points of view >> Send letters to: letters@thejewishnews.corn Contributing Editor Editorial Morsi's Maneuvers Look skeptically at Egypt's wily president. H e brokered the Nov. 21 cease-fire between Hamas and Israel, but Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi is no statesman. He became involved out of neces- sity: to keep President Obama and Congress happy and U.S. aid flowing. Morsi's true inten- tions toward Israel are rooted in his longstanding opposition to Zionism. When addressing the West, Egypt, led by the Muslim Brotherhood and its Justice and Freedom Party, acknowledges t. c. the 1979 peace treaty Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed President following the 1978 Camp Morsi David Accords hosted by U.S. President Jimmy Carter. But to ordinary Egyptians, the Brotherhood, led by Morsi, vows to cancel the treaty. That's a central theme of a thoughtful Dec. 10 essay distributed by Bar-Ilan University's Begin- Sadat Center for Strategic Studies in Ramat Gan, Israel. "The Brotherhood sees Israel as a strategic threat and has aggres- sively lobbied Morsi to strengthen the Egyptian military presence in the Sinai!' writes Dr. Liad Porat, a lecturer of Middle East history at Haifa University. "While a military conflict with Egypt is not likely in the near future, the anti-Israel rhetoric emanating from senior Brotherhood leaders must be taken seriously." That message rings crystal clear. v g\ Danger Signs Lurk Successive U.S. presidents have viewed Egypt as a moderate secular player in a hardline Islamist region. Israel certainly has enough to fear — Brotherhood-affiliated Hamas, Iran-backed Hezbollah and Syria, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah All Khamenei and his nuclear arms- minded cronies. Hamas has smuggled arms into Gaza City through tunnels that lead from Egypt, but at least Cairo during the Mubarak years didn't goad Israel into war, given the Jewish state's supe- rior military and technological advantage. Amid a troubled economy, a controversial new constitution institutionalizing Islamic law, a stifling of dissent and a limiting of rights for women and religious minorities, Egypt is now a polarized "democracy:' Since its 2011 rise to power when Hosni Mubarak was ousted after 30 years as president, the Brotherhood has pushed an anti-Zionist drumbeat and asserted that Egypt would respect only its treaties serving the "national interest:' Fresh off winning Egypt's November 2011 parliamentary elections, the Brotherhood staged an anti-Israel rally, 5,000 strong, that vowed to "one day kill all Jews" — a Koran quotation. 40 January 10 • 2013 JPi The Brotherhood has embraced an anti-Zionist drumbeat while maintaining that Egypt would respect only its treaties that serve the "national interest." It's alarming the Brotherhood sees Egypt's treaty with Israel as harmful to national security and a threat to internal stability — and wants to bring it to a national referendum. Dissolution would jeopardize Egypt's $1.5-billion-a-year U.S. subsidy. No Political Checks As the IN long has held, the Brotherhood and its theocratic ambitions reflect the darker side of Islamism, the radical form of Islam that belittles infidels, all non- believers. The Brotherhood — an Islamist Sunni transnational move- ment founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, an imam and Sufi schoolteacher — is the largest politi- cal opposition organization in many Arab states and a spur for Islamic jihad (holy war). Steve Emerson's Washington-based Investigative Project on Terrorism underscores that the Brotherhood commands the same global supremacist objec- tives as Al Qaida and the Taliban. Such groups follow shariah, the moral code and religious law of Islam. Muslims are obliged to wage jihad in pursuit of a shariah-governed global Islamic state known as "the Caliphate!' Most Muslims reject the violent perversion of their faith, but enough embrace it to causes shivers of concern. As for the Sinai, the Brotherhood considers it Egyptian and Islamic territory to be freed from the treaty proclaiming it a demilitarized zone. The Egyptian hope is to fully develop and defend the Sinai, in turn helping secure Egypt's border with Israel. In recent months, Brotherhood Supreme Leader Mohammed Badie called the envisioned Palestinian state of "Palestine" and the Israeli capital city of Jerusalem "holy Muslim land:' He blessed any means used to liberate those lands. Sorely lacking is a government check over Morsi and the Brotherhood — a void that endangers the Middle East. It could cause rip- ples that take down the governments of Jordan and other Muslim allies of the West. Don't discount Egypt's main opposition coalition, the National Salvation Front. It's an emerging force to be reckoned with. ❑ High Time To Better Control Use Of Guns p ublic outcry has soared amid the rising number of deadly incidents triggered by mental illness colliding with gun violence in America. The Dec.14 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, among the worst mass shootings ever, involved a deranged gunman blasting his way inside, then murdering 20 first- graders in two classrooms and six women before killing himself. Earlier in the day, the shooter, Adam Lanza, 20, had shot to death his mother, Nancy, 52, at her Newtown, Conn., home. She was the Example of a semi-automatic legal owner of the semi- Bushmaster .233 rifle automatic Bushmaster .233 rifle used in the killing spree, which tore into the already frayed fabric of our national con- science. A firearms buff, she also owned the two 9mm pistols her son carried in a military vest and the shotgun he left in his car. America has lost too many loved ones to mindless pulls of the trigger. Danger will always lurk where mental illness and guns col- lide. Connecticut's gun control laws are among the nation's most stringent, according to the nonprofit Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence; still, the assault-style used at Sandy Hook was legal. But we shouldn't shrug our collective shoulders and say, "That's the price of freedom." The U.S. Constitution provides the right to keep and bear arms and to form state militias to maintain security, but not to murder people. So while we grieve as a nation at the lives so senselessly gunned down like clay disks in skeet shooting, let us strike up a national discourse about not only better controlling how we sell and regulate guns, but also how we identify mental health needs and extend mental health services. The tragedy just after the morning Pledge of Allegiance at Sandy Hook served to point up there's no boundary to misusing guns, especially when their users are mentally ill. Consider domes- tic violence. According to Jewish Women's International (JWI), three women every day are shot and killed by an abusive husband or intimate acquaintance in the course of an argument. Firearms access by an abuser increases the odds of a deadly confrontation. Indeed, Americans must come together as citizens and as a nation in pursuit of legislation that outlaws assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and strengthens and expands back- ground checks for purchasers. Further, rightful gun owners must commit to curtailing illegal access so a murderer in waiting, such as Adam Lanza, can't just take another's guns. On the larger question of striving to prevent the collision of mental illness and gun violence, we as a nation must give families the means to treat loved ones who harbor uncontrolled rage. JWI has issued a clarion call for expanded resources for mental health professionals and, most importantly, for appropriate mental health policies to be available and adequately funded. Following the Sandy Hook shootings, President Obama appointed a commission led by Vice President Joe Biden to consider controls on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines as well as the broader questions of cultural attitudes and mental health treatment. Top figures from the three major religious streams of Judaism – Orthodox, Conservative and Reform – joined in a Dec. 21 interfaith rally in Washington, D.C., for instituting greater controls to address the crisis over guns. Yes, guns are part of the American way. But let's regain control over them. They aren't idols to be worshipped, but rather tools to be regulated. Let's make gun control that respects our Constitution a high pri- ority of the 113th Congress, which convenes this week. ❑