Israel's unjustified anguish over end of Mubarak

Political Correction - MJ Rosenberg- Aluf Benn, one of Israel's top journalists, writes that without President Mubarak, Israel will have to find new friends in the Middle East. He notes that Turkey is now gone too. (Israel's relations with Turkey deteriorated after the Turkish Freedom Flotilla incident and following two years of Turkish criticism of the brutal Israeli blockade of Gaza).

This line is not unique to Benn. It appears from the media that most Israelis believe this, as do their defenders in the United States.

But they brought this situation on themselves.


First of all, President Mubarak, for all his faults, maintained the unpopular peace treaty with Israel even after his predecessor was assassinated in front of him for having signed it.

Egypt demonstrated that even after the assassination of its President, it would maintain its international commitments including the treaty with Israel.

In contrast, following Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination, his successor, Binyamin Netanyahu, repudiated his predecessor's commitments to the Palestinians and to Egypt too, which had a promise from Rabin that Israel would withdraw from the occupied territories.

Experience shows that it is Israel, not Egypt, that breaks international commitments when government's change.

Why are the Israelis assuming that the next Egyptian government will be hostile?

It won't be if Israel lives up to its commitments and ends the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and the blockade of Gaza.

But that is not Netanyahu's way. He would rather blame Egyptians for any rupture in relations just like he blames Turkey for the end of the 60-year Israeli-Turkish alliance. And he will have the lobby in Washington successfully pushing that line on Congress. (Expect AIPAC to force Congress to cut aid to Egypt if the new government disagrees with Israel about anything. In fact, once democracy is installed, it should elevate aid levels).

Netanyahu, and the lobby too, refuse to understand that just as President Erdogan could not maintain "business as usual" after the slaughter in Gaza in 2009 and then the monstrous Gaza blockade, the new Egyptian government, won't be able to either. Unless Israel changes its policies toward the Palestinians.

The lesson here is obvious. Until the Israelis recognize that the treatment of the Palestinians is the source of its problems with the Egyptian people, as with the Turkish people, they are going to face further isolation.

That is obvious to the whole world except to Israel itself and its constant defenders in Washington.

If they want to preserve peace with Egypt (and restore decent relations with Turkey), they need to understand that fury at Israeli policies comes not from any one president or government, it comes from the people. And in democracies, which Turkey is and Egypt aspires to be, it is the people who dictate the policies, not dictators. Read more