Doaa El-Bey monitors the besieged Israeli embassy in Cairo Newspapers provided extensive coverage of the visit of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Egypt that began Monday. Al-Ahram bannered, 'Turkish-Egyptian strategic dialogue starts today'. Al-Shorouk quoted Erdogan as saying 'Egypt and Turkey play a strategic role in the Middle East' and Al-Gomhuriya wrote 'Tumultuous official and popular welcome to Erdogan in Egypt'. The other story that engaged newspapers and most writers this week was last week's confrontation between protesters and police forces in front of the Israeli Embassy which was dubbed "the battle of the embassy" in the media. Some regarded it as the beginning of state anarchy while others saw it as a suitable response to last month's Israel killing of Egyptian soldiers along the Sinai border. Al-Ahram had 'State faces anarchy', Al Wafd blared 'The battle of the embassy... a slap on the face of Israel', Al-Masry Al-Youm wrote "The revolution washes its hands of the battle of the embassy", and Al-Akhbar stated that the army council decided to apply emergency laws on a wider scale. Salah Montasser wrote about the battle of the Israeli Embassy which took place between the protesters who flocked towards the embassy and the police forces who -- as the Israeli authorities acknowledged -- exerted every effort to save six Israeli security members who were inside the building. While Montasser stated that it was the responsibility of every state to protect embassies on its territory, countries should in turn choose a suitable venue for their embassies. The venue of the Israeli embassy, he added, amid residential buildings and overlooking the University Bridge, is not suitable. It is impossible to secure the embassy either by blocking the bridge or building armoured barriers in front of it. Thus, Montasser concluded in the official daily Al-Ahram that the embassy should be moved to another place that is easier for Egyptian security to protect. "The Israeli embassy should find itself another place. It is not wise to ignore Egyptian anger or ask Egyptian security to assume the responsibility of protecting the embassy on its own under the present conditions," Montasser wrote. Said Ismail wrote that he spent a long time looking at those who climbed up to the Israeli Embassy and those who attacked the Ministry of the Interior. He concluded that the genuine protesters who took part in the 25 January Revolution could not burn and sabotage, or attack an embassy in order to tarnish Egypt's image before the world or to make Egypt look like it was incapable of protecting diplomats on its land. Even those who took the Israeli border shooting as a pretext to attack the embassy should not have attacked the Ministry of the Interior because it is an Egyptian and not an Israeli institution. Thus, Ismail concluded, they should be strictly punished to stop anybody else from committing similar acts in the future. Abdel-Rahim Abu Shama described what happened on Friday as an attempt to put the country in a state of anarchy. He wrote that the million man march that aimed to correct the path of the revolution succeeded in Tahrir Square, but lost track when it launched attacks against the Israeli embassy and the Ministry of the Interior. However, Abu Shama regarded Israel as primarily responsible for the battle of the Israeli Embassy because it is increasing the feelings of hatred against it by its practices and crimes. And its official response did not meet the aspirations of the Egyptian street. Abu Shama did not rule out the interference of foreign powers to spoil the one million marches and the peaceful nature of the Egyptian revolution. These powers include the supporters of deposed president Hosni Mubarak, Hamas, Saudi and other Gulf states in addition to Israel. Abdel-Latif El-Manawi warned of all-out anarchy. He wrote in the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm that what happened in Cairo on Friday heralded a state of havoc and rang alarm bells to whoever is running the country at this stage. Thus, El-Manawi added, we should all stop and think whether what is happening now could lead us down any road other than that of complete anarchy and the destruction of the state. What is happening now on the ground, he elaborated, would lead to one of two options: either chaos that nobody can control and that we will suffer from for generations to come, or dashing the dream of a civil state and entering into a series of coups that would jeopardise the future of the country. Ziad El-Sahhar expressed fear that historians will one day write that the 25 January Revolution succeeded but Egypt fell after that. Although people were optimistic after the stepping down of Mubarak, and the declaration of the army council that it would transfer power to an elected civil authority in six months, the long wait and friction between political parties and coalitions increased concern among citizens and increased the state of lawlessness. The way out, according to El-Sahhar, is to leave the worries behind and start taking concrete steps to restore security and stability. He concluded his article in the official daily Al-Gomhuriya by calling on Egyptians to set aside controversy and start building their state "because there is no time to waste". Omayma Kamal paid tribute to the Egyptian soldier who died from his wounds inflicted last month during the Israeli shooting on the Sinai border, bringing the death toll to six. She described how bad she felt for not holding a hammer and joining the youths who managed to demolish the armoured wall built to protect the embassy and for not expressing happiness for the ripping off of the Israeli flag from the embassy building. Kamal said she did not take these actions because she thought of laws and regulations that govern relations between states and forgot that Israel broke these laws and regulations when it killed Egyptian soldiers on the border.
