"Egyptians don't hide their anti-semitism"

David Frum gets right to the point of the vignette captured in the video clip below.

Egyptian democracy in action folks. Egyptian president Morsi prays fervently in [the] front row as an imam calls for the dispersion of the Jews.

According to MEMRI, the source of the video, these are "excerpts from a sermon delivered by Egyptian cleric Futouh Abd Al-Nabi Mansour, Head of Religious Endowment, Matrouh governorate, in the presence of Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi. The sermon aired on Egyptian Channel 1 on October 19, 2012."

Futouh Abd Al-Nabi Mansour: [...] Oh Allah, absolve us of our sins, strengthen us, and grant us victory over the infidels. Oh Allah, deal with the Jews and their supporters. Oh Allah, disperse them, rend them asunder. Oh Allah, demonstrate Your might and greatness upon them. Show us Your omnipotence, oh Lord.

The real significance of this story lies in the fact that it's neither exceptional nor surprising. In a way, it's not even news. Instead, this sort of thing is quite ordinary and mundane in Egypt and most other Arab countries. (And incidentally, if you listen to the clip, you don't have to know Arabic, as I don't, to recognize that the word used by the preacher is "Yahud", which means "Jews"—not "Israelis" or "Zionists".)

—Jeff Weintraub



P.S. For more on the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), an extremely valuable enterprise that is often unfairly maligned, see here.