I am writing this article to draw your
attention to the amazing story of Dr. Maikel Nabil Sanad. Dr. Nabil is a veterinarian, an Egyptian blogger,
pro-democracy activist, and pacifist who was sentenced on Sunday, April 10,
2011, to three years in prison on charges of “insulting the military” and
“disturbing public security.” He was
subjected to a closed military trial in part as possible retaliation for his
refusal to serve in the Egyptian military.
He was prevented from attending parts of his own trial and then
sentenced alone in the absence of his lawyers and family. He was punished
because he wrote an article criticizing the Egyptian military’s handling of the
situation in Egypt even after the fall of the Mubarak regime. Obviously I support the immediate release of
Dr. Nabil.
When I read his English-language blog at
www.maikelnabil.com, I was
amazed. I can see why he is such a
threat to the military regime in Egypt. He
is an atheist from a Coptic family. But
most importantly, he is the first conscientious objector in Egyptian history,
and he is a confirmed pacifist who simply refuses to fight.
In April, 2009, he formed a facebook group against conscription called
“No to Obligatory Service”. The group
has the radical and difficult objective of abolishing obligatory conscription
in Egypt. As of October 2010, the group
had 20-30 activists on the ground in Egypt and 3,000 members.
When I think of Egypt, I think of Gamal
Abdel Nasser fighting Israel and promising to throw the Jews into the sea. I think of the many wars of aggression which
Egypt committed against Israel and the Jews in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973. I think of the anti-Jewish hatred which is
relentlessly broadcast on the Egyptian media under the Mubarak regime. I think of the Muslim Brotherhood and its
radical Islamist ideology. I think of the
military rule of Mubarak and his repression of dissidents. In short, I associate
Egypt with political repression, militarism, and anti-Semitism.
So
I was astonished to read the perspective of a young Egyptian pacifist. He told the Israeli web site Ynet last year, "I am a pacifist, I am against bearing arms and
participating in military and paramilitary organizations. Recruitment goes
against my conscience. I don't want to act against my conscience, whatever the
price. I also am not willing to be a pawn on the chessboard of an arms race,
struggles and bloodbaths in the region. I don't want to point a weapon at a
young Israeli, recruited into obligatory service, defending his state's right
to exist. I think obligatory service is a form of slavery and I have worked for
years for my freedom."
I understand Mr. Nabil’s refusal to
serve as cannon fodder for the Egyptian military regime’s war against Israel
and the Jews. I myself am not a pacifist
as I think that Israel clearly needs an army in order to defend itself in a
hostile neighborhood. But I never
imagined in a million years that I would be hearing words like this from an
Egyptian young man. Maikel Nabil is
violating my stereotypical image of the heavily armed, militaristic Arab man
who carries a gun everywhere and can’t wait to war jihad against the
infidels. Naturally the amazing images
of the hundreds of thousands of young men and women who demonstrated peacefully
for democracy, human rights, and regime change in Egypt’s Tahrir Square helped
to break this stereotype and earn my admiration for their courage and dignity.
Perhaps even more amazing is Maikel
Nabil’s admiration for Israel and the Jews. "I am pro-Israel," he
says in an interview with YNet.com. "I don't want to take part in
anti-Semitic operations or those that negate Israel's right to exist in the
region. I see Israel as a liberal, modern state with a religious character. I
have friends in Israel and I think Israelis have a right to defend
themselves." I am frankly astounded
to hear a young Egyptian expressing such solidarity and empathy with Israel and
the Jews. He is quite a refreshing
contrast to the usual diet of blood libels, Holocaust denial, and admiration
for Hitler most frequently expressed in the Egyptian press in the past 60
years.
At the same time, I also understand
why Israel refuses to grant him a visa.
As a confirmed pacifist, he is also working with the Israeli pacifist
movement. His anti-militarist vision
runs counter to the foundations of the Zionist ideology, which I support and
which are based upon Jews taking up arms in self-defense against Arab and
Muslim aggression. In addition, Israel,
like Egypt, has obligatory conscription, and thus national military service is
an integral experience in Israeli society.
Israeli Jewish men not only serve three years in combat after high
school; they also are available until age 49 for the military reserves and can
be called up for combat at any time in the event of war.
He has worked hard to try to counter
Jewish fears about Egyptians and to reassure Israelis that not all Egyptians
hate Israel and want to destroy the Jews.
He said,"the Israeli nation must know there are many Egyptians who
support it, that we love Israel and support its right to exist. The picture
painted by the media that all Egyptians hate Israel is false. This picture is
not correct, and I want to make that clear to you." I never imagined reading an Egyptian man
saying that “we love Israel and support its right to exist.” After all, during the PLO / PA terrorist war
against Israel and the Jews of 2000-2005, the Egyptian press went into
overdrive in its propaganda against Israel and the Jews. In addition, after he published a book based
on his visit to Israel, the Egyptian playwright Ali Salem was expelled from the
Egyptian Writers Union.
Maikel also created a YouTube video
on February 4, 2011, where he made an English-language appeal to the Israeli
people to support the Egyptian revolution against Mubarak. In this video he explained how the Mubarak
regime has conducted a relentless propaganda campaign against Israel and the
Jews. He also said that the claim that
the whole revolution is controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood is simply a ploy by
the Mubarak regime to retain Israeli and Western support. He said that Egyptians were simply seeking
the same democratic freedoms that Israel has had throughout its existence, such
as religious freedom and women’s rights.
He asked Israelis to make a major
leap of faith and support the Egyptian freedom uprising on several
grounds. First, he said that democracies
do not fight other democracies and thus an Egyptian democracy would be a
genuine partner for peace with Israel and the Jews rather than pursuing a cold
peace based on anti-Jewish hatred. He
said that if Israel supported the Egyptian freedom uprising now, then a future
Egyptian democracy would be more likely to accept Israel and the Jews. He said that by supporting the Egyptian
freedom uprising today, Israel could start the process of reconstituting a new
relationship between Egyptians and Israelis based on mutual respect and
democratic freedoms. His appeal to
Israelis to support the Egyptian freedom revolution reflects both his deep
admiration for Israel’s democracy and his visionary belief that a democratic
Egypt can be a friend to Israel and the Jew.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that
his compassion for the Jews changes the overall geo-political and strategic
realities of Israel’s position as a vulnerable Jewish democracy in a hostile
neighborhood. However, his obvious
expressions of affection and empathy for Israel and the Jews do give me
profound moral and emotional comfort. He
comments on Israel’s internal affairs with love, calling on Israel to open the
Kotel, the Western Wall, to mixed-gender worship in accordance with his own
feminist belief in gender equality. Even
when I disagree with him, as when he says that the reason for terrorism is
Israel’s failure to restart the peace process with the PLO and Hamas, I know
that he is speaking from the heart with a deep love for Israel and the Jews.
I am
greatly moved by this young man’s courage in standing up to tyranny and by his
attempt to connect with Israel and the Jews on an intellectual and personal
level. He is learning Hebrew and seeking
help from Hebrew-speakers to develop the Hebrew portion of his web site. He writes constantly about how Egypt’s
democratic revolution will affect its relationship with Israel and the Jews and
seeks to address Jewish concerns all the time.
He describes his unsuccessful attempt to visit the Eliyahu Hanavi
Synagogue in Alexandria, Egypt. On April
10, 2010, he saluted Israel’s independence day, writing “Happy
Yom Ha'atzmaut ( Independance Day ) for all my Israeli Friends”. I saw that one of the last YouTube sites that
he added right before his arrest was the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial
site. Quite frankly, I never expected to
see this level and depth of compassion for Israel and the Jews from any Arab.
One of his
stated reasons for his refusal to serve in the Egyptian army is its preaching
of Jew-hatred. He wrote on his blog. “Someone
told me that in the Egyptian army, they force recruits to say “There is no god
except Allah, Muhammed is the prophet of Allah, and The Jews are the enemies of
Allah “.... What the fuck??? .... Is the army converting Egyptians to Islam?
And How I'll be forced to participate in such anti-Semitic activities?” He simply cannot even imagine participating
in anti-Semitism.
He wrote an article on the Israeli Foreign
Ministry’s Arabic language web site in December, 2010, entitled “Why I am a
Pro-Israel.” I wish I could find an
Arabic-speaker to translate this extraordinarily moving article properly from
Arabic to English. After sending it into
Google Translate, I was amazed that this material was written in Arabic. He explained that he admires and supports
Israel because of its democratic political system, its respect for human
rights, its compassion for African refugees, its superior educational system,
and its technological marvels. He traced
the history of modern Israel in detail and included even information that I, as
a knowledgeable Zionist Jew, did not know.
I learned from his article that Israel has had 18 governments and 9
presidents during its 62 year history.
I was telling my closest friend, a passionate animal
lover, that Maikel is a veterinarian by profession. My best friend told me she wasn’t surprised
that a veterinarian would be so compassionate – because she has found that
every vet she ever took her cat to was an extraordinarily kind person. I find myself thinking of Maikel whenever I
do research on war – as when I study the Russian war in Chechnya. And I found another great argument against
militarism from my Russian history professor.
He sent me a YouTube clip of a video that was made by the Georgian
Defense Ministry for new military recruits in 2008. The clip ended with a chilling quote from
Adolf Hitler, “Once and for all we must understand that we will
never be able to regain the lost territory with prayers, which have become a
formality, nor with hopes in the League of Nations, but with the strength of
our weapons.” Reading this material, I
realized this is exactly the kind of poisonous militarist ideology that Dr.
Maikel Nabil Sanad is so bravely resisting at such a high personal cost.
Sources:
http://www.hridc.tv/index.php?a=view&id=333&lang=eng
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2011/04/egypt-blogger-gets-three-years-in-jail-for-insulting-the-military.html
http://advancinghumanrights.org/news/egyptian_blogger_nabil_sentenced_to_three_year
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