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Israel, Alone Again?

(New York Times) Yossi Klein Halevi - Israelis want to rejoice over the outbreak of protests in Egypt's city squares. Perhaps, they say, the poisonous reflex of blaming the Jewish state for the Middle East's ills will be replaced by an honest self-assessment. But instead, the grim assumption is that it is just a matter of time before the only real opposition group in Egypt, the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, takes power. The Muslim Brotherhood has long stated its opposition to peace with Israel and has pledged to revoke the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty if it comes into power. An Islamist Egypt could produce the ultimate Israeli nightmare: living in a country surrounded by Iran's allies or proxies. The Brotherhood and its offshoots have been the main purveyors of the Muslim world's widespread conspiracy theories about the Jews. Israelis understand that the end of their conflict with the Arab world depends in large part on the durability of the peace with Egypt. Israelis now worry that this fragile opening to the Arab world is about to close. The writer is a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute and a contributing editor to The New Republic.
2011-02-02 08:50:12
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