Middle East: Egyptians rage against Israel

Is this the end of peace between Egypt and Israel? asked Daniel Nisman in the Tel Aviv Yedioth Ahronoth. Last weekend, Israelis “watched in horror as an angry mob of Egyptians” laid waste to our embassy in Cairo. Israeli diplomats had to be hastily evacuated as the protesters attacked the building with sledgehammers, tore down walls, burned flags, and smashed file cabinets. The repellent spectacle proves the utter failure of the Egyptian revolution. “Democracy comes with responsibility,” yet “the Egyptian people are currently incapable of acting responsibly.” And not just the people—the Egyptian junta, too, said Caroline Glick in The Jerusalem Post. Egyptian authorities not only “refused to intervene” to save the lives of Israeli Embassy personnel but also declined even to speak to Israeli leaders during the 13-hour siege. Only after President Obama threatened U.S. action did the Egyptian authorities step in. It’s now obvious that the junta will bow to the mob and tear up the peace treaty. Israel must “prepare for the possibility of war.”

War would be a disaster for Egypt, said Tariq Alhomayed in the London Asharq Al-Awsat, and its leaders should resist “attempts to drag Egypt into a confrontation with Israel.” Some Egyptian revolutionaries say supporters of ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak are whipping up mob sentiment to provide a pretext for the imposition of martial law. The storming of the embassy was a plot, said Muhammed Arafah in the Cairo Al-Akhbar. Thugs were out to “tarnish Egypt’s image” and that of its rebels “in favor of the remnants of the former regime.” But Israel is partly to blame as well, since it refused to allow a joint investigation after Israeli soldiers killed our soldiers last month in the Sinai Peninsula.

Israel hasn’t grasped the fact that the Arab world has changed, said Faisal Al Yafai in the Abu Dhabi National. Egyptian and Syrian dictators “long contained the popular feeling among their publics against the Israeli occupation” of Palestinian territory, but with Mubarak out and the Syrian regime teetering, those passions are now unleashed. Israeli politicians have been warning of the “diplomatic tsunami” that will come when the Palestinians declare their independent state at the U.N. General Assembly later this month. But that perfect storm is already upon them, unleashed “not by Palestinian statehood but the wave of Arab revolutions.”

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Israel’s leaders are just making things worse, said Aluf Benn in the Tel Aviv Ha’aretz. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu picked a fight with Turkey, refusing to apologize for last year’s deadly raid on a Turkish ship trying to break the blockade of Gaza. Meanwhile, the Sinai has become a lawless zone, and could turn into “a larger version of the Gaza Strip, full of weapons and launching pads aimed at Israeli territory.” Without Turkey and Egypt as allies, Israel will be in mortal danger. It’s time to “propose real policies and solutions to the conflict with the Palestinians,” said Ha’aretz in an editorial. Israel “must drop the empty slogans about prestige and national pride—and recognize the deep change in its status that has begun.”