sitting on the ground now bothering anyone so i have to ask the question why did it become normal to use pepper spray on students in our college and universities supposedly places of ideas dialogue and even protests so how can police and college officials justify pepper spraying their own students especially students who are only trying to bring attention to the issue of rising cost of higher education in the country. and we're going to wrap it up at that but see right back here at seven . years the same reason maybe you should use it. more. or less rather decision making. like you don't think is appalling.

limitation and free critique should be free in-store charges free arrangement free. free the studio three a live from the old free broadcast live video for your media project for free media don carty tom. you can. start. listening to the. alone and welcome the crosstalk on peter lavelle

game changer in egypt the muslim brotherhood's decision to run a presidential candidate in the upcoming election to stun to many is a policy and strategy reversal that changes the political calculus in the country is the muslim brotherhood attempting to hijack the revolution or merely trying to preserve and. limit the can. live. to cross out the muslim brotherhood strategy i'm joined today by lisa lapin in new york she's a writer and u.s. based investigative journalist and focusing on the middle east and islam in london we have an ability ramdani she is a journalist an academic who specializes in the middle east and north africa and in tel aviv we go to on kesler he is middle east affairs correspondent for the jerusalem post all right folks this is crossfire that means you can jump in anytime you want i very much encourage and neville in london i go to you first here what do you make of the muslim brotherhood's decision to run a candidate only

a week ago two weeks ago they in fact equally denied that they were going to do it now they are we see the movement slightly fractured it's a big gamble and if they win they have all power. well absolutely it certainly is a dramatic shift from the muslim brotherhood. prior policy not to fill the candidate in the presidential race precisely because the accusations directed at the muslim brotherhood for already really do too much power having the effect of your monopoly on egyptian state affairs following their overwhelming victory in the parliament but also because they are also in charge overwhelmingly drafting egypt's new constitution and i think their decision before not to send a candidate for the presidential race was to try and assuage the fear is that they were seeking too much power but certainly this decision now to send. candidate for

the election is a dramatic a u. turn and it would have not only a dramatic consequences for the internal politics of the party the muslim brotherhood but also for egypt as a country because it's the largest country in the middle east and also because of its. privileged. position and there i say will have also consequences on the direction that the arab spring is taking more generally in new york really so what do you think about this is this a big gamble on the part of the brotherhood because the bill is pointed out here i mean right now here because a lot of people say it's a gamble and it really strikes if you're trying to don't think it's a gamble i don't think it's a surprise at all actually i think that this is been a revolution in the planning stage for the last eighty three years and in fact you

know they've never they've never made a secret about the fact if they want to complete control and they wanted shari'a law and they wanted islamic law and that's been their foundational precept since ninety. twenty eight it's not really a surprise to me at all so you don't find so you think that this is talking you think this thing else you think you've been waiting for this for all this time particularly since the fall of the. this regime that i think i will go back to that or and tell of you what do you think about the political calculus of the muslim brotherhood you know political actors anywhere in the world that want to increase and maintain and retain their power whether it's the egyptian army or the muslim brotherhood or you name it i don't know of any party in the world. doesn't want to hold power. in the case of the army you would rather sort of reap the benefits of having its fingers and was there be a canonical partner in egypt without you know having to take responsibility for the economy but surely that both the army and the brotherhood want to maintain their

interest maintain maintain power for neville what do you think about that because i mean the it's quite obvious the army doesn't the military doesn't want to give up power because it controls mostly of the the economy and their privileges and their you know they have a very nice lifestyle they've had it for a long time and they have a very good friend in washington as well i mean the status quo was always suited the military in egypt since the fall of mubarak. very much so i want to slightly disagree with the assessment that the muslim brotherhood's decision to send a candidate in in the end is true i would actually call it pragmatic i think there's a simple reason behind the muslim brotherhood's decision and that is to take advantage of what is effectively a historical chance for them to actually real power for the first time in the country's history there have been all sorts of theories behind the reasons why they're standing a candidate including first cynics i would say. there is

some secret pact between the muslim brotherhood and indeed the military in an attempt to amend taint the status quo and indeed to engage in a power sharing deal i think you know that if a muslim brotherhood candidate is elected he will have he will have huge responsibilities to a source how the economy of the country let's not lose sight that it's now a major problem that the country is facing and because the muslim brotherhood will then be the only challenger for the military the only party that will have to hold the military accountable and indeed put it in its place but he will be a crucial test for the party in order sorts of fields including politics but also the economy and indeed the social problems of the country and if i go back to new york being the mother of the brother of yours on brotherhood claims that they're

actually a barrier to the subtle it'll be the more radical group to come to power they will be running also a candidate so they're playing the middle ground and they wonder the parliamentary election i mean they are genuinely popular among the electorate go ahead well that's true they are very popular i mean it is predominantly muslim. about ten or twelve million carts so you know that's about ten percent give or take of the population and the rest of the people by and large are muslim and. islam has been the predominant. faith since the conquest of the area in the eighth century and so it's really not a surprise at all that they're very popular in. the area has been a problem for centuries i mean the economy is in poor or i mean in

fact in the eighteenth century you know. invited napoleon into to help out with the economy so you know in a way this is like history repeating itself. ok boring to find those very mean i mean i mean the thing is is that you know this is a democratic process in play and i mean you know i'll agree with you on i mean if you can win then why don't you go out and win and that looks like the brotherhood has a very good chance of doing that and i agree with bill or mean then you could have an enormous amount of responsibility on your hands ok to fix the economy to create jobs i mean in that way it is a gamble. it's true it's true that it is a gamble on the part of the brotherhood i mean egypt's egypt's economy is in dire straits there are. forty percent of egyptians live on less than two dollars a day there's a million and a half babies are born in egypt every year. does the brotherhood have an answer to these problems i don't think it does on the other hand if if if you or i or the

brotherhood and we've waited eight decades to seize power i don't think we would like their chance that way ok on i mean it ok if these coward i think is going a bit strong here we are talking about an election are we absolutely and one wish should never lose sight of the fact that the muslim brotherhood has been fairly elected by the people in parliamentary elections to run the affairs of the state and i think the reason why the muslim brotherhood candidate their shot seems to have good chances to win the election is that because he is a multimillionaire he's a fine and serious who's got extremely good grasp on the economy and traditionally islamic parties tend to put the emphasis on charitable work on philanthropy and you know social justice is no substitute for. sorry charity is no substitute for social justice and this this is precisely what shutter is offering he's offering

a real economic and social program as an alternative and since his party room the parliamentary elections he has been able to meet with all sorts of influential people including for foreign officials in passages diplomats and more crucially representatives of international organizations including the international monetary fund and has been able to negotiate a generous learn free agent and he also is very much seen in egypt as the savior of the economy as the engineer behind the renaissance project involving a thousand scientists and people from the business industry in general and that's why and i can't stress that enough is enough that the muslim brotherhood major test will be to sort out the extreme economic situation in the country we've seen one in new york you think they're after the task. well you know it's a it's a bit of a i disagree completely with that they're up to the task and i don't think that the

primary goal is even economic i mean it's basically they want is long it's a promise is a man this is been the goal right from the get go i mean if you're not i mean i think you have a problem with some that do you have a problem with them doing that democratically through an election i mean if this is what the people are usually i don't have to tell you what i am now i think that the problem really will be in how they deal with the coptic minority and what you've already seen is that the economic straits the country is in there's no question about it i mean they're importing something like eighty percent of their wheat and you know as oren said the prices are ridiculous and they're living on three dollars a day and bread is they live on bread and they're importing it all so i'm going to jump in here with you can go continue our discussion education politics after our

short break we'll continue our discussion on egypt largest political party state. you. want to get. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of kandahar. trying to operations around the day. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for like you think you understand it and then

a blip something else you hear sees some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm trying hard welcome to the big picture. i. wanted. to. download the official tea allocation securely phone the i pod touch from the i.q. saps to. one shall see life on the go live.

video on demand keys in my world comes an r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your local. machine on the. plane to. start. listening to. welcome back to crossfire i'm going to live up to my job we're talking about the muslim brotherhood's participation in the presidential election the soul. can. start to live. ok we ended the first part of the program talking about the dire straits of the egyptian economy i mean i think all of us would agree they need a big change or the military has had their hands in the till for so very long backed up by the americans for so long give somebody else

a chance i mean that's what it looks like they're asking people to do and i think all of us would be like them or not we're generally genuinely agree that they are popular in egypt so give them a shot. yes very much so and you know we shouldn't forget that we're talking about a muslim majority country so we shouldn't be too surprised to see that play an islamic party is doing well in that context the muslim brotherhood has also been stigmatized let's not forget especially in the wake of america's so-called war on terror which effectively put the muslim brotherhood push the muslim brotherhood underground and it led to the party being banned accepted and officially in the political landscape but nonetheless found this is as a direct this was as a direct result between the corporation between the dictatorship of mubarak and the u.s. administration. i would. oh no no no no no no

reason for an irony in that you know they don't first is he asked first go ahead oren well it's just simply untrue that it was that the brotherhood was pushed underground due to the u.s. war on terror the end of the brotherhood has been underground for decades going back to the era of gamal abdel nasser so i mean i'm not quite sure where in the view is getting is going the facts. little you want to respond to that especially so especially if yes absolutely i'm saying it as best as specially so in america's war on terror which largely contributed not just in egypt but across the muslim world to stigmatise islamic parties not just in egypt but in tunisia in morocco and indeed across the region and contributed to demonize this party and basically paint them as islamic extremists and now we know that the muslim brotherhood is

seen as a moderate party and contrary to what alisa was saying it is also seen in egypt as a bloc in fact to the more radical a party which is the son of his party of the new world which is supported by gulf countries especially saudi arabia ok richard you want to jump in there you say you disagree go ahead. i don't i don't really see a big difference between the muslim brotherhood and the softest parties but to get back to i think oren is absolutely right i mean the brotherhood was burned initially in nine hundred forty eight after an assassination attempt. you know there were many brothers who fled egypt and went to saudi arabia and went to kuwait they went to carter and so on so this is not a new thing at all in. fact would you say the muslim brotherhood of forty

fifty years ago is the same as the muslim brotherhood today in egypt there's no change they have a new goal of i go ahead founding go ahead the founding principles are exactly the same i mean you know we have charter is actually saying that he supports our czar and he wants ours are to be involved in the islamization of the world and ours are has a role in gaining control of islamization in egypt and of the world and he said this just very recently so it's very interesting. i mean hundred twenty years since we spoke beginning of the arab spring we've seen islamic parties wanting to democratic process to to work for their people ok to have the same kind of lifestyles and the more rich countries in the world and they want to do it at the ballot box why are they being so demonized and that's why i asked the question i mean the muslim brotherhood has been actually quite quiet

since the fall of mubarak and only been getting involved in the political process like everybody else. well you know if the brotherhood is seen as not or it i don't know who's the one doing the seeing here i don't i don't see them as moderate you know they may be moderate relative to the solitaries but that's like it's a terrible comparison i mean it's like i wouldn't want either if i want to gyptian for people who are in which you have no answer to your problem with the brother is the only islamic party in egypt that recognizes and wants to preserve the peace treaty with israel that's pretty moderate isn't it well even that it spends what hour of the day you ask them it depends who you ask and it depends who is doing the asking. you know just in january i think there was a brotherhood spokesman told it was a shock a london based arabic paper so there's no way we're going to recognize israel period and then the next week the brotherhood deputy leader told the western

audience will will respect all of our charities so really they've spoken to in two voices about this and and we'll have to just sort of wait and see what they do rather than rather than rely on what they said in the bill i saw you not shaking your head go right ahead. yes i agree we have to see what they do but in the meantime we can also take into account the party i mean for example they're very much inclusive of christian copts in egypt they're inclusive of remain alive the salafist party a new for example and it has the backing of the u.s. administration hillary clinton has shown support towards a shorter story because he or the muslim brotherhood also has pledged not to put a referendum the peace treaty with israel it has also banned demonstrations in front of the israeli embassy in because of people egyptians were protesting against

israel's treatment of the palestinian people for example now of course america will have to convince the gulf countries like saudi arabia to accept a candidate who has already been accepted by all the gulf countries like qatar for example so of course let's wait and see what the muslim brotherhood will achieve when it comes to power but the positive news here is that if. the girls can deliver then i'm pretty confident the egyptians will take to the streets again and we'll democratically oust him was a new yorker you think about that that's an interesting scenario and quite reasonable. well i mean i have to agree that i with or and i don't think there is any good comparison between muslim brotherhood in. the more conservative saw office really like a piece of pie known as the cross the nearly one is the middle and it's all of the

piece the thing is that. the idea here is to make egypt's islamic and. in fact i mean there are people who think the. brotherhood actually wants chaos and once the create chaos because that's what brings out more of the faith which is why we're here to the democratic process and they want to discredit the democratic process as well this is part of being one of those it's going to be one man one vote one time i don't think that this is going to be a democracy it's certainly not going to be a western democracy and why should it be it's what should be western democracy it should be islamic or democracy and they thought it doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be a western democracy i'm just saying it won't be it's not going to be and i don't think it's going to be democratic at all in any sense of the word it's not going to

be the man the regular man participating and as far as peace and justice for the nine already that's ridiculous i mean people are burning churches they're burning whole churches with people alive inside of them and in the brotherhood is just anyone there is doing that are they burning churches and yes they are absolutely are there absolutely are paying the bills as of right now we are in the bill. i think you know one should bear in mind that the military has been quite instrumental in. clarion divisions. precisely because it doesn't want to lead. and it's reluctant to transfer politics even in government let alone to an elected president and we've seen throughout the revolution how the army were using sectarian divisions to.

pitch one community against the other or and what do you think i'm not going to ask you to speak for the israeli government i'm asking you your opinion but the israelis have always preferred to deal with dictators like mubarak i mean they were ready for a democratically elected president of egypt. but before i answer that question i'd just like to address something the bill said earlier and i hate to pick on you here but i think you're being a bit too generous with with your description of the brotherhood as it relates to religious minorities it's true there are one or two cops on their on their party roster the egyptians because i talk to in egypt are all every one of them to a man and to women are petrified of the brotherhood coming out party none of them are voting for the brotherhood so i think we should we should just be a little bit more wary of. the brotherhood and a bit less eager to sort of pounce on every to accept every every statement they make about religious tolerance it was like everybody wants to win the brotherhood

no matter what they say can you answer my question or and as far as israel is concerned in a democratically elected government of egypt. i'm sorry could you could you repeat that he's really. been more than very comfortable in dealing with arab dictators for decades now are they going to be able to deal with democratically lead elected leaders like we'll see in egypt. look i don't think israelis have any most israelis anyway again i'm not a spokesperson but i don't think most israelis have any illusions that dealing with the brotherhood is going to be particularly pleasant or easy or effective. but it's i mean israel is in a bind if you know we israel doesn't particularly like you know having to deal with a state as as it sees it but when there are popular elections we saw in the palestinian territories we saw i don't egypt. islam is come to power now we've seen it in tunisia we've seen it in iraq oh. it's a real twenty two ok in the village very strangely muslims vote for islamic parties

and i don't i can't get my head around why that's a problem go ahead you to last word. because i don't think it's a problem i think you know very long time western democracy. we are. going to have to run out of time folks fascinating discussion many thanks to my guest today in new york london and in tel aviv and thanks to our viewers for watching us here to see you next time and remember. for.

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