanity of the Palestinian people."
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