The focus of today’s Briefing returns to Egypt, following the Islamists’ latest victory in the third and final round of the country’s elections. With a projected 2/3 of the cumulative vote, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party together with the Salafist Al-Nour Party are poised to achieve an absolute parliamentary majority. The ramifications bode poorly for both Egypt’s Coptic Christians, against whom violence is now commonplace, and for the Jewish state. Newly empowered through democratic means, Egypt’s Islamists are signalling their intent to abrogate the 1979 peace treaty with Israel. Considering the deterioration of the Israel-Egypt relationship over the past year, this prospect is increasingly possible. It remains to be seen how this new reality will affect Israel’s security and foreign policy—particularly as regards the Palestinians, as well as the region’s geopolitical landscape. However, as the accelerated construction of a fence along Israel’s Sinai border indicates, concern over developments in Egypt is mounting.
OBAMA GETS ENGAGED TO THE BROTHERHOOD
Jonathan S. Tobin
Contentions, January 4, 2012
You would think that after wasting the first year in office on a foolish attempt to “engage” Iran, Barack Obama would have had his fill of outreach to Islamists. After the Iranians treated his overtures with contempt, even Obama eventually got the picture and switched to an equally ineffective course of feckless diplomacy aimed at isolating Tehran. But apparently the president’s unfulfilled desire to make friends with Islamic extremists is still driving American foreign policy. As the New York Times reported, the administration has embarked on a full-scale effort to “engage” with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
This is, to say the least, a major reversal of a decades-long American policy to treat the Islamists as a threat to the stability of the region as well as to the U.S.-Egypt relationship. But like New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who embarrassed himself trying to portray the Brotherhood as moderates in a series of columns, the State Department is seemingly convinced it can establish a productive working relationship with it. This is a glaring mistake not just because it is based on a misperception of the Islamists’ goals regarding democracy and willingness to keep the peace with Israel. It is also a slap in the face of the country’s military government that remains the only obstacle between the Brotherhood and the creation of another Islamic republic.
The argument in favor of engagement is based on the notion that the Brotherhood is a fact of life and, as the parliamentary elections have shown, clearly the most popular political force in Egypt. However, that doesn’t mean its intentions are compatible with the creation of a freer and more democratic Egypt, let alone U.S. interests. The ideology of the Brotherhood, like that of the more radical Salafis who also came out ahead in the elections, is still geared toward the creation of an Islamic state and, notwithstanding the credulous reporting of writers like Kristof, the end of minority religious rights and any vestige of freedom in Egypt.
The administration’s anger with the Egyptian military is understandable as its ham-handed attempt to repress dissent and to retain its hold on power have undermined any pretense the Arab Spring will lead to genuine freedom there. But if the only choices available in Egypt are the Islamists and the military, you have to wonder about the judgment of a president who would choose the former. While administration sources say they want to keep communication open with both sides, any attempt to undermine the military at this point constitutes a clear intervention on behalf of the Brotherhood.… Americans may well be looking back on this decision with regret for many years to come.
THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD’S BIG MOMENT
Robert Fulford
National Post, January 7, 2012
This is an exciting time for the editors in Cairo who run Ikhwan, the official website of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood has suddenly become popular, and there’s never a lack of news to report.
China’s ambassador to Egypt dropped in the other day for an informal talk with Mohamed Morsi, head of the Brotherhood’s political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party. Last week, it was the Russian ambassador who came to chat with Morsi—about democratic values, according to the report on Ikhwan. Diplomats from Nigeria, Cuba, Spain and elsewhere are anxious to connect with the Brotherhood. They realize that it’s now part of Egypt’s political future, perhaps even the most important part.
In many places around the world, the Brotherhood has for decades been regarded with suspicion and fear, as a source of the modern Islamist passion that encourages tyranny and terrorism. Many moderate Muslims wish it would disappear. In the long reign of Hosni Mubarak, the Brotherhood was an outlawed organization whose members couldn’t declare their affiliation and had to run as independents for the dubious honour of serving in Mubarak’s sham parliament. But the Arab Spring changed everything. In February, as protests in Tahrir Square blossomed and Mubarak was being dethroned, the Brotherhood stepped out of the shadows. It started its own party, which is now by far the most popular in Egypt.
In the first two phases of the current lower-house elections, Brotherhood candidates received about half the votes. A fifth of the votes went to another Islamist group, the fanatically puritan Salafist political party, al-Nour (The Light). Islamists are expected to do at least as well in the final phase, whose results are expected on Jan. 13. [Preliminary results suggest the Brotherhood won at least 41 percent of the vote in the third and final stage of Egypt’s parliamentary election, with the Nour party receiving at least 20 percent—Ed.]
The voting has produced a dangerous epidemic of wishful thinking, reaching all the way to Washington. The Obama government has quietly reversed the anti-Brotherhood policy of the United States. An anonymous but apparently important figure in the administration told The New York Times that it’s now essential to “engage with the party that won the election.” Senator John Kerry, chairman of the foreign relations committee, explained why he met with Brotherhood leaders: “The United States needs to deal with the new reality.” Washington apparently accepts, for the moment, the Brotherhood’s claim that it wants an Egyptian government that will respect religious freedoms, free markets and international commitments, including Egypt’s treaty with Israel.
That’s what they say to the Americans. On the other hand, the deputy chief of the Muslim Brotherhood, Rashad al-Bayoumi, recently told Al-Hayat newspaper of London that the Brotherhood is not required to recognize Israel, which he called an “occupying entity.” He won’t even meet with Israeli representatives.…
Will the [Brotherhood] change [its] extremist ways as they achieve some power? That would mean turning against all the fierce preachers and propagandists who spread the Islamist ideology over eight decades. It could happen, but not likely.…
WILL DESPERATE EGYPTIAN CHRISTIANS SEEK REFUGE IN THE US?
Walter Russel Mead
American Interest, December 24, 2011
As political and economic conditions in Egypt deteriorate, a new kind of refugee is beginning to appear, one that will test America’s character. Violence against [Egypt’s eight million Christians] is growing.… Christians are being threatened with violence if they fail to convert; women who do not cover their hair are harassed, harangued and threatened on the street; churches are burned and the wall of isolation around this ancient community deepens every day.
Under US and international law, growing numbers of Egyptian Christians will qualify as refugees if these conditions continue to worsen.
For Americans, the persecution of religious believes in other countries is more than a foreign policy problem. Russian persecution of the Jews in the 19th century led millions of Jews to immigrate to the United States between 1880 and the start of World War One. Religious and ethnic minorities fled to the US from all over Europe and the Middle East in the old days. One reason that so few Christians remain in most of the Middle East is that the United States primarily, but other western countries as well, have allowed millions of Christian Arabs to escape—in some cases looking for security and an end to persecution, and in others for better economic opportunity and the absence of discrimination.…
As secular nationalism died in the Arab world, religious rather than ethnic identity came to the fore. Arab Christians are no longer seen by many as fellow citizens of a minority faith (like Mormons in America); they are seen as aliens of doubtful motives and allegiance. Because many enjoyed good jobs and privilege under the nationalist governments, they are blamed for many of the failings of the old regimes, and much of the public believes that “justice” will involve a redistribution of privilege and access away from “pampered”, foreign-leaning Christians to honest Muslim sons of toil.
There is no telling how this will work out.… It is, alas, not rare for problems like this to culminate in massacres and ethnic and religious cleansing.…
America is going to have to make up its mind: will we find room for what could very well be a significant stream of Egyptian Christian refugees with us here in the inn, or will they have to go find a manger somewhere?…
THE ISRAEL-EGYPT BORDER FENCE
Joe Kaufman
National Review, January 2, 2012
On Thursday, December 8, an Israeli air strike in central Gaza killed a Palestinian militant planning a terrorist attack from the Egyptian border. In doing so, Israel prevented a repeat of what had occurred last August, when Palestinians crossed over the Sinai and proceeded to murder eight Israelis.… Because of these attacks and additional troubles, the construction of a security fence along southern Israel’s Egyptian border is currently underway.
The so-called Arab Spring has brought an end to dictatorships in a number of Middle Eastern countries, thrusting Islamist factions into power…but there are ominous signs of danger for Israel and her allies.
When the movement that was initially led by Egyptian youth was successful in overthrowing Mubarak, a list of troubling events took place. One was the storming of Israel’s embassy in Cairo, the city that is home to the global headquarters of the extremist Muslim Brotherhood. Angry young men tossed documents out of windows and set fire to the embassy’s flag. The embassy staff, who said they had feared for their lives, needed to be rescued from the frenzied crowd.
Another was the invitation of Yusuf al-Qaradawi to lead Friday prayers in Tahrir Square. Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Brotherhood, had been banned from entering Egypt for the past three decades. He has been known to endorse, among other things, suicide bombings and attacks against American troops. Hundreds of thousands of those loyal to him packed the square, as Qaradawi prayed for the conquest of Jerusalem.
Another cause for disquiet was Cairo’s hosting of reconciliation talks between the leaders of Hamas and Fatah to begin negotiations for a unity government in the Palestinian territories. Considering that Hamas is a major faction of the Brotherhood, the move could very well have been a ploy to end all peace negotiations with Israel. It is certainly genuine to fear that Egypt will sever it peaceful ties [with Israel], as Islamists are calling for the nullification of the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty.
Yet another was Egypt’s opening of the barrier between Gaza and Egypt. When Israel went to war with Hamas in December 2008, Mubarak sealed the border. Following Mubarak’s imprisonment, the border was loosened, allowing for Palestinian militants to trek into Egypt and from there launch attacks on Israelis. According to the Jerusalem Post, “Hamas has established forward bases and rocket production facilities in the Sinai Peninsula.…”
What used to be peace between the two nations—albeit a cold peace—may very well turn into a nightmare for Israel. And the fact that Egypt possesses billions of dollars of American-made weaponry, including F-16 fighter jets—something ignored by the Obama administration when it sought to support Mubarak’s enemies—only serves to heighten anxiety in the tiny Jewish state.
As if Israel didn’t already have enough threats to worry about—Hamas and Islamic Jihad suicide bombers from Gaza, Fatah fighters from the West Bank, Hezbollah from Israel’s north in Lebanon, and a possible nuclear Iran—Egypt has added itself to the list.
THE LAND-FOR-PEACE HOAX
Caroline B. Glick
Jerusalem Post, January 6, 2012
The rise of the forces of jihadist Islam in Egypt places the US and other Western powers in an uncomfortable position. The US is the guarantor of Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel. That treaty is based on the proposition of land for peace. Israel gave Egypt Sinai in 1982 and in exchange it received a peace treaty with Egypt. Now that the Islamists are poised to take power, the treaty is effectively null and void.
The question naturally arises: Will the US act in accordance with its role as guarantor of the peace and demand that the new Egyptian government give Sinai back to Israel? Because if the Obama administration or whatever administration is in power when Egypt abrogates the treaty does not issue such a demand, and stand behind it, and if the EU does not support the demand, the entire concept of land-for-peace will be exposed as a hoax.
Indeed the land-for-peace formula will be exposed as a twofold fiction. First, it is based on the false proposition that the peace process is a two-way street. Israel gives land, the Arabs give peace. But the inevitable death of the Egyptian- Israeli peace accord under an Egyptian jihadist regime makes clear that the land-for-peace formula is a one-way street. Israeli land giveaways are permanent. Arab commitments to peace can be revoked at any time.
Then there are the supposedly iron-clad US and European security guarantees that accompany signed treaties. All the American and European promises to Israel—that they will stand by the Jewish state when it takes risks for peace—will be exposed as worthless lies. As we are already seeing today, no one will stand up for Israel’s rights. No one will insist that the Egyptians honor their bargain.…
Both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists are happy to cater to the propaganda needs of Western journalists and politicians and pretend that they are willing to continue to uphold the peace treaty with Israel. But even as they make conditional statements to eager Americans and Europeans, they consistently tell their own people that they seek the destruction of Israel and the abrogation of the peace deal between Egypt and Israel.
As the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs’ Jonathan D. Halevi documented last week in a report on Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist positions on the future of the peace between Egypt and Israel [see “On Topics” below for the complete article—Ed.], while speaking to Westerners in general terms about their willingness to respect the treaty, both groups place numerous conditions on their willingness to maintain it. These conditions make clear that there is no way that they will continue to respect the peace treaty. Indeed, they will use any excuse to justify its abrogation and blame it on Israel. And they will do so at the earliest available opportunity.
It is possible, and perhaps likely, that the US will cut off military aid to Egypt in the wake of Cairo’s abrogation of the peace treaty. But it is impossible to imagine that the Obama administration will abide by the US’s commitment as the guarantor of the deal and demand that Egypt return Sinai to Israel.…
It is important to keep this sorry state of affairs in mind when we assess the prospects for a land-for-peace deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.…
[The recent PA-Israel Amman] talks are doomed to failure. The most important reason they will fail is that even if they lead to an agreement, no agreement between Israel and the Palestinians is sustainable. Assuming for a moment that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas goes against everything he has said for the past three years and signs a peace deal with Israel in which he promises Israel peace in exchange for Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, this agreement will have little impact on the Palestinians’ view of Israel. Abbas today represents no one. His term of office ended three years ago. Hamas won the last Palestinian elections in 2006. And Hamas’s leaders—like their counterparts in the Muslim Brotherhood—make no bones about their intention to destroy Israel.…
So the best case scenario for a peace deal with the Palestinians is that Abbas will sign a deal that Israel will implement by withdrawing from Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and expelling up to a half a million Israeli citizens from their homes. Hamas will then take power and abrogate the treaty, just as its brethren in Cairo are planning to do with their country’s peace treaty.…
As Israel bows now to still more US and EU pressure and conducts land-for-peace talks with Fatah, our leadership may be seduced by the faint praise they receive from the likes of The Washington Post or even from the Obama administration. But this praise should not turn their heads.… [Our leaders should] direct their attention to what happened this week in Cairo, as the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists secured their absolute control over Egypt’s parliament. Specifically, our leaders should note the absence of any voices demanding that Egypt respect the peace treaty with Israel or return Sinai.
The time has come for Israel to admit the truth. Land-for-peace is a confidence game and we are the mark.
