American-Backed Egyptian "Moderate" (Next President?) Threatens War On Israel!

Everything has been so predictable. Designated "moderate" and U.S.-backed Egyptian leader Muhammad ElBaradei has made a profoundly shocking statement that should change U.S. policy overnight, show how disastrous Obama Administration policy was, and mark the beginning of the coming electoral defeat for the president.

But presumably nothing will change.

ElBaradei, a presidential candidate, said the following:

“If Israel attacked Gaza we would declare war against the Zionist regime." 

And he's the moderate! In other words:

--Despite repeated ridiculing of Israeli concerns, it is increasingly likely that the next Egyptian government will tear up the Egypt-Israel peace treaty.

--Egypt will be an ally of Hamas, a revolutionary Islamist terrorist group that openly calls for genocide against Jews and the wiping out of Israel. (Samantha Powers, alleged anti-genocide champion, where are you?)

--By making such irresponsible and warlike statements, ElBaradei is encouraging Hamas to attack Israel to provoke such a war. As I pointed out, events in Egypt are making such a war inevitable.

--In his interview with Al-Watan,  ElBaradei also said:

"In case of any future Israeli attack on Gaza--as the next president of Egypt– I will open the Rafah border crossing and will consider different ways to implement the joint Arab defense agreement." 

Think about what that means! Muslim Brotherhood and other volunteers will flood into Gaza to fight the Jews. Arms from Iran and Syria will pour into the Gaza Strip including longer-range missiles, landed openly at Egyptian ports.

And that "joint Arab defense agreement"? That means Egypt would consult with Syria and other Arab states about joining the war, spreading it throughout the region.

Thank you, President Obama!

Of course, to be fair, ElBaradei might not get elected as president of Egypt. His opponent, Amr Moussa, is a radical nationalist who likes to play demagogue but seems preferable to the "American" candidate.

To make things even worse, such statements cannot be attributed to ElBaradei being a front-man for the Muslim Brotherhood since he is now quarreling with them, though presumably they will still vote for him to be president.

And, of course, it can be honestly said that he is just being demagogic to win votes. The problem is that Arab leaders are often demagogic to win support after they are elected to office or seize power.

Or maybe the Egyptian army will stop such a war? They will be pragmatic and say, "Look, if we fight Israel the United States will cut off our weapons and military aid. We might lose. And what about the waste of resources that we badly need at home?"

But believe it or not a lot of Egyptians think that they could defeat Israel and that only President Husni Mubarak and the Americans are holding them back. A lot of officers probably believe that, being too young to remember the 1967 war. Or they might be swept away by revolutionary, nationalist, and religious enthusiasm. And they might be afraid to seem like Israel's "protectors" and thus traitors to Egypt and the revolution.

That's how Arab politics works. But, of course, all the "best and brightest" in the U.S. government (the political appointees at least), those running American intelligence, the White House, the academic "experts," and the mass media don't understand it.

And to be fair once again, obviously President Obama and his administration is not responsible for the Egyptian revolution. But there is a long list of factors that do make it their fault:

They rushed the process of change; made it inevitable by demanding that the revolution succeed; acted so that it included the entire regime and not just Mubarak personally; preemptively approved the Muslim Brotherhood as a government party, didn't press the regime for guarantees to Israel; made the new rulers feel that they can get away with anything; among other things.

Then there are the broader mistakes made previously: acting so weak that it emboldened radicals and makes everyone assume that the United States can't or won't do anything to enforce its interests; pressed Israel to minimize sanctions on the Hamas regime; gave several hundred million dollars to the Gaza Strip; defined only al-Qaida as an enemy and all other radical Islamists as moderates-in-training; coddled rather than confronted Syria and--to a lesser extent--Iran; distanced itself from Israel; among other things.

What will it take for the United States and Europe to realize that they have uncorked the bottle and let out the genie? How's this sound as an election slogan: Obama got taken for a ride, millions died?

Watch Rabbi Marvin Hier interviewed by Conan Nolan for NBC's "News Conference" ...

Lessons From Egypt: The United States Can Count On Israel, But Can Israel Count on the United States? by Alan Dershowitz

It's too early to learn all the possible lessons -- and there will be many -- from the current turmoil throughout the Middle East, but one important lesson is that there is only one democracy that the United States can always count on to remain a strong ally. That democracy is Israel. No one knows whether any or all of the Arab states that are currently in flux will pull an "Iran" on us -- turning from friend to foe in the blink of an Ayatollah.

The optimists are hoping for more of a Lebanon than an Iran, but even Lebanon -- with a better history of democracy than any other Arab country -- is now essentially in the hands of Hezbollah. The United States cannot count on the new Egypt remaining an ally, even with the carrot of massive aid.

Some of the blame for this uncertainty falls on us for supporting friendly dictators, from the Shah to Hosni Mubarak to King Abdullah, but the reality is that the United States simply cannot rely on the increasingly vocal Arab street to support our interests. That is precisely why we have, rightly or wrongly, felt the need to cozy up to Arab tyrants who falsely promise us stability in exchange for financial and military support.

Not so with Israel. But the pressing question remains: Will the United States reciprocate, or will we be a fair-weather friend to our stalwart ally?

So far, we've been principled enough to reciprocate. United States administrations may prefer some Israeli electoral outcomes to others. We may prefer certain Israeli leaders over others. But in the end, we recognize that Israel is a stable democracy that does not need propping up from the outside.

The military aid we give Israel is not designed to protect a regime against its own citizens, as it is with regard to the aid to Jordan and Egypt. Our assistance to Israel is calculated to protect it from external enemies like Iran, sworn to its destruction.

The people of Israel may not love a particular American President or administration, but they love America and what we stand for. And Israel helps America -- with intelligence gathering, development of military weapons, cybertechnology defense and in numerous other ways. The relationship is a model of symbiosis.

But recent events in the Mideast, particularly the haste with which we abandoned Mubarak, our most loyal Arab ally, has raised questions among some Israelis as to whether Israel can always count on the United States.

Skeptical Israelis wonder how this, or any other, American administration would react to a demand from the Arab street across the entire Middle East or the United States to abandon Israel. This demand could come even if Israel makes peace with the Palestinians and agrees to permanent borders, since Islamic radicals don't recognize Israel's right to exist within any borders. Israelis recall how quickly we abandoned the shah and how responsive our government has been to the demands of protesters in Tunisia and Egypt.

Israelis wants real democracy among its Arab neighbors, but they fear that elections alone -- particularly elections that put groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood in power -- will produce anything but real democracy. Hamas' violent takeover in Gaza provides the negative model that they fear will emerge from the Egyptian chaos.

While recognizing the enormous difference between democratic Israel and the tyrannical regimes against which the Arab street is now rising, these concerned Israelis are contemplating a worst case scenario. They fear that history has shown that a friend in desperate need is a friend often betrayed by superpowers.

This skepticism is not necessarily fueled by any criticism of the United States, but rather by a realistic recognition that America has its own national interests which it will always place over the interests of even its staunchest allies. The United States is, for better or worse, the world's most important superpower, and it must necessarily serve as a kind of policeman to the entire world.

Most Americans believe that it will always be in America's interests to support Israel because of its commitment to values akin to our own. But there are some Americans -- from those on the extreme right like Sen. Rand Paul, to so-called realists like Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, to those on the extreme left, like Noam Chomsky -- who would see no problem in abandoning Israel at the drop of a keffiyeh.

Accordingly, though most Israelis believe that America will always support its survival, many refuse to count on it. That's why they developed a long term strategy of self-reliance. The attitude of many Israelis can perhaps best be summed up by the important lesson Elie Wiesel has taught all Jews to learn from the Holocaust: "Always believe the threat of your enemies more than the promises of your friends."

The threats being made by the Muslim Brotherhood to destroy the Jewish state by force must be taken seriously. The promises by the United States to stand behind Israel, though I believe they will remain true, must necessarily be viewed skeptically by Israelis. Israel must always be prepared to defend itself.

Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Explains How It Will Get Rid of Peace Treaty with Israel

We have been repeatedly assured in the media--on the basis of no evidence--that if the Muslim Brotherhood comes to power in a coalition or even directly that the radical Islamist group would keep the peace treaty with Israel.

On Russian television, one Brotherhood leader, Rashad al-Bayoumi,  said that when they came to power they will abolish the treaty altogether.

Another, former spokesman Doctor Kamel Helbaoui, explains one way they might get out of it. It is also a good example of how they avoid embarassing questions, and usually get away with it. Clearly, Brotherhood leaders have been warned to avoid extremist statements as it tries to sell itself to the Western audience and (insert adjective) media as moderate and cuddly.

In an interview on French television, he says (1:40-2:12 on the show):

Interviewer: "And would you revoke the peace treaty with Israel?"
Answer: "We respect all protocols and the treaties built on justice.
Interviewer: "Sorry, I didn't understand your response."
Answer: "We respect every treaty and every protocol for peace, but it should be built on justice.
Interviewer: "Does that mean you would keep the peace treaty with Israel?
Answer: "You keep it, but you have to review it in [unclear] of the atrocities from either side."
Interviewer: "What do you mean by that?"
Answer: "I mean that we don't need injustice to reach the people. If the peace treaty does not give the people their rights, it is not a good treaty, is not a good peace accord."
Interviewer: "So are you saying that the current peace treaty is not good enough?"
Answer: "No, it is not good enough. I must say that."
Interviewer: "So you would revoke that peace treaty.
Answer: "No, I didn't say that.
Interviewer: You would change it?
Answer: It could be reviewed in view of respect of human rights. And through the United Nations, through freedom given to the people, respect of every one. Not occupation and the military atrocities against civilians."

So while trying to avoid admitting it, he explains that Egypt would demand changes and not accept the existing treaty. But what you also have to know--and most journalists would miss--is that the Muslim Brotherhood regards Israel's existence as "occupation" and the denial of Muslim rights.

Paradoxically, then, the only way Israel could have a peace treaty with Egypt is not to exist at all.

Other Brotherhood spokesmen have said that if the group comes to power there will be a referendum on the treaty, and of course it will be rejected. This has been said many times in Arabic though the Western media seem completely unaware of it, as with many other things about the Brotherhood.

You have to understand the bizarre situation here. Every speech in Arabic of Brotherhood leaders and cadre and articles in their publications are full of anti-Jewish hatred, anti-American hatred, and support for violence. Yet in the Western media all of this simply is never mentioned, in part because reporters take the group's word on its credentials.

In other words, the Brotherhood will end the peace with Israel and return to a state of war.

This would not necessarily mean going to war, since Egypt's army might well be unwilling to do so, considering the consequences and not liking the Brotherhood. In contrast, though, it is easy to make Egypt into a safe haven from which terrorists could attack across the border and any weapons Hamas wanted would come from Egyptian arsenals (or if the army blocked that, just be freely imported into the Gaza Strip.

Eventually, this would lead to renewed war between Israel and Hamas, or even Israel and Egypt, in which thousands of people would die. Some would call that speculation. I would prefer that they didn't get to see it proven to be accurate.

Ed Koch On The Arab Uprising

Here's Ed Koch's analysis of the situation in the Islamic world, excerpted from his e-mail.

"The Muslim world is on fire. Mobs are filling the streets of Cairo; the people of Tunisia have forced out its dictatorial president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali; and in Lebanon, Hezbollah, a terrorist organization, has been responsible for the fall of the government led by Saad Hariri, son of a former prime minister who was murdered by a huge car bomb. Syria and Hezbollah are suspected of committing the terrorist act. Hezbollah now is the major supporter of the new prime minister, Najib Mikati.
 

"Iran continues with its efforts to build a nuclear bomb. Pakistan, already in possession of a nuclear bomb, remains an unstable U.S. ally....  The Turkish government, admittedly Islamist, continues to hammer Israel, and appears to be seeking leadership of the Muslim world by joining with militants who see the United States as the enemy and terrorists who are attacking Western civilization in their announced desire to impose Sharia, the Muslim code of living, which includes punishment of death by stoning for crimes such as adultery, blasphemy, homosexuality or converting to another religion.

"Iraq continues with its near daily slaughtering of innocent civilians, based on the historic religious wars between Shiites and Sunnis. In Afghanistan, the lives of our own military personnel are put at risk every day in an unwinnable war, where were we to win, we would be winning nothing worth fighting and dying for. Syria still covets Lebanon as a lost province and provides arms to Hezbollah which threatens a new war with Israel. What worries the U.S. most is that two governments friendly to the U.S., Egypt and Jordan, are now in danger of falling.

"What does all of this chaos in Arab and Muslim populated lands display?  It should put to rest the opinion of the radical left in the U.S. that all would be well in the world if the West would abandon Israel. That radical left supports bringing Israel’s independence to an end and supporting the Palestinians in their efforts to turn all of historic Palestine into a single state with an Arab Muslim majority, some of whom – Hamas -- are bent on expelling Jews; others for allowing them to live and practice their religion if they accept the supremacy of Islam.

".... [Is] the West, in particular the U.S., willing to stand up to the constant attacks on us, physical and economic, or will we at some point decide to go down the road that Chamberlain chose in 1938 when he met with Adolf Hitler, came back to England paper in hand referring to “Peace in our time,” having thrown Czechoslovakia under the bus? Winston Churchill commented, "Britain and France were faced with a choice between war and dishonor. They chose dishonor. They will have war."

"We are now faced with Muslim crowds in the capitals of Arab countries demanding the ouster of governments -- Egypt and Jordan -- that are at all friendly to the U.S.  Will we now desert those governments the way Britain and France deserted Czechoslovakia?

"Yes, the governments of Egypt and Jordan are repressive and dictatorial and the crowds in the streets are  primarily using the rhetoric of democracy now. But historically, when they win, become even more repressive and threatening to the world, e.g., Iran. So there is the conundrum and a Hobbesian choice to be made. Do we side with the repressive governments that are friendly to the U.S. – Mubarak of Egypt and Abdullah of Jordan and others as well – or do we simply support those mouthing the chants of democracy and take our chances, knowing that many in those mobs would, if given the chance, slit the throats of every Christian and Jew who won’t willingly convert to Islam. I urge everyone not to forget the coldblooded killing of Wall Street Journal reporter, Daniel Pearl, by Pakistani terrorists who literally severed his head from his body back in 2002, on video for all to see.

"World peace is on the line. Egypt, with 80 million people, is the same size as Germany, but with a much younger population. I believe (and I confess I am no expert, but there are apparently few experts who predicted the current state of affairs) that it is folly to desert our friends and allies, e.g., Mubarak and King Abdullah and Saudi Arabia when they need us. Did we make the right choice when we deserted the Shah of Iran and stood by when Khomeini was lifted to power by the violence in the streets of Tehran? I don’t think so and believe the repression and torture became worse.

"....  As the U.S. chooses sides, let's remember our fateful abandonment of our ally, the Shah of Iran, a decision for which we are still paying a heavy price."

Israel shocked by Obama's "betrayal" of Mubarak

(Reuters) - If Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak is toppled, Israel will lose one of its very few friends in a hostile neighborhood and President Barack Obama will bear a large share of the blame, Israeli pundits said on Monday.Political commentators expressed shock at how the United States as well as its major European allies appeared to be ready to dump a staunch strategic ally of three decades, simply to conform to the current ideology of political correctness.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told ministers of the Jewish state to make no comment on the political cliffhanger in Cairo, to avoid inflaming an already explosive situation. But Israel's President Shimon Peres is not a minister.
"We always have had and still have great respect for President Mubarak," he said on Monday. He then switched to the past tense. "I don't say everything that he did was right, but he did one thing which all of us are thankful to him for: he kept the peace in the Middle East."
Newspaper columnists were far more blunt.
One comment by Aviad Pohoryles in the daily Maariv was entitled "A Bullet in the Back from Uncle Sam." It accused Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of pursuing a naive, smug, and insular diplomacy heedless of the risks.
Who is advising them, he asked, "to fuel the mob raging in the streets of Egypt and to demand the head of the person who five minutes ago was the bold ally of the president ... an almost lone voice of sanity in a Middle East?"
"The politically correct diplomacy of American presidents throughout the generations ... is painfully naive."
Obama on Sunday called for an "orderly transition" to democracy in Egypt, stopping short of calling on Mubarak to step down, but signaling that his days may be numbered. [nN30161335]
"AMERICA HAS LOST IT"
Netanyahu instructed Israeli ambassadors in a dozen key capitals over the weekend to impress on host governments that Egypt's stability is paramount, official sources said.
"Jordan and Saudi Arabia see the reactions in the West, how everyone is abandoning Mubarak, and this will have very serious implications," Haaretz daily quoted one official as saying.
Egypt, Israel's most powerful neighbor, was the first Arab country to make peace with the Jewish state, in 1979. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who signed the treaty, was assassinated two years later by an Egyptian fanatic.
It took another 13 years before King Hussein of Jordan broke Arab ranks to made a second peace with the Israelis. That treaty was signed by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated one year later, in 1995, by an Israeli fanatic.
There have been no peace treaties since. Lebanon and Syria are still technically at war with Israel. Conservative Gulf Arab regimes have failed to advance their peace ideas. A hostile Iran has greatly increased its influence in the Middle East conflict.

"The question is, do we think Obama is reliable or not," said an Israeli official, who declined to be named.
"Right now it doesn't look so. That is a question resonating across the region not just in Israel."
Writing in Haaretz, Ari Shavit said Obama had betrayed "a moderate Egyptian president who remained loyal to the United States, promoted stability and encouraged moderation."
To win popular Arab opinion, Obama was risking America's status as a superpower and reliable ally.
"Throughout Asia, Africa and South America, leaders are now looking at what is going on between Washington and Cairo. Everyone grasps the message: "America's word is worthless ... America has lost it."

The Muslim Brotherhood: the enemy in its own words

As Egypt lurches towards the end of Hosni Mubarak's regime, one way or another - by "an orderly transition to democratic rule" (as Hillary Clinton delicately puts it), through violent overthrow or simply through the demise of the ailing 82-year-old president - much is unclear. One thing that should not be is that the Muslim Brotherhood is our enemy, and whatever role it plays in Egypt's future will be to our detriment.

Such clarity is readily available since the Brotherhood (MB or in Arabic, Ikhwan) has told us as much. Consider, for example, the mission statement for the MB found in one of its secret documents entitled "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America":

The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions.

As a blue-ribbon group of national security experts convened by the Center for Security Policy, "Team B II" noted in their new best-seller Shariah: The Threat to America, the incompatability of the Ikhwan's agenda with our interests has been evident from its inception:

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928. Its express purpose was two-fold: (1) to implement shariah worldwide, and (2) to re-establish the global Islamic State (caliphate).  Therefore, al Qaeda and the MB have the same objectives.  They differ only in the timing and tactics involved in realizing them.

We also know how the Brotherhood plans to pull off our destruction.  Another MB document, this one undated, is called "Phases of the World Underground Movement Plan."  It describes a five-installment program for achieving the triumph of shariah - together with a status report on the realization of several of the phases' goals:

Phase One: Discreet and secret establishment of leadership.
Phase Two: Phase of gradual appearance on the public scene and exercising and utilizing various public activities. It [the MB] greatly succeeded in implementing this stage.  It also succeeded in achieving a great deal of its important goals, such as infiltrating various sectors of the Government.
Phase Three: Escalation phase, prior to conflict and confrontation with the rulers, through utilizing mass media.  Currently in progress.
Phase Four: Open public confrontation with the Government through exercising the political pressure approach.  It is aggressively implementing the above-mentioned approach. Training on the use of weapons domestically and overseas in anticipation of zero-hour.  It has noticeable activities in this regard.
Phase Five: Seizing power to establish their Islamic Nation under which all parties and Islamic groups are united.

If any further evidence were needed of the threat posed by the Muslim Brotherhood, consider the comments on October 6, 2010 by Mohamed Badie, the Ikwan's virulent promoter of shariah who was installed as its leader ("Supreme Guide") last year.  According to a translation provided by the indispensable Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Badie declared: 

[Today, the United States] is withdrawing from Iraq, defeated and wounded, and it is on the verge of withdrawing from Afghanistan. [All] its warplanes, missiles and modern military technology were defeated by the will of the peoples, as long as [these peoples] insisted on resistance. Its wealth will not avail it once Allah has had his say, as happened with [powerful] nations in the past.  The U.S. is now experiencing the beginning of its end, and is heading towards its demise.

Barry Rubin, one of the most astute observers of the Middle East, warned within days that this speech represented a "declaration of war" by the Brotherhood, with it "adopting a view almost identical to al Qaeda's" but coming from "a group with 100 times more activists than al Qaeda."

At first blush, it seems incredible that the sort of clarity about the Brotherhood's intentions that the foregoing provide seems to be eluding many in official Washington and the policy elite.  On closer inspection, however, the muddle-headedness that has many describing the Ikhwan as "non-violent," "democratic" and desirable candidates for a coalition to replace Mubarak's dictatorship is, to use an old Soviet expression, "no accident, comrade."

In fact, the aforementioned MB "Explanatory Memorandum" provides a list of "Our Organizations and the Organizations of Our Friends" that includes virtually every prominent Muslim-American organization in business at that time.  What is incredible, therefore, is that many of these same Muslim Brotherhood fronts are used by the U.S. government for "outreach" to the Muslim community and policy advice.  The nation's top intelligence official, James Clapper, has actually characterized the resulting "dialogue with the Muslim community" as "a source of advice, counsel, and wisdom."

As a result, one other thing should be frighteningly clear:  We are having our policies towards Egypt's succession - and the tsunami it is accelerating elsewhere in the region influenced, shaped and probably subverted by the Muslim Brotherhood's American operatives.  If we let our enemies call the shots, there is no doubt who will wind up taking the bullet.

Unrest in Egypt could lead to Israel’s worst nightmare

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- For Israel, the popular uprising against the Mubarak regime raises the specter of its worst strategic nightmare: collapse of the peace treaty with Egypt, the cornerstone of its regional policy for the past three decades.

That is not the inevitable outcome of the unrest; a modified version of the Mubarak government could survive and retain the "cold peace" with Israel. But if, in a worst case scenario, democratic or Islamic forces were to come to power denouncing Israel and repudiating the peace deal, that could herald the resurrection of a major military threat on Israel's southern border.

The largely American-equipped and American-trained Egyptian army — by far the most powerful military in the Arab world — numbers around 650,000 men, with 60 combat brigades, 3500 tanks and 600 fighter planes. For Israel, the main strategic significance of the peace with Egypt is that it has been able to take the threat of full-scale war against its strongest foe out of the military equation. But a hostile regime change in Cairo could compel Israel to rethink its military strategy, restructure its combat forces, and, in general, build a bigger army, diverting billions of shekels to that end with major social and economic consequences.

A hostile government in Cairo could also mean that Egypt would be aiding and abetting the radical Hamas regime in neighboring Gaza, rather than, as at present, helping to contain it.

Worse: If there is a domino effect that also leads to an anti-Israel regime change in Jordan, with its relatively large Islamic political presence, Israel could find itself facing an augmented military threat on its eastern border, too. That could leave it even worse off than it was before 1977, facing a combined military challenge from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the Palestinians -- with the added menace of a fundamentalist Iran that seeks to acquire nuclear weapons.

The strategic importance of the peace with Egypt has come to the fore during a number of crises over the past decade. Without it, the Second Palestinian Intifada (2000-2005), the Second Lebanon War (2006) and the Gaza War (2008-2009) could easily have triggered wider regional hostilities. But in each case, in the teeth of regionwide popular sentiment against Israel, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak adamantly rejected calls to commit Egyptian soldiers to the fray. On the contrary, Mubarak was critical of Hezbollah in Lebanon and of Hamas in Gaza for provoking senseless killing, and he played a significant role in achieving postwar ceasefire arrangements. "Not everything Mubarak did was right," President Shimon Peres declared Monday. "But he did one thing for which we all owe him a debt of gratitude. He kept the peace in the Middle East."

Because Mubarak has served as a bulwark against regional chaos and was for decades a central pillar of American strategy against the radical forces led by Iran, Israelis found it baffling that President Obama turned his back on the embattled Egyptian leader so quickly. Pundits argued that Obama’s stance sent a deeply disconcerting message to America's moderate allies across the region, from Saudi Arabia to Morocco, that they, too, might be as peremptorily abandoned in time of need. That message, the pundits said, might drive those equally autocratic leaders elsewhere for support, even possibly toward America's regional foe, Iran. Secondly, the pundits insisted that by distancing himself from Mubarak, Obama was encouraging the would-be revolutionary opposition in Egypt in a gamble that could prove counterproductive to American and Western interests. Clearly, the American president was hoping for democracy in Egypt and a concomitant increase in popular support for America across the region.

In his Cairo speech in June 2009, Obama offered the Muslim peoples of the Middle East a new beginning. Now, he seems to be using the Egyptian crisis to underscore that appeal to the Muslim masses. But Israeli pundits warn that this is most unlikely to work. They maintain that instead of democracy in Egypt, there could well be a two-stage revolutionary process -- an initial quasi-democracy, overtaken within months by the emergence of an autocratic Islamic republic under the heel of the Muslim Brotherhood. It would be similar to what happened when the United States supported pro-democracy forces against the Shah in Iran in the 1970s, only to see the emergence of the fundamentalist Ayatollahs. Moreover, in the event of an eventual Muslim Brotherhood victory, the big regional winner would be fundamentalist Iran.

Israeli diplomats across the globe have been instructed to quietly make the case for the importance of stability in Egypt. Careful not to exacerbate an already delicate situation by saying anything that might be construed as support for one side or the other, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has merely reaffirmed Israel's desire to preserve regional stability. But it is safe to assume that his government would be relieved to see power remaining in the hands of Egypt's current ruling elite — say, through a peaceful handover to Mubarak's recently appointed vice president, Omar Suleiman.

The Israeli hope is that Suleiman, the former head of Egypt's intelligence services and a major player in everything related to Egyptian-Israeli ties, would be able to continue Egypt's pro-Western alignment and its support for the peace deal with Israel, while allowing a greater degree of democracy in Egypt and pre-empting the rise of an Islamic republic. But it is unclear how much popular support he can muster, given his close ties down the years with Mubarak, who seemingly overnight has become the most hated man in Egypt.

However the events in Egypt play out, they will clearly have an impact on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The very notion of a threat to the peace with Egypt will almost certainly further reduce the Netanyahu government's readiness to take risks for peace. In a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Jerusalem on Monday, Netanyahu re-emphasized the importance he attaches to the security element in any peace package -- "in case the peace unravels." As for the Palestinians, the Egyptian protests could trigger Palestinian demonstrations pressing for statehood -- without peace or mutual concessions.

As usual, events seem to be reinforcing both sides of the Israeli political divide in their core beliefs. The right is already saying that Israel should not make peace unless it can be assured of ironclad security arrangements, and the left maintains that if only Israel had already made peace with the Palestinians and the Arab world, then popular unrest such as the protests in Egypt would not be potentially so earth-shattering.

Either way, the events in Egypt are not good news for those advocating Israeli-Arab peacemaking. They could push efforts to resolve the conflict back several decades.