Egyptian protester: "This idea of a peaceful revolution isn’t working"

Our conversation turned to what would be next. Hodaiby said that SCAF, the Supreme Council of Armed Forces, which has been running the country since Mubarak was toppled, had failed to accede to revolutionary demands: they were not restructuring the Interior Ministry or reining in the police (in fact it is the opposite; the central security police, the ones occupying the square, the ones with the batons and the tear gas and the riot shields, weren’t seen anywhere in Cairo before the end of June), and they had not ejected the Israeli Ambassador, as Turkey had done. Ibrahim paused. “This idea of a peaceful revolution isn’t working. I am becoming an advocate of violence.”…

Big Pharaoh said that he thought the Army had allowed the protesters to storm the Israeli Embassy to deflect attention from the Tahrir demands. The liberal intelligentsia Twittersphere erupted with dismay at the events: a revolution out of control, taken over by undisciplined kids, eating its own achievements. One pointed out that the Iranian revolution had lost international support when students occupied the American Embassy. The news came over the wires that the Israeli Ambassador was at the airport waiting for a military plane to pick him up.

“The protesters took the bait,” Big Pharaoh said. “Tomorrow will anyone talk about justice or military trials? No, they’ll all talk about the Israeli Embassy.”