Bedouin Abducts Two U.S. Tourists in Sinai

Arutz Sheva ^ | 13/7/12 | Elad Benari

[Joe Boucher]

Hey,
If you are an American and are stupid enough to be touring Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula about now then you need to get grabbed.

[fish hawk]

you deny idiots exist in America after watching Obama win the election. come on now. We are surrounded by them. I have them in my own family and so do you.

[Pining_4_TX]

Hey, leave my family’s idiots out of this! ;-)

[Wally_Kalbacken]

I sez "Satchmo, jus' blow it all awey!"

[katana]

You're in Tulsa (Oklahoma stock), you belly dance, and you do taxes? Damn, girl, where were you when I was single?

I have not been to Egypt in years and would be more than hesitant to go there now. And certainly not as part of a tourist group. Only on my own or with a couple others max and spending any time out with Egyptians I know. But that is the viewpoint of a businessman and not a tourist. I always feel safer not surrounded by a large and loud group of my compatriots.

The Egyptian Museum of Antiquities is amazing (but then again, so was Easter service at a 1,600 year old Coptic church). Being able (the time I visited it was on a glass enclosed pedestal) to stand nose to nose a few inches away from the golden funeral mask of Tutankhamen and realize that it is the perfect representation of a living face with eyes that seemed alive was mind blowing.

What some do not realize is that Egyptians stand apart from other "Arabs". You can walk down a street in Cairo and see faces that could have come alive off of a tomb wall painting. This whole "destroy the pyramids" idea will, in my opinion, strike a very negative chord with most Egyptians who only wanted a change from almost sixty years of ham handed and corrupt military clique rule. Now they have that AND the Muslim Brotherhood fighting it out at the top level. Nope, not the time to play tourist on the Nile.

[Fiji Hill]

Back when Teddy Roosevelt was president, an American named Ion Perdicaris was kidnapped by a Moroccan bandit named Raisuni, aka Raisuli. President Roosevelt issued an ultimatum:"Perdicaris alive, or Raisuli dead."

Perdicaris came back alive.

[Tax-chick]

http://www.shadia.com/

I took lessons from Shadia Dahlal in Tulsa. Back then, her “studio” was her converted garage. I studied with Habiba at “Billie McKye Dance” in Oklahoma City, too. But I kept having babies, which makes a dancer a little off-balance.

[Tax-chick]

Copts are leaving Egypt, if they can. I was lost in Charlotte a few weeks ago and passed a big Coptic church, with several teams of Egyptian boys playing soccer on the lawn.

I don’t think the idea of pulling down the pyramids - or covering them with wax, was that the other suggestion? - is going to go very far. Even if the Muslim Brotherhood wanted to give it a try, they probably couldn’t get well organized enough even to start.

[katana]

But I kept having babies, which makes a dancer a little off-balance.

But it would maybe be the perfect post-natal get-your-figure-back exercise. In any case, we've had three so I know whereof you speak.

On a serious note, the "Arab World" is anything but monolithic. But at this moment the "drunk-on-Allah" crazies are increasingly (and I believe, or perhaps hope, temporarily) taking over and caution is warranted. Pity, because the Egyptian civilization is a heritage of humanity to be shared and Islam is an ill fit covering. Cairo itself is something to see. A 24 hour beehive of humanity unlike any place else in the world.

[katana]

The Copts (like the Chaldean and Assyrian Christians in other parts of the region) have very good reason to fear. But this is not the first time they have been threatened with extermination by Islam and these things have tended to come in waves.

As regards the pyramids, if you've ever seen one of the Great Pyramids the idea of "tearing it down" is laughable. Each one is a mountain made up of thousands of 2.5 to 70 ton individual stones. The good part is saying they're going to try will infuriate a vast part of the Egyptian population and definitely the elites. The ones with money and in control of the guns, that is.

Have you noticed that everything Obama has touched and associated himself with, and everywhere he has set foot to speak, has to some degree turned into a disaster? From Chicago to Cairo to Washington. It is a pattern that needs to be illustrated and reinforced in the American public's mind.

[Tax-chick]

everything Obama has touched and associated himself with, and everywhere he has set foot to speak, has to some degree turned into a disaster

Yes, I have noticed. I thought my friend from Spain was going to up and die of rage when he was elected, but I talked her out of it with the offer of a trip to Durham to see a Spanish art exhibit. "I can't get a refund on the tickets, Dona Edra!"

Before I started Middle Eastern dance, I was a student of the oil industry, being in business school in Texas. The Middle East fascinates me. Dr. John McWhorter, the linguist, says that versions of Arabic across its range are mutually unintelligible, as different as English and Dutch, for example.

And their cultures, including dance, are also very different. Habiba was very into "folkloric" styles. Turkish vs. Arabian peninsula, no relationship at all. And the "Tunisian twist," up on your toes, very fast, large hip switches, put me on my back for a week in my 6th pregnancy. Then my husband lost his job, and his guitar lessons and my dancing were sacrificed for groceries and Scouting for the kids.

[Shadowstrike]

While I am sorry for them, and pray that they will be alright, I have to ask...Just how DUMB are these people?

Egypt? Really? What were they thinking....never mind, I know the answer...they weren’t!

[LauraJean]

I have taken belly dancing lessons for the past 7 years. I do Egyptian/American Cabaret but thinking of trying Tribal.

I too would like to go see Egypt but not right now with the political situation being as it is.

[Tax-chick]

Egyptian/raks sharqi is a good style with a lot of general appeal. For my taste, American Tribal is just too *American*. As with Japanese Flamenco, at some point, you’ve left the original genre and gone someplace totally different!

[LauraJean]

Have to agree with you and I wouldn’t think of Tribal style except my teacher is laid up with injuries and the nearest classes are with someone who specializes in tribal.
I’ve gotten pretty good at making costumes for myself.

I had my son years before I got serious with my dancing but found it helped get rid of the weight I gained when I gave up smoking.

[Tax-chick]

I was never a smoker, but I put on weight with stress in Oklahoma - unemployment, and four children in five years - and dancing helped a lot. Habiba wanted me to dance at a festival when I was a week from delivery with ... Elen, I think. I said I should have a sign that said, “Top breeder!” There were a lot of Moslems in Norman, OK, studying petroleum engineering and geology at the University of Oklahoma ;-).

There’s nothing to lose in learning a new style, and you might really like it. To me, it seems like American Tribal underemphasizes the real skills of Middle Eastern dance ... the isolations, the individual relation to the music ... but it’s fun and it’s exercise.

[SJackson]

Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume

If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.

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[Paved Paradise]

LOL...