Morris Sadek seems to be the most proximate cause of this crisis....

[Junkdrawer]

...

Bacile said the film was produced in English and he does not know who dubbed it in Arabic. The full film has been shown once, to a mostly empty theater in Hollywood earlier this year, he said.

Morris Sadek, an Egyptian-born Christian in the United States known for his anti-Islam views, told the AP from Washington that he was promoting the video on his website and on certain TV stations, which he did not identify. Early reports suggested Sadek had made the film, but this no longer appears to be the case.

Both depicted the film as showing how Coptic Christians are oppressed in Egypt, though it goes well beyond that to ridicule Muhammad — a reflection of their contention that Islam as a religion is inherently oppressive.

....

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/11/13807579-american-killed-in-libya-during-protests-about-prophet-muhammad-video?lite

Here's a statement Sadek made two years ago:

...

international lawyer Maurice Sadek National Assembly President Coptic America, new policy statement congratulating Israel on the occasion of "Eid independence", and declares his wishes to be able to "Israel is the liberation of the West Bank and Gaza, the Palestinians and the liberation of Jerusalem from the Arab invaders, to be the united capital of the State of Israel Hebrew!" The statement added, who won the seventh day a copy of it, that "the struggle of Israel is a lesson to the peoples of the oppressed and occupied, so I join the people of Israel the joy and victory, the Arab invaders, and we hope in the continuing struggle in glorious establishment of the State of Israel, and to preserve the existence and continuity, you Jews and the sons of God's chosen people .. you set an example that should be looked at by the people, and your struggle should be a lesson to the oppressed peoples. " The statement condemned the Palestinians, accusing them of killing Christians in Gaza, said: "The Islamists emptied the Arab Christian population in the land of Israel, including, especially after the Muslim Brotherhood (Hamas) of killing Christians in Gaza." Also launched a sincere sharp attack on the revolution of July, accusing it of being "was the revolution of the Muslim Brotherhood by the Muslim Brotherhood led by Gamal Abdel Nasser's military coup in 1952, and robbed the wealth of Christians and forcing them to fight the Jews in the years of wars, 48, 56, 67 and 73, which has the Copts of thousands of youth in the wars a failed Islamic have no stake in the most beautiful, and all finished the defeat of Gamal Abdel Nasser and Arab nationalism at the hands of the descendants of Arab invaders. "

...

http://nacopts1.blogspot.com/2010/04/morris-sadek-israel-congratulates.html

[no_hypocrisy]

1. On his F/B page, he calls himself "one of Egypt's leading human rights advocates".

Delusional.

BTW, his page is riddled with youtubes of his movie.

[Junkdrawer]

2. Next question is "Which Egyptian TV stations picked up this video?"

All I'm seeing is "certain TV stations not identified".

[Junkdrawer]

10. Looks like one is Al Nas, a Sunni Satellite TV Channel.

....

NIZAR SARIELDIN: Well, the security void is unclear, and no one can really accuse who did this or moved these groups to make this protest. Yesterday, we heard about this attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. We went over there and found this building burned. And like, beard people were outside, looks like radical groups with weapons, and they were like planning to attack the consulate. We didn’t know for what reason, until we found out that a channel, an Egyptian channel, religious Egyptian channel, were accusing Americans that we need to move to protect our Prophet Muhammad and stop this video that had been posted two months ago. And you just—we don’t know why this thing’s been provoked right now. And nobody knows about this movie. I don’t know why and who and for whose interest is to attack the embassy in Benghazi.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Nizar Sarieldin, do you know if there were any links between the attacks on the embassy in Cairo, whether it was a coordinated attack, the attack in Cairo and then the one in Benghazi on the U.S. consulate?

NIZAR SARIELDIN: Well, these groups are moved by clerics outside the country. They have no control of them. They take their orders from outside the country, so they are Salafis with the radical Salafist group, and they are moved by certain clerics. And they are on channels, on satellite, so everybody watched them. When they got this—get this order, they go out and do what they asked for. So, what they moved them, actually, a channel, a program and a channel called Al Nas, People, and it’s a religious Sunni TV.

....

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/12/us_ambassador_to_libya_killed_as

[pinboy3niner]

3. Others also promoted it, posted it on the web, and aired it on TV in the ME

Protesters condemned a video clip that depicted the Prophet Muhammad in a series of humiliating scenes. A controversial Cairo television host, Sheikh Khaled Abdallah, aired clips from the video on an Islamic-focused television station on Saturday, and the same video clips were posted to YouTube on Monday.


Organizers at the embassy protest told the Associated Press that they’d begun planning the protest last week when a controversial Egyptian Christian activist who lives in the United States, Morris Sadek, started promoting Bacile’s film. ....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/egyptian-protesters-scale-wall-of-us-embassy-in-cairo-pull-down-american-flag/2012/09/11/59312502-fc41-11e1-b153-218509a954e1_story.html

[Junkdrawer]

4. So, the sequence of events seems to be:

1.) American Christian nutjob Bacile funded by anonymous Jewish backers makes a stupid movie.

2.) Radical Coptic nutjob Morris Sadek translates it and posts it on his website

3.) Sheikh Khaled Abdallah plays clips of this translation on Egyptian TV (WHY????)

Seems it's the third step that brings people out in protest, right?

[will_in_chicago]

11. Who is whom?

I have no idea of Bacile is who he claims as no one seems to have heard of him. I saw by NBC reports that he claims to be an Israeli Jew. Mind you, as someone who is Jewish and has meet Israelis, I have never encountered the last name Bacile before this?

Sadek does seem to be promoting the film heavily.

I have meet people of many faiths and cultures, but I have always been wary of those who paint entire faiths or cultures in a negative light. I think that the call for tolerance by the U.S. embassy in Egypt was a good response. We need to try to treat each other as we want to be treated, to paraphrase the Golden Rule.

Somehow, I don't think Sadek follows the Golden Rule very closely.

[flamingdem]

15. On 9/11 of all days n/t

[Junkdrawer]

5. DemocracyNow has the best coverage so far:

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/12/us_ambassador_to_libya_killed_as

[Kolesar]

6. Many google hits on Sadek, including his emails

http://www.nationalamericancopticassembly.webs.com/
[email protected]
[email protected]

[Raine1967]

7. HE's also known as:

http://www.avvo.com/attorneys/morris-gergis-1765854.html

Morris Sadek Gergis That is his picture.

[Kolesar]

8. Has dual citizenship. We could yank his Yankee citizenship

From nationalamericancoptic site:

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. If he is a naturalized citizen

that indeed can be done. If he was BORN in the US, no, you can't... I know just pointing the technical quirk.

That said, removing citizenship, from a naturalized citizen, is not easy either.

[Raine1967]

13. He was born in Egypt.

It was also mentioned in the OP.

This guy is a KEY to what is going on.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Then technnically it can be

but it is not easy and a long drawn process for good reasons.

Also, technically, when he became US Citizen he resigned his citizenship. I know technically as far as the US is concerned.

[Mika]

16. Right. If born in the US he can't be extradited. But, he can go on a kill list.

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. Only if he does not reside in the US

do I need the sarcasm?

[nanabugg]

12. Islam "inherently oppressive." Have these guys read the Old Testament? nt

[Junkdrawer]

14. Morris Sadek can be reached at FBI Headquarters where he will be answering questions....

for the next few years.

[leveymg]

19. Whatever Sadek's role in the video and with events in Cairo might have been, its not that proximate

to the actual rocket attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi that killed the American Ambassador.

Events in Libya may have started as a simple copy-cat of the protest in Cairo, but the behavior of the crowd and its control in Egypt and in Benghazi were very different. This unearthing of details far upstream about the video doesn't really shed much light on who was responsible for attacking the consulate with RPGs. So far, I see little meaningful connection between events in Cairo and the deadly attack in Benghazi. The video almost seems to be almost irrelevant to assessing proximate cause for the deaths in Libya, as there is no evidence that the behavior of the mob in Libya was really affected by it.

This really goes to show how different conditions are in various places around the Mideast, and that there is no one-size-fits-all model for regime change.

[Junkdrawer]

20. Sadek seems to be the guy who translated the video and sent it to the Sunni Satellite TV station....

the timing of it all seems coordinated.

But it was clear this morning on DemocracyNow that the guys with the RPGs and the video-inspired crowd were under separate leadership:

...

NIZAR SARIELDIN: Well, the security void is unclear, and no one can really accuse who did this or moved these groups to make this protest. Yesterday, we heard about this attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. We went over there and found this building burned. And like, beard people were outside, looks like radical groups with weapons, and they were like planning to attack the consulate. We didn’t know for what reason, until we found out that a channel, an Egyptian channel, religious Egyptian channel, were accusing Americans that we need to move to protect our Prophet Muhammad and stop this video that had been posted two months ago. And you just—we don’t know why this thing’s been provoked right now. And nobody knows about this movie. I don’t know why and who and for whose interest is to attack the embassy in Benghazi.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Nizar Sarieldin, do you know if there were any links between the attacks on the embassy in Cairo, whether it was a coordinated attack, the attack in Cairo and then the one in Benghazi on the U.S. consulate?

NIZAR SARIELDIN: Well, these groups are moved by clerics outside the country. They have no control of them. They take their orders from outside the country, so they are Salafis with the radical Salafist group, and they are moved by certain clerics. And they are on channels, on satellite, so everybody watched them. When they got this—get this order, they go out and do what they asked for. So, what they moved them, actually, a channel, a program and a channel called Al Nas, People, and it’s a religious Sunni TV.

....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=post&forum=1002&pid=1327982

[leveymg]

21. It's not clear if Nizar is saying the Benghazi attack was formented by Salaafist clerics on Al Nas.

Sadek's role as translator seems pretty peripheral to that, either way.

The question is, were the two events coordinated? It is, of course, possible that Jihadists were acting opportunistically to attack the Consulate using the protest as cover. I think that's what happened, in which case it really doesn't matter who made the video.