Israel Matzav

Shocka: A democratic Egypt will be hostile to Israel

Barry Rubin describes As'ad Abu Khalil, who is known in the blogosphere as the Angry Arab, as someone who "pulls the superhero trick of being a U.S. Defense Department consultant by day and an anti-American radical nationalist by night." Khalil has written a post evaluating how a democratic Egypt will relate to Israel.

Just read the opening lines of this piece of...material from Friedman.... Notice how he is at pains to reassure Israel--and Zionists like himself--that Egyptians don't dislike Israel and that their opposition and overthrow of the regime would not change Egyptian foreign policy. Dream on, Friedman. You think that a democratically elected foreign minister of Egypt would dare hold hands with Israeli foreign minister days before assault on Gaza? But if you reach--with great difficulty--the end of the article you realize what was going on (in Arabic, there is a proverb: once the cause is known, surprise goes away): the only Egyptian that Friedman cites in this lousy article is none other than `Ali Salim: an untalented Egyptian playwright who specializes in the sleazy and crude humor. But Salim is a shunned man who lives in isolation because out of a population of 85 million Egyptians he is the only one who openly calls for normalization with Israel (although the opportunist attacks Israel AND Jews when he appears on Aljazeera--almost all friends of Israel in the Arab world (a handful plus tyrants) are notorious anti-Semities, just as Sadat was). He writes a column for the mouthpiece of Prince Salman (Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat) and is a clown for House of Saud. Salim was expelled from professional associations because he had visited Israel. So to represent Egyptians, Friedman talks to this guy. This is like taking Mithal Allusi in Iraq as the representative of Iraqis. Oh, and Friedman says this:

The Arab tyrants, precisely because they were illegitimate, were the ones who fed their people hatred of Israel as a diversion."

Of course, it is the other day round. Arab tyrants are friends of Israel and the bit of anti-Israel rhetoric that comes out of them is forced by the people on them.

What could go wrong?

Labels: Egyptian democracy, Egyptian regime change

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:20 PM