He told them he was fighting a common enemy namely the Muslim Brotherhood. He told them that Egypt wouldn’t hesitate even for a moment to hasten to help them should they come under a foreign attack. He told them he was for moderate Islam and against fanatical extremists.
The usually trusting leaders of the Gulf thought Sissi was telling the truth. They mistook his unctuous words and hyper sycophancy for honesty. They gave him the benefit of the doubt thanks to the highly despotic style of the decision-making process in these monarchies and Sheikhdoms.
But Sissi was not telling the truth because all he was really seeking was their money.
The leaders of Saudi Arabia United Arab Emirates and Kuwait were duped to think that by giving billions of dollars to this crook they were actually investing in the security and stability of their own regimes. Hence they didn’t ask the questions that should have been asked.
Instead they thought the man was a paragon of honesty and piety very much like Omar Ibn al-Khattab or Ali ibn Abi-Taleb.
In fact the only Gulf country that exercised a modicum of caution in dealing with the thug is Qatar which explains the unusually abusive language used by Sissi in reference to the Emir of Qatar.
But Sissi who betrayed his own boss democratically-elected President Muhammad Mursi is not a man to be trusted.
He has proven himself to be more of a street thug than a respectable statesman. Even today he continues to adopt a modus operandi based on sheer mendacity as he leads his country to the abyss.
The recently disclosed secret recording of a secret meeting of Sissi and some of his military aides portrayed a man so eager to blackmail Gulf States so that they would give him billions of dollars.
But one would probably seek some extenuating circumstances if the Gulf’s billions were to be invested in alleviating rampant poverty in Egypt. But we all know that the bulk of the Gulf money would go to the coffers of the deep state the notorious kleptocracy that has been ruling Egypt ever since the overthrowing of King Farouk in 1952.
Now with a new king in Saudi Arabia a sophisticated and reportedly pious head of state that can’t be duped by swindlers like Sissi Sissi is likely to lose whatever trust he may still have with the Saudis.
But this is good news for Egypt Arabs and Muslims.
Sissi must be exposed for what he is a mass murderer par excellence who came to power through lies bloodshed and deception. On his hands he carries the blood of thousands of Egyptians whose only “crime” was protesting the murderous coup.
Sissi decapitated human rights and civil liberties in Egypt he ordered his Baltagiyya (street thugs) to shoot and kill peaceful protesters. He put tens of thousands in prisons without charge and trial. And he instructed a pornographically mendacious mercenary media to malign the Muslim Brotherhood one of the greatest and noblest Islamic movements in modern times.
In fact he went as far as demanding changing “religious texts” an allusion to the Quran. No other Arab or Muslim leader has ever reached this level of depravity and blasphemy in insulting Muslim sensibilities.
In Egypt the thug has tormented Egyptians as never before. Under his tyrannical terrorist rule the Egyptian economy is collapsing. The Egyptian currency the Egyptian pound has lost the bulk of its exchange value.
And thanks to Sissi the Egyptian justice system has effectively become a rubber stamp in the hands of the thug and his criminal junta. Indeed what can one say of a justice system that sentences thousands of people to death for peacefully objecting to the coup while exonerating the former tyrant of Egypt Husni Mubarak who utterly ruined and impoverished the country for more than thirty years.
Sissi has also proven beyond doubt that his heart lies with Israel not Palestine. The fact that he is hermetically closing the Rafah border-crossing between Gaza and the outside world shows that he is carrying out Israeli instructions.
Sissi’s Zionist credentials are further bolstered by the recent decision by one of the coup’s courts which declared Hamas’s military wing the Izzidin al Qassam Brigades a terrorist group. Is resisting Israeli Nazism a form of terror? The fact that Sissi says “yes” underscores the fact that he is not an Egyptian Arab or Muslim patriot but rather a Zionist agent very much like Eli Cohen who reached the helm of power in Damascus thanks to the treachery and perfidy of the anti-Islam Baath party still reigning in the capital of the Ummayids.
What else can be said of a leader who is knowingly and deliberately causing so much misery pain and distress to the thoroughly tormented Gazans who stand at the forefront of the enduring struggle against Israel’s criminal designs and who have paid a huge price for not succumbing to Israeli whims.
I hope and pray that the leaders of the Gulf States will learn their lesson before it is too late and not repeat their huge blunder with the thug of Egypt. The late King of Saudi Arabia King Abdullah (may Allah forgive him) made a huge mistake. This mistake must never be repeated.
Khalid Amayreh is a veteran journalist living in occupied Palestine.
