CAIRO (NFTF.org) -- Egyptian editorialists are fuming over recent reports in the Egyptian press that certain quarters are calling for the invasion and occupation of Egypt to protect the Coptic Christian minorities. According to several Egyptian dailies, former Egyptian Copts living in Europe and the U.S. are starting to stir news of ethnic strife ahead of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's annual Washington trip in the coming weeks.

Egyptian columnists are aghast that the Iraq war is being considered as a model for rebuilding other Arab countries.

Prominent Egyptian journalist Hamdi Rizk said that such reports are unwarranted, citing numerous inter-ethnic developments in the Egyptian countryside. Coptic priests and Muslim sheikhs have been working together to eradicate the specter of female genital mutilation, which is considered an animist -- not Muslim -- form of ritual in southern Egyptian villages.

Egyptian journalists are warning that the seasonal media campaign against Egypt, routinely blamed on Israeli influence in Washington, is about to begin ahead of the Mubarak visit.

YellowTimes.org correspondent Firas al-Atraqchi drafted this report.