Iran can build an N-bomb by Oct. 1. Cairo coup hampers Israeli action

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

At its present rate of enrichment, Iran will have 250 kilograms of 20-percent grade uranium, exactly enough to build its first nuclear bomb, in roughly six weeks, and two-to- four bombs by early 2013, debkafile’s military and intelligence sources report. Hence the leak by an unnamed Israeli security source Sunday, Aug. 12, disclosing Iran’s progress in developing the detonator and fuses for a nuclear warhead which can be fitted onto Shehab-3 ballistic missiles capable of reaching Israel.

Since 20 percent refined uranium is a short jump to weapons grade fuel, Iran will have the capability and materials for building an operational nuclear bomb by approximately October 1.

This knowledge is not news to US President Barack Obama, Saudi King Abdullah, Syrian ruler Bashar Assad, or Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu - and certainly not to Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.  Netanyahu’s comment at the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting Sunday: “All threats against the home front are dwarfed by one – Iran must not be allowed to have nuclear arms!” – was prompted by that deadline.

Ex-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert did not have that information when he “assured” Tel Aviv students Sunday, “Iran’s nuclear program has not reached the threshold necessitating Israeli action now or in the near future.” He further claimed that Israel’s “defense leaders” don’t subscribe to the view that “action now is unavoidable.” Olmert, who stepped down under a cloud of suspected corruption in 2009, has not since then had access to regular intelligence briefings on Iran. So either he spoke out of ignorance or willfully joined an opposition chorus of voices speaking out against Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

The fact is that when Olmert approved the Israeli strike for destroying a nuclear reactor under construction by Iran and North Korea in northern Syria in September 2007,  Iran was years away from accumulating enough enriched uranium and the capability to build nuclear warheads.
Both are now within Tehran’s grasp in weeks.

Leading an opposition campaign to bring down the incumbent government is legitimate. Discrediting belated Israeli action to pre-empt a nuclear Iran as fodder for that campaign is not.  If what Olmert and Barack (the same defense minister as today) did in 2007 was necessary then, action now for delaying Iran’s imminent “breakout” to a bomb is many times more necessary and far more urgent.
However Netanyahu and Barak have put themselves in a straitjacket by two lapses:

1.  By foot-dragging on their decision for two years, they have led their opponents at home and in Washington – and Khamenei’s office too – to believe that, by turning on the heat, they can hold Israel back from military action against Iran’s nuclear program until it is too late. The time has been used not just for Iranian nuclear progress, but to enlist ex-politicians and retired generals at home and add them to the voices, especially in the White House, which believe Israel can learn to live with a nuclear-armed Iran.

2.  Netanyahu and Barak have behaved as though a decision on Iran is in their exclusive province, insulated from the turmoil and change swirling through Israel’s Arab neighbors in the past two years.
But the Middle East has a way of catching up with and rushing past slow-moving politicians:
Sunday, at 10:00 a.m. Netanyahu warned his ministers that no threat was worse than a nuclear Iran. At 17:55 p.m., Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi dropped a bombshell in Cairo. In one fell swoop, he smashed the Egyptian military clique ruling the country for decades, sacked the Supreme Military Council running Egypt since March 2011 and cut the generals off from their business empire by appropriating the defense ministry and military industry.

That fateful eight hours-less-five-minutes have forced Israel’s leaders to take a second look at their plans for Iran.

Morsi’s lightning decisions were the finishing touches that proved the Islamist Bedouin terror attacks in Sinai of Aug. 5 fitted neatly into a secret master plan hatched by Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood to seize full control of rule in Cairo – a plan debkafile first revealed exclusively last Friday, Aug. 10.

Netanyahu now faces one of the hardest dilemmas of his political career - whether to go forward with the Iran operation, which calls for mustering all Israel’s military and defense capabilities – especially for the repercussions, after being suddenly confronted with unforeseen security challenges on its southwestern border, for thirty years a frontier of peace.

The exceptional talents of Netanyahu and Barak to put off strategic decisions until they are overtaken by events has landed Israel in an especially perilous plight, surrounded now by a soon-to-be nuclear-armed Iran from the east;  threatened Syrian chemical warfare from the north and the Muslim Brotherhood takeover of Egypt to its south.

Morsi's anti-terror ploy to root out pro-US influence in Cairo, cut Israel from Sinai

DEBKAfile Exclusive  

Israel willingly acceded to Cairo’s request for permission to deploy fighter planes and armored troop carriers in Sinai, which was ruled a demilitarized buffer zone under their 1979 peace treaty. It shared an interest in President Mohamed Morsi’s counter-terror offensive against lawless Islamist bands.

But when sensational reports started coming in from Cairo about non-existent Egyptian victories in which an improbable “60 gunmen killed,” they realized the “offensive” was largely bogus.

According to debkafile’s intelligence sources, Washington and Jerusalem strongly suspect that they should be worried about what the Muslim Brotherhood president is really up, especially after the sweep he conducted Wednesday, Aug. 8 of pro-Western military officers and other moves.

1.  Until then, President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood’s leadership were deemed two separate and competing power bases in Cairo, with the president ready to defy the Brotherhood by leaning on the supreme military council for support.

This perception broke down in the aftermath of the terrorist raid of Aug. 5 in which 17 Egyptian troops were murdered at their Mansoura base in northern Sinai. By his subsequent actions, Morsi put paid to the impression, which was supported by many high-ranking members of Israel’s security community, that the Egyptian president of two months had chosen an independent path and was ready to break ranks with the Brotherhood.

2.  Wednesday, Aug. 8, with considerable fanfare, Morsi sacked key military officials in an apparent purge of those responsible for the Sinai debacle.

Chief of intelligence Gen. Mourad Mowafi was sent into retirement and Maj. Gen. Mohamed Shahata given an interim appointment in his stead. The same bulletin announced that the head of the Supreme Military Council and defense minister, Field Marshal Tantawi, had fired the head of the military police, Maj. Gen. Hamdy Badeen.

Our sources disclose that Tantawi had no part in this or any other military dismissals, although they were his prerogative. Morsi quite simply seized the moment to appropriate the top military command’s authority for the first time by taking upon himself the firing and hiring of military officers.

The president furthermore sacked the head of the Republican Guard, the division responsible for safeguarding the president and members of his regime and replaced him with an officer loyal to the Muslim Brotherhood, Maj. Gen. Hamed Zaky.

Morsi’s highhanded actions, especially in the case of Gen. Mowafi, are seen in Washington and Jerusalem as the first steps in the Brotherhood’s takeover of the Egyptian army.

3.  Mowafi had to go because he stood in the way of Muslim Brotherhood objectives. It was he who raised the alarm for months about an impending terrorist attack on the Egyptian-Gaza-Israel border junction and urged the deployment of attack helicopters for preemptive missile attacks on their networks.

Instead of being commended, our sources report he was fired for two reasons: For what the MB thought of as his pro-western and pro-Israeli orientation; and for his efforts to broker a compromise deal for unifying the two Palestinian wings, the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.

However, this not what the Brotherhood wants. Rather than Palestinian unity and compromise, the MB seeks a Hamas takeover of the Ramallah-based Fatah wing headed by Mahmoud Abbas.
Gen. Mowafi stood in the way of this goal.

At the same time, the new man, Gen. Shahata, had to be satisfied with an interim appointment as head of intelligence. The MB does not trust him to be loyal and regards him as pro-Western – albeit less well-connected than Mowafi. They will use him as a stopgap until they find an intelligence chief who understands where his allegiance belongs - and then drop him too.

In the “counter-terror offensive” charade, the MB assigned Hamas in Gaza a key role. According to the script, Cairo would give Hamas an ‘ultimatum” to surrender the Al Qaeda-linked Army of Islam operatives alleged to have carried out the raid on the Egyptian base. The Muslim Brotherhood regime in Cairo would then be able to close the books on the episode and avoid even the semblance of an offensive against Salafi terrorist networks in Sinai.

Israel’s diplomatic-security cabinet meeting in Jerusalem Friday, Aug. 10, freely approved the transfer of assault helicopters to Sinai “for a few days”- although it didn’t take a counter-terror expert to realize that there is no way a couple of helicopters could wipe out hidden terrorist networks in just days. But the ministers decided on advice from Washington to go along for now with the show Morsi and the Muslim Brothers were putting on, so as not to look obstructive. 

Barak: A nuclear Iran is taking shape before us. Time for decisions is short

DEBKAfile Special Report

Stout refutation of reported disagreements over the military option against Iran’s nuclear program between the US and Israel, and himself and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, took up most of a long radio interview given by Defense Minister Ehud Barak Thursday, Aug. 9. He explained that US and Israeli intelligence essentially see eye to eye on this matter and so do he and the prime minister.

Barak referred to the new US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran as confirming that both capitals understand that not much time is left for making decision on whether or not to go on the offensive against Iran’s nuclear facilities and when, because, he said, “a nuclear Iran is taking shape right before our eyes.”

Defense Minister Barak's key remark was this: "I am aware of an American intelligence finding (not the new National Intelligence Estimate) that brings American intelligence assessments [of the current state of the Iranian nuclear program] very close to ours. This makes the Iranian question [i.e., the issue of the Iranian nuclear program and a possible military operation against it] extremely urgent," he said without further explanation.

Barak disclosed that the US and Israel have been essentially of one mind for many months in their estimates of Iranian nuclear progress and the factors holding Tehran back from starting to build a nuclear bomb. All options therefore remain on the table, he stressed.

debkafile's military and intelligence sources add:  American-Israeli talks about a military operation against Iran wound up months ago in early 2012. The administration was made aware that notwithstanding President Barack Obama’s objections, Israel would soon go into action against Iran's nuclear facilities.

This presumption has been adopted as their working hypothesis by the top US command echelons, from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey and down to the head of the US Central Command, Gen. James Mattis, who has both Israel and Iran in his jurisdiction.

Barak stressed that he and the prime minister are in total harmony on this issue.  "What we (the prime minister and I, and the Americans) understand is that there is not much time left for deciding [about an attack on Iran]"

He referred in answer to a question to the comment by former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy made last week: “if I were an Iranian, I would be very worried in the next twelve weeks.”
To this, Barak said "There is some basis to what Halevy said." He added: “We will soon have to make some difficult decisions.”

As to the public disputes over the media on the wisdom of attacking Iran, the defense minister said some of the debates and public disclosures not only harm Israel’s security but actually aid Tehran.
The price of allowing Iran to attain a nuclear weapon will be much greater than the cost of an attack.  It is already happening, said the Israeli minister. "And we must take into account the dangers and the very steep price in human life and in resources, if Iran goes nuclear. First, we must consider the outcome of first Saudi Arabia, then Turkey, and then the New Egypt becoming nuclear powers in their turn.”

Asked about an unattributed report Thursday that Saudi Arabia had sent a message to the Obama administration threatening to intercept any Israeli bomber planes using its air space to strike Iran, Barak replied he was not familiar with any such message. But, he said, Saudi Arabia is a sovereign state and makes its own decisions like any other country.

He went on to warn that another consequence of Iran’s nuclearization would be the strengthening of terrorist elements in the region, such as Tehran’s proxy, the Lebanese Hizballah.

At the same time, Barak also said: It's quite possible that we may have to deal with Hizballah anyway.”

This was taken by debkafile’s sources as suggesting that Hizballah is a rising menace - both because of its support for Bashar Assad in the civil war and for performing Iranian-sponsored terrorist attacks on Israelis in different parts of the world.

In discussing the situation in Egypt and Sinai-based jihadist terror, Defense Minister Barak asserted his confidence that Egypt is capable of dealing with it. “But I can’t say whether it has the will to do so,” he added.

For more than a year since Mubarak’s overthrow, “Israel has been readjusting its military and intelligence resources in the areas abutting Egypt and Sinai,” he said. "We have deployed an Iron Dome missile interceptor battery near Eilat in case it becomes necessary in that sector."

Barak did not elaborate upon what he expects to happen in the Eilat sector, which is the southernmost point on the Israeli map, or against whom the missile defense system was deployed.

He did offer a prediction on Syria, estimating that quite soon "we would see Syrian President Bashar Assad hunkering down with his army in a fortified Alawite enclave" encompassing the Syrian coast and the Alawite Mountains.

"The longer the war in Syria drags on," he said, "the greater the prospects of total chaos."

The defense minister underlined the importance of attempts to renew peace negotiations with the Palestinians as quickly as possible. He cited the growing strength of Hamas and its ties with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and in other Arab countries as lending urgency to the revival of the peace process.

"On this issue, time is not on our side," he said. "But if progress proves evasive, both of us [Israel and the Palestinians] may be faced with having to perform certain mutually-agreed unilateral measures.”

Egyptians pelt Clinton motorcade with tomatoes

By Arshad Mohammed and Marwa Awad

CAIRO (Reuters) - Protesters threw tomatoes and shoes at U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's motorcade on Sunday during her first visit to Egypt since the election of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi.

A tomato struck an Egyptian official in the face, and shoes and a water bottle landed near the armoured cars carrying Clinton's delegation in the port city of Alexandria.

A senior state department official said that neither Clinton nor her vehicle, which were around the corner from the incident, were struck by any of the projectiles.

Protesters chanted: "Monica, Monica", a reference to Former President Bill Clinton's extra-marital affair. Some chanted: "leave, Clinton", Egyptian security officials said.

It was not clear who the protesters were or what political affiliations they had. Protesters outside Clinton's hotel on Saturday night chanted anti-Islamist slogans, accusing the United States of backing the Muslim Brotherhood's rise to power.

The assault on her motorcade came on a day Clinton spoke at the newly re-opened U.S. consulate in Alexandria, addressing accusations the United States, which had long supported former President Hosni Mubarak, of backing one faction or another in Egypt following his ouster last year.

"I want to be clear that the United States is not in the business, in Egypt, of choosing winners and losers, even if we could, which of course we cannot," Clinton said.

Clinton also met the country's top general, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, on Sunday to discuss Egypt's turbulent democratic transition as the military wrestles for influence with the new president.

RIGHTS OF ALL

The meeting came a day after she met Mursi, whose powers were clipped by the military days before he took office.

Mursi fired back by reinstating the Islamist-dominated parliament that the army leadership had disbanded after a court declared it void, deepening the stand-off before the new leader even had time to form a government.

The result has been acute political uncertainty as the various power centres try to find a way to get along in a country that still has no permanent constitution, parliament or government more than a year after Mubarak's downfall.

In their hour-long meeting, Clinton and Tantawi discussed Egypt's political transition and the military's "ongoing dialogue with President Mursi," a U.S. official travelling with Clinton said in an email brief.

"Tantawi stressed that this is what Egyptians need most now - help getting the economy back on track," the official said.

Clinton "stressed the importance of protecting the rights of all Egyptians, including women and minorities".

The talks also touched on the increasingly lawless Sinai region and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Speaking after the meeting, Tantawi said the army respected the presidency but would not be deterred from its role of "protecting" Egypt.

"The armed forces and the army council respects legislative and executive authorities," he said in a speech to troops in the city of Ismailia. "The armed forces would not allow anyone to discourage it from its role in protecting Egypt and its people."

TIES STRAINED

Ties with the United States, which provides Egypt with an annual $1.3 billion in military aid, were strained this year when Egyptian judicial police raided the offices of several U.S.-backed non-governmental organisations on suspicion of illegal foreign funding and put several Americans on trial.

The spat ended when Egyptian authorities allowed the U.S. citizens and other foreign workers to leave the country.

During her speech, Clinton said: "When we talk about supporting democracy, we mean real democracy."

"To us real democracy means that every citizen has the right to live, work and worship as they choose, whether they are man or woman, Christian or Muslim."

"Real democracy means that no group or faction or leader can impose their will, their ideology, their religion, their desires on anyone else."

That was a message she is likely to have repeated in meetings on Sunday with women and Christians, both groups that fear their rights may be curtailed under a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government.

"She wanted, in very, very clear terms, particularly with the Christian group this morning, to dispel that notion and to make clear that only Egyptians can choose their leaders, that we have not supported any candidate, any party, and we will not," a senior U.S. official told reporters.

Israel perturbed by Obama’s outreach to Mursi - against his word

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

Israeli government and military leaders were taken aback by the news of US President Barack Obama’s invitation to the new Egyptian president Mohammed Mursi to visit Washington in September - in breach of the president's assurances to US Jewish leaders at the White House last month, debkafile’s exclusive Washington and Jerusalem sources report. His key assurance was that Mursi would not be invited to the White House and Obama would not maintain direct telephone contact with him until he met certain conditions, the foremost of which concerned a public and unambiguous commitment to Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

They American Jewish delegation was assured that President Mursi would be required to devote a section of his earliest speech on foreign affairs to the specific affirmation of his profound commitment to the peace pact with Israel. The unspecific pledge to uphold Cairo’s international accords he made upon his election on June 24 would not satisfy the US president, the American Jewish delegation was promised. Indeed the new Egyptian president would also be required to table the peace pact with Israel in the new Egyptian parliament for ratification.

With these assurances, the Jewish delegation was satisified.

However, it turned out Monday, July 8, that, instead of standing by his promises, President Obama had sent Deputy Secretary of State William Burns to Cairo for two days of interviews with Egyptian officials, in none of which did  future relations with Israel figure. President Mursi’s spokesman then announced that the US official had handed the new president an invitation to visit the White House in September. Neither Burns nor the White House contradicted him.

Furthermore, in a briefing to reporters after he saw Mursi, Burns vehemently denied that the peace pact had been discussed.

Next Saturday, July 14, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is due in Cairo after a visit to Israel.

To signal disapproval and concern over the impact on Israel’s security of Washington’s unconditional outreach to Muslim Brotherhood-ruled Cairo, Prime Minster Binyamin Netanyahu has ordered the speeding up of construction on the fortified fence on the Israel-Egyptian border, known for decades as “the peace border,” and completion of the expanded military deployment in the border region.

In Jerusalem, the Obama administration is seen as suddenly backtracking on the conditions set the incoming Egyptian president in the last week of June, which essentially made US support of his regime conditional on his performance in key fields:

Those conditions were first revealed by DEBKA-Net-Weekly:

1. Observance of a democratic agenda;

1. Respect for human rights, namely women’s’ status and minority rights, especially relating to the Christian Copts;

2.  The formation of a broad national unity government representing the country’s active mainstream parties - not just his own Muslim Brotherhood.

3.  Making the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel a central pillar of his foreign policy;

4.  Public affirmation of his commitment to uphold peace relations with Israel.

5.  A resolute effort to curb the terrorist elements running wild in Sinai and threatening Israeli security by restoring Egyptian control.

6.  An end to the rabid anti-American and anti-Western rhetoric pervading Egyptian media and the persecution of Western NGOs operating in Egypt.

The last three points give those demands the weight of an ultimatum:

7. Not until all the above steps are taken, will President Morsi be welcomed in Washington as an official guest.

8. Furthermore, not until the Egyptian president has satisfied Washington on all these scores will the Obama administration use its influence with the World Bank to ease Egypt’s dire liquidity problems and help find the cash to buy food on world markets. If Morsi can’t find the money to feed the population, hungry Egyptians will be out on the streets of their cities once again - clamoring this time for his and the Muslim Brotherhood’s removal.

Those conditions have mostly gone by the board along with President Obama’s promises, debkafile’s sources report.

Putin-Netanyahu talks to focus on rising Islamist power: Cairo then Damascus

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis

The Muslim Brotherhood’s rise to power in Egypt – and soon, possibly, in Syria - will have pushed to the sidelines such obvious topics as Iran and gas when Monday, June 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin on a short visit to Israel meets Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

On this subject at least, the Russian and Israeli leaders will find common ground: Both are concerned, to put it mildly, by the chain of Muslim Brotherhood governments rolling out along Middle East shores – Libya, last year; Egypt, yesterday; and Syria, tomorrow. In their view, this process is a menace to regional stability which rivals even that of a nuclear-armed Iran.

Putin counts US President Barack Obama’s sponsorship of Muslim Brotherhood power as a strategic threat to Russian national security because of it could be the match which lights the flame of radical Islam in the Caucasus and among the Russian Muslim populations of the Volga River valleys.

As for Netanyahu, his calm-sounding congratulations for the new, democratically-elected Egyptian president, disguise trepidation. After one domino fell in Cairo, he fears another will fall in Damascus leaving Jordan vulnerable to having its king pushed over by the kingdom’s powerful Muslim Brotherhood.

Israel would then be under siege from three Islamist-ruled neighbors - “moderate” in Obama’s eyes, alarmingly “extremist and expansionist” in the view of Putin and Netanyahu.

In contrast to the Israeli prime minister, the Russian president makes no bones about his utter disapproval of the US President’s “pro-Islamic” policies. His blunt words in support of Syria’s Bashar Assad at the G20 in Mexico Sunday, June 18, were meant as a monkey wrench for US plans to continue to install Muslim power in Arab lands.

Not surprisingly, their conversation on the summit sidelines was described as “candid” – a euphemism for “difficult” – and must have raised a stop sign against the “reset” of ties heralded last year by Washington.

The Israeli Prime Minister keeps on smiling to Obama while grinding his teeth over the security avalanche set in motion at Israel’s front and back doors and wracking his brains for a plan of cooperation with Moscow to arrest the slide.

Israel has already had a foretaste of the trouble to come from Cairo. It bounced all the way from Libya’s Islamist regime to land this month with a sinister bang across Egyptian Sinai’s border with southern Israel.

In the past year, since a new regime took power in Tripoli, the strategic peninsula has been transformed into a major smuggling eden for the distribution of contraband arms and infiltrating Islamist terrorists, including Muslim Brotherhood adherents, into the Hamas-ruled the Gaza Strip and onward to other countries in the region.

For Putin the math is simple: If Libyan Islamists can travel 1,360 kilometers to reach Israel’s borders without anyone stopping them, why not 2,558 kilometers to the Russian Caucasian?

Ironically, the victim of the first suicide attack the Libyan terrorists mounted inside Israel from Sinai was an Israeli Muslim from Haifa, Said Fashasha, who died in a bombing-shooting ambush on Route 10 to Eilat Sunday, June 18. On the same day, the “candid” Obama-Putin conversation also took place at Los Cabos.

Now as then, President Obama continues to push the Russian leader to accept the compromise of Syria’s Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa, a Sunni Muslim, replacing Bashar Assad, with Assad’s brother-in-law, deputy chief of staff Gen. Shawqat Asif, serving alongside him. With those chips in place, Washington believes Assad might be persuaded to go into exile in Moscow.

What Putin hears is that Obama is so eager to have a Sunni Muslim installed in Damascus that he is willing to put up with retaining the Assad clan in power, even Gen. Asif, a chief instigator of the regime’s bloody savagery.

So both Putin and Netanyahu, when they talk in Jerusalem Monday, know they are stumped for a strategy to hold back the Islamist tide washing across this region and potentially farther afield – any more than a diplomatic solution has been found to stall Iran’s nuclear plans.

Jerusalem to become Egypt’s capital under Mursi’s rule, says Muslim cleric

If Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Mursi became president, Egypt’s new capital will no more be Cairo, but the new capital will be Jerusalem, a prominent Egyptian cleric said at a presidential campaign rally, which was aired by an Egyptian private TV channel.

“Our capital shall not be Cairo, Mecca or Medina. It shall be Jerusalem with God’s will. Our chants shall be: ‘millions of martyrs will march towards Jerusalem’,” prominent cleric Safwat Hagazy said, according to the video aired by Egypt’s religious Annas TV on Tuesday.

The video went viral after being posted on YouTube – accompanied by English subtitles by Memri TV –, with 61,691 views until Thursday night.

“The United States of the Arabs will be restored on the hands of that man [Mursi] and his supporters. The capital of the [Muslim] Caliphate will be Jerusalem with God’s will,” Hegazy said, as the crowds cheered, waving the Egyptian flags along with the flags of the Islamist Hamas group, which rules the Gaza Strip.

“Tomorrow Mursi will liberate Gaza,” the crowds chanted.

“Yes, we will either pray in Jerusalem or we will be martyred there,” Hegazy said.

Hegazy’s speech came during a presidential campaign rally at the Egyptian Delta city of Mahalla, where Mursi attended along with the Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohammed Badei and members of the group and its political wing the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP).

Mursi will challenge Egypt’s former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq in the election run-off, scheduled on June 16 and 17. Shafiq, an air force general, was the country’s last prime minister before former president Hosni Mubarak was forced to step down by a popular uprising in February 2011.

A court on Saturday sentenced the former ruler and his interior minister to life imprisonment for their role in the killings of up to 850 protesters in the January 25 uprising that ended Mubarak’s 30-year rule. Six senior police officers were acquitted for lack of evidence.

 The verdicts were met by angry street protests by Egyptians who considered them too lenient and demanded a purge of the judiciary.

 Members of the Islamist-dominated parliament attacked the verdicts, accusing the court of ignoring the rights of peaceful protesters killed in the uprising.

Hegazy led thousands of protesters at Cairo’s iconic Tarir Square against the verdicts. Protesters also called for the endorsing of the ‘Political Isolation Law’ that could bar political figures from Mubarak era, including Shafiq, from joining political life in the country for some years.

Endorsing the law, which will be decided by Cairo Supreme Constitutional Court on June 14, two days before the election run-off, could push Shafiq out of the presidential race.

For activists, choosing Shafiq would symbolize a return to the old regime and an end to the revolution. Voting for Mursi, on the other hand, would mean handing Egypt to an Islamic movement they say has monopolized power since the uprising.