By Prof. Paul Eidelberg

First, I want to reiterate the enlightened thoughts of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who had the courage to call for a “religious revolution” in Islam, by urging Muslim leaders to help in the fight against extremism.

In a speech celebrating the birthday of the Prophet Mohammad, President el-Sisi warned that they had no time to lose. “I say and repeat, again, that we are in need of a religious revolution. You imams are responsible before Allah. The entire world is waiting on you. The entire world is waiting for your word … because the Islamic world is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost. And it is being lost by our own hands.”

“We need a revolution of the self,” said this pious and unusual Egyptian President, “a revolution of consciousness and ethics to rebuild the Egyptian person – a person that our country will need in the near future.”

He went on to say: “It’s inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire Islamic world to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world. Impossible that this thinking – and I am not saying the religion – I am saying this thinking is antagonizing the entire world! Does this mean that 1.6 billion people (Muslims) should want to kill the rest of the world’s inhabitants – that is 7 billion – so that they themselves may live? Impossible!”

Most significant is el-Sisi’s reference to the “Egyptian”.  By emphasizing the word “Egyptian,” el-Sisi was focusing not the religion of the Egyptian – Islam – but on the Egyptian’s NATIONALITY, which antedates Islam!

It thus appears that el-Sisi wants the Egyptian people to remember that Egypt was once the leading civilized nation in the region, indeed, that it was a center of learning, of astronomy, technology, and biology – as the great pyramids and sarcophaguses of Egypt amply testify.

And what is most politically relevant, Maimonides, Israel’s greatest philosopher, was the Court physician in Cairo, attended on its monarch, aided the sick, and wrote texts on medicine relevant to this very day!

Let us therefore connect these salutary facts of Egypt’s past with the present, specifically with Israel’s present ability to provide medical, desalination, and other scientific technology to alleviate the suffering of Egypt’s impoverished people, who need no longer be so dependent on American largesse.

With the cooperation of President el-Sisi and Prime Minister Netanyahu, Egypt and Israel, with some help from other nations, can inaugurate a new Middle East, a Middle East of peace and prosperity.