The "New Egypt"

 
"In Washington, the White House said in a statement that Mr. Obama had “expressed his great concern” about the embassy situation in his conversation with Mr. Netanyahu. The statement said Mr. Obama had called on the government of Egypt “to honor its international obligations to safeguard the security of the Israeli Embassy.”

The attack on the Israeli Embassy, and reports of a hands-off attitude by Egyptian security forces for most of the riot, have added new strains to relations between the two countries at time when they have ebbed to a low not seen in the three decades since they signed the Camp David accords."  NY Times

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What a bad man Husni Mubarak was/is!  He kept the mob from trashing Israel's embassy.  For shame!  Now, the liberated masses can act out their inner angst!  At last!

Mubarak stole all that money that they haven't found yet, but, they will, they will.  Never fear.  His thievery made Egypt poor, somehow...

I had some doubts about whether or not the "Arab Spring" would produce a better world, but now I see the truth.

(All that was ironic.)  pl

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/world/middleeast/11egypt.html?google_editors_picks=true

Comments

[William R. Cumming]

Time will tell for Egypt but for the USA and re-election of Obama the Arab Spring might just be the proverbial straw in what looks like an extremely close election.

[J]

Colonel,

It appears that there is only one Israeli sand-flea still left in their embassy for the pickings. Will the Israelis never learn that it's not nice to murder another nation's citizens, that most nations don't take too kindly to such Israeli actions.

Found this part of the NYTimes article particularly enlightening, the Israelis were pooping their drawers so-to-speak:

"Israeli officials signaled Saturday that they considered the breach of their embassy’s security a significant blow to relations between the two allies. Israeli officials placed several calls to their American counterparts, including from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to President Obama, and from Defense Minister Ehud Barak to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, to try to apply pressure on Egypt to resolve the crisis, Israeli and American officials said.

On Saturday morning, Israel had evacuated its Cairo ambassador and embassy, sending two air force jets to bring home 86 diplomats and family members at dawn.

“This went on for 13 hours and there was real concern for the safety and lives of our people,” an Israeli official said. “The mob penetrated the embassy and at the end there was only one wall separating it from six of our people. Finally, Egyptian commandos got to them and rescued them.”
One Israeli official, the deputy ambassador, remains in Cairo, an official said. "

[Cal]

de gustibus non est disputandum

Actually I feel some kinship with the Egyptians and any kind of chaos they want to create.
Sometimes you just have to be 'against' something first, before you can get to what you are 'for'.

[jr786]

I'm not sure what you mean by ironic here, Col., but having spent a bit of time in Egypt over the past 3 years what I see is the spontaneous eruption of natural feeling amongst Egyptians who have had the 'good relations' between the oligarchy and the Israelis shoved down their throats for the past 30 years.

Up the rebels.

[Patrick Lang]

jr786I
i don't believe in anything Egyptian. pl

[Babak Makkinejad]

Col. Lang:

Mr. Mubarak could have left the Presidency after 2 terms and become a Hero & and a saint in Egypt.

But he decided to remain there and be the Autocrat of All of Egypt.

He did not have to tolerate the graft engine called tha Army of the Arab Republic of Egypt.

He did not have to dismantle the positive policies of Sadat.

And he did not have to eliminate or limit the scope for younger and more creative men to participate in the political life of their country.

He brought Egypt to this imapss; he has to pay for it.

[Green Zone Cafe]

Not only that, the new government is going to require visas before arrival.

http://thedailynewsegypt.com/other-top-stories/egypts-new-tourist-visa-policy-raises-concern.html

I suspect the tourist industry will dissent from this decision. It will not be good for Cairo, Luxor, Sharm El Sheikh, or Hurgada. No more long weekend breaks for Russians and Brits, for sure.

[WILL]

Phrase
dē gustibus et colōribus nōn est disputandum
“Of tastes and colours there is nothing to be disputed.”; “There’s no accounting for taste.”

WIKIQUOTE

[arbogast]

I hope you are including the inner angst of the five Egyptian border guards murdered by the Israeli's.

[arbogast]

From the Washington Post:

"CAIRO — Israel airlifted its ambassador home and sought U.S. intervention with Egypt to help secure its embassy here early Saturday, hours after thousands of Egyptian protesters besieged the building, with several managing to gain entry and fling Hebrew-language documents from a balcony."

They're getting this backwards. It must be the tension.

You don't ask for US aid before you've convinced the American public Egypt has weapons of mass destruction.

Or oil.

Or was behind 9/11.

Returning to Colonel Lang's take on the Republican debate, namely that Perry won, I truly wonder whether a small sliver of the American continent is not going to break off and become an independent country.

How many Americans feel strongly about the Israeli embassy in Cairo?

For the love of the good Lord, there are Americans fighting and dying in Afghanistan. I hope we care about them. Other nations, particularly nations that are armed to the teeth, have a massive arms development program and possess nuclear weapons in abundance, well, perhaps they can take care of themselves.

[Thomas]

Karl Vick contends that the skill of the Eilat attack was more complex than the Palestinians are trained for and:
“The question of Egypt looms over all. Within a day of the attack, the question of who carried it out was overtaken by the diplomatic crisis it sparked between Egypt and Israel. Egypt complained that several — at least three, perhaps five — of its forces were killed by Israeli troops pursuing the attackers into Egyptian territory.
The Cairo government, controlled by the armed forces since Mubarak's overthrow, values the 1979 peace treaty with Israel, but the broad Egyptian public has little love for the Jewish State. That reality sparked the diplomatic crisis, and raises at least the possibility that the attackers included Egyptian nationals, either Bedouin tribesmen who call the Sinai home and have lately grown more Islamist, but perhaps even rogue Egyptian military, or ex-military. An Israeli motorist who narrowly avoided death said the man he saw open fire appeared to be dressed as an Egyptian soldier.”

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2092310-2,00.html

Could those men have been wayward Islamists involved in the attack?

Also, in Time, Tony Karon argues that Israeli intransigence has come back to bite the government.

http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/09/10/israels-diplomatic-tsunami-has-arrived-as-ambassadors-are-forced-to-leave-turkey-and-egypt/

[J]

Thomas,

Did you look at 'who' was the 'author' of the time.com article? Aaron J. Klein is a Captain in the IDF's Intelligence Unit, and he frequently contributes to Malam, the journal for former IDF Intelligence, Mossad, and Internal Security Agency officers.

I would be careful taking anything that Klein writes as objective, or impartial from Israeli Governmental/Intelligence perspective.

[graywolf]

What is it?
Culture (maturity)?
Education or lack of?
Religion?
History?
Some combination of or all of the above?

Arabs cannot function in a free society.

Either an iron fist or chaos.

[Patrick Lang]

J

"Aaron J. Klein is a Captain in the IDF's Intelligence Unit, and he frequently contributes to Malam, the journal for former IDF Intelligence, Mossad, and Internal Security Agency officers"

I would like to make a post about the larger subject of "Malam; and who belongs.

You know a lot for a retired sergeant of OSI who is now a cattle rancher in central Oklahoma.

Mabrouk. pl

[Patrick Lang]

greywolf

In the particular case of Egypt, all of the above. pl

[J]

Colonel,

No, no, no, it's public knowledge. take a look:http://www.scribepublications.com.au/author/aaronjklein

[J]

Colonel,

As a 'rule of thumb', I always look to see just 'who/whom' an article's author is, and what makes them tic. For every article, there has to be an objective somewhere in the mix, and what is that objective I always have to ask. Mr. Klein is just such, key phrases he has in his article sent up flags, so I did some checking on just 'who' Klein was, and turns out he is an IDF Intel wonk.

Israel's IDF and Intelligence apparatuses have several black propaganda ops going on against many nations, including our U.S.. Just cauze sumbody (author like Klein) pens an article, they 'hope' that the readers [of time.com] will follow what they say as gospel. To which I have to say, x-cuze me? Israel is trying to spin their Egypt debacle six ways from Sunday, and it's falling like a rock from the sky. Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, everywhere Israel turns they are creating enemies of their 'own making'. One would think that since it's postage stamp inception in 1948, they would have learned a thing or two. But, alas their arrogance, keeps tripping them up like a kid who can never keep their shoelaces tied and keeps tripping over them.

[Jake]

As it was once said, "Ollie: "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into."....

[J]

Colonel,

I'm just a humble country boy, no more, no less. I have sooo much to be thankful for. I read a lot, keeps me going in my permanent vacation status. LOL

The Mideast IMO is such a beautiful place, full of wonderful people, I hate to see them embroiled in such angst, all caused by one little postage stamp [Israel's Government] that is so arrogant and presumptious they stink to high heaven.

[walter]

A better world for who? US citizens? Israeli citizens? Egyptian citizens? The "haves" of Egypt? The "have nots" of Egypt.

The Arab Spring will be better for some and worse for others.

As an American citizen, it feels good to me that our country will no longer support a barbaric, murderous dictator. We need to be moral leaders in this world and not value one peoples lives (Jews) more than other peoples lives (Palestinians)

[turcopolier]

walrus

A bit sanctimonious. Like Edmund Burke I am deeply distrustful of revolutions and the mobs they call into being. The first and second American revolutions being execptions in that they did not call forth mobs "from the vasty deep."

It remains to be seen f what the "Arab Spring" will produce in Egypt will be better for the average Egyptian knew before. I suspect that the New Egypt will be much like the old. pl

[Thomas]

Aaron Klein contributed to the Karl Vick and Khan Younis article. It doesn't take a way from the fact that it was a professionly planned and executed attack, the PRC got smacked for it all the while claiming they didn't do it and are not trained for it, and the byline authors accepting that view.

The attack lasted into the night, which would have given the Fast Forces time to set an interdiction raid on the fleeing perpetrators. It is known that Israel will hit back in revenge and consequences wiil be dealt with later. So why wouldn't they hit the Egyptians and then say diplomatically say "Oops. my bad?"

Overall both articles in US MSM newsmagazine present the same issue, the current government's obdurate policies are hurting Israel in swift changing enviroment. This is why I felt they were important.