Israel: Egypt is All About Israel

If you enjoyed my 29/1/11 post, US: Egypt Is All About Israel, you'll just love this one:

"A new statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is demanding that the rest of the world impose conditions on a possible freely elected government in Egypt, demanding that they accept, in its entirety, the 1979 Egypt-Israeli peace deal. Israel's government has vigorously defended the Mubarak government, and officials have chastized other western nations for even luke-warm approval of the notion of free elections in Egypt... Some Egyptian protesters are calling for the abandonment of the 1979 deal, not because they want a war with Israel (or even believe one would break out without the deal) but because they object to some of the more onerous requirements regarding travel in the Sinai Peninsula, saying the checkpoints Egyptians are required to navigate make it feel like an Israeli territory.*" (Israel pushes for conditional democracy in Egypt, Jason Ditz, antiwar.com, 2/2/11)

[See my 4/1/10 post Israel's Egyptian Gatekeeper]

And when you've finally recovered from Bibi's chutzpah, you might like to ponder with me the import of the final sentence of yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald editorial on Egypt, Tectonic shift in Middle East: "Israel will have to engage with the region's publics, not just its dictators and kings."

*Sigh*

It's nigh impossible to plumb the depths of cluelessness in that statement. As if Israel is in the Middle East to engage with Arabs. In the words of Bibi (Let it rip!) Netanyahu again, to "beat them up, not once but repeatedly, beat them up so it hurts so badly, until it's unbearable,"* yes, but to engage with them? I don't think so.

[* Fibi Netanyahu, Liel Leibovitz, tablet.mag.com, 15/7/10]