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Today’s Top Stories:
1. Mohammed Morsi got a rude welcome to life in the media spotlight. Al-Arabiya reports that Morsi’s office denied an interview with Iran’s Fars News that had news services buzzing. Fars published excerpts of an interview quoting Morsi saying his agenda was to reconsider the Camp David accords and expand Egyptian-Iranian ties. I’m adding Meir Javedanfar‘s commentary to the mix.
2. Thanks to Haaretz, an Israeli cabinet minister is being erroneously quoted by Big Media (most notably, The Independent) saying that “Israel belongs to the white man.” HonestReporting rounded up the links tracing what Eli Yishai really said.
3. YNet columnist Raanan Shaked raises an interesting point about Big Media’s love affair with Tel Aviv:
. . . Tel Aviv is much more than the fig leaf of a whole country; it is being perceived – and for the first time, not only by itself – as a type of separate state that enjoys a social, media and government climate of its own. It’s everything Israel refuses to be.
The global media is in love with Tel Aviv while completely turning its back on the host country.
Have Morsi on Egypt
• After years of slamming the Mubarak regime for being Uncle Sam’s poodle and demonizing the Camp David accords, the Muslim Brotherhood’s appealing for the Great Satan’s Uncle Sam’s support in its power struggle with the Egyptian military. Among the delicious ironies which Asharq al-Awsat editor Tariq Almohayed notes:
However – and this is one of the ironies of fate – we now see former US president Jimmy Carter, the supporter of the Egyptian – Israeli peace agreement, monitoring the Egyptian presidential election and being responsible for deciding whether this was an impartial election or not . . . .
Some might say, this is the definition of political pragmatism, or that nobody can rule Egypt without excellent relations with Washington, and this is true. However what about the Brotherhood’s literature, over the past 80 years, claiming that the West is weaving a “Zionist-American” conspiracy in order to break up the Arab and Islamic world?
Almohayed’s column was piqued by Brotherhood boss Khairat al-Shater’s recent interviews in the Wall Street Journal (click via Google News) and Washington Post.
• The Jerusalem Post assesses what Morsy’s victory means for Israeli security and Hamas/Fatah relations.
• For further commentary, see Amir Taheri (Times of London, paywall), a Daily Telegraph staff-ed, and Amir Mizroch. See also Morsi’s personal file.
