EDITOR: The Sheikh Jarrakh demonstrators rename the local square Tahrir Square in honour of the Egyptian people and their revolution! (in Hebrew and Arabic)

EDITOR: the US is listening to Israel and Mubark

The US has today shifted its position again, now back to supporting the tyrant it has supported until last week. Well, a week is a long time in politics, and the US administration may well believe that people’s memory does not extend sucha long time back as last week. After 11 days of Israel making the point that Mubarak should be supported, bearing in mind whata good job he has been doing for them, the US has shifted top its default position again. Should we be surprised?

In Israel, where belief in democracy extends to democracy for Jews only, the democratic movement of Egypt is seen as a threat. The new government of Egypt may be far less pliable,  and may refuse to illegally blockade Gaza, for example, or to sell Israel gas at prices lower than to its own citizens… There may well be trouble ahead.

Following the Israeli lead, Jewish leaders in the US speak out this week. “He may be a barbarian, but he’s our barbarian”. Thus spoke John Rothmann, a former President of the Zionist Organization of America, now a talk show host for KGO radio in San Francisco. It is of course a paraphrase of FDR’s description of Somoza, the dictator of Nicaragua and Israel’s good friend: ‘he may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.’

It is good to hear such home truths from the horse’s mouth, certainly. Democracy when we do it, but nowhere else, and only on our terms. It is clear that the dominant voice of US Jews, totally supportive of Israel and its schemes of control of the Middle East, is again showing its true, undemocratic and hostile face. If you support Zionism, you cannot support democracy.

The Israelis are right to be worried, of course, about a state based on religious principles – just looking at the Jewish state and the damage it has caused to the whole Middle East, is reason enough to shun any other example of that political genre in Egypt or elsewhere.

U.S.: Mubarak must stay in power to steer reform in Egypt: Haaretz

Egyptian president said earlier he believed Egypt would descend into chaos if he were to give in to demands of the protesters and quit immediately.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak must stay in power for the time being to steer changes needed for political transition, U.S. President Barack Obama’s special envoy for Egypt said on Saturday.

“We need to get a national consensus around the pre-conditions for the next step forward. The president must stay in office to steer those changes,” Frank Wisner told the Munich Security Conference.

Mubarak, who has pledged to step down in September when a presidential election is scheduled, said on Thursday he believed Egypt would descend into chaos if he were to give in to almost two weeks of demands by an unprecedented popular revolt that he quit immediately.

The embattled president has fashioned himself as the crucial rampart against Islamist militancy in Egypt and the indispensable player in maintaining a peace treaty Egypt signed with Israel in 1979. But protesters are maintaining their position that they will no stop demonstrating until Mubarak leaves the government.

At the same security conference on Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that Egypt’s political transition should take place “as orderly but as expeditiously as possible” to give enough time for democratic elections to be prepared.

“President Mubarak has announced he will not stand for reelection nor will his son … He has given a clear message to his government to lead and support this process of transition,” Clinton told a Munich security conference.

“That is what the government has said it is trying to do, that is what we are supporting, and hope to see it move as orderly but as expeditiously as possible under the circumstances,” Clinton said.

EDITOR: Benny Morris barks again

The historian who sees the world from his own back pocket – he is the one who thinks that the Nakba did not go far enough, and should have dealt with all Palestinians, rather than only three quarters of them – is voicing the standard Israeli view: all should be arranged so as to satisfy the Israeli right. Normally, they get their way, so now they are bitterly opposed to reality.

The west must be wary of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood: The Guardian

The Brotherhood’s aim is to take over the Egyptian state through the democratic process – and then bring an end to democracy
Benny Morris
Opinion polls over the past decade have awarded the Brotherhood the support of between 30% and 60% of the populace, and it is the best organised and most powerful political party in the country. But while many of its supporters are taking part in the street demonstrations sweeping Egypt’s cities, the organisation has kept a deliberately low profile. The Brotherhood has not published its calculations, but one may assume they include a desire to avoid the mass arrest by the security services of its leadership cadres and a clash with the army, whose general staff – like Iran’s in 1978-79 – fear and detest the Islamists.

The Brotherhood also presumably wants to avoid deterring the secular middle class from participating in the popular upsurge, a participation that gives the popular revolt cachet abroad as well as at home (and in the greater Arab world). A display of Islamist leadership at the head of the crowds would alienate much of that middle class. So the Brotherhood has kept virtually out of sight.

But it has endorsed Mohamed ElBaradei as its choice to head a transitional regime. He is not exactly a household name in Egypt – he has lived abroad for the past three decades. As the head of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), a position he left in November 2009, he was frequently critical of the United States and Israel and was seen by some as an appeaser of Iran. No doubt his behaviour appealed to Egypt’s Islamists. But ElBaradei is western-educated and appears to be a secularist, and he is likely to be shunted aside by the religious fanatics once they feel confident enough to emerge from the shadows. ElBaradei will then have filled the role of the Mensheviks, who paved the way for the eventual Bolshevik takeover of Russia in 1917.

For now, the Brotherhood will be satisfied with toppling the hated Mubarak regime, which, following the Gamal Abdel Nasser (1954-1970) and Anwar Sadat (1970-1981) regimes, has serially imprisoned and tortured the Brotherhood’s cadres for decades. Above all, the organisation no doubt wants the prospective interim regime to organise and oversee free and fair general elections, say in six months’ time.

But once the campaigning for these elections gets under way, we will see the country awash with Muslim Brotherhood activists and placards, broadcasts and sermons; perhaps even a measure of intimidation and violence. The Brotherhood’s aim is to take over the state through the democratic process, and is likely, as one of its first acts, to annul Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

It is possible that the movement will follow the model of Turkey’s Islamists and try to follow democratic norms and adopt a stance of neutrality between Iran and the west. But it is more likely, given Egypt’s position and history, and its own history, that the Brotherhood will follow the model of Iran and the Gaza Hamas. Both have employed extreme violence to crush their potential and real rivals to maintain power.

The Brotherhood is anything if not patient. It has looked to take over, and “purify”, Egypt since the movement’s foundation by Hassan al-Banna in 1928. Given the power of its enemies and the state’s institutions, the movement’s leadership has traditionally advocated a non-violent route to power (it was usually the movement’s more impatient breakaways, like the Jama’a al Islamiyya, who murdered Sadat in 1981, who went in for blatant violence). But observers in the west should not delude themselves. This is not a movement for which democracy has any appeal, worth or value. Its leaders see democratic processes merely as means to an end, an end that includes an end to democracy.

Israel isn’t the center of the Mideast, or of the world: Haaretz

The problem with Orientalist discourse of our commentators − which sees the world through the prism of the Shin Bet Security Service − is that it helps to seal off the ghetto into which we are gradually locking ourselves, a ghetto within the Middle East and within world history.
By Yitzhak Laor

Since the 18th century, revolution has shaped the world and its consciousness as a universal experience of popular sovereignty, from east to west, from north to south. But in the face of the Egyptian revolution, a kind of mean-spiritedness has been evident here in Israel − for example, in the television commentary. Commentators and moderators never stopped giving grades for behavior. A huge comet flashed past us, and Channel 2 commentator’s muttered, like the survivor of a traffic accident: Had they only suppressed the demonstrations at the start, everything would have been different.

Again and again, they searched for Islamic signs in the pictures of the masses, as though they were immigration officials checking for smallpox. Others were excited to discover signs that reminded them of “us”: Facebook, young people speaking English, and of course women in jeans. There’s nothing like a woman’s thighs as an index of progress.

But the person who deserves the prize for folly is Dr. Oded Eran, formerly our ambassador to Jordan. He suggested organizing elections in Egypt under European supervision, to ensure that monitors would turn a blind eye to fraud by the regime during the vote count.
For years, our Orientalists saw a danger in ‏(secular‏) Arab nationalism. Both the right and the left examined Arab intellectuals with a fine-toothed comb in order to prove that they were “pan-Arabists.” What lay behind this, always, was a colonialist questioning of their right to self-determination on a par with our own standards.

But today, when people no longer demonstrate in Lebanon’s squares on behalf of Lebanese Arabism, and when nobody is singing paeans to the Arab nation in the streets of Cairo, our examiners are rewriting the questionnaire: Instead of “nationalists,” they are looking for “religious people.”

The problem with such discourse − which sees the world through the prism of the Shin Bet Security Service, with no inhibitions and no curiosity about what is unique to Egypt − is that it helps to seal off the ghetto into which we are gradually locking ourselves, a ghetto within the Middle East and within world history. We should recall Israel’s attitude to the nationalization of the Suez Canal, the “rotten business” we perpetrated in Egypt in the early 1950s, the 1956 Sinai Campaign, the affinity between these events and our alliance with the shah of Iran and his murderous security services, and the affinity between all these and the coronation of Bachir Gemayel as Lebanon’s ruler on the broken blades of Israel Defense Forces bayonets.

Forget about the strategic dimension. The issue is that military interests have always trained intellectual integrity and analysis to provide them with justifications and the status of “the truth.” The adoption of the region’s oppressive elites was carried out with the help of Shimon Peres-style language laundering and constant conciliatory gestures toward the West: We’ll be a base for you in the heart of darkness − even now, when the West is turning its back on these politics. After all, that is the only historical significance these events have as far as we are concerned: The United States no longer needs this offer.

Our ideas about the Arab world are blind to the sufferings of the nations around us and their hatred of their rulers. The average annual income in Egypt is $6,200; Israelis’ average annual income is almost $30,000. Will stability in the relations between two such countries be guaranteed by a huge, brutal police force, of all things? That is the discussion that we haven’t yet had.

The Egyptian revolution is costing blood. A great deal of blood. No elite leaves of its own free will, even if its sponsors in Washington have decided to get rid of it. Spontaneous action is fated to decline, and in the absence of a revolutionary party, it is not at all clear what will happen. The Egyptian opposition has been repressed for years, and there, too, the left has drowned in European subsidies to dozens of different human rights NGOs, which are always interested in obedient monitoring rather than change.

Nobody knows where the revolution will end up: in an Iranian-style republic? In something along Turkish lines? Or perhaps something new, the likes of which we’ve never experienced? At the moment, there is no need to reply, but only to think and remember this: It doesn’t all revolve around us. And in the face of the Egyptian people’s heroism, we should bow our heads in humility.

Change is coming to Egypt, whether Israel likes it or not: Haaretz

The prospect of having the Muslim Brotherhood as part of a pivotal Middle Eastern regime is of course troubling, and not only for Israel, but Jerusalem’s desperation to maintain stability at all costs, has blinded it to the reality of change.
By Daniella Peled

If Benjamin Netanyahu had really wanted to derail the anti-Mubarak protests that swept Egypt this week, he could have resorted to some straightforward psychological operations: Simply bus in a load of protesters to Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square, hand them a selection of “Game over Mubarak” and “We are all Egypt” placards and let them march around a bit. By the third circuit of the square, after a spot of Al Jazeera coverage, the anti-regime protests in Cairo would have no doubt collapsed under the weight of Israeli solidarity.

In truth, I didn’t see much evidence of anti-Zionist feeling in Cairo this week − apart from one lonely middle-aged man at a traffic intersection, holding up a hand-scrawled sign reading, “Israel go to Hell.”

Instead, Bibi resorted to hugely clumsy diplomacy. Jerusalem’s instruction this week to select envoys to lobby their host governments to soften their statements about poor old Mubarak was more than shortsighted. It evidenced a lack of understanding of what was happening on the ground: how fast things were moving, how far they had moved on. With even Hillary Clinton calling for an “orderly transition to democracy,” Israel’s message was already superfluous.

The mentality of preferring stability at all costs still pervades Israeli decision making, and with some notable exceptions the country has long lacked any leaders able and willing to make bold moves. And yet change is happening, defying all kinds of standard tropes about the Arab world − not least the idea that Arabs only understand a strong hand, and that the only alternative to dictatorship is an Islamic fundamentalist regime.

The protesters on the streets of Cairo certainly challenge the conventional wisdom that if Mubarak falls, the Muslim Brotherhood will come to power. This is nothing but a ruse dreamed up by the regime to ensure Western support, they say, insisting that the people in the Muslim Brotherhood are intelligent and pragmatic; they are not Al-Qaida or the Taliban.

Indeed, the Brotherhood showed its tactical ability this week with its endorsement of Mohamed ElBaradei, the former IAEA head and Nobel Prize laureate − although in truth, his appearance has been a bit of a damp squib, and he seems to fall far short of a figure able to rally a revolution.

With the smoke barely cleared from the burned-out wrecks of police trucks scattered around Cairo, it’s perhaps premature to expect free and fair elections here any time soon. In any analysis of the situation, the Muslim Brotherhood would inevitably do well, relative to their size, simply because they are better organized than any other group, and can call on their network of mosques to help rally people to their cause. An outright win is harder to predict; an important role in any democratically elected parliament seems highly likely.

This all spells trouble for Israel − or at least a complete paradigm shift. However cold the peace may have been at times, the agreement with Egypt is Israel’s most important asset after its relationship with the United States. And Israel will have to continue to talk to any Egyptian government, even if it contains the Muslim Brotherhood, as long as it respects that agreement. And maybe it will, because both sides stand to lose an unconscionable amount from a renewed conflict.

The peace cemented Egypt’s strategic partnership with the United States, along with the $1.5 billion in military aid the latter gives Egypt each year, and Egyptians most certainly do not want another clash.

“Relations with Israel are complex, sure, but we don’t want war,” said Hela Badri, a 55-year-old journalist and novelist, amid the crowds in Tahrir Square. “You can’t uproot Israel, it’s a nation, a state, a fact. We just want Israel to give the Palestinians their rights.”
Extensive military strategies must undoubtedly have been prepared ready to be put into place if the peace agreement broke down and, sure, Israel could beat Egypt on the battlefield, although at huge human and financial cost. But what about Israeli diplomatic contingency plans?

The Mubarak succession has long been one of Israel’s most pressing regional concerns. Surely the finest minds in Jerusalem could have come up with something better than Netanyahu’s hint this week that he wants to impose the same kind of ideological conditions on a new Egyptian government that he did on Hamas. If he thinks that his international allies will go along with this, as they did with Hamas, he is deluding himself.

A senior Palestinian negotiator told me recently that the only issue of concern remaining between Fatah-Hamas unity talks was the security brief. As for outside recognition, the major players all seemed to be in the bag. “The international community will respond very well,” he said. “It is only smart to say Hamas is part of the Palestinian electorate. If they are recognized, they can be very flexible.”

The international community’s attitude has changed since Hamas won the elections, influenced by the Gaza siege, Cast Lead and the flotilla disaster. Its patience with Israeli intransigence is wearing thin.

The prospect of having the Muslim Brotherhood as part of a pivotal Middle Eastern regime is of course troubling, and not only for Israel, but Jerusalem’s desperation to maintain stability at all costs, to maintain the status quo, has blinded it to the reality of change. If it is indeed game over for Mubarak, members of Israel’s political elite are going to have to tackle the strategic implications of a semi-Islamist neighbor that they have little choice but to acknowledge.

Daniella Peled is an editor at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting.

EDITOR:  Clinton does not get it

Well, they never do. They don’t get the fact that the population all over the Middle East is fed up to the back teeth with the US, the West and their local tin pot dictator-billionaires. They do not get the fact that this is a movement for democracy, not for US command and control. They continue to deal and try install their confidants at the helm of power, disregarding the wishes of the Egyptian people, exactly like the Pharaoh Mubarak. One only hopes that the people of Egypt will be able to prove this point to them.

Egypt protests: Hillary Clinton signals US backing for Omar Suleiman: The Guardian

US secretary of state stresses need for orderly transition headed by vice-president

The US secretary of state Hillary Clinton today signalled how far the US has swung its support behind vice-president Omar Suleiman and the transition process he is leading in Egypt.

Clinton was speaking at a security conference in Munich today, where the watchword on Egypt was the need for orderly transition.

In her most striking remarks, the US secretary of state said: “There are forces at work in any society, particularly one that is facing these kind of challenges, that will try to derail or overtake the process to pursue their own agenda, which is why I think it’s important to follow the transition process announced by the Egyptian government, actually headed by vice-president Omar Suleiman.”

She was presumably referring ito Suleiman’s leadership of the transition rather than the government, but US officials have told their European colleagues that they view Suleiman as increasingly in control.

Clinton went on to say the transition should be transparent and inclusive, while setting out “concrete steps”, moving towards orderly elections in September. She listed with approval the steps the Egyptian government had taken so far.

“President Mubarak has announced he will not stand for re-election nor will his son … He has given a clear message to his government to lead and support this process of transition,” Clinton said.

“That is what the government has said it is trying to do, that is what we are supporting, and hope to see it move as orderly but as expeditiously as possible under the circumstances.”

David Cameron and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, speaking at the same conference, echoed the call for an orderly transition and cautioned against early elections.

But Cameron denied there was a trade-off between the speed of reform and stability.

“There is no stability in Egypt. We need change, reform and transition to get stability,” the prime minister said. “The longer that is put off, the more likely we are to get an Egypt that we wouldn’t welcome.”

British officials said they were encouraged by the developments of the past 24 hours, pointing to the role of the army in preventing attacks on the demonstrators and the opening of a dialogue between Suleiman and opposition groups.

“It does have to be led by the Egyptian government but we do need a road map,” one official said.

What Corruption and Force Have Wrought in Egypt: truthdig.com

By Chris Hedges

The uprising in Egypt, although united around the nearly universal desire to rid the country of the military dictator Hosni Mubarak, also presages the inevitable shift within the Arab world away from secular regimes toward an embrace of Islamic rule. Don’t be fooled by the glib sloganeering about democracy or the facile reporting by Western reporters—few of whom speak Arabic or have experience in the region. Egyptians are not Americans. They have their own culture, their own sets of grievances and their own history. And it is not ours. They want, as we do, to have a say in their own governance, but that say will include widespread support—especially among Egypt’s poor, who make up more than half the country and live on about two dollars a day—for the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic parties. Any real opening of the political system in the Arab world’s most populated nation will see an empowering of these Islamic movements. And any attempt to close the system further—say a replacement of Mubarak with another military dictator—will ensure a deeper radicalization in Egypt and the wider Arab world.

The only way opposition to the U.S.-backed regime of Mubarak could be expressed for the past three decades was through Islamic movements, from the Muslim Brotherhood to more radical Islamic groups, some of which embrace violence. And any replacement of Mubarak (which now seems almost certain) while it may initially be dominated by moderate, secular leaders will, once elections are held and popular will is expressed, have an Islamic coloring. A new government, to maintain credibility with the Egyptian population, will have to more actively defy demands from Washington and be more openly antagonistic to Israel. What is happening in Egypt, like what happened in Tunisia, tightens the noose that will—unless Israel and Washington radically change their policies toward the Palestinians and the Muslim world—threaten to strangle the Jewish state as well as dramatically curtail American influence in the Middle East.

The failure of the United States to halt the slow-motion ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Israel has consequences. The failure to acknowledge the collective humiliation and anger felt by most Arabs because of the presence of U.S. troops on Muslim soil, not only in Iraq and Afghanistan but in the staging bases set up in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, has consequences. The failure to denounce the repression, including the widespread use of torture, censorship and rigged elections, wielded by our allies against their citizens in the Middle East has consequences. We are soaked with the stench of these regimes. Mubarak, who reportedly is suffering from cancer, is seen as our puppet, a man who betrayed his own people and the Palestinians for money and power.

The Muslim world does not see us as we see ourselves. Muslims are aware, while we are not, that we have murdered tens of thousands of Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. We have terrorized families, villages and nations. We enable and defend the Israeli war crimes carried out against Palestinians and the Lebanese—indeed we give the Israelis the weapons and military aid to carry out the slaughter. We dismiss the thousands of dead as “collateral damage.” And when those who are fighting against occupation kill us or Israelis we condemn them, regardless of context, as terrorists. Our hypocrisy is recognized on the Arab street. Most Arabs see bloody and disturbing images every day from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, images that are censored on our television screens. They have grown sick of us. They have grown sick of the Arab regimes that pay lip service to the suffering of Palestinians but do nothing to intervene. They have grown sick of being ruled by tyrants who are funded and supported by Washington. Arabs understand that we, like the Israelis, primarily speak to the Muslim world in the crude language of power and violence. And because of our entrancement with our own power and ability to project force, we are woefully out of touch.  Israeli and American intelligence services did not foresee the popular uprising in Tunisia or Egypt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, Israel’s new intelligence chief, told Knesset members last Tuesday that “there is no concern at the moment about the stability of the Egyptian government.” Tuesday, it turned out, was the day hundreds of thousands of Egyptians poured into the streets to begin their nationwide protests.

What is happening in Egypt will damage and perhaps unravel the fragile peace treaty between Egypt and Jordan with Israel. It is likely to end Washington’s alliance with these Arab intelligence services, including the use of prisons to torture those we have disappeared into our vast network of black sites. The economic ties between Israel and these Arab countries will suffer. The current antagonism between Cairo and the Hamas government in Gaza will be replaced by more overt cooperation. The Egyptian government’s collaboration with Israel, which includes demolishing tunnels into Gaza, the sharing of intelligence and the passage of Israeli warship and submarines through the Suez Canal, will be in serious jeopardy. Any government—even a transition government that is headed by a pro-Western secularist such as Mohamed ElBaradei—will have to make these changes in the relationship with Israel and Washington if it wants to have any credibility and support. We are seeing the rise of a new Middle East, one that will not be as pliable to Washington or as cowed by Israel.

Egypt: Demonstrations and political pressure, but Hosni Mubarak clings on: The Guardian

Barack Obama sends Mubarak his strongest message yet: it’s time to go

Barack Obama yesterday tried to nudge Hosni Mubarak towards the exit, sending his strongest message yet to the Egyptian president that it was time for him to quit.

But Mubarak, even after hundreds of thousands took to the streets in Cairo, Alexandria and elsewhere in Egypt to call on him to go, remained defiant and showed little sign of preparing to depart.

Mubarak earlier this week promised to leave in the autumn but that has failed to satisfy the protesters who want him to go immediately.

Obama, taking questions from the media for the first time since the crisis began, used a White House press conference to drop a series of heavy hints that the US regarded Mubarak as having outlived his usefulness and that it would be better if he went.

“In light of what’s happened the last two weeks, going back to the old ways is not going to work,” Obama said. “Suppression is not going to work. Engaging in violence is not going to work.”

He added that work on an orderly succession had to begin “right now”, had to be meaningful and broad-based, which meant involving opposition groups.

The US president stopped short of calling unambiguously for Mubarak to stand down immediately but his comments went further in support of the protesters than his brief statement on Tuesday.

He condemned the attacks on journalists, human rights activists and protesters and said he held the Egyptian government responsible for their safety.

He appealed to Mubarak to make the right choice with regard to his departure and to think about his legacy. “I believe that President Mubarak cares about his country,” Obama said. “He is proud, but he is also a patriot.”

Obama said Mubarak had made the “psychological breakthrough” by announcing he’d stand down in the autumn, seemingly suggesting that the president should not make a fuss about a few more months.

US officials confirmed that while Washington publicly does not want to be seen to be interfering in Egyptian domestic affairs, it is engaged with senior Egyptian officers and politicians about life after Mubarak, assuming he leaves soon.

The EU also kept up pressure on Egypt’s government for a swift, orderly and peaceful transition today on a day that saw hundreds of thousands rally on the streets.

It is possible that after such a huge turnout produced no tangible effect at home or abroad the protests will become harder to sustain – unless the fragmented opposition formulates more detailed demands.

Diplomatic sources signalled that if Mubarak was not going to leave and thus deprive the protest movement of a “symbolic victory,” it might still be possible to pursue a dialogue with the government. “There are people digging in around Mubarak but others who are edging in the right direction,” a western official said.

European leaders called for an immediate transition to a “broad-based” government, but like the US declined to call explicitly for Mubarak’s resignation.

An EU summit in Brussels wrestled over a response to the crisis, with David Cameron urging more robust action in line with Washington while leaders such as Silvio Berlusconi praised Mubarak, and suggested he should continue in office.

The UN secretary-general, Ban ki-Moon, demanded new elections be held as soon as possible, and not in September.

US officials are proposing that a transitional government fronted by the military invite members from a range of opposition groups, including the banned Muslim Brotherhood, to begin work to open up the electoral system in an effort to bring about free and fair elections. “We have discussed with the Egyptians a variety of different ways to move that process forward, but all of those decisions must be made by the Egyptian people,” said White House spokesman Tommy Vietor.

But the limits of US pressure were graphically illustrated by Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, when he warned in an ABC interview against any move to reduce the $1.3bn (£800m) in annual US aid to Egypt – apparently in response to calls that the funding be cut if the governmental transition in Egypt does not happen soon.

“There is a lot of uncertainty out there and I would just caution against doing anything until we really understand what’s going on,” Mullen said. “I recognise that ($1.3bn) certainly is a significant investment, but it’s an investment that has paid off for a long, long time.”

The US and Egyptian military are closely intertwined through extensive joint training and exercises in support of US interests in the Middle East.

The US would suspend aid immediately if the Egyptian army was to crack down on peaceful protesters in the way the Iranian Revolutionary Guard did in 2009 and the Chinese military did in 1989.

Mullen, defence secretary Robert Gates and other senior Pentagon figures have been in regular contact with their Egyptian counterparts all week.

The largely trouble-free rally in Cairo suggested the government had acted smartly to rein in the pro-Mubarak demonstrators who caused mayhem and attracted international condemnation this week. The defence minister, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, paid a very public visit to Tahrir Square and talked to protesters and military commanders — conveying the message that Egypt’s most powerful institution was sanctioning the rally.

It’s not radical Islam that worries the US – it’s independence: The Guardian

The nature of any regime it backs in the Arab world is secondary to control. Subjects are ignored until they break their chains

‘The Arab world is on fire,” al-Jazeera reported last week, while throughout the region, western allies “are quickly losing their influence”. The shock wave was set in motion by the dramatic uprising in Tunisia that drove out a western-backed dictator, with reverberations especially in Egypt, where demonstrators overwhelmed a dictator’s brutal police.

Observers compared it to the toppling of Russian domains in 1989, but there are important differences. Crucially, no Mikhail Gorbachev exists among the great powers that support the Arab dictators. Rather, Washington and its allies keep to the well-established principle that democracy is acceptable only insofar as it conforms to strategic and economic objectives: fine in enemy territory (up to a point), but not in our backyard, please, unless properly tamed.

One 1989 comparison has some validity: Romania, where Washington maintained its support for Nicolae Ceausescu, the most vicious of the east European dictators, until the allegiance became untenable. Then Washington hailed his overthrow while the past was erased. That is a standard pattern: Ferdinand Marcos, Jean-Claude Duvalier, Chun Doo-hwan, Suharto and many other useful gangsters. It may be under way in the case of Hosni Mubarak, along with routine efforts to try to ensure a successor regime will not veer far from the approved path. The current hope appears to be Mubarak loyalist General Omar Suleiman, just named Egypt’s vice-president. Suleiman, the longtime head of the intelligence services, is despised by the rebelling public almost as much as the dictator himself.

A common refrain among pundits is that fear of radical Islam requires (reluctant) opposition to democracy on pragmatic grounds. While not without some merit, the formulation is misleading. The general threat has always been independence. The US and its allies have regularly supported radical Islamists, sometimes to prevent the threat of secular nationalism.

A familiar example is Saudi Arabia, the ideological centre of radical Islam (and of Islamic terror). Another in a long list is Zia ul-Haq, the most brutal of Pakistan’s dictators and President Reagan’s favorite, who carried out a programme of radical Islamisation (with Saudi funding).

“The traditional argument put forward in and out of the Arab world is that there is nothing wrong, everything is under control,” says Marwan Muasher, a former Jordanian official and now director of Middle East research for the Carnegie Endowment. “With this line of thinking, entrenched forces argue that opponents and outsiders calling for reform are exaggerating the conditions on the ground.”

Therefore the public can be dismissed. The doctrine traces far back and generalises worldwide, to US home territory as well. In the event of unrest, tactical shifts may be necessary, but always with an eye to reasserting control.

The vibrant democracy movement in Tunisia was directed against “a police state, with little freedom of expression or association, and serious human rights problems”, ruled by a dictator whose family was hated for their venality. So said US ambassador Robert Godec in a July 2009 cable released by WikiLeaks.

Therefore to some observers the WikiLeaks “documents should create a comforting feeling among the American public that officials aren’t asleep at the switch” – indeed, that the cables are so supportive of US policies that it is almost as if Obama is leaking them himself (or so Jacob Heilbrunn writes in The National Interest.)

“America should give Assange a medal,” says a headline in the Financial Times, where Gideon Rachman writes: “America’s foreign policy comes across as principled, intelligent and pragmatic … the public position taken by the US on any given issue is usually the private position as well.”

In this view, WikiLeaks undermines “conspiracy theorists” who question the noble motives Washington proclaims.

Godec’s cable supports these judgments – at least if we look no further. If we do,, as foreign policy analyst Stephen Zunes reports in Foreign Policy in Focus, we find that, with Godec’s information in hand, Washington provided $12m in military aid to Tunisia. As it happens, Tunisia was one of only five foreign beneficiaries: Israel (routinely); the two Middle East dictatorships Egypt and Jordan; and Colombia, which has long had the worst human-rights record and the most US military aid in the hemisphere.

Heilbrunn’s exhibit A is Arab support for US policies targeting Iran, revealed by leaked cables. Rachman too seizes on this example, as did the media generally, hailing these encouraging revelations. The reactions illustrate how profound is the contempt for democracy in the educated culture.

Unmentioned is what the population thinks – easily discovered. According to polls released by the Brookings Institution in August, some Arabs agree with Washington and western commentators that Iran is a threat: 10%. In contrast, they regard the US and Israel as the major threats (77%; 88%).

Arab opinion is so hostile to Washington’s policies that a majority (57%) think regional security would be enhanced if Iran had nuclear weapons. Still, “there is nothing wrong, everything is under control” (as Muasher describes the prevailing fantasy). The dictators support us. Their subjects can be ignored – unless they break their chains, and then policy must be adjusted.

Other leaks also appear to lend support to the enthusiastic judgments about Washington’s nobility. In July 2009, Hugo Llorens, U.S. ambassador to Honduras, informed Washington of an embassy investigation of “legal and constitutional issues surrounding the 28 June forced removal of President Manuel ‘Mel’ Zelaya.”

The embassy concluded that “there is no doubt that the military, supreme court and national congress conspired on 28 June in what constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup against the executive branch”. Very admirable, except that President Obama proceeded to break with almost all of Latin America and Europe by supporting the coup regime and dismissing subsequent atrocities.

Perhaps the most remarkable WikiLeaks revelations have to do with Pakistan, reviewed by foreign policy analyst Fred Branfman in Truthdig.

The cables reveal that the US embassy is well aware that Washington’s war in Afghanistan and Pakistan not only intensifies rampant anti-Americanism but also “risks destabilising the Pakistani state” and even raises a threat of the ultimate nightmare: that nuclear weapons might fall into the hands of Islamic terrorists.

Again, the revelations “should create a comforting feeling … that officials are not asleep at the switch” (Heilbrunn’s words) – while Washington marches stalwartly toward disaster.

© 2011 Noam Chomsky

Egypt protesters voice grievances, aspirations: The Electronic Intifada

Interviews writing from Egypt, Live from Palestine, 3 February 2011

CAIRO (IRIN) – Large-scale protests across Egypt since 25 January have led to deaths and injuries, food and petrol shortages and transport chaos. IRIN interviewed some of the demonstrators demanding regime change in Cairo about their daily lives. Some extracts:

Nermeen Khafagy, 41, archaeologist, holding a placard marked “Mubarak must leave.” She says she has been a political activist since her university days:

I took part in the demonstration because there is corruption, unemployment and poverty. Mubarak’s rule opened the way for the poverty of the majority, and the corruption of everybody. Our educational system is becoming very bad. The water we drink is contaminated. Farmers’ lives have been destroyed by the bad policies of the government. There are economic monopolies.

We want civil government to replace Mubarak’s military rule. We want constitutional change leading to honest presidential and parliamentary elections. We want educational reform. We want health reform. When there is reform, our country will be a great place.

This is a revolution, and revolutions are always about gains and losses. Yes, there might be price hikes. There might be suffering in getting basic needs, but the crisis has brought Egyptians closer together …

Mohamed Anwar, 62, carpenter:

I have four children. I am not able to feed them. Two of them got married, but the other two cannot get married because they do not have jobs. I am participating in this demonstration for the sake of my two children. Prices are very high, while salaries are very low. The government gives us nothing … I work with very rich people, but they do not give me my rights.

The government has been oppressing the people. We want stability. True, there are price hikes. I work very hard, but I cannot lead a dignified life.

Fatima Ali, 25, pharmacology student:

This is my country, I want it to change. I do not want corruption, I do not want bribery. My father worked in the petroleum sector for 24 years. After he retired the government gave him a pension of only 200 Egyptian pounds (US$34) a month. The government has allowed business leaders to suck the blood of poor people. Corruption goes unpunished in our country. A businessman who imported contaminated blood was not punished. Other businessmen who committed crimes were not punished. The ruling party gives immunity to its members so that they can commit crimes and go unpunished. Policemen are corrupt.

A transitional government must take over and elections should give the chance to the people to choose their president.

The demonstrations did not create the price hikes. The void created by the departure of policemen has been filled by ordinary Egyptians themselves.

This item comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian news and information service, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. All IRIN material may be reposted or reprinted free-of-charge; refer to the copyright page for conditions of use. IRIN is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Mad Israelis section (back by popular demand)

EDITOR: Mad Israelis prefer living in the US, and pleading for ever more pro-Israeli policies of their host country… How bizarre their arguments can get can be determined from this piece, typical of Israeli hypocricy, while speaking of the hypocricy of others.

Obama, don’t be a hypocrite: YNet

Op-ed: President Obama must demand Palestinian democracy, just like he’s doing with Egypt
Shoula Romano Horing

The Obama Administration quickly turned its back on President Hosni Mubarak when it started talking about “an orderly transition to lasting democracy.” Yet as is the case in Egypt, Palestinian society is also struggling with a corrupt, undemocratic, authoritarian, and divisive PA leadership with a long record of human rights violations and an economy artificially resuscitated by handouts from foreign donors.

Hence, Israel’s government should not agree to negotiate for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the strategic hills of the West Bank until the Palestinian people first have a chance to cleanse its leadership and move towards lasting democracy, as Obama has demanded from Egypt. Israel needs to know who will be the ultimate true representative of the Palestinian people before giving away strategic assets.

It is quite dangerous for Israel – and hypocritical of Obama – to ask the Jewish State to agree to the establishment of a state that eventually through free elections or a military coup may be taken over by an Islamic, pro-Iranian terrorist organization. After all, Hamas’ stated goal is the destruction of the Jewish state and global Islamic rule.

Such possibility should not be a surprise to anyone looking at recent Palestinian history. In 2006, Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Legislature in free elections conducted in Gaza and the West Bank, by defeating the secular Fatah Party. In June 2007, Hamas forces took over Gaza establishing separate Islamic rule in the Strip. Since that time, Hamas has fired more than 6,000 rockets at Israeli towns and has become a safe haven for terrorists.

As in Egypt, Israel must demand that the PA conduct new, fair and free elections to choose its president and legislature. Mahmoud Abbas, who was the first leader Obama called after being elected, has stayed in power for the last two years without any elections. In 2005 he was elected for four years. In fact, the last elections to the Palestinian legislature occurred in 2006 for four-year terms, but since then there have been no new elections. The problem is that the Palestinians are divided between Gaza and the West Bank and until they are reconciled or reunite, any new election would not reflect the true preference of the people.

Who gets foreign aid?
Moreover, Israel must demand the PA establish an independent judiciary and the rule of law, including towards opposition parties, as Obama has demanded from the Egyptians. The recently published “Palestinian Papers” revealed that the CIA and British intelligence were aware that hundreds of Hamas and other activists have been routinely detained without trial in recent years, and subjected to widely documented human rights abuses and torture. The PLO’s chief spokesman, Saeb Erekat, is recorded as telling senior US official David Hale in 2009: “We have had to kill Palestinians to establish one authority…We have invested time and effort and killed our own people to maintain order and the rule of law.”

Moreover, the PA‘s economy is not progressing. A recent study reinforces the claim that there is no Palestinian economy and that in reality it is almost exclusively supported by and dependent on foreign donations, without which it will collapse. More than 60% of the PA’s Gross National Product comes from donations by the US, European Union, United Nations, World Bank and others. The Palestinian people receive the largest amount of donations worldwide, which amounts to an average of about $560 per family, per month.

According to the study, the facts on the ground indicate that the donations are used to preserve the ruling party rather than to build an independent economy or business sector, in contradiction to Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s claim of transparency, which is intended to please international donors. The funds are suspected of going into the pockets of bureaucratic echelons and to close associates of President Abbas and senior government officials who engage in embezzlement, land theft and fraud.

US President Barack Obama said Tuesday that a transition to democracy in Egypt “must begin now” and should lead to opposition participation in free and fair elections, adding that Mubarak “recognizes that the status quo is not sustainable and that change must take place.” Now, Israel should demand no less from Abbas and the Palestinian Authority.

Shoula Romano Horing is Israeli born and raised. She is an attorney in Kansas City, Missouri and a national speaker.

Egypt autocracy to remain: YNet

Op-ed: Suleiman’s rise in Cairo will be good for Israel, create welcomed continuity in Egypt
Mira Tzoreff

When a group of young people fights for its civil rights and points an accusing finger at the regime, this is a positive step and an unprecedented historical moment.

President Hosni Mubarak complied with the demands made by the masses and proceeded to change his government. Given the steps he has adopted since Friday, the leading figure slated to succeed him is the newly appointed deputy minister (and successor according to the constitution) Omar Suleiman.

Suleiman is the mirror image of Mubarak when it comes to domestic and foreign relations, yet as opposed to the president he is being portrayed as an honest man in the eyes of the people.

This is an optimistic point for Israel, which will create welcomed continuity without toppling the entire regime. At the end of the day, the system of government in Egypt will not be changing – it will remain an autocracy, but a softer, more flexible one.

Credit Egypt’s young people
The credit for the apparent government change ahead should be given to the young people of Egypt. These are the people who were portrayed as passive and submissive in the face a regime that undermined their ability to manage normal lives, make a dignified living, and stop relying on their parents.

After in April 2008 they experimented with the trial balloon of the so-called “pita riots,” where they protested against the rising prices of food staples, they now decided to take their fate and the destiny of their nation into their own hands.

These people pointed an accusing finger at Mubarak, charging him with direct responsibility for their grim state. Now, they are demanding that the president leave the political scene in favor of a just regime premised on the honoring of fundamental human and civil rights.

The writer is a lecturer at the Tel Aviv University Dayan Center