Mubarak slams US in call to Ben Eliezer
In a call to Israeli MK Binyamin Ben Eliezer (pictured) on Thursday night, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak slammed the United States' pursuit of democracy in the Middle East, warning that it would lead to Islamists taking over the region (via Drudge). Mubarak resigned on Friday night, ceding power to Egypt's military. This is from the first link. The legislator, former cabinet minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, said on TV Friday that he came away from the 20-minute conversation on Thursday with the feeling the 82-year-old leader realized "it was the end of the Mubarak era".What could go wrong?
"He had very tough things to say about the United States," said Ben-Eliezer, a member of the Labor Party who has held talks with Mubarak on numerous occasions while serving in various Israeli coalition governments.
"He gave me a lesson in democracy and said: 'We see the democracy the United States spearheaded in Iran and with Hamas, in Gaza, and that's the fate of the Middle East,'" Ben-Eliezer said.
"'They may be talking about democracy but they don't know what they're talking about and the result will be extremism and radical Islam,'" he quoted Mubarak as saying.
...
Ben-Eliezer said Mubarak expanded in the telephone call on "what he expects will happen in the Middle East after his fall".
"He contended the snowball (of civil unrest) won't stop in Egypt and it wouldn't skip any Arab country in the Middle East and in the Gulf.
"He said 'I won't be surprised if in the future you see more extremism and radical Islam and more disturbances -- dramatic changes and upheavals," Ben-Eliezer added.
Labels: Binyamin Ben Eliezer, Egyptian regime change, Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, Hosni Mubarak
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:29 PM
2 Comments:
It should have been the end of the "Ben Eliezer" period 30 years ago.
Shy Guy's right.
Mubarak's advice is one Israel should heed: if the country ever started sinking, the US would throw it overboard just like it did with the Egyptian regime.
The US is willing to shed its friends and allies to stay loved in the world. Netanyahu should worry less about pleasing Obama and start worrying more about how to stop Iran.
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