Nothing happens for decades, and then decades happen in a day.
Mubarak has been a US ally for decades. We send three billion dollars a year to Egypt. And Egypt made a peace deal with Israel. But knowing Obama, he will throw another ally under the bus. Yes, Mubarak needs to institute democratic reform. I pray Mubarak doesn't brutally respond to the uprising like Iran did -- they slaughtered their people and crushed the Iranian revolution.
I am all for political freedom. Will Islamic jihad allow for anything but the sharia? Never. As bad as Mubarak was ......... Islamic law is far worse. May free men prevail. The battle is between the secularists and Islamic supremacists; they are united only in their hate for Israel, as mandated by the qur'an:
And as we now see, all of its possible secular and Islamist successors either reject outright Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel or will owe their political power to the support of those who reject the peace with the Jewish state. (Caroline Glick)
The cries of allahu akbar in the streets do not instill confidence in the outcome. All that military aid in the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood would change everything.
Egypt Imposes Curfew as Protests Spread -- Voice of America
Off Twitter:
Sandmonkey tweets: today's protest is NOT about Muslim Brotherhood & shouldn't be portrayed as such.
Violent protests escalate outside Egypt's capital. (Please note video contains graphic content) http://apne.ws/fZsVY7 -RAS
Protests have escalated. Military curfew not holding. Protesters totally ignored curfew. Ruling party headquarters aflame. Radio and TV under attack. Police seem to be pulling back.
More from Caroline Glick:
It is the “Arab Street’s” overwhelming animosity towards Israel that causes the pragmatists to argue that Israel’s best play is to cut deals with Arab dictators who rule with an iron fist. Since Israel and the Arab despots share a fear of the Arab masses, the pragmatists claim that Israel should give up all the land it took control over as a payoff to the regimes, who in exchange will sign peace treaties with it.
This was the logic that brought Israel to surrender the strategically priceless Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in exchange for the Camp David accord that will not survive Mubarak.
And of course, giving up Sinai wasn’t the only sacrifice Israel made for that nearly defunct document. Israel also gave up its regional monopoly on US military platforms. Israel agreed that in exchange for signing the deal, the US would begin providing massive military aid to Egypt. Indeed, it agreed to link US aid to Israel with US aid to Egypt.
Owing to that US aid, the Egyptian military today makes the military Israel barely defeated in 1973 look like a gang of cavemen. Egypt has nearly 300 F-16s. Its main battle tank is the M1A1 which it produces in Egypt. Its navy is the largest in the region. Its army is twice the size of the IDF. Its air defense force constitutes a massive threat to the IAF. And of course, the ballistic missiles and chemical weapons it has purchased from the likes of North Korea and China give it a significant stand-off massdestruction capability.
Despite its strength, due to the depth of popular Arab hatred of Israel and Jews, the Egyptian regime was weakened by its peace treaty.
Partially in a bid to placate its opponents and partially in a bid to check Israeli power, Egypt has been the undisputed leader of the political war against Israel raging at international arenas throughout the world. So, too, Mubarak has permitted and even encouraged massive anti- Semitism throughout Egyptian society.
With this balance sheet at the end of the “era of peace” between Israel and Egypt, it is far from clear that Israel was right to sign the deal in the first place. In light of the relative longevity of the regime it probably made sense to have made some deal with Egypt. But it is clear that the price Israel paid was outrageously inflated and unwise.
UPDATE: And they chant Allahu akbar!
UPDATE: The first country with the most to lose is Israel. Israel's silence is deafening.
UPDATE: Israel speaks. "An earthquake has occured in the Middle East"
Israel is watching what a senior official calls "an earthquake in the Middle East" with growing concern. The official says the Jewish state has faith in the security apparatus of its most formidable Arab neighbor, Egypt, to suppress the street demonstrations that threaten the dictatorial rule of President Hosni Mubarak. The harder question is what comes next."We believe that Egypt is going to overcome the current wave of demonstrations, but we have to look to the future," says the minister in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel enjoys diplomatic relations and security cooperation with both Egypt and Jordan, the only neighboring states that have signed treaties with the Jewish state. But while it may be more efficient to deal in with a strongman in Cairo — Mubarak has ruled for 30 years — and a king in Amman, democracies make better neighbors, "because democracies do not initiate wars," he says.(more here)
What choice does Israel have? The alternative -- is too gruesome.
UPDATE: Mad Hatter comments correctly:
What we're seeing in Tunisia, Lebanon, Yemen, and Egypt, is not a coincidence, it's timing. These type of protest/riots, and overthrowing of Governments just don't happen with a few friends or a group of people saying to each other, "hey, I got an idea". This takes a lot of preparation, organizing, and planning.
