CAIRO — With millions of Egyptians in the streets for a third straight day demanding his resignation, a defiant President Mohammed Morsi took to Egypt’s airwaves early Wednesday morning and vowed to fight to remain in office, even if “the price is my blood.”

In a 40-minute call to arms to his supporters, Morsi angrily declared his right to serve out his term as the first democratically elected president in Egypt’s long history.

“I am the president of Egypt,” he shouted at one point. “There is no substitute for legitimacy, no alternative.”

The speech seemed to augur the likelihood of violence when a 48-hour deadline issued by the military calling for Morsi and his opponents to find a solution to their impasse expires at 4:30 p.m. (10:30 a.m. EDT).

“The price can be my life,” he said.

The speech was likely to be read as a call to arms by thousands of Muslim Brotherhood members who’ve been forming their own security force, armed with sticks, helmets and Molotov cocktails, even as police and the country’s military seemed to be withdrawing their support from Morsi.

Keeping their distance from anti-Morsi protests that have brought millions into the streets, Brotherhood forces have been preparing for days, chanting, lining up in formation, and hoisting sticks, chair legs and two-by-fours in mock combat drills.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency who leads the largest opposition group, the National Salvation Front, was reported to be negotiating with the Morsi government. But whatever, if anything, emerges from that effort is unlikely to satisfy everyone, portending, under the best of circumstances, even more instability.

That made the potential for violence high. Even on a relatively peaceful day, with people just waiting for Wednesday, at least four people were killed and 149 injured.

 

In one incident witnessed by McClatchy reporters in the Kit Kat neighborhood of Cairo’s Giza district, Morsi supporters had to be rescued after a group of residents swarmed them. Shots were fired, a police van arrived and the injured Brotherhood members were swooped away.

 

Elsewhere in Cairo, the Muslim Brotherhood seemed determined to secure Morsi’s legitimate place as Egypt’s leader with its illegitimate security force.

“Strength, determination, faith, Morsi’s men are everywhere!” they screamed while stomping their feet and doing air punches in the air. Overweight men in beards then dropped down and began doing pushups.

The tension was high as they waved their sticks in the air and stomped their feet in front of the presidential palace. Their numbers had clearly grown from Friday, when they’d formed up in squad-size units of 15 to 20; on Tuesday, they were organized in platoons, 50 or 60 men to a unit.

One group donned blue construction helmets and orange life vests to serve as protection from rubber bullets. Another wore red and silver motorcycle helmets; its members carried green pipes. They vowed to battle to the death.

Some had written “martyr” on their orange vests. Others carried signs that read: “Martyr Project.”

“I am prepared to be martyred,” one man told another.

If they succeed in defending Morsi’s hold on the presidency, it’s unclear what Morsi would control. On Monday, the military leadership, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, gave Morsi and his opponents 48 hours to outline a “roadmap” for reconciliation. If they don’t come to consensus, the military said it would “intervene.”

On Tuesday, the courts ruled Morsi’s appointed prosecutor had to step down. Morsi’s spokesmen, Omar Amer and Ehab Fahmy, who nervously defended the state two days ago, also reportedly stepped down, as did the Cabinet spokesman.

At least five ministers reportedly failed to show up at Tuesday morning’s Cabinet meeting, though the government said it was still considering their resignations.

“That the Brotherhood is ostensibly forming a militia reinforces the fact that Morsi has no control over the police and is increasingly the titular head of a failed state,” said Eric Trager, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

 

At the presidential palace Monday night, protesters hoisted uniformed officers on their shoulders, even as other protesters carried pictures of those killed by the police over the past two years. Police officers in civilian clothes suddenly announced that they were officers. Soldiers in a two-man concrete observation post attached to the palace walls quietly encouraged protesters to stay on the streets until Morsi stepped down.

“God be with you. Don’t leave until he leaves,” a 23-year-old soldier told McClatchy.

At the next guard shack a few yards away was old graffiti, “A donkey sits here,” with an arrow pointed upward at the tiny window where a soldier looked out, an outward display of Egypt’s complicated and at times fickle relationship with its military.

On Tuesday, the graffiti had been revised to “someone is sitting here.” But the sentiments of the soldier inside were the same. “Morsi will resign,” he said.

 

Jacquelyn Martin/AP - Escorted by security, Secretary of State John Kerry, left, walks with Frank Lowenstein, senior adviser to the secretary on Middle East issues, through the streets of Jerusalem just after 4 a.m. on June 30 after finishing a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu that took over six hours.

 

By Karen DeYoung and William Booth, Published: June 30

TEL AVIV — U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry ended three days of intensive shuttle diplomacy Sunday without achieving Israeli and Palestinian agreement to restart long-dormant peace talks, but he said that differences between the two sides had narrowed significantly.

“I am pleased to tell you that we have made real progress on the trip, and I believe that with a little more work, the start of final-status negotiations could be within reach,” Kerry said at a brief news conference at Ben Gurion Airport here.

Both Palestinian and Israeli government officials agreed that some strides were made but blamed each other for being the difficult party. The news media in Israel and the West Bank portrayed the Kerry effort as ongoing and not a defeat.

Kerry declined to specify remaining gaps, keeping to his promise of not discussing negotiation details in public, but said he was leaving staff members behind to work on them. Both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had asked him to return, Kerry said, and he plans to do so in the near future. Although he has refused to set a deadline, Kerry has said repeatedly that the window for talks to begin will close in the next few months.

“I am absolutely confident that . . . all of the parties are on the right path in order to get to a very good place,” he said.

After decades of aborted deals and three years since the last talks broke down, success in bringing the sides back to the table would be a significant achievement for the Obama administration, and for Kerry personally.

Although President Obama promised during his first presidential campaign to devote himself to the Middle East peace process, it proved politically and diplomatically intractable. Kerry, who worked on the issue as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during Obama’s first term, has placed it among his highest priorities during his first five months as secretary of state, despite the crises in Syria and elsewhere that have occupied much of his time.

Benjamin Rhodes, a senior national security aide traveling with Obama in Africa, said Sunday that the “time and energy” Kerry has expended on the peace process “speaks to what a high priority we place on trying to move forward.”

Despite a hoarse voice and red eyes after repeated late nights with Netanyahu in Jerusalem, and days spent traveling by car, helicopter and plane to meet with Abbas in Jordan and in the Palestinian administrative capital, Ramallah, Kerry was buoyant at his airport news conference. He and his staff members erupted in smiles and applause when they boarded the plane for the next leg of a 13-day, eight-nation trip — a meeting with Asian foreign ministers in the sultanate of Brunei.

Kerry’s plan for persuading Netanyahu and Abbas to take the risk of coming to the table includes the components of virtually every failed formula in the past — security guarantees for Israel, and diplomatic and economic incentives for both Israel and the Palestinians.

But he clearly believes that the worthiness of his proposals — which teams of experts in Washington and here in the region have been working on for months — can combine with the world’s weariness of the conflict, rising unrest throughout the Middle East and his own dogged determination to make success possible.

Kerry has acknowledged that it may not work. But “I am feeling very hopeful that we have a concept that is being now fleshed out, and that people have a sense of how this might be able to go forward,” he said in Tel Aviv.

In Kerry’s wake, initial reaction on the ground was mixed. “There is some progress, but we can’t say that there’s a breakthrough,” chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told the Reuters news agency. Erekat attended Kerry’s final meeting of the trip, a morning session with Abbas in Ramallah hours after finishing a Jerusalem dinner with Netanyahu at about 4 a.m.

“Israel is ready to make painful territorial concessions,” Israeli Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz said. “But not for a false peace. For a real peace that will endure, for decades, for longer.”

Steinitz blamed the Palestinian side for demanding preconditions from Israel before negotiations begin. “It is very clear, very gloomy, that the Palestinians are doing everything they can not to negotiate,” he said.

For their part, the Palestinians have pressed Netanyahu to pledge that the pre-1967 borders would form the starting point for negotiations for a new Palestinian state — a public concession that Israel has declined to make.

At his weekly cabinet meeting Sunday, Netanyahu repeated an oft-stated mantra. “Israel is ready to begin negotiations without delay, without preconditions. We are not putting up any impediments,” he said. But no final agreement, Netanyahu pledged, would “endanger Israelis’ security,” and any final deal would be “submitted to the people for a decision.”

Both Abbas and Netanyahu face domestic political realities that make a return to negotiations difficult, let alone forging a mutually acceptable, sustainable deal.

Netanyahu presides over a restive coalition government composed of five political parties. In recent weeks, leading government figures have openly declared a two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians a “dead end.”

Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the Jewish Home party and the third most powerful figure in the coalition, said this month, “Never have so many people spent so much energy on something so pointless.”

Ongoing elections within Netanyahu’s Likud party probably will increase the clout of those opposed to a two-state solution.

Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon, a rising star in Likud, is likely to become chairman of the party’s central committee on Sunday, which will grant him power to set the party’s agenda. Danon has said that a majority of the ruling parties and many coalition members would block the creation of a Palestinian state if it ever came to a vote.

“Look at the government: There was never a government discussion, resolution or vote about the two-state solution,” Danon said in an interview with the Times of Israel newspaper.

Political analyst Yossi Alpher, former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, questioned “whether Netanyahu is even a serious candidate for the peace process.”

“If Netanyahu can convince his followers in the Likud and his right-wing coalition partners that he is just going through the motions so that he can put all the blame on Abbas and keep the United States and international community happy,” Alpher said, “then the issue of his domestic status is less important.”

In a recent interview, Netanyahu pledged his seriousness of purpose. “If Secretary Kerry, whose efforts we support, were to pitch a tent halfway between here and Ramallah — that’s 15 minutes away driving time — I’m in it, I’m in the tent,” he said.

The Palestinian leader may face even more obstacles than Netanyahu. In April, his longtime prime minister, Salam Fayyad, a favorite with Western economic supporters of Israel, resigned, reportedly because of clashes with Abbas and his ruling Fatah party. Fayyad’s successor, Rami Hamdallah, lasted less than three weeks before resigning and has not been replaced.

Governance of the Palestinian territories is split between the Islamist militant organization Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, and Fatah, which runs the West Bank. Israel and the United States consider Hamas a terrorist organization, and it remains hostile to Israel and its right to exist.

Talks to reconcile differences between Hamas and Fatah have repeatedly failed to produce a unified government.

The most recent polling by the independent Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah found Palestinians despondent about the worsening economic conditions and the continued deadlock in the political process.

“These are the leaders you have,” said Dan Meridor, former Israeli intelligence minister.

 

 

Booth reported from Jerusalem. Ruth Eglash in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

KUWAIT — Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday that progress toward a Middle East peace agreement needed to be made before September, as he headed for a fifth trip to the region amid increasing talk of a possible breakthrough that could return Israeli and Palestinian leaders to the negotiating table after years of stalemate.

Mr. Kerry stressed that he was not setting a firm deadline for resuming peace talks, but repeated his argument that time was an enemy of his push for a comprehensive agreement and stressed the importance of making headway before the United Nations General Assembly resumes its debate over the Middle East in September.

“Long before September we need to be showing some kind of progress in some way because I don’t think we have the luxury of that kind of time,” he said in a joint news conference with his Kuwaiti counterpart.

“Time is the enemy of a peace process,” Mr. Kerry said. “The passage of time allows a vacuum to be filled by people who don’t want things to happen.”

After three months of intensive effort by Mr. Kerry, anticipation has been building in Jerusalem and the West Bank that this time, he would bring with him a concrete proposal that might move the ball. Israeli news reports over the last two days have suggested new flexibility by President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as both sides grow more worried about being blamed if Mr. Kerry’s push fails to show progress. But while experts on the peace process see growing momentum around Washington’s initiative, they cautioned that getting the parties back to the table was only a first step.

“Kerry is not giving up,” Gershon Baskin, co-chairman of the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information, said in an interview. “The question is where does it go after that, because each side is going to confront their own political public inside their own camps, and they’re going to face difficulties moving forward.”

Mr. Kerry acknowledged the uphill battle but described Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Abbas as skilled politicians who understood that the stakes in resolving the conflict were "bigger than any one day or one moment," and "certainly more important to their countries than some of their current political challenges may make it seem.”

“I wouldn’t be here now if I didn’t have a belief that this is possible,” Mr. Kerry added. “But this is difficult.”

Kuwait was the fourth stop on Mr. Kerry’s eight-nation trip, which is mainly devoted to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the crisis in Syria.

As a senator, Mr. Kerry voted against the resolution in 1990 that authorized force to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait. But that debate appeared to have been long forgotten as he had a lengthy meeting with the Kuwaiti emir, Sabah al-Ahmed al-Jaber al-Sabah, and other senior officials.

Kuwait’s foreign minister, Sheikh Sabah Khalid al-Hamad al-Sabah, reiterated his country’s interest in transferring two Kuwaiti prisoners in the American prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to Kuwaiti custody, adding that Kuwait was willing to provide guarantees that they would brought before a domestic court. Mr. Kerry said that President Obama wanted to close the Guantánamo facility and the White House would study the Kuwait request.

Mr. Kerry’s next stop is Jordan, where he is scheduled to have three days of meetings with Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian officials.

The Palestinians have repeatedly set and extended deadlines for Mr. Kerry’s efforts, with a threat that they would leverage the observer-state status they won in the United Nations last fall to seek to prosecute claims against Israel in the International Criminal Court. The Israelis have quietly agreed not to begin new settlement projects in the West Bank while Mr. Kerry tries to reignite talks, though they have allowed already-approved housing units to advance toward constructions.

Israeli news reports this week have laid out a variety of scenarios for a breakthrough. One said the chief Israeli and Palestinian negotiators would meet under American auspices in Amman next week, something Mr. Kerry denied in his news conference. Another said Mr. Abbas had agreed to enter direct talks with Mr. Netanyahu for a limited time, dropping his demand that Israel first accept the pre-1967 borders with minor adjustments as the starting point. A third said Israel would release 120 Palestinians who have been in Israeli prisons for more than 20 years as Ramadan begins July 8.

Palestinian leaders denied the reports, saying they were Israeli “spin” and “trial balloons.”

“These are just speculations,” Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said Tuesday."Let’s wait for Kerry to come and then we can talk.”

Mr. Abbas repeated on Wednesday his frequent statement that he would return to talks if Israel accepted the 1967 borders. Mr. Netanyahu, for his part, said Tuesday that talks must be sustained, not time-limited, and that Israel was not simply trying to check a box “to show that we’ve begun negotiations.”

“Our goal is to persist in the negotiations, to engage in them consistently over a serious period of time in order to try to grapple with all the issues, and come to an agreement that resolves the fundamental issues in the conflict,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “This will require time, determination and a systematic approach.”

Several Israeli experts on the peace process said that both sides were maneuvering publicly and privately to avoid being blamed for a failure to revive talks.

Mr. Abbas “can’t be backed into a corner again and have people say the Palestinians are the naysayers,” said Mr. Baskin, a veteran negotiator who remains in close contact with the Palestinian leadership. “By saying we’re going in for a limited time to evaluate the seriousness of Israel will be enough for him to explain it to the Palestinian public.”

But Mr. Baskin was one of several analysts who expressed doubt that a new, publicly heralded round of talks would yield much, given the deep divisions and pressures each leader faces in his own political house.

“Almost everybody who’s been professionally involved in the peace process does not believe that a permanent status agreement is possible at this time,” cautioned Dore Gold, a former Israeli negotiator and aide to Mr. Netanyahu who is now president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. “What is needed is a new paradigm in order to make this work, but there’s no indication that any new ideas are surfacing.”