In Egypt, 24 people have been killed and more than 200 injured in the
worst sectarian violence since the uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak
last February.


The clashes erupted after Coptic Christians held a demonstration to
protest against a recent attack on church in the southern city of Aswan.

Press TV has interviewed with Khaled Elshami, Editor for al-Quds Daily,
to share his opinion on this issue.

Press TV: The Coptic felt they are under pressure during Mubarak's
regime. Now they felt like they had this feeling that they could be free
in order to perhaps be a part of the political system in the country more
than before. But now they have this other fear which is the fear of the
extremist groups who might want to create the suppression against them
also. What do you think about this?

Elshami: Well obviously the Copts are Egyptian citizens and they have the
full right to participate in political life especially in this critical
period where democratization is hopefully happening now and Egypt moving
to democratic state after long time and the Mubarak dictatorship. And
I think the problem is much more complicated than this.

What we have here in Egypt is the government or the state, the
Egyptian state looks too weak to many people especially after the
revolution. People in Aswan thought they could do just like other people
are doing now. They can advantage of this weakness and without planning
permission they build an extension to ready existing church in Marina
village. This extension, not the church, this extension was attacked by
some extremists. The governor of Aswan said this part of the church is
not really licensed and it was illegal to build but they were dealing
with it. This was considered by some people in the Coptic side to be
like siding the extremists who actually attacked the part of the church.

Well up to this point it could have been just a local problem but could
have been dealt with the local authorities in Aswan. But there are some
extremists in the Coptic side like in all sides, Muslims and governments
and all sides have their own extremists. So this was blown up to be a
national problem in Egypt.

We have seen demonstrations in many cities. That particular demonstration
went to Maspiro, the location of the official Egyptian Television was
feared to be aiming to occupy the television center. I was watching the
press conference of the military ruling council and they showed people,
Christian bishop said that they are going to kill the governor of Aswan
and they are going to do whatever it takes to rebuild the church and
making threats so the government has dealt with it by force which I
think was unacceptable. But I think we need to deal with the roots of
the problem.

Press TV: Basically the same question for you, the fact that there
could be foreign hands. Do the foreign hands you think come from perhaps
the Jewish lobby in the United States? Is it close to the Coptic lobby
there which is perhaps encouraging the fact that Copts get their own
independence? How do you think we can define this contrast?

Elshami: Well I think talking about independence state for Copts is just
rubbish. This is for people who really do not know Egypt or the Egyptian
society would say. ***Nevertheless there are extremists in the Copts abroad
especially in the United States who are well known to be connected to
the Zionists lobby in Washington and these people of course would have
lots of interest in growing up any problem, in encouraging extremists
who are inside Egypt to create trouble and encourage confrontation.***

Yet I agree with Dr. Khashan [the other guest of the program] that
Egypt is not really going through civil war. Egypt is different. Muslims
and Copts are living in harmony in Egypt for fourteen century now and
this is not about to change. But as an Egyptians I would say that I am
extremely concerned that Egypt could be going to a chaos. A chaos could
be as deadly as civil war. And what we have seen in Cairo on the night
of the nine of October is a complete chaos. And this is another evidence
that you are asking about how fragile is the transitional period. Yes,
it is very fragile. And I am sad to say that the ruling military council
has failed to mange this period in a satisfactory manner. This government
that boast to be a revolutionary government has turned out to be just
like any government under Mubarak. They have failed.

Press TV: To go back to the main point, do you think that Israel is
taking advantage of this weakness and you are saying there are some
ties with the Coptic lobby inside the United States. So do you think
that Israel is trying to create this or encourage this chaos inside Egypt?

Elshami: ***Well it is for obvious reasons Israel would benefit from a weak
Egypt. Egypt that is not democratic. Because any democratic government
in Egypt no matter how what political affiliation it is, whether it is
Islamic, leftist or liberal, any real democratic patriotic government in
Egypt would have to be against Israel and would have to review like the
Camp David Accord will really work for the people and with the people.***

So Israel does not want that, so weak Egypt definitely serves the regional
interest of Israel.

But again I want to say this period is really difficult in Egypt. Now
there are increasing pressures on the ruling military council to go
because they have failed in maintaining Egypt national security and
unity. This is not the first time we are seeing clashes Copts and Muslims
and burning the church, we are not used to these kinds of things in
Egypt even under Mubarak there have been attacks but we have never seen
churches being burned and rocked by thugs like what we have seen in the
last few months. So I think we need a transition to civilian democratic
authority in Egypt as soon as possible.

Press TV: How do you think the latest clashes, we might see more clashes,
how would this affect the future elections in Egypt which you said is
a main major point in order to create reform in the country?

Elshami: Well there are fears now of course that we could even see
more violence during the election. There are many voices now calling
for postponing these elections until security situation is improved. I
think we need a new time table for the election is unacceptable that
the parliamentary elections would take three months. Egypt cannot
really withstand this and there is no date set until this minute for
the presidential elections.

So there are growing concerns that the military council is not really in
a hurry to leave and to transfer power and what happened in last Sunday
actually intensified the pressure on them to set a timetable to transfer
power but unfortunately we have not seen any sign of that neither we have
seen any sign for the government to resign or actually to change the way
it has been ruling the country in the last six months so we are really
concerned that we are heading to major crackdown or direct conflict
between the ruling elites and the people, the street who will see that
those empowered have failed to deliver what the revolution wanted. There
is no real difference that most of the Egyptians can feel now after the
revolution. So I think at that point we could see another revolution
maybe early next year when people see that there is no much difference.

AHK/JR