Some pretty bizarre ideas seem to be circulating Egypt at the moment. On New Year’s Eve a suicide bomber killed 22 people at the Coptic church in Alexandria. President Hosni Mubarak was quoted saying that the attack bore the hallmark of “foreign hands” seeking to destabilize Egypt. But who could have been prepared for what came next? Yesterday we learned that a coalition of Egyptian lawyers accused Israel of being behind the attack.

“The Mossad carried out the operation in a natural reaction to the latest uncovering of an Israeli espionage network,” lawyers charged at a memorial rally for the victims organized by the Egyptian Bar Association, according to the Jerusalem Post..

It’s amazing that Israel finds time to plan such things if, as one Egyptian official suggests, it is busy controlling the local shark population. Yes, just a few weeks ago South Sinai governor Mohamed Abdul Fadil Shousha was claiming that a series of shark attacks in the Red Sea appeared to be a plot of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. He was quoted saying: “What is being said about the Mossad throwing the deadly shark [in the sea] to hit tourism in Egypt is not out of the question, but it needs time to confirm.”

This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.

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