Gearing up for the Tuesday panel + discussion on US complicity in SCAF’s repression of the ongoing Egyptian revolution and how more than thirty years of US military and economic intervention has violated Egypt’s sovereignty and locked it in a web of international debt . . .

The revolution continues. Hossam El-Hamalawy on the Muslim Brotherhood stuck between SCAF and the people +  how the Revolutionary Socialists can navigate the contradiction. (“Morsi, SCAF, and the Revolutionary Left,” Jadaliyya, 1 July)

On the ground in Umm ed-Dunya. After refusing to sell homes to developers, poor Cairenes living in prime downtown location face police-backed dispossession. (“Cairo’s Central Slums under Threat,” Tom Dale & Abdulkasim al-Jaberi, Egypt Independent, 5 July)

US military aid vs. US soft power. Shadi Hamid tries to persuade his Beltway readers that cutting military aid to Egypt is in the best interest of the United States; his case is all about US soft power and says nothing of the Egyptians’ own demand for the same (in fact suggests Egyptians will be irked), but if you’re going to a DC cocktail party . . . plus it includes a link to a February 2012 Foreign Policy article (by Shana Marshall) full of information on how the aid subsidizes US arms manufacturers. (“The Real Reason the US Should Consider Cutting Military Aid to Egypt,” the Atlantic, 2 July)

US military aid and US complicity. Condemnation of US military aid from the solidarity point of view. This press release from after National Lawyers Guild members returned from a fact-finding mission to Egypt is posted on our blog previously, but if you haven’t read it yet, do . . . NLG members will be speaking about what they saw–and what we in the US can do–at Tuesday’s panel. (“National Lawyers Guild Delegation Returns from Egypt with Evidence of Systematic Human Rights Abuses, Calls for Transparency and Accountability from US Government,” press release, 28 June)

US military aid and Egypt’s state budget. A look at current draft bills in the US Congress proposing conditions on US’s annual $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt. The skinny: alongside the unsurprising requirement that Egypt provide proof it is upholding the terms of its 1979 treaty with Israel, the Senate draft of the bill calls for the full repeal of the Emergency Law and full disclosure of Egypt’s not-so-transparent security budget–though the US Secretary of State can of course waive any of these requirements should they be reckoned to harm US interests.  (“US Senate Bill Conditions Egypt Aid on Full Disclosure of Security Budget,” Ahram Online, 4 July)

Revolutionary laughter. Hadear Kandil reports on the recent Brooklyn, NY, performance of Egyptian political satirist Bassem Youssef. (“For Expatriate Egyptians, Some Comic Relief,” Voices of NY, 5 July)

What are your favorite recent readings on Egypt? Please share your suggestions in the comments below! And please join us Tuesday July 10 for the important report back on Egypt organized by the NYC Coalitions to Defend the Egyptian Revolution and National Lawyers Guild International Committee.