By Ahmad Maher, IOL Staff

CAIRO, April 5 (IslamOnline.net) - Egyptian pop singer Shaaban Abdel-Rehim dabbled in politics once again, portraying U.S. President George W. Bush as a “big bully” trampling with the Earth and sitting next to his “vampire friend” Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with blood dripping out of his mouth.

‘Ya Am Arabi’, or Hey Arab Leaders is the name of his new ditty, which topped music charts in the Arab world just four days after it was played on the Cairo-based Melody Hits private music channel.

“Hey Arab leaders, the roadmap and the quartet are nothing but illusions/And only cater for Bush’s aspirations,” Shabaan begins his smash hit referring to a U.S.-proposed blueprint and a committee, comprising the U.S., Russia, the U.N. and the E.U., for Middle East peace.

And he warns: “America and Israel are two faces of the same coin/They made the world a jungle and set fires everywhere”.

Shabaan, who catapulted to fame three years ago after his song Ana Bakrah Israel (I Hate Israel), criticized the hegemony of the U.S., citing countries under her jackboot.

“America is bullying the world and flexing her muscles on Syria and Iran/But when someone utters [North] Korea, she keeps the mouth shut,” the song goes, expected to gross over millions like his previous hits, which sold briskly.

The laundryman-turned-singer Shabaan said the U.S. has made too much fuss about September 11, 2001, collapse of the twin towers.

“I am pretty sure that her friends who brought the tower down,” he sang, in a veiled reference to a ‘theory’ circulating in the Arab world that Israel had masterminded the terrorist 9/11 attacks, which claimed up to 3,000 lives.

‘Indifference’

The animated song, depicting Sharon as a hooligan dressed in red and black while Bush staring dully at papers, further urged the Arab leaders to stand up and be counted before the daunting challenges posed to the Arab nation.

Flamboyant Shaaban decried the “indifference and inaction” of the Arab leaders, warning them of U.S. plots that would ultimately lead to their ouster as a cartoon image of an Arab leader sitting on his throne and his mouth seamed appearing in the background.

“I just wonder when you [Arab leaders] will just turn on/Before the flood take you all on.”

He was also referring to the stunning postponement of the Arab summit, which was to be held in Tunisia on Monday, March 29.

Molding himself as the working-class patriotic hero, Shaaban ended his song with hitting out at “liar and hypocrite” Sharon, who every now and then spoke ill of Shaaban’s motherland, Egypt.

Ironically enough, Shaaban’s songs have sent shockwaves across the U.S. political landscape, especially after ‘I Hate Israel’ sold like hot cakes in the Arab world.

Last January, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives Anthony Weiner (Democrat, New York) introduced a bill seeking to prohibit United States military assistance to Egypt, citing Shaaban’s song as one of the reason.

People on the Arab street found Shaaban's songs as a way to vent their anger at the U.S. belligerency and blatant bias towards Israel.

Though monotonous in tune, his songs appealed to different cross-sections of society and many famed writers admired his simplicity and comic demeanor.

His previous hits addressed many social and economic ills in Egypt from the pollution of the River Nile and the Egypt Air crash to quitting smoking.

Shaaban also touched on diplomacy in ‘I hate Israel’, praising then foreign minister Amr Moussa as a veteran and seasoned diplomat. Only a few weeks later, Moussa left the foreign ministry to become the secretary general of the Arab League.

His latest song ‘The Attack on Iraq’ was banned from the Egyptian television and played only on private channels like Dream and Melody Hits.

His lyrics are written by his intimate Arabic school teacher friend Islam Khalil.