AFTER THE EGYPTIAN MILITARY COUP, ZIONIST ISRAELIS FIND A NEW HERO IN CAIRO
by Syarif Hidayat*
After General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi-led Egyptian military defeated Muslim Brotherhood by ousting a democratically elected President Muhammad Mursi in the latest Egyptian power struggle between Egyptian political elites versus the military or in the US-ordered and Israeli-orchestrated Egyptian military coup d’etat, the Zionist Israeli political elites found a new hero in Egypt.
World Bulletin in the latest article titled: “General Sisi is new hero of Israelis – Israelis find a new hero in Egypt” published in its website: www.worldbulletin.net reported that the Israeli people are seeing Egyptian general Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who announced the toppling of democratically elected president Morsi and the suspension of the constitution on July 3, as a hero. Haaretz columnist Ari Shavit has written that Israelis were yearning for Sisi who announced the military coup against President Mursi, in the article titled of “Longing for Egypt’s General Sisi” on Thursday.
The article compares Sisi with Morsi by having the former represent the ideal of “undemocratic enlightenment” of society’s elite and the latter represent the “unenlightened democracy” of the people in general.
Ari Shavit specifically targets Morsi’s beard by saying, “Israel had no doubts about Sisi and they’re all for the right of clean-shaven generals who were educated in America to end the rule of an elected, bearded leader, who was also educated in America and who was supposed to subordinate the generals to his authority.”
“The Israeli yearning for Sisi is two-fold. Looking out, we seek friendly dictators who will rule the hostile Arab masses surrounding us,” he writes, conveying the Israeli attraction to dictators they find sympatethic due to their grasp on the Arab populations they govern. Regarding Israeli politicians, Shavit adds, “But when we look in, many of us long for a supreme commander of our own who will limit the powers of the elected political leadership we loathe.”
He expresses that the “Israeli center-left elite” dreams of “Men in uniform with the same ideological DNA as ours will save the homeland from the unfit, elected governments that the ignorant masses voted for in their great stupidity.” “While the protest marches were impressive, their translation into partisan politics was miserable. After years of degeneration, enlightened Israeli society has lost the ability to act within the parameters of democracy and absorb the principle of majority rule. It no longer knows how to love the people, talk to the people and respect the people’s decisions.”
Longing for Egypt’s General Sisi
Haaretz columnist Shavit writes “after years of degeneration, enlightened Israeli society has lost the ability to act within the parameters of democracy and absorb the principle of majority rule. It no longer knows how to love and respect the people. But no enlightened general will rescue us.” The new Israeli hero is an Egyptian figure − General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. You don’t need an especially discerning eye to see the Israeli elite’s deep sympathy and barely concealed admiration for the commander of our large southern neighbor’s armed forces. The one who has just imprisoned the elected president who appointed him to his position.
While the U.S. administration’s stomach is turning at the headlong collision between General al-Sisi’s undemocratic enlightenment and Mohammed Morsi’s unenlightened democracy, Israel has no doubts. We’re all for Sisi. We’re all for the military coup d’etat. We’re all for the right of clean-shaven generals who were educated in America to end the rule of an elected, bearded leader, who was also educated in America and who was supposed to subordinate the generals to his authority.
The Israeli yearning for Sisi is two-fold. Looking out, we seek friendly dictators who will rule the hostile Arab masses surrounding us. But when we look in, many of us long for a supreme commander of our own who will limit the powers of the elected political leadership we loathe. It’s no accident that Maj. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi had public sympathy when his men collected slanderous material about an elected defense minister. It’s no aberration that Meir Dagan and Yuval Diskin had public support when they betrayed the trust of an elected prime minister. It’s not by chance that Israel is the only democracy in the world in which the left puts counter-intelligence commanders on a pedestal.
Since the 1977 political upheaval, the Israeli center-left elite has lifted its eyes to the promise of salvation embodied by generals, master spies and senior secret policemen. The expectation is unmistakable: Men in uniform with the same ideological DNA as ours will save the homeland from the unfit, elected governments that the ignorant masses voted for in their great stupidity. The problem is one of depth. While the democratic elite in Israel has internalized the ideas of human rights and minority rights, it has not internalized the idea of “the people have had their say.”
It does not treat elections and their results with trembling and awe. Our political life has yet to acquire the mental habit of bowing one’s head before the voter’s decision. There is no fearful respect for the prime minister, finance minister and justice minister. There is no understanding that elected officials − good or bad − are the legitimate executors of the people’s will. Thus the left’s recurring fantasy is the de Gaulle fantasy − a high military officer will emerge from the right and steal the right’s votes, betray the right and carry out the left’s ideology. Thus the left’s deep desire is to find the Israeli Sisi who will make the Israeli Morsi disappear and force on the simpleton masses the enlightenment they cannot choose by themselves.
This is exactly why the 2011 social protest was stolen. Because no general was found two years ago to implement the Rothschild rebellion as Sisi implemented the Tahrir rebellion, and because the Israeli rebels didn’t know how to implement their rebellion in a democratic manner. While the protest marches were impressive, their translation into partisan politics was miserable. After years of degeneration, enlightened Israeli society has lost the ability to act within the parameters of democracy and absorb the principle of majority rule. It no longer knows how to love the people, talk to the people and respect the people’s decisions.
So anyone still hoping for a profound change in Israel must understand now that no enlightened general will rescue us and no Sisi will do the work for us. We will have to perform the work of change ourselves, by persuading the free, sovereign Israelis among whom we live, the Israeli columnist concludes.
Al-Sisi informed Israel of the coup three days prior
Israeli military analyst Roni Daniel revealed that the Egyptian General Abdul-Fattah al-Sisi informed Israel of his efforts to remove President Mohamed Morsi three days before the coup. Speaking to the Israeli TV channel 2, Daniel said that Al-Sisi asked Israel to monitor the Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip. He said Al-Sisi was afraid of Hamas, but his fear faded after the Israeli assurance that everything in Gaza has been under strict surveillance.
Israel advised Al-Sisi to destroy the tunnels. Daniel asserted that the military coup in Egypt is useful to Israel and it had been an “urgent demand” for Israeli and its security. Military analysts did not hesitate to confirm news about contacts between Al-Sisi and Mohamed El-Baradei from the Egyptian side and government officials from the Israeli side.
He said that El-Baradei met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once before the coup and again after the coup. According to Daniel, Israel promised Al-Baradei to help lobby for Western recognition with the new government (after Morsi).
The Egyptian army started damaging tunnels to Gaza several days before the coup took place. The tunnels are the main lifeline for Gaza residents who have been living an Israeli, internationally backed siege since 2006. Despite frenzied defamation campaigns against them by the Egyptian media and the Egyptian anti-Morsi elite, Hamas asserted its longstanding position towards what is happening in Egypt. They have said that they do not interfere with any of the state’s internal affairs.
ElBaradei “a close friend of Israeli war criminal Sharon”
An Arabic website has revealed details of the links between the man who was appointed interim vice president of Egypt and an Israeli leader alleged to be a war criminal. Mohamed ElBaradei not only supported disgraced Hosni Mubarak but was also close to ex-Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon.
According to the Arabic Secrets site, ElBaradei was close enough to Sharon to have dinner at his home while visiting Israel. Sharon was responsible for a number of massacres of Palestinian civilians, most notoriously the Sabra and Shatila massacres of 1982, as well as the killing of Egyptian school children targeted by Israeli airstrikes.
There are concerns that the ex-head of the International Atomic Energy Agency may use his connections to Mubarak to ensure that the latter is released from prison. ElBaradei’s new position comes at the expense of the democratic choice of the Egyptian people following President Morsi’s ousting last week by a military coup.
What Egypt’s Military Coup Means
Radiance Weekly in an editorial titled: “What Egypt’s Military Coup Means” writes the overthrow of the first democratically elected President of Egypt, Mr. Mohamed Morsi in a planned military coup is an attack on democracy and constitution of the land. In other words, it can well be termed as a mockery of democracy. It is highly condemnable and truly shocking but in no way quite unexpected, keeping in view the turbulent state of affairs in this large Arab-African country.
This disquieting development in Egypt is not unexpected also because the palpable jiggery-pokery going on during the last one year between the remnants of Mubarak regime and the USA and Israel. One infamous development not so widely reported is the secret meeting between former Foreign Minister and then Presidential aspirant of Egypt Amr Mousa and former Foreign Minister of Israel Tzipi Livni sometimes in November last. We have editorially recorded that Livni made “a direct request to Mousa to create instability in the internal affairs of Egypt” in view of the general elections in Israel.
This conspiracy would not have come to light had the London-based TV channel Al-Hiwar not broadcast it. And one can guess this selling of national interests does not go in vain for the lovers of this temporal world.
Besides, after the 3 July military coup some articles right from the horse’s mouth have come to suggest the US role in effecting this coup. In an article in the New York Times (7 July) David D. Kirkpatrick and Mayy El Sheikh write that an “emissary of Washington” who happens to be a foreign minister in an Arab country called President Morsi to accept an offer of cabinet reshuffle of their choice but the true-to-the-salt President did not budge from his standpoint.
He preferred kissing the trials and tribulations the rejection of that offer had promised to bowing to his-master’s-voice. This is because Morsi believes his master is only one who is the master of honor and dignity as well and who gives honor to whom he wills. This military coup reminds us of the strangulation of democracy in Algeria in 1992 when Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was stalled from coming to power in the very second run-off of the election.
These two events along with regular demonization of Hamas-led government of Palestine confirms the west’s allergy to Islam, which is the final code of life whereby we can run all our affairs – social, economic and political in a very successful manner. All other isms, especially communism and capitalism, have failed rather miserably to solve the problems of suffering humanity. This is high time the world gave a chance to Islam and lived in peace and prosperity both here and the hereafter, Radiance Weekly editorial concludes.
Key US congressional committee backs Egypt coup
Max Fisher in his article titled: “Key congressional committee backs Egypt coup,” published in the Washington Post on July 5, reported The Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and its ranking Democrat have released a joint statement suggesting support for the Egyptian military’s July 3 coup against President Mohamed Morsi.
The statement, by Reps. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) and Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), argues that Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood had not pursued “real democracy.” It also urges the military to “exercise extreme caution” in moving forward and to “support sound democratic institutions” as it does so.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee could play an important role in determining how Congress guides or pressures the Obama administration’s response to events in Egypt — which may itself be a key factor in how the coup-backed government behaves. Should the Obama administration decide to label what happened in Egypt a coup – something it is under increasing pressure to do – it will probably want to avoid triggering the law that would mandate a cutoff of U.S. aid to Egypt.
That requires congressional approval. This statement only represents two members of Congress, but it’s an indication that Congress may be willing to tacitly approve the coup-backed government and to work with, rather than sanction, its leaders. The Royce/Engel statement conditions this on moving toward democracy, though it’s anybody’s guess how they will measure that or their level of patience.
Here’s the full statement:
The decision by the Egyptian military to take state authority out of the hands of the ruling Muslim Brotherhood government marks another sharp turning point in Egypt’s incomplete revolution. What the Brotherhood neglected to understand is that democracy means more than simply holding elections. Real democracy requires inclusiveness, compromise, respect for human and minority rights, and a commitment to the rule of law. Morsi and his inner circle did not embrace any of these principles and instead chose to consolidate power and rule by fiat. As a result the Egyptian people and their economy suffered greatly.
It is now up to the Egyptian military to demonstrate that the new transitional government can and will govern in a transparent manner and work to return the country to democratic rule. We are encouraged that a broad cross-section of Egyptians will gather to rewrite the constitution. All parties in Egypt must show restraint, prevent violence, and prepare to be productive players in the future democratic Egypt. We encourage the military to exercise extreme caution moving forward and support sound democratic institutions through which the people and future governments can flourish. (T/E1/P03)
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
Indonesia version of this article: KENAPA ZIONIS ISRAEL SEBUT JENDERAL AL-SISI SEORANG PAHLAWAN BARU DI KAIRO?
*Editor of MINA (He can be contacted via email: [email protected])
Bibliotheque:
- http://www.worldbulletin.net
- http://www.haaretz.com
- http://www.middleeastmonitor.com
- http://www.radianceweekly.com
- http://www.washingtonpost.com
