A renowned Egyptian film producer says he fights by means of love.

The Egyptian Nasserite weekly Al-Arabi featured an interview with Egyptian producer Yousef Shaheen, in honor of the screening of his new film ‘Alexandria-New York’ at the May 2004 Cannes Film Festival. The following are excerpts from the interview:

“[I changed the name of my most recent film from ‘The Rage’to ‘Alexandria-New York’] in order to get closer to the meaning that I now want the people to [grasp]. There was a risk that if I say ‘The Rage,’ some will understand [it] as hatred. In all honesty, I do not know how to hate, and when I fight I fight by means of love, not by means of curses, because I know that war by means of hatred, curses, and invective is a war without results…”

Mr Shaheen then proceeds to launch into a hate-filled, invective-laden rant. Feel the love, people.

“According to the historical explanation, every empire that reaches this height cannot remain there — like a balloon that pops when inflated beyond its capacity… See where the Roman, Greek, French, British, and various other empires have all gone… They collapsed when they became arrogant…

“This collapse is gradual. America, for example, after the wild growth, will be transformed from a first-rate power to a second-rate and third-rate power, until it becomes a frighteningly ugly entity, despicable and loathsome.” …

“Bush is a dangerous terrorist. The simplest proof of this is the 20,000 Iraqis killed, and the pictures of the tortures [at Abu Ghureib] that all the world has seen. Who, then, is the terrorist and who is the racist — the occupied or the occupier?

“Today, it is very difficult, even impossible, for us as human beings to believe Bush, when we know some things about him: He belongs to a particularly extremist religious cult, called the Extreme Right. He used to get drunk and was addicted [to it]. The one who helped him kick his addiction was someone named Billy Graham, a member of one of the evangelist associations, a religious preacher, [one of] those known as ‘born again.’ These Americans have a notion that connects them to Zionism, and this is that when all the Jews and Zionists in the world go to the so-called Land of Israel, the Messiah will appear. Across the world [these people] are called ‘Christian Zionists.’

“Bush is one of this group, and therefore he is connected to Sharon not only by means of this notion but also by means of the language. The language Sharon speaks is the same language Bush speaks, and he [Bush] reiterates what he [Sharon] says — such as world ‘terrorists,’ while he is the greatest terrorist. What is happening in Iraq is sufficient; who knows what else [is happening]?

“Bush did not settle for being a terrorist. He began to get in trouble and to tell tales, and this is part of the collapse. [He] is a liar who believes he can conduct a war against the Muslims. He is an ass.”

And what would a good Egyptian “two minute love” be without a detour into moonbat antisemitism?

“What are the Americans and Zionists doing to people, and what do they want? I know from history that any robber, however tyrannical and barbaric, cannot in any way eradicate an entire people. Hitler, with all that is said about him, did not succeed in annihilating the Jews. They [the Jews] extorted the world and extracted [funds] from it everywhere, because of this tale [of the Holocaust], to the point where what they extracted from Germany only made all the Jews millionaires. They also held a conference against antisemitism in Berlin.

”I don’t know what the story is with this antisemitism. They are stupid, because the more they say that so and so is antisemitic, etcetera and so on, the greater the hatred against them, just as the more they step up their brutality and inhumane deeds against the Palestinians, the more they make it resist, and so on…

The United States gives Egypt more than $2 billion a year in foreign aid.