Egypt is in turmoil. Its regime, it appears, is coming rapidly to an end. The danger is that a new regime could be worse than the last.As concerned as anyone is little Israel, already with enemies sworn to its destruction at its borders. The peace negotiated by the then Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egypt's then President Anwar Sadat has been a cold peace, but peace nevertheless. A new regime in Egypt could tear up the peace agreement.
David Horovitz, editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post, writes in the Telegraph:
Despite the general excitement, the outcome could be a grim one for Israel, and for the West more generally.
In the past few weeks, we have seen a president ousted in Tunisia. We've seen protests in Yemen. We've seen Iran essentially take control of Lebanon, where its proxy, Hizbollah, has ousted a relatively pro-Western prime minister and inserted its own candidate. We've seen the King of Jordan rush to sack his Cabinet amid escalating protests. We've seen reports that similar demonstrations are planned for Syria, where the president, Bashar Assad, will find it far harder to get away with gunning down the crowds than his father did in 1982. And most dramatically, we are seeing the regime in Egypt - the largest, most important Arab country - totter, as President Mubarak faces unprecedented popular protest, and the likelihood that he will have to step down sooner rather than later.
It is tempting to be smug. Egypt's blink-of-an-eye descent into instability underlines afresh the uniqueness of Israel, that embattled sliver of enlightened land in a largely dictatorial region. Those who like to characterise it as the root of all the Middle East's problems look particularly foolish: the people on the streets aren't enraged by Israel, but because their countries are so unlike Israel, so lacking in the freedoms and economic opportunities that both Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs take for granted.
Yet the country is deeply concerned. The main worry is over a repeat of the events in Iran a little over 30 years ago, when popular protest ousted the Shah, only to see him replaced by a far more dangerous, corrupt, misogynist and intolerant regime. Iran is plainly delighted by what is unfolding. With peerless hypocrisy, a government that mowed down its own people less than two years ago is encouraging the same spirit of protest in Egypt. Its allies in the Moslem Brotherhood are well placed to fill any leadership vacuum - and, for all the group's dubious claims to be relatively moderate, it embraces leadership figures deeply hostile to Israel and the West. The Muslim Brotherhood, it should not be forgotten, gave birth to Hamas, the terrorist group which now runs Gaza, after killing hundreds in its takeover.
The danger for the Egyptians is that, when the protests are over, their brave efforts will have replaced Mubarak not with a leadership more committed to freedom and democracy, but quite the reverse. Yet for Israelis, it underlines the challenges we face when it comes to peacemaking.
Our country, it is often forgotten, is 1/800th of the size of the Arab world, only nine miles wide at its narrowest point. We are not some territorial superpower that can afford not to care if there is hostility all around: we desperately need normalised relations with our neighbours. But if we do a lousy deal with a regime that is either unstable or not genuinely committed to reconciliation, the consequences could be fatal. . .
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