Restoring the prestige of the state: Our only option

I understand the attack of Fahmy Howeidy and the cronies of Turkey and Qatar, who could not reach the hearts of Egyptians or their minds when they released frivolous programs on trivial channels, so they turned into attackers and instigators for rent to anyone who pays more.

I understand all of that, given what is happening on the ground in terms of painful blows to the terrorist group and its supporters inside and outside, which of course hurts all its followers of every type and color, foremost among them, of course, rent clerks. They are used to using their pens for those who pay the most, whether in Doha or Tehran or Istanbul. Those popular strikes, before the security or government, that blind terrorism lost its compass and balance, so it started killing women and children and planting bombs next to schools, hospitals and places of worship.

Howeidy and his associates hoped, of course, that the rule of the Brotherhood would continue forever, so that everyone who financed and planned could reap the results of the financing and planning, until the country and the nation were fragmented so that Howeidy and his followers would stand, as he stands now, on the hills of ruin in Libya, Yemen and Syria, shrieking like owls.

I understand their heartburn at the Egyptians' failure to enable them and their supporters from the terrorist group and its allies to pay the rest of the price, as the advance alone is not enough, nor is it fattening and does not suffice from hunger. I understand that Howeidy and his associates attack and incite our newspaper, claiming that it calls for the killing of demonstrators.

What was published by Al-Bawaba in its Sunday, January 25, 2015 issue came with our vision that we believe in and rely on, and we have no other clear goals in it, and its title was: “The Saboteurs: If you see them in the streets, kill them”.

The calls of the saboteurs came out one day before the January 25 demonstrations to call for the storming of prisons and police stations, the killing of army and police men, and the storming of the Media Production City and the killing of media professionals. So what does Fahmy Howeidy want us to do? Who are financing and planning to sow chaos in this country, in a scandalous attempt to bring it to its knees and rob it of its will?

{Those who wage war against God and His Messenger and strive to spread corruption in the land should be punished by death, crucifixion, the amputation of an alternate hand and foot, or banishment from the land: a disgrace for them in this world, and then a terrible punishment in the Hereafter} [Surah al-Ma'idah: 33].

Isn’t this the legal ruling, O Islamic thinker, regarding the one who goes out against society, wielding his sword, planting his bombs in the midst of civilian gatherings, and killing officers performing their work in maintaining security and order?

Why didn’t we hear your voice when the Brotherhood and their associates killed policemen, civilians, and armed forces in Sinai, Kerdasa, Minya, Fayoum, Beni Suef, and throughout Egypt? Any Egyptian will pursue him until the Day of Judgment. As for those who incited the killing of Egyptians and practiced systematic killing and intimidation, our position on them is also clear, and we still insist on it: “If you find saboteurs in the streets, kill them.” Of course, this discourse is reserved for the state and the law enforcement officers, including the army and police, because they are the only ones authorized to confront terrorism and its plans.

Our call was never a call to kill innocents, as Fahmy Howeidy and his associates tried to suggest. Rather, it was a call to preserve the prestige of the state and the unity of a nation that had many enemies standing by, waiting for the wounds to thicken and they would attack. Fahmy Howeidy and his associates said so when what happened in Libya, Yemen and Syria occurred, and now they stand dumbfounded without saying a word, for fear of recovering the files of their old articles, which are the least described, that they represented a full-fledged crime against the peoples of those countries, the price of which is now being paid by the innocent Syrians, Libyans, Yemenis and Iraqis, while the money for these articles that caused their tragedy is still not spent.

Fahmy Howeidy says in his article entitled “Rationalizing Killing” published in Al-Shorouk newspaper: “We do not know how the series of intimidation will end, but I know two things. The first is that this method will not eliminate terrorism, and the second is that it inflames feelings and provides terrorism with the fuel that will ensure its continuation and escalation.”

“If you ask me what to do, my reply is that the matter could no longer bear much talk, because we now need a political decision that resolves the trend and determines frankly and courageously whether we will continue to resort to cartridges or will resort to reason and dialogue,” he added.

This is the core of what Fahmy Howeidy’s camp and those who stand behind them seek, a step backwards for the sake of ten forward, reconciliation followed by participation, followed by conquest, followed by empowerment, followed by revenge and then falling into the arms of the enemies of the homeland. Isn't that the plan that you presented before to Ali Abdel Halim Moussa, the former Minister of Interior, you and Salim Al-Awa and others, to save the project of the Islamic group at the time, and that the state's failure to respond to your plan is what forced the Islamic group to declare a unilateral cessation of violence, and then start writing what they wrote about correcting concepts, which were later known as revision books. What if the state responded in those days to your vision, which you are now proposing, whether the Islamic group, during which it presented ten conditions for reconciliation, had signed the initiative to stop violence unilaterally and laid down its arms?

These groups, Mr. Fahmy, know only force as a language. Dialogue, according to them and in their literature, only weak countries and trembling governments resort to it. This is their literature that you know well, and if the article was wide enough, I would have given you thousands of texts in which they emphasize the idea.

I say it to you loud and clear, Mr. Fahmy. There is no reconciliation with murderers, criminals, and sellers of homelands. Neither the president nor anyone else has the right to make this choice. The people have delegated the president to confront terrorism, and this mandate has been in effect until today. With this mandate, the state faces stooges, traitors, conspirators and murderers, and will not retreat until the state’s prestige and respect for its institutions are established in hearts, before minds.