Message #115416

[Bianca]

`Plunder'



El Beet Betak, a popular talk-show, has dedicated at least a dozen episodes to the issue.

``How dare they even dispute this?'' Mona El-Sharqawi, host of the nationally televised program, said of the Germans during one recent show. ``We are Nefertiti's descendants. She should be with us.''

Letters and columns in newspapers such as Al-Gomhuria have compared the plundering of Egyptian artifacts to the U.S.-led military occupation of Iraq, a fellow Muslim country.

Abeer Ali, 40, a nutritionist in Cairo, says the dispute over Nefertiti reinforces her view that the U.S. and Europe don't respect Arabs.

``The West wants to deprive us of anything we are proud of,'' Ali says at a restaurant, while watching an interview with Hawass.



                          ``They plunder the Iraqi oil and now they plunder our heritage.''



Abeer Allam in Cairo at

aallam@bloomberg.net.