NINE YEARS since last visit by an Egyptian foreign minister
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukhry is in Israel this afternoon to meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu to discuss - what else - how to advance the 'peace process' with the 'Palestinians.' It is the first visit to Israel by an Egyptian Foreign Minister in NINE YEARS.
Netanyahu said he would meet with Shoukry twice on Sunday, once in the afternoon and again in the evening. Netanyahu's special envoy Isaac Molho is responsible with coordinating Shoukry's visit, the premier said.
"The visit today is important in many ways," Netanyahu said at the start of Sunday's weekly cabinet meeting. "It shows the change in relations between Israel and Egypt, including Sissi's important call to advance the peace process [both] with the Palestinians and with Arab states.
Two weeks ago Shoukry met Palestinian President Abbas in Ramallah.
For the record, the last time an Egyptian President visited Israel was when Hosni Mubarak came to Yitzchak Rabin's funeral... in 1995.
None of this is surprising. Here's how the average Egyptian thinks of peace with Israel. I took it from the Egyptain blog, Sandmonkey.
But
then I rememebrd that we- the majority of us anyway- don't want peace
with Israel, and are not interested in any real dialogue with them. We
weren't then and we are not now. The Entire peace process has always
been about getting the land back, not establishing better relations.
Even when we do get the land back, it's not enough. People in Egypt
lament daily the Camp David treaty that prevents us from fighting.
In
Gaza they never stopped trying to attack Israel. In Lebanon Hezbollah
continued attacking even after the Israeli withdrawel. And the people-
the majority of the arab population- support it. Very few of us are
really interested in having any lasting Peace or co-existance. I mean,
if our left is asking for war, what do you think the rest of the
population is thinking?
I think that the Israeli want peace with
us because they don't want their lives disrupted. They don't want to
have the IDF soldiers fighting in Gaza, rockets coming into their towns
from Hamas or having to go to wars against Hezbollah to get their
soldiers back. I think they want peace because they want their peace of
mind. They view us as if we were a headache. We view them as if they
are a cancer.
All of which leads the average Israeli to conclude that peace with the Arabs isn't really worth the price in land that we'd have to pay - there won't be real peace.
Initial reports of a shooting attack by Arab terrorists on the Israeli border with Sinai came in just before 2 p.m. on Wednesday.
According to the report, several terrorists opened fire on Israeli cars from Egyptian territory.The targeted region was in the area of Nitzana in the Negev desert, located right on the Egyptian border.
Israeli security and rescue forces have arrived on the scene.
Israel Radio is describing the situation as 'under control,' but the roads in the area are closed. One of the vehicles in question was a school bus transporting children.
Egypt seeking weapons that would undermine Camp David treaty
Egypt is seeking a weapons package from Russia, which would include the S-300 anti-missile defense system, and which would undermine the Camp David treaty that Egypt signed with Israel 35 years ago.
Cairo is seeking air-defense systems such as the advanced S-300
that Syria and Iran have sought, MiG fighter jets, and Kornet antitank
weapons, which could cause Israel worry, according to a Washington
Institute for Near East Policy report.
Despite the fact that
Egypt has maintained the peace deal with Israel since 1979, a transfer
of such advanced weapons “would degrade Israel’s qualitative military
edge,” said the report, titled “Egypt’s arms deal with Russia:
Potential Strategic Costs,” by David Schenker and Eric Trager.
“To be sure, the strategic cooperation and level of trust between
Israel and Egypt, particularly on Sinai, has never been better. But
changing the status quo could undermine that trust and perhaps even the
Camp David peace treaty,” it said.
...
“Egypt’s priorities right now should be all about counterterrorism
operations, both in the Sinai and the Nile Valley,” Schenker added.
“Russian helicopters fit the bill, though S-300s and sea-to-land
missiles obviously do not.”
And guess how much influence the United States has in Egypt right now? Yes, zero....
Egyptians see the US as an unreliable ally, stated the report, which
led Egyptian army chief Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi “to seek
Moscow’s help in diversifying the country’s sources of military
procurement.”
Everyone who is involved with high tech in Israel in any way has been asked to participate or has participated in an event promoting 'Palestinian' high tech. Yes, including me. The unstated goal of each of these events is that through working together on high tech projects, Israelis and 'Palestinians' will see each other as human beings with a basic humanity in common, and that this will somehow magically lead to peace.
So far, it's been very successful in creating a lot of 'Palestinian' high tech ventures through Israeli venture capitalists and through most, if not all, of the American companies who have large investments here. That would include Cisco (which plays a major part in the story below), Google, Intel, Microsoft, etc.
I have mentioned several times on this blog attending a lecture back in the '90's by Natan Sharansky, in which he talked about trying to interest the 'Palestinian' leadership in economic projects during his term as Minister of Industry and Trade. The theory behind such efforts is that if the 'Palestinians' have something to lose economically to terrorism, it will make them think twice about promoting or undertaking it. Sharansky reported that the 'Palestinian leadership' had no interest in any economic projects - they were only interested in how much land they were going to get and how much arms and ammunition they were going to receive to try to take and hold that land.
About a month ago, Richard Behar published an article in Forbes, which included interviews with 'Palestinian' entrepreneurs and which was about the efforts of Cisco - which has invested a huge amount of money in Israel - and its CEO John Chambers to encourage 'Palestinian' high tech. I didn't blog the articlefor several reasons, although I did read it. Yesterday, I was pointed to another Forbes article by Behar, which is mostly about 'Palestinian' reactions to the original article (the Israelis who were interviewed all reacted positively). Those reactions were mostly fury, demands that the article be taken down from the magazine's web site, and fear of being labeled 'collaborators.'
But the vast majority of Palestinians who were featured by FORBES
reacted with disappointment, upset, and sometimes fear or fury.
Referring to it as a “political article,” several requested that the
entire piece be removed before they would even discuss their feelings
with me. (Sorry, that’s not an option.) Some worry that the story will
harm their businesses by sparking retaliation from Arab extremists. One
says he’s already seeing such a backlash. Only three Palestinians named
in our reports spoke positively about them.
The reasons for that are obvious. Many Israelis who are involved in these efforts believe that if they enable the 'Palestinians' to stand on their own economically, it will be much easier for peace to happen. People who have wealth to protect would rather have peace than have their wealth destroyed. But the 'Palestinians' - either due to their education to hatred for generations or due to fear of standing up to their leadership - do not see these efforts as even being aimed toward peace.
Meanwhile, the word “peace” keeps popping into my head as they expound
about their goals and impressive accomplishments. I try and swat the
word away, like it’s a nasty locust, because I know that most of the
Palestinians who are training and/or working with Israelis on high-tech
ventures are emphatic that these are not efforts at peace, or a
‘normalization’ of relations — or some kind of tiptoeing substitute for
their own state. I get it. They are simply being sensible, taking
advantage of the immeasurable knowledge that exists inside their
next-door neighbor’s “Start-up Nation” – a global technological
powerhouse in a country the size of New Jersey — to help develop a
similar economy.
Even the 'Palestinians' who are arranging the collaboration (why do I hesitate to use that word?) between Israeli and 'Palestinian' high tech entrepreneurs refuse to see them as a stepping stone to peace.
Flash forward. “Your articles are very political and I am very upset,”
writes Sam Husseini, one of the men at that April dinner, whose company (LionHeart)
is the recruiter of Palestinian CEOs and managers for Cisco-sponsored
trainings. “I spoke with many Palestinians here that you quoted in the
articles and almost all are very upset. This will definitely hurt our
businesses. I honestly don’t know how to react to this…We need this
[article] removed NOW. Please.”
Later, by phone, Sam says: “You should have run it by us first. The
first thing we would have told you is move the word ‘peace’ out of the
article.”
Huh? Move it to where? How could peace not be mentioned in
any article that discusses Palestinian-Israeli co-ventures? (Talk about
ignoring the proverbial elephant in the room.) In virtually every
interview I conducted with Israelis and Palestinians, I touched on
politics and the conflict. Even Husseini, during the Ramallah dinner,
volunteered that “I don’t understand the tactics of Abbas or Netanyahu
[the leaders of the Palestinian Authority and Israel, respectively] — I
think they’re both idiots.” Was such talk strictly for dinner
consumption? It would be unfair to readers to make believe that politics
isn’t omnipresent in a place like the Middle East – lurking in every
corner, every sentence, every glance.
“But the thing is, we live here,” responds Sam. “The whole
article is written for the American audience, which doesn’t understand
the complexities of life here. But for us, Israelis and Palestinians, we
see that this took advantage and turned something that is non-political
into a political statement. You’re gonna hurt a lot of Israelis and
Palestinians.”
What do the 'Palestinians' want? What do they fear? And if they really want peace, why is their leadership taking them in a different direction? Perhaps these comments by historian Benny Morris about Egypt's peace treaty with Israel will elucidate the answer.
Morris then makes a comparison between Palestinians and neighboring
Egyptians — worth including here due to the tremendous upheaval that is
unfolding in that country. “And don’t forget,” says Morris, “while Egypt
had and has a peace treaty with Israel, its middle class completely
rejected and rejects Israel – all and any contact with the Jewish state
(the lawyers, doctors, academics associations – all are flatly
rejectionist, the very people called ‘secular’ and ‘liberal’ by the
approving Western press. They may be liberal about democracy, women,
human rights – but not about Israel and its existence. The same probably
applies to the Palestinian middle class, but it is not averse to
clandestine cooperation to make money for itself. That’s part of the
problem.”
Morris is right about Egypt. Recall this from the Egyptian blogger Sandmonkey.
But
then I rememebrd that we- the majority of us anyway- don't want peace
with Israel, and are not interested in any real dialogue with them. We
weren't then and we are not now. The Entire peace process has always
been about getting the land back, not establishing better relations.
Even when we do get the land back, it's not enough. People in Egypt
lament daily the Camp David treaty that prevents us from fighting. In
Gaza they never stopped trying to attack Israel. In Lebanon Hezbollah
continued attacking even after the Israeli withdrawel. And the people-
the majority of the arab population- support it. Very few of us are
really interested in having any lasting Peace or co-existance. I mean,
if our left is asking for war, what do you think the rest of the
population is thinking?
I think that the Israeli want peace with
us because they don't want their lives disrupted. They don't want to
have the IDF soldiers fighting in Gaza, rockets coming into their towns
from Hamas or having to go to wars against Hezbollah to get their
soldiers back. I think they want peace because they want their peace of
mind. They view us as if we were a headache. We view them as if they
are a cancer.
But is Morris right about the 'Palestinians'? Are they also a case where the leadership is engaging in 'peace talks' to get money from the West, while the middle class really has no interest in it? Honestly... I don't believe that.
Yes, there are many 'Palestinians' who genuinely hate Israelis, and who would do anything to murder us. Maybe even most 'Palestinians.' They are that way because they've been brainwashed by their leaders or because they have lived in poverty for the last 46-65 years because they fled their homes when the Arab countries ordered them to do so. They've been held hostage for the dream of the 'right of return' by the 'Palestinian leadership' and by the Arab countries themselves. But they're not the high tech entrepreneurs.
The high tech entrepreneurs are the smart people (and the 'Palestinians' are reputed to be the smartest of the Arabs). They fear that the 'Palestinian leadership' and the Arab countries will discover one of their deepest, darkest secrets: That deep down, they don't care about an independent 'Palestine' and would be happy to live as a minority in a Jewish state (Israel) that treats them far better than 'Palestine' would ever treat them. If you think I'm making this up, or that I'm imagining things because they're pro-Israel, please consider this (source here).
The awkward fact is that the 270,000 Arabs who live in East Jerusalem
may not be very enthusiastic about joining Palestine. The survey, which
was designed and supervised by former State Department Middle East
researcher David Pollock, found that only 30 percent said they would
prefer to be citizens of Palestine in a two-state solution, while 35
percent said they would choose Israeli citizenship. (The rest said they
didn't know or refused to answer.) Forty percent said they would
consider moving to another neighborhood in order to become a citizen of
Israel rather than Palestine, and 54 percent said that if their
neighborhood were assigned to Israel, they would not move to Palestine.
The
reasons for these attitudes are pretty understandable, even healthy.
Arabs say they prefer Israel's jobs, schools, health care and welfare
benefits to those of a Palestinian state -- and their nationalism is not
strong enough for them to set aside these advantages in order to live
in an Arab country. The East Jerusalemites don't much love Israel --
they say they suffer from discrimination. But they seem to like what it
has to offer. Remarkably, 56 percent said they traveled inside Israel at
least once a week; 60 percent said access to its Mediterranean beaches
was "very important" or "moderately important" to them.
"Quite
clearly there is a discrepancy between people's attitudes and the
assumption that Palestinian neighborhoods should be part of Palestine,"
said Pollock, whose work was sponsored by Pechter Middle East polls and
the Council on Foreign Relations. "That's not actually what the people
want."
How many of those 'Palestinian' entrepreneurs who have been exposed to Israelis feel the same way?
Those 'Palestinians' who have tasted what it means to live in a free state (which 'Palestine' will never be) understand that notwithstanding their tribal loyalties, they and their families will be better off living in Israel and working with Israelis. Take, for example, journalist Khaled Abu Toameh (source here):
But just as frightening as Arab Palestinian bloggers and journalists
being arrested for posting on their Facebook pages is the steady
drumbeat of pressure that is leading to a decrease in coverage by
western journalists who, presumably, are not as vulnerable to the
capricious selections for punishment designed to suppress criticism of
the ruling regime.
In addition to whispered discussions being
heard in Ramallah about the “Facebook Police” are the directives issued
to western journalists to focus their reporting on “Israel’s
‘occupation’” and refrain from prying into alleged corruption committed
by PA officials, because “nothing else is newsworthy and nothing else
should be reported.”
Some western journalists have been warned
not to work with Arabic speaking reporters who fail to toe the
“All-Occupation, All The Time” reporting. This is how the PA controls
not only their own media outlets, but those western outlets. All too
many simply play along rather than stand up for press and speech
freedoms and possibly risk losing access. For those journalists who
behave and report primarily about the occupation, the rewards are access
to senior officials. Senior PA officials told Arab Israeli journalist
abu Toameh, “Even the Jews at Haaretz behave themselves and for that
they are rewarded with interviews of PA President Mahmoud Abbas.”
It
is not only individual journalists who are being intimidated, but
entire news sites critical of the PA have been blocked on the internet.
A report in late April revealed that several websites which had
reported on corruption within the PA were blocked, including Inlight
Press, which had revealed that the PA had been monitoring the phones of
Mahmoud Abbas’s opponents.
Abu Toameh left the 'Palestinian territories' 30 years ago to report for the Jerusalem Post.
What Behar is confronting is 'Palestinians' who may not want peace with Israel, but who are willing to live in peace with Israel anyway and who fear being exposed as 'collaborators' in front of members of their tribes. The only way this will stop is if the world stops subsidizing the 'destroy Israel' narrative pushed by the 'Palestinian Authority,' stops financing UNRWA to maintain the dream of destroying Israel through the right of return, and forces the 'Palestinian street' to grow up and earn a living. It's not likely to happen to anytime soon. The profits will continue but they won't lead to peace.
It starts: Movement behind Morsi ouster calls on army to renounce Camp David, refuse US money
Last week, President Obama canceled a military exercise with Egypt in response to the crackdown on his friends in the Muslim Brotherhood. Obama complained that the exercise could not go on as 'business as usual.'
In response, the Tamarod movement, which was behind the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood and Mohammed Morsy, has called on the Egyptian army to renounce the Camp David treaty and refuse all further US aid.
Tamarod, who played a major role in the ousting of Egyptian President
Mohamed Morsi, demand the Egyptian regime to hold a referendum on
banning US aid, cancel the peace agreement with Israel, and reword
security-related treaties to allow Egypt to revive its national
sovereignty.
The movement claims that Israeli and international
peacekeeping forces in Sinai prevent the Egyptian military from sending
more forces to the peninsula to stop terrorist activity in the area.
Daily
News Egypt quotes the movement's media coordinator Mai Wahba as saying
the campaign will collect signatures from people, and that there was no
timetable for the campaign yet.
The "No to US aid" campaign has already gathered 300,000 signatures.
Ironically, most Israelis would like to see the Muslim Brotherhood crushed.
Israel
has opted to stay silent on the turmoil in Egypt to avoid disrupting
strategic security cooperation with the Egyptian military.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had aides instruct cabinet
ministers to avoid public comment about Egypt, according to an official
who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"Israel and the United States
see the situation in Egypt very, very differently and justifiably the
prime minister wouldn't want Israeli cabinet ministers to publicly
criticize American policy," Giora Eiland, a former national security
adviser, said on Channel 2.
In private, one senior Israeli
official expressed alarm at US President Barack Obama's condemnation of
the bloodshed in Egypt and cancellation of a joint military exercise
with Cairo.
"Eyebrows have been raised," the official said.
Many Israeli officials believe that Egyptian Army chief Abdel Fatteh al-Sisi has no choice but to crack down on the Muslim Brotherhood.
Egyptian security forces have killed dozens of armed men and arrested
hundreds more as part of a crackdown on extremist cells operating in
the Sinai Peninsula, pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat reported on Thursday.
At least 32 Hamas
fighters that entered Sinai through underground smuggling tunnels and
joined the cells were among those arrested, according to the report.
...
Hamas officials have renounced involvement in any activities in Sinai,
while Hamas leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, has declared several times
that his organization would not interfere in internal Egyptian affairs.
Egypt is seeking permission to send thousands of soldiers to Sinai,
in order to battle Islamist groups that have ensconced themselves there
after fleeing Egypt's major cities. The Times of London said that
Egyptian's military rulers had filed the request for a major deployment
in Sinai earlier this week.
According to the Camp David Accords, in which Israel surrendered
Sinai, liberated in the Six Day War, to Egypt, only police and other
peace officers are allowed in Sinai without the permission of Israel and
the U.S., also a signatory of the agreement. That tenet of the Accords
essentially demilitarized Sinai, although Egypt has several times in the
past sent in army troops to deal with specific security situations.
The current request would see the largest number of Egyptian troops
in Sinai since the Yom Kippur War, and their mission would be more
open-ended. Many Islamists, members of the Muslim Brotherhood and other
groups, have fled Cairo and Alexandria in recent days as the army clamps
down on their movements, in the wake of the deposing of former
President Mohammed Morsi.
Egypt has already sent several brigades of troops into Sinai, but
military officials say much more force is needed, as the soldiers are
facing heavily armed terror groups affiliated with Al Qaeda. On
Wednesday, Al Qaeda terrorists killed a soldier and civilian in Sinai,
while Islamist groups fired missiles at an Egyptian army outpost in
Sinai, killing two soldiers and injuring six.
According to the report, Israel is inclined to grant the request. The question is how we ensure that those guns aren't turned against us. But so far, it seems good that Morsy and the Muslim Brotherhood are gone.
Marathon phone calls about the coup took place between Jerusalem and
Washington over the weekend. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke
with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon
spoke with Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, and National Security
Advisor Yaakov Amidror spoke with his White House counterpart, Susan
Rice.
The
senior American official said the talks were aimed at coordinating U.S.
and Israeli positions on the Egyptian crisis. During those calls, and
in follow-up conversations afterward, the Israelis warned that cutting
military aid to Egypt would likely impact negatively on Israel’s
security, especially given the possibility of further security
deterioration in Sinai.
They
also warned that halting the aid could undermine Israel’s peace treaty
with Egypt. Though the American aid isn’t officially part of the Camp
David Accords, it began as a direct result of the treaty. Moreover, the
United States is a signatory to the treaty’s security annex, alongside
Israel and Egypt.
...
Israel
therefore fears that any change in this U.S. policy could undermine the
Egyptian army’s commitment to the treaty. Senior Israeli officials in
Jerusalem said that this week, Israeli diplomats in Washington will try
to make this case to senior senators and congressmen.
The
senior American official said that Israeli officials voiced
satisfaction at the coup and the ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood
government. Nevertheless, he added, Jerusalem and Washington agreed that
the Egyptian army should transfer the reins of power to a civilian
government as soon as possible and ensure that free elections are held.
Amidror
even told Rice and her counterparts in other Western countries that he
hopes whatever new government arises will form as broad a coalition as
possible, and not freeze out the opposition as the Brotherhood did.
Yet more proof that declaring elections doesn't make you a democracy, although that's how the Obama administration seems to see it.
Note that there is not even a mention of Egypt returning an ambassador to Israel.
Will Egypt try to save itself by going to war with Israel?
Lee Smith reminds us that - Wednesday's events notwithstanding - the Egyptian army is not a popular institution in that country, and wonders whether the army might not set off a war with Israel in a bid to distract the population from its economic problems and possibly even gain some international aid.
The bigger problem is that the Egyptian army
has no plan to stabilize the country. And even if the army takes over,
what price is it willing to pay to keep the streets quiet? Shooting
protesters? How many? Egyptians, contrary to received wisdom, do not
love the army, or else hundreds of people wouldn’t have flashed laser lights
at a military helicopter the other night in an effort to blind the
pilot and crash it. The army can’t bring order because the energies
unleashed with the fall of Mubarak two-plus years ago can’t be put back
in the bottle.
The Egyptian army has only one card left to play. Western journalists and other true believers in the promise of the Arab Spring
may be shocked by the suggestion that Egypt may be headed to war with
Israel in the not-too-distant future. But as the country implodes, war
has become the easy way out. It doesn’t matter that the Egyptian army
doesn’t want another catastrophic contest with Israel—neither did Anwar
Sadat 40 years ago when he saved Egypt by going to war with Israel,
which in turn helped him acquire the superpower patronage of the United
States.
...
Egyptians are definitely angry at the state
of their country’s economy. But the fact that staples like bread, rice
and oil have skyrocketed is to be blamed almost entirely on the fact
that protesters have filled the streets since January 2011. In bringing
down Mubarak and prosecuting the regime’s technocrats who won high marks
from the IMF for reforming the Egyptian economy and attracting foreign
direct investment, the revolutionaries ensured that it would be at least
a generation before any Egyptian official sought to implement the same
policies.
It was in order to avoid unrest that Morsi balked at cutting
subsidies and otherwise reforming the economy to satisfy the IMF’s
requirements for a $4.8 billion loan. If Qatar wasn’t floating
the Morsi government a few billion dollars every couple of months,
Egypt would starve. And how do the Egyptians repay Doha’s munificence?
By claiming that Morsi’s fall will return Qatar to its proper and,
compared to Egypt, insignificant place
in regional affairs. Maybe Qatar’s newly enthroned emir will decide
he’d rather build more air-conditioned soccer stadiums than feed the
inhabitants of the Nile River valley.
...
A competent leader, likely not Morsi, will
soon come to see that he has no choice but to make a virtue of necessity
and export the one commodity that Egypt has in abundance—violence. So,
why not bind the warring, immature, and grandiose Egyptian factions
together in a pact against Israel, the country’s sole transcendent
object of loathing? Indeed, it’s not entirely clear why Egypt’s venomous
strains of anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic sentiment have not yet hit fever
pitch.
Yes, Morsi doesn’t want to get the White House angry. And there’s
also the obvious fact that Egyptians are too divided against themselves
right now to be unified against anyone else. But that can’t last for
long, or else Egypt will implode.
So, here are the facts that Egyptians and Western reporters alike
would rather not face: There is simply no way that today’s Egypt can
feed its own people, or fuel the tractors that harvest its crops—let
alone attract tens of billions of dollars in foreign investment to grow a
hi-tech miracle along the banks of the Nile. That’s fantasyland
stuff—like the fantasy of an American-style constitutional democracy run
by the Muslim Brotherhood and guaranteed by the Egyptian army.
So, what’s left? A short war today—precipitated by a border incident
in Sinai, or a missile gone awry in the Gaza Strip, and concluded before
the military runs out of the ammunition that Washington will surely not
resupply—will reunify the country and earn Egypt money from an
international community eager to broker peace. Taking up arms against
Israel will also return Egypt to its former place of prominence in an
Arab world that is adrift in a sea of blood. But even more important is
the fact that there is no other plausible way out: Sacrificing thousands
of her sons on the altar of war is the only way to save Mother Egypt
from herself.
The scenario of Egypt going to war with Israel reminds me of The Mouse that Roared. But there are two small differences. Israel is not a superpower. And Egypt's economy requires a lot more help than just about any country in the world can give.
Israel close to finalizing rail alternative to Suez Canal
As an alternative to the violence-plauged Suez Canal, Israel is on the verge of finalizing a rail route (Hat Tip: Ricky G).
Israel is close to finalising the route of a rail alternative to the Suez Canal as instability in Egypt has added to the urgency of a project to connect the Mediterranean with the Red Sea.
Last month 40 people were killed in protests in the three big Egyptian cities lining the canal, and some shipping groups had to suspend work for several days. President Morsi has warned of a “collapse of the State” if protests continue. Fees for using the canal are Egypt’s only reliable source of foreign currency, bringing in about $5 billion (£3.22 billion) of revenue a year.
Israeli officials have publicly denied suggestions that the plan threatens Egypt’s monopoly of one of the world’s most important trade routes. But privately they admitted that they were being asked to plan for the “day after” a closure of the canal.
“There are a number of scenarios that we need to prepare for, including the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt being challenged, or groups attempting to seize control of Suez in one of the ongoing protests there,” one senior Israeli official involved in the project said. “Israel, and the rest of the world, can’t sit around and wait for the day to come where we can’t transport goods between Asia and Europe. We have to create other channels.”
The project, funded by the Chinese Government, would include the construction of a port on the Red Sea coast near the Israeli city of Eilat, and a double-track railway line capable of carrying heavy cargo to the Israeli port of Ashdod on the Mediterranean coast.
Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, has declared it a “national priority” as it would transform Israel into a major player in global shipping. Building on the project, expected to take a decade, could begin this year.
Shipping companies said that Egypt’s military has maintained a strong presence around the canal to ensure that trade is not affected by the protests.
However, Gil Miller, managing director in Israel for the shipping group Maersk Line, said that while neither Maersk nor its big competitors wanted to find an alternative to Suez, recent events had forced them to consider “contingency plans”.
“The few days of disruptions ... were concerning, but manageable. We have, however, prepared other options for our company that can be activated in a short time and we are looking at the route being built in Israel,” Mr Miller said.
Israeli media have estimated that construction of the rail line alone would cost $2 billion, and the enlargement of the ports near Eilat and Ashdod could cost billions more.
An Israeli diplomat said that there was a great deal of interest in the project in China and India, as well as other countries in the region that he could not name due to “sensitivity”.
This week Israel’s Government heard final plans for the route through Israel, which environmentalists claim would cause irreparable damage and be a source of pollution. Israeli officials said that they would hear objections to the route before approving the plans.
Eran Feitelson, a transport expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, wrote in Haaretz newspaper: “For Egypt, the Suez Canal is an essential artery for economic survival; we are trying to create a threat to this artery.”
So is their problem environmental impact (we're talking about a rail line, not a highway!) or is their problem the financial impact on Egypt (in which case the answer is that we are not required to let Egypt maintain a stranglehold on us, and if we are able to make money while escaping it, all the better).
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Egypt on Tuesday on
the first trip by an Iranian head of state since the 1979 revolution,
underlining the thaw in relations since Egyptians elected an Islamist
head of state.
President Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood
politician elected in June, kissed Ahmadinejad as he disembarked from
his plane at Cairo airport. The leaders walked down a red carpet,
Ahmadinejad smiling as he shook hands with waiting dignitaries.
Visiting Cairo to attend an Islamic summit that begins on Wednesday,
the president of the Shi'ite Islamist republic is due to meet later on
Tuesday with the grand sheikh of al-Azhar, one of the oldest seats of
learning in the Sunni world.
Such a visit would have been
unthinkable during the rule of Hosni Mubarak, the military-backed
autocrat who preserved Egypt's peace treaty with Israel during his 30
years in power and deepened ties between Cairo and the West.
But full ties between Egypt and Iran are unlikely to be restored anytime soon. It's a matter of money.
The Morsi administration also wants to safeguard relations with Gulf
Arab states that are supporting Cairo's battered state finances and are
deeply suspicious of Iran. Morsi wants to preserve ties with the United
States, the source of $1.3 billion in aid each year to the influential
Egyptian military.
Morsi's government has established close ties
with Hamas, a movement backed by Iran and shunned by the West because of
its hostility to Israel, but its priority is addressing Egypt's deep
economic problems.
"The restoration of full relations with Iran in
this period is difficult, despite the warmth in ties ... because of
many problems including the Syrian crisis and Cairo's links with the
Gulf states, Israel and the United States," said one former Egyptian
diplomat.
Egypt was a very strong supporter of the Shah of Iran before 1979. I'll bet a lot of you didn't know this little tidbit.
Egypt gave asylum and a state funeral to Iran's exiled Shah Reza
Pahlavi, who was overthrown by the 1979 Iranian revolution. He is buried
in a medieval Cairo mosque alongside his ex-brother-in-law, Egypt's
last king, Farouk.
Aren't you glad that the Obama administration continues to give the Egyptians arms and $1.3 billion in annual aid? What is the US getting in return for all that?
I'll answer that last question for you: The US is buying the myth that there is an Arab country that made peace with Israel which is intended to last permanently. The US is paying $1.3 billion plus per year for the myth that 'land for peace' works. Unfortunately, the puncturing of this myth is well on the way. Ahmadinejad's visit to Egypt proves it.
The New York Times should read its own editorial page
Incredibly, the New York Times published an op-ed on Friday by Ayaan Hirsi Ali that should be read by the likes of Tom Friedman, Nick Kristof and Roger Cohen, as well as by the Times editorial board, before the next time they sit down to write about Israel. For that matter, it should be read by the Obama administration as well, because if they read it, they might finally understand why their 'peace process' between Israel and the 'Palestinians' is failing.
Hirsi Ali, who grew up a Muslim in Egypt, had this to say about why there is no peace.
Here is an opportunity to acknowledge the breadth and depth of the
attitude toward Jews in the Middle East, and how that affects the much
desired but elusive peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.
So many explanations have been offered for the failure of successive
U.S. administrations to achieve that peace, but the answer is in Morsi’s
words. Why would one make peace with bloodsuckers and descendants of
apes and monkeys?
Millions of Muslims have been conditioned to regard Jews not only as the
enemies of Palestine but as the enemies of all Muslims, of God and of
all humanity. Arab leaders far more prominent and influential than Morsi
have been tireless in “educating” or “nursing” generations to believe
that Jews are “the scum of the human race, the rats of the world, the
violators of pacts and agreements, the murderers of the prophets, and
the offspring of apes and pigs.” (These are the words of the Saudi sheik
Abdul Rahman al-Sudais, imam at the Masjid al-Haram mosque in Mecca.)
In 2011, a Pew survey found that in Turkey, just 4 percent of those
surveyed held a “very favorable” or “somewhat favorable” view of Jews;
in Indonesia, 10 percent; in Pakistan 2 percent. In addition, 95 percent
of Jordanians, 94 percent of Egyptians and 95 percent of Lebanese hold a
“very unfavorable” view of Jews [pdf].
In recent decades Israeli and American administrations negotiated with
unelected Arab despots, who played a double game. They honored the
formal peace treaties by not conducting military attacks against Israel.
But they condoned the Islamists’ dissemination of hatred against
Israel, Zionism and Jews.
As the Islamists spread their influence through civil institutions, young people were nursed on hatred.
In the wake of the Arab Spring, as the people take a chance on
democracy, they and their new leadership want to see their ideals turned
into policy.
For too many of those who fought for their own liberation, one of those ideals is the end of peace with Israel.
It would take several generations to undo this sort of pathological hatred. But no one has started - or even suggested to the Muslim world - that it be undone. I would not hold my breath waiting for that to happen - certainly not so long as the West continues to pursue policies of bowing to Islam.
Egypt is falling apart so Obama is giving them more F-16's
Egyptians are rioting because they have realized that Mohammed Morsy is no less a dictator than Hosni Mubarak. Egypt's economy is on the verge of total collapse. Egypt is continually issuing threats to abrogate its treaty with Israel. And the US economy is teetering on the edge. So what does the Hussein Obama administration do? It gives the Egyptians another 20 F-16 fighter jets at US taxpayer expense of course (Hat Tip: Shy Guy via Jihad Watch).
The first four jets are to be delivered to Egypt beginning Jan. 22, a
source at the naval air base in Fort Worth, where the planes have been
undergoing testing, told FoxNews.com. The North African nation already
has a fleet of more than 200 of the planes and the latest shipment
merely fulfills an order placed two years ago. But given the uncertainty
in Cairo, some critics wonder if it is wise to be sending more top gun
planes.
'Fulfills an order'? How does someone with no money place an order? Let me guess.... The Egyptian government has credit cards. Who pays the bills?
“Should an overreaction [by Egypt] spiral into a broader conflict
between Egypt and Israel, such a scenario would put U.S. officials in an
embarrassing position of having supplied massive amounts of military
hardware … to both belligerents,” said Malou Innocent, a foreign policy
analyst at the Cato Institute. “Given Washington's fiscal woes, American
taxpayers should no longer be Egypt’s major arms supplier.”
Not to mention that most Americans would take Israel's side in such a conflict.
But about that order...
The U.S. government ordered and paid for the
fighter jets for Egypt's military as part of foreign aid for Egypt back
in 2010, when Hosni Mubarak ruled. The fighter jets were supposed to be
delivered in 2013, and delivery will go ahead as scheduled even though
Hosni Mubarak has been removed from power and replaced by Mohamed Morsi,
who led the Muslim Brotherhood before becoming Egypt's president.
So let me get this straight: The US government ordered the jets, the US government paid for the jets... so why can't the US government just cancel the order or send the jets elsewhere?
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, (R-Fla.), who chairs the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, recently criticized U.S. military aid to Egypt:
“The Obama administration wants to simply throw money at an Egyptian
government that the president cannot even clearly state is an ally of
the United States,” Rep. Ros-Lehtinen said.
The $213 million order, which is paid for by U.S. taxpayers and is
part of Egypt's foreign aid package from America, had to be approved by
lawmakers in Washington.While the basic F-16 has been a military
workhorse for top air forces for more than 25 years, the cockpit
electronics are constantly updated and the models Egypt is getting are
the best defense contractor Lockheed Martin makes.
So Obama is trying to save jobs at Lockheed Martin? Let him give those jets to the US Air Force....
A Pentagon spokesman said the U.S. and Egypt have an important alliance that is furthered by the transfer.
"The U.S.-Egypt defense relationship has served as the cornerstone of
our broader strategic partnership for over thirty years," said Lt. Col.
Wesley Miller. "The delivery of the first set of F-16s in January 2013
reflects the U.S. commitment to supporting the Egyptian military's
modernization efforts. Egyptian acquisition of F-16s will increase our
militaries' interoperability, and enhance Egypt's capacity to contribute
to regional mission sets."
Name one to which the Egyptians have contributed.
Last month, State Department official Andrew J. Shapiro explained why
the administration plans to continue military aid to Egypt:
“I know that the uncertainty over the Egyptian transition has
prompted some in Congress to propose conditioning our security
assistance to Egypt. The administration believes that putting conditions
on our assistance to Egypt is the wrong approach, and Secretary Clinton
has made this point strongly. Egypt is a pivotal country in the Middle
East and a long-time partner of the United States. We have continued to
rely on Egypt to support and advance U.S. interests in the region,
including peace with Israel, confronting Iranian ambitions, interdicting
smugglers, and supporting Iraq,” he said.
None of which Egypt has done until now except for a cold peace with Israel, which may be on the verge of collapsing.
Once again, my college classmate, Rabbi Pruzansky, is excellent.
It should not be overlooked that the foundation for this vote was
laid by the Israelis many years ago. The Oslo Accords, whatever the
technical language, was obviously designed to create a Palestinian
state. That agreement was an explicit admission by the Jewish state that
the Jewish people are not the exclusive sovereigns in the land of
Israel, despite G-d’s eternal promises set forth in the Bible.
Governments of the left and the right embraced that outcome in one form
or another. Menachem Begin himself recognized (in 1978) the “legitimate
rights of the Palestinian people,” a phrase that stuck in his craw but
that he accepted based on his lawyerly interpretation that the words
“legitimate rights” could be interpreted to mean anything he wanted it
to mean and not what the other signatories understood it to mean. So the
chickens of Oslo, Lebanon, and Gush Katif have indeed come home to
roost.
And yet, whatever the psychological value (and most Arabs will
assume that the vote means something that it does not, and fire their
weapons in the air in celebration), the vote has no effect in the real
world. Nothing changes here, today, anymore that Arafat’s declaration of
statehood amounted to anything in 1988. A General Assembly vote has no
legal status at all. Abba Eban said it eloquently: “If Algeria
introduced a General Assembly resolution that the world is flat and that
Israel had flattened it, it would find overwhelming support in the Arab
world” and elsewhere. And he said it almost forty years ago. Nothing
has changed there, either.
Abbas still needs to be propped up by Israel. There is no
Palestinian state. The PA and Hamas are still bitter rivals, and Abbas
knows that his political career ends the moment the people are given the
right to vote him out, whenever that is. The UN carnival, typically,
just distracts the world from the real crises in the region – Iran’s
nuclear bomb, Syria’s civil war and Egypt’s ongoing unrest. Anyone who
still needs proof of the mendacity and hypocrisy rampant in the Arab
world needs to consider only the howls of protest when 150 Arabs were
killed and several hundred wounded in the clashes in Gaza – squeals that
were intended to awaken the world to the horrors of a nation (Israel)
exercising its right of self-defense – while the Arab world is dormant
at the massacres in Syria of more than 35,000 people, and the turmoil in
Egypt where already more than 500 people have been injured.
It’s not the civilian deaths or injury that seem to disturb the
Arab world and its malevolent allies across the world; it’s that the
cursed Jews are doing it, and in defense of their right to exist.
There are two obvious conclusions to this vote. One, that Oslo is
officially dead, and this declaration vitiates its very premises of
negotiations over final status issues, and, two, that the United States
is now bound by law to cut its funding of the Palestinian Authority. But
neither will happen and the blatant violations will be finessed,
because neither the US nor Israel has any real interest in changing the
dynamic of the struggle. That complicity is emblematic of the failures
of Israeli politicians for decades that have seen Israel’s strategic
position deteriorate slowly but inexorably.
Nonetheless, in the beleaguered town of Sderot, barely two miles
from Gaza and the recipient of thousands of missiles and rockets in the
last ten years, one encounters today personal strength and courage, a
desire to rebuild, lifelong residents who have no interest in moving to
safer zones. Their resilience is an inspiration to all Jews, and their
heroic story will yet be told. In the new communities built to house the
Jewish refugees driven out of Gaza in 2005, one encounters the same
determination, along with sadness about what was lost and the
unshakeable (and usually unmentioned) feeling of “I told you so,” the
unheeded warnings of what would befall Israel if they retreated under
pressure from Gaza.
All these brave souls have been betrayed by governments with
convoluted miscalculations, wishful thinking and illusions disguised as
policies, unkept promises repeated in every election cycle, or
statecraft that is often illogical and self-destructive.
The people of Israel deserve better; if only they would realize it and act upon it.
Partly because United Nations officials know that the United States
is setting a legal and ethical precedent for other countries developing
armed drones, the U.N. plans to open a unit in Geneva early next year to
investigate American drone strikes.
The attempt to write a formal rule book for targeted killing began last
summer after news reports on the drone program, started under President
George W. Bush and expanded by Mr. Obama, revealed some details of the
president’s role in the shifting procedures for compiling “kill lists”
and approving strikes. Though national security officials insist that
the process is meticulous and lawful, the president and top aides
believe it should be institutionalized, a course of action that seemed
particularly urgent when it appeared that Mitt Romney might win the
presidency.
“There was concern that the levers might no longer be in our hands,”
said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity. With a continuing
debate about the proper limits of drone strikes, Mr. Obama did not want
to leave an “amorphous” program to his successor, the official said.
The effort, which would have been rushed to completion by January had
Mr. Romney won, will now be finished at a more leisurely pace, the
official said.
I don't have a problem with drone strikes against enemies, but does the
Obama administration feel that it is uniquely qualified to define
targeting criteria? Never mind, as the article noted, the even the
United States isn't comfortable with Israel's targeted killings of
terrorists.
There is an irony. If the United States was more forceful in its defense
of Israel's right to self-defense, it might not find itself be
questioned as severely when it pursued the same strategy.
According to the article the New York Times is a party along with the
ACLU seeking more information about the drone program. The Times also
cited Gregory D. Johnsen, who recently wrote an op-ed
for the paper criticizing the policy. It would seem that
administration's strategy of killing terrorists is one area where it
cannot expect the unquestioning support of the New York Times.
According to the Long War Journal, since 2006 American drones have killed 2431 terrorists and only 139 civilians. (h/t Jim Roberts)
2) Money supply, sex and the peace process
“Everything reminds Milton Friedman of the money supply. Everything
reminds me of sex, but I try to keep it out of my papers.” (Robert
Solow)
In Morsi's Moment Thomas Friedman got some things right.
In other words, is Egypt ready to sacrifice the Camp David peace,
U.S. aid and economic development to support Hamas’s radical,
pro-Iranian agenda, or not?
The answer from Cairo was no. President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim
Brotherhood’s party did not want to get dragged into a total breach with
Israel on behalf of Hamas, and instead threw Egypt’s weight into
mediating a cease-fire.
This is just about right for now.
But Friedman can't leave well enough alone.
It is impossible not to be tantalized by how much leverage Morsi
could wield in the peace process, if he ever chose to engage Israel.
Precisely because he represents the Muslim Brotherhood, the vanguard of
Arab Islam, and precisely because he was democratically elected, if
Morsi threw his weight behind an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, it
would be so much more valuable to Israel than the cold peace that Sadat
delivered and Hosni Mubarak maintained. Sadat offered Israelis peace
with the Egyptian state. Morsi could offer Israel peace with the
Egyptian people and, through them, with the Muslim world beyond.
Ironically, though, all of this would depend on Morsi not becoming a
dictator like Mubarak, but on him remaining a legitimately elected
president, truly representing the Egyptian people. That is now in doubt
given Morsi’s very troubling power grab last week and the violent
response from the Egyptian street. President Obama has to be careful not
to sell out Egyptian democracy for quiet between Israel and Egypt and
Hamas. We tried that under Mubarak. It didn’t end well.
Friedman's is one trick pony who believes that all problems of the
Middle East can be solved by solving the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
Well, no things did not end well for Mubarak, but the peace lasted for
more than 30 years. It's interesting too, that Friedman now is so
concerned for Egyptian democracy, ten months ago he was cheering on
the Muslim Brotherhood. Have Morsi's power grabs actually surprised
him? (He compared the Muslim Brotherhood's coming to power in Egypt as
following the AKP's ascendancy in Turkey. Why is he surprised now? Oh
that's right, he was a cheerleader for the AKP too.)
No doubt Morsi’s price for engaging with Israel would be the Arab
Peace Initiative — full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Arab
East Jerusalem, save for mutually agreed-upon land swaps, and some
return of refugees, in return for full normalized relations. If Morsi
advanced such a proposal in direct talks with Israelis, he could
single-handedly revive the Israeli peace camp.
It's important to remember what the Arab Peace Initiative is. It was the
brainchild of Thomas Friedman and then Crown Prince Abdullah of the
Arab League. It was a public relations stunt designed to undermine
international support for Israel's efforts to defeat the "Aqsa Intifada"
and shore up support for Saddam Hussein. Who represented the Arab
League in those day? Ben Ali of Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt Muamar
Qadaffi of Libya. Also Bashar Assad of Syria. In other words the leaders
who represent the pre-"Arab spring" were the ones who signed on to the
initiative. And of course, one reason any of these despots supported the
Palestinians was to misdirect attention away from their own misrule.
Cheerleaders like Friedman were more than happy to give them cover.
Do I expect that? No more than I expect to win the lottery. The
Muslim Brotherhood has long hated the Jewish state, as well as political
and religious pluralism and feminism. Therefore, here’s what I do
expect: More trouble between Israel and Hamas that will constantly
threaten to drag in Egypt. Hamas is a shameful organization. It
subordinates the interests of the Palestinian people to Iran (and
earlier to Syria), which wants Hamas to do everything it can to make a
two-state solution impossible, because that will lock Israel into a
permanent death grip on the West Bank, which will be the undoing of the
Jewish democracy and will distract the world from Iran’s and Syria’s
murderous behaviors.
Is Friedman for real? Hamas is "shameful?" Really. Murderous is a more
apt description. But notice Friedman can't even fault Hamas for
terrorism, but for "undoing Jewish democracy." Friedman's perspective is
completely skewed by his blind worship of the peace process. Is Israel
about to cease being a democracy? No. Are the Palestinians about to have
a state of their own? No. These are two separate issues. No matter how
many times Friedman equates the two doesn't make his perspective any
more correct.
Israel left all of Gaza in 2005, and Hamas had a choice: It could
recognize Israel, have an open border and import computers, or it could
continue to deny Israel’s existence, keep the border sealed, and smuggle
in rockets. It chose rockets over computers. With each rocket that
lands near Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, another Israeli says, “How can we
possibly let go of the West Bank and risk our airport being shut down?”
That is just what Hamas and Iran want — a permanent, grinding,
democracy-eroding, legitimacy-destroying, globally isolating Israeli
occupation of the West Bank — and they are very happy to use the
Palestinian people as a human sacrifice for that goal.
The best way for Israel to undercut Hamas is by empowering the secular
Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, in the West Bank to gain
greater independence and build a thriving economy, so every Palestinian
can compare which strategy works best: working with Israel or against
Israel. This Israeli government has failed to do that. It is so
shortsighted. But Hamas makes it easy for Israel to get away with that
by ignoring what we know from history: that whoever makes the Israeli
silent majority feel morally insecure about occupation, but
strategically secure in Israel, wins. After Sadat flew to Jerusalem,
Israelis knew there was no way morally that they could hold onto the
Sinai and strategically they no longer felt the need. When King Hussein
of Jordan and Yasir Arafat did the same, they each got land back. Today,
nothing makes Israelis feel more strategically insecure and morally
secure with occupation than Hamas’s stupid rocket attacks, even after
Israel has withdrawn.
Ten years earlier Israel withdrew from most of the West Bank, shedding
responsibility for 90% of the Palestinians. What happened? Did Arafat
create the institutions of a functioning state? Or did he take the
territory he was handed and use it to encourage terror against Israel?
The dysfunction of the Palestinian Authority under Arafat continues to
this day. Israel can't empower Abbas; they have no real constituency to
make peace. The culture Arafat and later Abbas presided over places a
premium on resistance and denying legitimacy to Israel. Friedman argues
that the perfectly reasonable Israeli fear of terror is "democracy
eroding." Somehow, though, the ideology that advocates terror as long as
one's demands are not met is not illegitimate.
Egypt threatened to abrogate 'peace treaty' if there was a Gaza ground op
Here's another reason that probably made the government of Israel think twice about invading Gaza on the ground: Egypt threatened to abrogate the 'peace treaty' if Israel invaded Gaza.
Prior to
Wednesday's cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas, Egypt
threatened that an IDF ground operation into the Gaza Strip would
endanger the peace treaty between Jerusalem and Cairo, Channel 2
reported on Thursday.
According to the report, Egyptian President
Mohamed Morsi refused to speak directly with Israeli representatives
during the cease-fire negotiations, despite the US urging him to do so.
This ought to make Israel think again about the value of pieces of paper that claim to bring 'peace.'
Egypt's Morsy trying to dictate terms of US-Arab relations
Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy has given an interview to the New York Times in which he effectively tries to dictate the terms of US-Arab relations.
He said it was up to Washington to repair relations with the Arab world
and to revitalize the alliance with Egypt, long a cornerstone of
regional stability.
If Washington is asking Egypt to honor its treaty with Israel, he said,
Washington should also live up to its own Camp David commitment to
Palestinian self-rule. He said the United States must respect the Arab
world’s history and culture, even when that conflicts with Western
values.
And he dismissed criticism from the White House
that he did not move fast enough to condemn protesters who recently
climbed over the United States Embassy wall and burned the American flag
in anger over a video that mocked the Prophet Muhammad.
“We took our time” in responding to avoid an explosive backlash, he
said, but then dealt “decisively” with the small, violent element among
the demonstrators.
“We can never condone this kind of violence, but we need to deal with
the situation wisely,” he said, noting that the embassy employees were
never in danger.
...
He praised Mr. Obama for moving “decisively and quickly” to support the
Arab Spring revolutions, and he said he believed that Americans
supported “the right of the people of the region to enjoy the same
freedoms that Americans have.”
Arabs and Americans have “a shared objective, each to live free in their
own land, according to their customs and values, in a fair and
democratic fashion,” he said, adding that he hoped for “a harmonious,
peaceful coexistence.”
But he also argued that Americans “have a special responsibility” for
the Palestinians because the United States had signed the 1978 Camp
David accord. The agreement called for the withdrawal of Israeli troops
from the West Bank and Gaza to make way for full Palestinian self-rule.
“As long as peace and justice are not fulfilled for the Palestinians, then the treaty remains unfulfilled,” he said.
The first agreement had three parts. The first part or preamble was a framework for negotiations to establish an autonomous self-governing authority in the West Bank and the Gaza strip and to fully implement SC 242.
The Accords recognized the "legitimate rights of the Palestinian
people", a process was to be implemented guaranteeing the full autonomy
of the people within a period of five years. Begin insisted on the
adjective "full" to confirm that it was the maximum political right
attainable. This full autonomy was to be discussed with the
participation of Israel, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians. The
withdrawal of Israeli troops from the West Bank and Gaza was agreed to
occur after an election of a self-governing authority to replace
Israel's military government.[1]
The Accords did not mention the Golan Heights, Syria, or Lebanon. This
was not the comprehensive peace that Kissinger, Ford, Carter, or Sadat
had in mind during the previous American presidential transition.[16]
It was less clear than the agreements concerning the Sinai, and was
later interpreted differently by Israel, Egypt, and the United States.
The fate of Jerusalem was deliberately excluded from this agreement.[17]
Note that there is nothing in the accords that mandates 'justice' for the 'Palestinians,' a phrase that the 'Palestinians' generally associate with a return to the 1949 armistice lines and the return of 'refugees' and their descendants to their purported ancestral homes.
Moreover, Begin was clear that he was not agreeing to anything more than 'full autonomy.' It is almost beyond argument that Israel granted full autonomy to the 'Palestinians' when it entered into the Oslo Accords and allowed the 'Palestinian Authority' to be established.
Although it was first thought that he would, President Obama will not be meeting with Egyptian President Morsy at the White House due to possible "complicated election-year politics of a visit with Egypt’s Islamist leader." Donald Douglas adds:
Well, yeah. Bowing, in the White House, before the leader of the Arab
terrorist world might not have gone over too well with the American
public. That's something that even the Obama-enabling media wouldn't be
able to conceal.
In another interview Saturday with Egyptian state television, Morsy
discussed Syria, asserting that having a strong relationship with Iran
is important for Egypt at this time to be able to work out a way to end
the bloodshed in Syria.
Morsy described Iran as "a main player in
the region that could have an active and supportive role in solving the
Syrian problem."
Morsy, in a move to revive Egypt's role in the
region, asked last month for Iran to join a quartet committee he called
for which includes Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey and Egypt to try to find a
solution to the violence in Syria.
Iran is the only state in the
quartet that is an ally to Syrian President Bashar Assad and has accused
Saudi Arabia and Turkey of helping the rebels who are fighting to
topple him. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have all demanded that Assad
step down. Iran was attacked at the UN Security Council last week for
its continuous backing of the Syrian regime.
"I don't see the
presence of Iran in this quartet as a problem, but is a part of solving
the (Syrian) problem," Morsy said, explaining that Iran's close
proximity to Syria and its strong ties with it makes it "vital" in
resolving the Syrian crisis.
Morsy's comments came after Saudi
Arabia stayed away from the quartet's last meeting, which Cairo hosted
on Sept. 17. Saudi Arabia's decision was seen by diplomats and western
officials as a reaction to the presence of Shi'ite Muslim Iran, the
major rival of Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia in the Middle East.
It will not be easy for the next US President to reassert America's authority in the Middle East. And if God forbid we get four more years of Obama, there may not be any authority left to reassert.
The US has recently warned Israel that an
Israeli strike on Iran will likely cause Egypt and Jordan to annul their
peace agreements with Israel and sever ties, according to a senior
Israeli official quoted by the Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth on
Thursday.
“These days, Arab leaders don’t rule their
people. Rather, the street rules its leaders,” the official was quoted
as saying. “An Israeli strike is exactly what the Iranians need: the
entire Arab and Muslim street will go out to demonstrate.”
The Israeli official reportedly linked between
the anticipated Arab reaction to an Israeli strike and the current
rage-fueled wave of anti-Western protests in the wake of the publication
of a trailer for a new film, “Innocence of Muslims,” that denigrates
Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.
“What we’ve been seeing with the anti-Muhammad
film is nothing but a preview for what’s going to happen if Israel
attacks,” the official was quoted as saying.
Obviously, I have no way of knowing whether the US issued such a warning or whether the warning itself had a basis other than the imaginations of Obama, Clinton and the State Department. But if the State Department actually received warnings to that effect, they are morons to use those warnings to threaten Israel. What they ought to be doing instead is to be warning both Egypt and Jordan that (a) if they abrogate their treaties with Israel, they can kiss every last dollar of US aid good bye, meaning that the Egyptians, at least, will starve, and (b) they should be warning Egypt and and Jordan that if they abrogate their treaties, there will never again be a treaty between Israel and any Arab or Muslim entity and their beloved 'Palestinians' can permanently kiss their statereichlet good bye.
Israel Radio reports (9:00 am) that El Al, the country's national airline has asked permission to discontinue its service to Cairo, because it is losing money due to the security costs (and probably due to lack of passengers).
Alternatively, the airline has asked the government to subsidize the politically sensitive route.
Video: Muslim Brotherhood official says peace brought cancer and other diseases to Egypt
Here's something that ought to convince us to immediately make peace with all of our Arab and Muslim neighbors. A leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, the party that rules Egypt, says that the 30-year old peace treaty with Israel brought cancer and other diseases to Egypt.
Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip: Omri Ceren via Twitter).
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
the
fighter jets for Egypt's military as part of foreign aid for Egypt back
in 2010, when Hosni Mubarak ruled. The fighter jets were supposed to be
delivered in 2013, and delivery will go ahead as scheduled even though
Hosni Mubarak has been removed from power and replaced by Mohamed Morsi,
who led the Muslim Brotherhood before becoming Egypt's president.
