TEL AVIV — On a wide beach in Tel Aviv, I recently watched two Israeli men — wearing tight neon bathing suits that would make many Americans blush — play a game of paddle ball. They impressively smashed their serves and volleys with decisive forehands and backhands and dove in the sand to make saves.

A few feet away, a couple of young women in skimpy bikinis with tattoos on their ankles and shoulders stretched into yoga positions in the shade of a wooden gazebo.

You can buy ice cream and cold beer on the beach and nobody seems to litter.

---

If Tel Aviv’s beachfront sounds like a island of paradise in the midst of the turbulent Middle East — that’s because it is. And Israeli officials intend to keep it that way.

While the chaos unleashed by the Arab Spring continues to reverberate across the region, Israel, a small country the size of New Jersey, has been busily building about 500 miles of fence, walls and barricades to keep the surrounding Arab world out.

Keeping a lid on Gaza
Just 45 miles south of the paddle ball players in neon, Hamas runs the Gaza Strip, the narrow Palestinian territory squeezed between Egypt and Israel. 

Hamas is a Palestinian political party with an aggressive militant wing. At its rallies, Hamas supporters routinely chant that one day they will destroy Israel and that Palestinians will return to their homes where Jews now live. Hamas has long been Israel's enemy, but in the wake of the Arab Spring, the group is empowered like never before.

Just last November, Hamas and Israel fought a brief war. Hamas launched rockets at southern Israel, and for the first time in the group’s history, at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Many of the rockets were shot down by Israel’s U.S.-funded Iron Dome missile defense system.

More than 150 Palestinians and at least six Israelis were killed in the fighting. But Hamas walked away with significant political recognition. 

Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi sent his prime minister to Gaza during the fighting to show solidarity with Hamas. That would never have happened under former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. 

Mubarak didn’t trust Hamas and kept them weak. In fact, during the previous, and far more severe, Gaza-Israel war in early 2009, Mubarak effectively helped Israel target Hamas by cutting off its border, denying escape and resupply routes. 

But ever since the Arab Spring reset the Middle East and unleashed anti-Israel passions that Arab strongmen — like Mubarak — once kept at bay, Israel feels threatened. And they are fortifying their defenses.

Gaza tunnel
Now getting in and out of the Gaza Strip is increasingly difficult and bizarre.   

When you exit Israel, you must first pass through a series of metal detectors and X-ray machines, before entering a long Israeli-controlled tunnel.

The tunnel is above ground, fenced in on both sides, and with a wire roof. It runs along the ground like a metal snake. It's about 20 feet wide and stretches for about a mile with a dog-leg turn in the middle. There are cement blocks in the tunnel so you can’t drive a car through it. You have to walk, dragging your bags. It feels like you’re passing through a wormhole from a beach community into a prison. 

Making the tunnel stranger still is its quiet loneliness. There aren’t any Israeli guards or officers in the tunnel. As you walk with your bags, every few hundred yards you come to a closed gate. A camera and microphone over the gate turn on as you approach. You call out to an unseen guard that you’d like to advance and, if he approves, the gate clicks open and you move to the next barrier.

Egypt fence
Beyond Gaza, about 100 miles to the southeast of the gazebos shading women on Tel Aviv’s beach, is Israel’s border with Egypt. For decades, the border was protected naturally by the bare and jagged Sinai Mountains and the open desert.  

But now with Mubarak gone, a metal snake is going up along the Egyptian border, too.  

Israel is building a 150 mile fence along the Egyptian border. It’s nearly finished — with only 6.2 miles left to go.

The fence has two layers, is 20 feet high and is topped with razor wire. It also plunges several feet under the sand, so you can’t dig underneath it. Israel clearly doesn’t feel the mountains and desert offer enough protection anymore.

The Wall
Back on the beach in Tel Aviv, few people talk about their increasingly hostile neighbors in Gaza and Egypt, or the fences that keep them out. But other barriers are even closer.

Just 40 miles east of Tel Aviv, a giant wall cuts off the West Bank — the landlocked Palestinian territory surrounded on three sides by Israel, and one side by Jordan. Palestinians call it the "apartheid wall" because it keeps them penned in. Israel built the wall during a spate of Hamas suicide attacks and since its construction the number of bombings in Israel has plummeted.

Keeping Syria out, too
About 100 miles north of the Tel Aviv, a new fence is going up along the border with Syria. Only about 10 miles of that barrier, which looks just like the one with Egypt, is finished. The rest is going up fast.

As I walked along the new fence with Syria with our cameraman and producer a few days ago, we were stopped by a group of Israeli border guards who politely told us to leave. 

The border guards, based on a hill overlooking the fence, told me they had seen fighting between Syrian government troops and rebels just a few hundred yards away from their base. The chief of staff of the Israeli military said at a conference this month that he believes it’s only a matter of time before armed factions in Syria turn their attention to Israel.

"We see terror organizations that are increasingly gaining footholds in the territory and they are fighting against Assad. Guess what? We’ll be next in line," said Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz.

'Fear index' down
As Israel waits for the political storm in the Arab world to pass, it has become a fortress nation, what some experts call a "garrison state." 

Perhaps it’s human nature, but living in a bubble has some advantages. Fences and walls can be effective and even soothing, at least for those who build them.

A study by Haifa University’s National Security Center published this month in the Israel newspaper Haaretz said Israelis have never felt more secure in their borders. The so-called annual "fear index” is at an all-time low. 

"People in Israel are simply optimistic. As a result of a hundred years of Zionism that met with difficult challenges, the public's conceptions are that we have overcome that, and that we will overcome it in the future," Prof. Gabriel Ben-Dor, the director of the study, told Haaretz.

But there’s twist. Israel’s Arab citizens, who may be more in touch with the profound changes in the region that they watch unfolding on Arabic-language television, were far less convinced about Israel’s security than Jewish respondents to the survey.

"It is possible the Arab population is seriously and intensively following what is happening across the border, and they judge the situation differently," said Ben-Dor.

The Israeli military is certainly aware that things have changed for Israel.

But that apparently hasn’t sunk in for most Israelis, or, just like people on the beaches of Tel Aviv, perhaps they don’t want to think about it.

Related:

Obama says 'there is still time' to find diplomatic solution to Iran nuke dispute; Netanyahu hints at impatience

Rough ride ahead for Obama as Palestinians, Israelis lukewarm over visit

'Suffocating in the streets': Chemical weapons attack reported in Syria

American missions across the Arab world tightened security on Friday in anticipation of more anti-U.S. demonstrations on the Muslim day of prayer.

Tensions flared with attacks  on U.S. embassies in Sudan and Tunisia, protests in Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan, and even the torching of a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Lebanon. 

Jim Maceda, veteran NBC News' Foreign Correspondent, has been reporting from Cairo on the protests triggered by an anti-Islam film for the last several days.

Is the wave of protests about more than the amateur, yet provocative, anti-Islam film? What’s really behind the anger? Maceda answered reader questions about the demonstrations earlier today. 

Replay the informative chat below. 

---

 

NORTHERN SYRIA – Every war has its demons. The chaos of bullets and bombs gives rise to a certain breed of men who join the fight for the thrill of killing, and to stand before begging prisoners and cowering women in damp tattered clothing. 

In Syria these monsters in civilian clothing who are the enforcers for President Bashar Assad’s regime are called the “shabiha.”

I’m staying in one of their family’s homes.

---

Syria’s ghost-like devils
It’s a small house with a vaulted stone ceiling. The shower is a bucket on the floor that slopes into a drain. There’s an outhouse in the garden with a fig tree.  The house looks like many in this rural village flanked by olive, walnut and almond groves.  

Syrian troops withdraw from 'secondary towns' and pound Aleppo

The shabiha left this village when the army pulled out to re-group and attack Aleppo, Syria’s commercial capital and the focus of the battle to control the north of the country. Before they left, there were about 50 shabiha in the village by most rebel counts.  

Some lived among the rebels as spies. Others operated as plainclothes commandoes, arresting rebels or just shooting them and their families. I’ve seen a video of shabiha using a chainsaw to cut off a rebel’s head.  I saw a shabiha prisoner tied up with wires. The rebels accused him of raping 10 girls. The youngest girl was said to be just 14.  

Shabiha is a difficult word to translate into English. It comes from the word Syrians used to describe the luxury Mercedes favored by the Assad family’s operatives that the enforcers of the regime used to move money, smuggle weapons and intimidate opponents.

Whenever someone in a flashy Mercedes with tinted window passed by, Syrians would say the car was a ‘shabah.’  It literally means the car was a ‘ghost,’ mysterious and not to be trifled with. The thugs who drove these phantom cars became known as shabiha – the ghosts who worked in the dictatorship’s deep shadows.  

After the fighting started here the Assad government turned the shabiha into a militia. It armed them and sent them to infiltrate, execute and spy on the rebels. Now the shabiha are more feared than Syrian troops. Their evil has become legendary.  

Rebels talk of the shabiha like devils, deadly as the regime’s chemical gas.  But herein lies the danger. 

Engel: Myth vs. truth in the Syrian conflict

Who is really who?
I’m not sure if this house was really owned by any shabiha or their relatives. The owner’s son is accused of being shabiha, but the rebels have no solid proof that he did anything wrong at all. And there’s no proof either that the young man I saw tied up with wires, his eyes covered with a bandana, actually raped any girls.  

Every war has revolutionary justice. Here that justice is carried out in the name of fighting shabiha.  

No one knows exactly how many shabiha work for the regime. If the Assad government falls, the rebels will likely – almost certainly – carry out executions of suspected shabiha.  

A man I spoke to this morning said all shabiha should be executed without mercy, and their property sold and distributed among their victims. The man’s own cousin is among those accused of being shabiha.

CFR.org: What you need to know about the Syria crisis

Slippery slope 
But how will Syrians know when justice is being served or miscarried?  

There’s also a disproportionate number of Alawites, accused of being shabiha. The Alawites are the minority Shiite Muslim sect to which Assad belongs and which has held a disproportionate amount of power since his family came to power in 1970. But the Alawites make up only 10 percent of the population, sowing resentment among the country’s Sunni population, who make up the majority of Syria’s 22 million people. 

PhotoBlog: Who are the Syrian rebels? 

Syrians need to prepare for the aftermath if the Assad regime falls. Atrocities that could be considered war crimes have been committed in this country and Syrians should rightly demand that the perpetrators be held accountable.  

But Syrians must be careful not to engage in a murderous campaign of hunting ghosts. The shabiha are real, but they can’t be everywhere.

More world stories from NBC News:

• Millionaire medalists: Does Olympic spirit live on?
• In Japan, a nuclear ghost town stirs to life 
• Olympic security plan turns London into fortress
• Myth vs. truth in the Syrian conflict
• 'Building Tomorrow' -- one school at a time

Follow World News on NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

 

News Analysis

NORTHERN SYRIA – The rebels call this Free Syria. 

I am writing from a village that was occupied by Syrian soldiers four hours ago – the tracks of retreating tanks are freshly pressed into the pavement.

Grape vines hang in the small garden of the two-room stone house I’m in.  There’s no electricity, but there is fresh water from rural wells.  Bullet holes – some as small as grapes, others big as oranges – pierce the house’s walls. 

Still, the people in this village are celebrating.

“Free Syrian army! God protect them!” they shout, index and middle fingers splayed into a “v” for victory. 

---

The 200 Syrian troops who’d been shelling this village of 8,000 olive and walnut farmers withdrew under fire Wednesday night.  Women and children who had been hiding in other villages within walking distance stream in, loaded with vegetables and yogurt. 

The returning families sift through the debris of their homes.  The villagers find that many houses were burned by Syrian troops.  The Syrian army appears to have carried out a deliberate scorched-earth campaign here. 

The troops burned every home with a son, son-in-law or even cousin among the rebels, residents tell us.  There can be little doubt that this is government policy (and what appears to be a war crime) because the same thing has happening in every village we’ve visited. 

A man who returned to this village had a leg cut off under torture by Syrian forces.  He’s 74 years old.

Another man who escaped Damascus five days ago says the fighting in the capital is now so bad that President Bashar Assad isn’t sending ground forces into rebel neighborhoods anymore and is only shelling them from afar.  He doesn’t want to send foot patrols out of fear the troops will defect, people say.

The regime is on the ropes.  

Total war: Syria sends armored column to Aleppo

The Assad goverment is concentrating its firepower on big cities like Damascus and Aleppo.  Government troops left this village last night to join the attack on Aleppo.  But the rebels, and Syria, need urgent help to prevent huge losses of life, both among fighters and civilians – Sunni, Allawite and Christian.

Many myths circulate in Washington and in the media about the Syrian opposition and the fighting in this country.   From what I’ve seen traveling with the rebels, many of the commonly accepted ‘truths’ seem to be incorrect.  After all, the first casualty of war is the truth.

Myth: The rebels are getting weapons and money from abroad and will soon finish off Bashar’s army on their own. 

View from the ground: The rebels are fighting with almost nothing.  I was with a rebel commander yesterday who has 48 men.  Only 15 of his fighters have any weapons.  He has almost no ammunition.  He has one anti-aircraft gun, but not a single bullet for it. 

The rebels don’t have enough gasoline to put in their vehicles.  The gas they can find costs the equivalent of $8 a gallon.  Food is plentiful, and so is water.  But weapons and ammunition are in desperately short supply.  Another unit I have seen is armed with homemade bombs that they try to fire from cardboard tubes.  

The rebels are now starting to get Motorola radios.  They are new and coming from Turkey.  Washington has recently said it will help private non-lethal aid, including communications equipment.  But the radios are of little use.  Communications have never been the rebels’ main problem.  In fact, the rebels coordinate and communicate effectively already.  They use  both the new Motorola radios and local Syrian cellphones.  The cellphones can be monitored by Syrian intelligence, but the rebels’ strategy has been to overwhelm the Syrian government’s ability to listen. 

Because the rebels – commanders and foot soldiers – all use cellphones and landlines, there are tens or thousands of conversations going on at any one time.  The rebels speak vaguely and in primitive codes.  It seems unlikely that Syrian forces are able to keep track of such a high volume of calls and effectively act on them.  The rebels do appreciate the radios and use them, but they are a secondary priority. 

Syria: What you need to know about the crisis from the CFR.org

What the rebels say they truly need are arms that can pierce Syrian armored vehicles.  They need 12.7 anti-aircraft ammunition.  They say they need 14.5 ‘doshka’ rounds.   They need armor penetrating RPGS.  They need 60mm and 120mm mortars.  They need 7.62 rounds.  These are what commanders ask for whenever I meet them.  These are what every rebel wants.

Myth: The rebels are disorganized, have no leaders and are rife with infighting.

View from the ground: The rebels have no central leadership.  They do not have a single commander.  The rebels generally do not recognize the leaders of the Syrian opposition in exile in Turkey and Europe.  But on the ground here in Syria the rebels are well organized.   Their structure is more organic than hierarchical, less like a pyramid than a bungle of grapes, with individual cells joined together by a common cause.  The rebel cells coordinate well with each other.  Since weapons are in such short supply, all rebel military operations are collective efforts.  In the town where I am, there are no fewer than five different rebel commands.  They respect each other.  They trade weapons and fighters.  Some units are more Islamic in their politics, others are secular.  The differences in politics do not prevent their coordination.

Photo Blog: Who are the Syrian rebels?

Myth: The rebels are al-Qaida or at least infiltrated by al-Qaida.

View from the ground:  We have not seen evidence of a large al-Qaida presence.  This is not an al-Qaida fight.  In the last 24 hours we have met three rebel commanders.  One was an air-conditioner repairman before the war.  Another was a tomato and zucchini farmer.  The third grew grain and lentils.  One of the commanders considers himself an Islamist.  The other two are more secular. 

In total, the three commanders control about 1,500 men.  Not one of the commanders supports al-Qaida, nor have any of the dozens rebels have we have met.  There were reports that al-Qaida fighters had recently taken over the Baab al-Howa border crossing between Syria and Turkey.  There was a video that showed rebels carrying a suspicious-looking all black flag, similar to ones favored by al-Qaida.  We spoke with the rebel leader who carried the flag.  He said he has nothing to do with al-Qaida and the flag was an Islamic one.

Syrian forces launch air attacks on largest city

Al-Qaida’s presence may grow, however, without a quick end to this conflict.  The rebels need help.  Their men are dying.  Their homes are being burned.  As time goes on, the temptation to welcome help – even if offered from al-Qaida –will grow.  We have heard reports of foreign fighters coming to Syrian from Algeria and Saudi Arabia.  We have heard reports that al-Qaida is offering some rebel commanders money.  The longer this drags on, the more dangerous it will get.

Myth: The rebels want a NATO intervention

View from the ground: The rebels do not want American or European soldiers in Syria.  Many rebels do not specifically even want a no-fly-zone, although I suspect many would welcome it.  Mostly, they just want access to weapons. 

Myth: After Assad is toppled there will be ethnic cleansing of Allawite (a secretive Shiite sect) civilians by the Sunni majority. 

View from the ground: Syrians don’t want ethnic violence, but some may happen.  It’s already happening.  There have already been ethnically motivated massacres.  The longer the war continues the worse this will become.  Syria is not, however, Iraq. 

There are no U.S. troops in Syria trying to organize elections.  The U.S. presence and American missteps made ethnic violence in Iraq far worse than it would have been otherwise after Saddam Saddam Hussein's fall.  The Syrians are better suited to sort out their internal divisions than anyone else. 

A first? Helicopter gunships bombard Syrian capital

Allawites comprise about 10 percent of Syria’s 23 million people.  They are the government’s favored sect.  The Assad family is Allawite.  If Assad falls, there may be vendetta killings of some Allawites.  More than 17,000 Syrians have already been killed, which means 17,000 angry families.  It will be difficult to contain all that rage.  The longer the conflict continues, however, the more vengeance there will be.  If there are more large-scale massacres – if Aleppo is reduced to a smoldering pile like Homs – the aftermath could be much worse. 

But Syrians I have spoken to say they do not want a civil war.  They do not want to drive Allawites from the country.  Mostly, they want justice.  The rebels know exactly who they are looking for.  They have the names of Syrian government officers and militiamen responsible for massacres and torture.  They want to bring them to justice, but not to perpetrate more atrocities.  Syria needs help organizing a justice system to deal with the popular demands for retribution after the regime collapses. 

The conflict in Syria seems to be in its final stages, but how long this stage will last depends largely on what happens in the coming days and weeks and the amount of support the rebels receive. 

All indications are that Assad is going to fall.  But how many more Syrians need to go with him?

More world stories from NBC News:

• Olympic security plan turns London into fortress
• Spain teeters on the edge of a steep 'fiscal cliff'
• Going for gold: British workers cash in on Olympics with strike threats
• 'Building Tomorrow' - one school at a time in Uganda
• Ice melt found across 97 percent of Greenland, satellites show
• Afghan police commander leads defection to Taliban
• In Kenya, cell phones can do everything

Follow World News on NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

 

CAIRO, Egypt – The Muslim Brotherhood has won the presidency.  Will it bring a new Egypt?  I can’t see how it won’t.

This morning a Christian woman I’ve known casually for years came up to me and asked if I could help her seek political asylum in the United States.  Many Christians, women and moderate Muslims worry about the Muslim Brotherhood’s promise to bring Islamic Law.  It’s not a good sign if the day after elections that people are asking how they can escape the country.

---

Last night in Tahrir Square Muslim Brotherhood members were celebrating their victory, calling it not a win for democracy, but divine intervention.  They acknowledged that a free vote brought them to power, but saw God’s hand filling the ballot boxes.  

In an analysis piece last week I asked, if democracy brings a non-democratic party, is that a win for democracy?  Today some Egyptians don’t think so and have considerable buyers’ remorse, feeling the cliché, "be careful of what you wish for."

Egyptians face a new Egypt under the Muslim Brotherhood

In Tahrir Square street vendors now sell badges with Mohammed Morsi's photograph.  Some Egyptians wear them to show support and solidarity, like wearing a U.S. presidential campaign pin.  I bought one.  It’s sitting on my desk now in Cairo.  The laminated badge also has the Muslim Brotherhood’s logo of two crossed swords with a Quran between the blades.  Beneath the swords is a single phrase, “And Prepare.”

It’s a quote from the Quran which in the light of the Brotherhood’s win deserves elaboration. 

“And prepare” comes from the Quran’s Chapter 8 on "the spoils of war."  The full quote is:

“And prepare against them whatever you are able of power and of steeds of war by which you may terrify the enemy of Allah and your enemy and others besides them whom you do not know [but] whom Allah knows. And whatever you spend in the cause of Allah will be fully repaid to you, and you will not be wronged.”

“And Prepare” means to prepare for battle against God’s enemies. 

When I think about the Muslim Brotherhood, I remember a hot, sticky evening in 1998 when I was working as a local journalist in Cairo.  I was in the lawyers' syndicate building in central Cairo. 

The syndicate was, and still is, dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood.  I had many contacts there and was a frequent visitor.  That evening, I sat drinking strong coffee with a group of about a half dozen members of the Brotherhood.  We spoke for hours. 

I remember the conversation vividly because I have had so many just like it.  The Brotherhood members mostly talked about Israel.  They were obsessed with the Mossad, Israel’s powerful spy agency.  According to them, the Mossad ran everything in the Middle East. 

They also said America was at war with Islam.  They told me Osama bin Laden was an American creation.  They talked about how Jews ran the world, and how the only group as powerful as the Mossad was the "Jewish Lobby" in Washington.  Jews and Israel, they said, used America’s muscle to dominate the Arab world through proxy dictators like Mubarak.  They told me how Israel was deliberately exporting chemicals that spread AIDS and cancer among Egyptians. 

Egypt's Morsi: Bloodshed will not be in vain

They told me the Americans people, whom they considered decent and God fearing, were ignorant of the games played on them by Jews and their lobby.  One Jewish-Israeli-American conspiracy rolled into the next.  

I remember thinking all those 15 years ago as I sipped coffee and looked around at the syndicate, I hope these guys don't come to power.  But even then I suspected one day it would happen – there were simply too many Egyptians who thought just like the people drinking coffee in the syndicate.  

They packed the universities and professional unions.  They wrote the little paperback books sold on blankets on Cairo sidewalks linking Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, the Bush family, the Jewish Lobby, Freemasons and of course the Mossad in elaborate plots against Egypt and Muslims.  

There are clearly many Egyptian free-thinkers and intellectuals -- lots of wonderful Egyptian artists and architects and scientists.  But the conversation I was having in the syndicate was much more common.

Morsi now talks about moderation.  Western diplomats hope he means it and that the Brotherhood will have to become more pragmatic now that it will have to actually run a government.  That could very well happen, but pragmatism seems unlikely to erase a mentality that is deeply ingrained and which will, especially in time of crisis, expose itself sooner or later.

NBC News: Egypt's ex-dictator Hosni Mubarak slips into coma

Morsi still has to battle with the military for power.  The military holds key authorities which it took through steps that were probably illegal.  The army’s position looks weaker now that the Brotherhood has won an election that was widely considered free and fair.

Egypt took a big turn last night.  I hope now the Brotherhood can move beyond a mentality of conspiracies and turn this country into a success.  If it can’t, the Middle East faces a tough road ahead.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Suu Kyi's journey: Heartbreaking tale of personal sacrifice, loss
• Lonesome George, last-of-its-kind Galapagos tortoise, dies
• Naked valkyries? Nudes open German opera season
• UK's queen to hold historic meeting with ex-IRA commander
• PhotoBlog: Glimpses of the escalating conflict in Syria
• 1.5 million children in imminent danger of starvation in W. Africa
• Mass grave found of 'giant wombats'

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

 

Analysis

 CAIRO, Egypt – It could be the end of Egypt as we know it. Early, still unofficial, but credible results, show that the Muslim Brotherhood has won Egypt’s presidency. 

However the military has made a series of decrees that threaten to usurp the new president’s power – setting the stage for a major showdown between the remnants of the old regime who make up the ruling military council and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood. 

Still, the biggest country in the Arab world is poised to start its first experiment in Islamic democracy.

Many Egyptians are celebrating – after all, a majority of voters elected the Muslim Brotherhood’s firebrand candidate Mohammed Morsi.  

Other Egyptians are calling this a “black day” that will set back Egypt a hundred years.

Oh, that’s an exaggeration some Egyptians and Middle East analysts argue.   

The Brotherhood will have to be answerable to future voters, they say. 

Democracy will keep the group in check, they say. 

The Brotherhood will be forced to adopt a center of the road policy, they say.

The Brotherhood is really quite moderate, they say.

Egypt will end up like Turkey, with an Islamist government, but secular laws, they say.

If Egyptians don’t like the Brotherhood, protesters can just go back to Cairo’s Tahrir Square and get rid of it, they say.

I wouldn’t count on it.

---

Democracy if undemocratic group comes to power?

The Muslim Brotherhood is a fundamentalist group. It is anti-American at its core, despite recently sending delegations to the United States to win friends. The Brotherhood is vehemently anti-Israel. The group is also largely anti-democratic. The Brotherhood was happy to use elections to gain power, but it believes wholeheartedly in Islamic law, the immutable rulings from God that are not subject to ballot boxes or opinion polls. 

Military guards Egypt power as Islamists claim victory

If democracy brings an undemocratic group to power, is that a victory for democracy?

The Brotherhood has a few basic tenets which will likely be at the core of future policy, basic truths that shape its worldview. 

They include:

• America is at war with Islam.
• Women are lustful creatures who need to be veiled and controlled. 
• Israel is a temporary abomination that needs to be – and one day will be – excised from the world.
• Hamas, the Palestinian resistance group that the U.S. considers a terrorist group, is fighting a heroic struggle.
• Islamic law is fair to all minorities, including Christians since it proscribes tolerance and protection for people of “the book.”  (Christians, by the way, don’t think they need to be “tolerated” or “protected” which they believe implies they are second class citizens who need to be accepted and defended like village idiots).
• Secrecy is tantamount. 
• Victory comes through patience. 

On the positive side, the Brotherhood is basically a working man’s group that supports Egypt’s legions of poor, often ignored by former President Hosni Mubarak. If Mubarak's former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik had won the election, Egypt would very likely have turned violent, with an unpredictable outcome.

I also wouldn’t count on Egypt ending up like Turkey. In Istanbul, women often dress provocatively and there are bars on nearly every corner. The country is economically booming. The Muslim Brotherhood is much more hard-line than Turkish Islamists. 

Brotherhood vs. military showdown
The Egyptian military is terrified of the Brotherhood. Morsi has repeatedly said he will purge all parts of Egyptian society of “remnants” of the former regime.

The military worries that once Morsi is sworn in, he will try to imprison or at least sideline senior military officers. Sunday night, as votes were being counted showing Morsi in the lead, the military launched a controversial preemptive strike.

In a decree that is very likely illegal, the military declared that the new president does not have the authority to declare war or remove military officers. The military declared its autonomy and immunity in a blatant attempt to castrate the new president before he takes office.  

The power struggle between Morsi and the military that is now under way will likely take months to sort out. Morsi and the military will battle over the parliament, the constitution and Sunday night’s decree. 

While it’s too early to know who will win this showdown, it seems unlikely that the military can hang on to its self-appointed authorities – as every Egyptian knows the kinds of powers a president should and should not have. 

A new dawn
It’s a new dawn for Egypt.  If the military truly feels threatened, it might stage a real coup, sending tanks into the streets, instead of what many Egyptians have called its attempted “soft coup,” through decrees and court decisions in recent weeks. 

The Muslim Brotherhood talks about understanding and moderation. After declaring victory last night, Musri said he will be inclusive. Morsi wants to reassure Egyptians and Egypt’s allies that the country will remain stable.  If pushed, however, the Muslim Brotherhood’s true colors will show. 

Good luck, Egypt! Critical choices and potential major changes lie ahead.

Already Monday, Shafik’s campaign started contesting the early, unofficial results, as Egypt hangs in the balance. 

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Pro-bailout party prevails in Greek election
• In Egypt, little enthusiasm for presidential finalists
• 14 missing off Indonesia after 10-foot wave hits boat
• Questions swirl as Saudi Arabia buries crown prince
• Video: Obama, Putin meeting looms large for Syria

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

 

North Korea is planning to launch a new satellite within the next week. While North Korea insists that the launch of the Unha-3 rocket will merely put a weather satellite into space, U.S. and international officials are not so sure. They suspect they may be testing a long-range missile.

North Korea invited the international media to come witness the launch and other festivities in honor of the 100^th anniversary of the birth of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung.

Richard Engel, NBC News’ Chief Foreign Correspondent, is in Pyongyang, North Korea reporting on the launch. He answered reader questions about the launch and what he’s seen of life in the reclusive country earlier today. The questions and his answers are quite interesting.

---

 

Click on the box below to replay the chat.

 

North Korea has invited international journalists into the reclusive country to witness the launch of what they say is a weather observation satellite using a three-stage rocket in mid-April. The satellite launch is timed to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung. The United States and South Korea say the satellite launch is more likely a thinly disguised test of long-range missile technology.

NBC’s chief foreign correspondent, Richard Engel, science expert James Oberg, producer Ed Flanagan and cameraman David Lom are in North Korea to report on the satellite launch. It provides a rare opportunity to get a glimpse inside the repressive regime as it transitions under its new leader, Kim Jong Un.

---

The media’s movements will be closely monitored by North Korean officials. The Yanggakdo Hotel, which was selected to house all the foreign journalists during this week’s celebrations in Pyongyang, is on an island in the middle of the Taedong River and is only accessible by two bridges.

See some of the photos from a massive ceremony in Pyongyang Monday in honor of the unveiling of a new mural of Kim Jong-il, the "Dear Leader," who died last year. There are also some glimpses of ordinary life in North Korea.

NBC News’ Richard Engel will be participating in a LIVE Chat with readers from Pyongyang, North Korea at 10 a.m. ET Tuesday.

Read more from NBC on North Korea's satellite launch: Clues about North Korea's space plans come to light at last

North Korea rocket 'not a military missile...but it's darn close

More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Amid Iran tensions, neighbor becomes den of spies
• Titanic voyage commemorated by cruise ships
• Iraq's fugitive 'king of clubs' re-emerges in video?
• Wind farm plan for 'Wuthering Heights' riles Bronte fans

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

By Richard Engel
NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent

It’s what an insurance company might call “a write-off” – a place that seems beyond salvation, and certainly too expensive to fix. I’d never thought of land that way. You smash up a car, and then it’s compacted into a square and maybe even recycled. Finito. But land? 

Last year, Japan’s disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant contaminated the land around it so badly that the area was effectively a write-off.  It’s been excised from terra cognita, uninhabitable, unwanted. Today the radiation-infected area is known by a name Ray Bradbury would like: “the exclusion zone.” 

With radiation detectors clipped to our white hazmat suits, we drove into this decimated pocket of our planet. 

Before we could get inside, a policeman stopped our car. There are checkpoints all around the exclusion zone, which extends in a twelve-mile radius around the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant. 

The people who lived in the zone left in a hurry. They had no time to pack up their homes and businesses. Only recently, and with special permission, the Japanese government has allowed former residents to return to collect family heirlooms, important documents or equipment. The former residents are only permitted to stay for a few hours. It’s a grab-and-go operation.

We joined a man who was returning to his factory to pick up expensive cutting tools he needed to manufacture electronic components. Without the machines, he can’t run his business.   

The man showed the police officer at the checkpoint his identification and permission. With a polite and decisive wave, the officer let us pass. We drove into the zone.

---

Suburban scenes
When I first imagined the exclusion zone, I pictured a desolate open-air microwave. I thought of burned trees, scorched earth, crumbed houses. Maybe it was the name that conjured up the image of a nuclear wasteland. I had movie-fed visions of the radiation leaving me glowing. Friends, only half in jest, offered suggestions as to how I could use tin foil to protect myself and potential progeny.

But the exclusion zone didn’t look like that at all. Instead, it was a suburbs-fringed town surrounded by cattle farms. There were neat three- and four-bedroom houses on half-acre plots. There were tricycles and big-wheels on the driveways. There were swing sets in the yards. The only thing missing was people. If space travelers arrived after an extinction-level event, this is what they might find. A traffic light on the main street blinking red cautioned drivers who weren’t there to slow down.

I walked down the center of the street. It’s an odd feeling to walk down the middle of a main street, down the dotted line. I walked into a large drug store. The door was open. It was an American-style drugstore that sold everything from candy bars to razors to toilet paper. The shelves were still stocked. There were half-filled baskets in the aisles. It was silent. No people. No cash registers. No background music. Nothing.

A sushi restaurant was next door. It was locked. The menu on the front window showed the lunch special, a combo of sushi and miso soup, that was offered on the day of the explosion.

I walked into a man’s home. I opened his fridge. It was full. The food was rotten. 

There was a laundromat nearby. There were carts half full of clothing in front of the washing machines. 

But suddenly we heard movement. Cows, which have broken out of their enclosures, have taken over the town. They seemed more wild and aggressive than usual. The cows were led by bulls. We had to hide behind a tree as the bulls raced past, cows charging behind them. They ran so quickly I saw a cow slip on the street and crash into storefront. She scampered to her feet and joined the feral herd.

Good schools
The town is Okuma. A year ago it had a population of around 10,000. It was a fairly wealthy community, not rich but comfortable middle-class. It had some of the best schools in the area. There was a popular softball league. A lot of people worked as engineers and technicians at the nearby nuclear plant.

The radiation levels are high in Okuma, but I learned that the real danger is the dust. Don’t touch your eyes in the exclusion zone. Don’t rub your mouth. Don’t pick your nose. And never, under any circumstances, eat anything at all. 

When the Fukushima plant was destroyed, billions of microscopic particles of radioactive cesium were shot into the sky like a volcano belching ash. The cesium mixed with steam into what were effectively radioactive clouds. Then, it started to snow. The snow brought the cesium to the ground. 

The cesium is still all around, even though you can’t see it. It’s on the trees, on the roads and on the houses. It’s on the cows, and it’s in the cows. It’s in the wood and the dirt and the worms. Every time it rains, the cesium moves around. It’s in the water too.

We were dressed in white oversuits. They don’t do much to protect against radiation per se -- they’re not made of lead like the blankets that cover you during x-rays – they’re more like waterproof slickers. They zip up to your chin and down to your shoes, all in an effort to keep off the dust particles. The tiny cesium particles are light enough that if you stir up dust as you walk, the cesium will swirl in the air. You don’t want to breathe it in.

Deadly particles
During our trips into the zone – we went three times – we used radiation detectors to test different areas. Radiation isn’t constant. It all depends on the particles. Where they collect, there’s more radiation.

Paved surfaces generally had low levels of radiation. The wind blows off the dust from the smooth pavement. Our detectors showed that the grass and bushes had much higher concentrations. The plants grab the dust. Gullies, depressions and gutters were even worse, since the cesium tended to collect there. The feral cow dung was bad, too. I thought of all the cesium in their stomachs and intestines and throats. Don’t step in the dung in the exclusion zone.

An exclusion zone, of course, is just a line. The radiation doesn’t stop at the checkpoint. Fukushima City is just 40 miles away. With a population of about 300,000, it was never evacuated. Cesium fell on Fukushima too.  But instead of abandoning the city, the government is trying to clean it up. It is a monumental task.  

It is like dusting every nook and crack in a city to remove an invisible powder. So how do you even try?

A lawn buried
First, the city will hose down your roof to wash off the particles. They use high-power hoses, like the ones window washers use to reach upper floors. Then, you or a city official cuts all the leaves off all the trees around your house. Then you dig up the top two inches in your lawn, removing the grass, pebbles, topsoil, shrubs, flowers and everything. Finally, depending on where you live, the city will either collect your radioactive lawn, or you have to dig a big hole in your yard and bury all the debris there.

The process does reduce radiation levels, but residents complain it doesn’t make the radiation go away. When it rains, the water seems to find nooks that were never washed out. Particles get blown in from other areas. Particles run down hills. They run through gutters. You might wash your house, but get particles from a neighbor upwind.

I kept thinking about how hard it is to keep the dust out of my apartment. I couldn’t imagine what that would be like if I worried the dust would kill me over time. This is the procedure for a single house. Fukushima is trying to clean an entire city.   

A year has passed since the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. The Japanese government hopes to reduce radiation in Fukushima to a level on par with other cities. But some activists say, in the meantime, all children should be evacuated from Fukushima. They’re even educating parents on how to leave. The government hopes to reclaim some parts of the exclusion zone that show low levels of radiation. Residents we spoke to thought that would be difficult, if not impossible. What’s certainly clear, however, is that Japan will be dealing with this for a long time to come. Japan is an organized, wealthy, industrial, disciplined country. It has bullet trains that always seem to run on time. Japan is struggling with a cleanup that may be impossible. Many other countries would probably fare even worse.

Editor's note: Click here to watch Richard Engel's full report, 'The Fallout,' from NBC's Rock Center with Brian Williams.

The intense fighting in Syria between President Bashar Assad's forces and opposition rebels seems to be getting worse by the day. On Wednesday, a French photojournalist and a prominent American war correspondent working for a British newspaper were killed as Syrian forces intensely shelled the opposition stronghold of Homs. 

Weeks of withering attacks on the city of Homs have failed to drive out opposition factions that include rebel soldiers who fled Assad's forces. Hundreds have died in the siege - galvanizing international pressure on Assad, who appears intent on widening his military crackdowns despite the risk of pushing Syria into full-scale civil war.

NBC News' Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel is on assignment along the Turkey-Syria border. He answered reader questions about the ongoing conflict in Syria earlier today.

Click on the box below to replay the chat.

---