Egypt's government controlled Al-Ahram to boycott Israel

Egypt's government controlled al-Ahram publishing group has decided reportedly to boycott Israel. The boycott was apparently decided upon in reaction to the failure of the candidacy of Egyptian culture minister Farouk Hosni to be appointed director of UNESCO. This was indeed a very rare instance in which the UN rejected an atrociously anti-Israel course of action. Hosny, who was to be the world's culture Czar, is an advocate of book burning. Apparently even the UN considered that to be an inappropriate stand for a culture czar. Hosni blamed his failure on international Jews, because it was Hebrew books that he advocated burning.  

 

Egypt and Israel concluded a peace treaty in 1981, that includes a clause against incitement. Israel gave up all of the Sinai peninsula in return for the promise of "normalization," yet Egyptian media regularly publish articles and films lamenting the fact that Hitler did not complete the massacre of European Jews and propagating the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion. 

 

The boycott move is Egypt's response to President Obama's call for normalization of relations between Arab countries and Israel. Egypt receives about $2 billion a year in American military aid. It has a controlled press, very unfree elections, and a policy of persecuting Christians. Al Ahram regularly publishes vitriolic diatribes against Israel.

 

The ostensible reason for the boycott was that Israel has ""gone against peace and elected an extremist government which opposes peace and supports killing and destruction."

 

At the meeting, the board also decided on unnamed disciplinary measures against Hala Moustafa, a reporter who had met with Israeli ambassador Shalom Cohen.

 

The board of al-Ahram is appointed by the Egyptian government and serves at its pleasure.

 

Ami Isseroff