By Ted Belman
A month ago, PEW Global did a poll in Egypt and found
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“only 36 percent of Egyptians are in favor of maintaining the treaty, compared with 54 percent who would like to see it scrapped.”
“The conservative Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and the largely secular April 6 movement – two groups closely involved in the uprising, had the highest approval ratings in society, with over 70 percent seeing them in a very or somewhat favorable light.
“People also overwhelmingly approved of the army, which forced out Mubarak and is currently in the control of the country. ”
Daniel Pipes writes on the post-Mubarak Egypt and says that Mubarak is gone but the army is still in control.
“The military is not secular. From the furthest origins of the Free Officers in the 1930s to the recent reaffirmation of Sharia (Islamic law) as “the principal source of legislation,” the Egyptian military leadership consistently has displayed an Islamist orientation. More specifically, the Free Officers emerged out of the military wing of the Muslim Brotherhood and through the decades has been in competition with the civilian wing. As analyst Cynthia Farahat writes in the Middle East Quarterly, their rivalry “should be understood not as a struggle between an autocratic, secular dictatorship and a would-be Islamist one but a struggle between two ideologically similar, if not identical, rival groups, hailing from the same source.”
“The Muslim Brotherhood is not a powerhouse. The organization suffers from major problems. First, hot-headed and violent Islamists despise it. Al-Qaeda recently blasted it for taking part in elections and ridiculed it for being on the path to becoming “secular and falsely affiliated with Islam.” Second, the brotherhood is weak on the ground. Hesham Kassem of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights notes that its membership does not exceed 100,000 people, which, in a country of 80 million, means it “is not really a grass roots movement,” but a coddled institution benefiting from being uniquely tolerated. Genuine political competition should diminish its appeal.”
It seems to me that Israel should state clearly that if the treaty is cancelled, she will take back the Sinai.
On Apr 24rth I reported that “a new poll by the International Peace Institute provides some hope. It shows that is it the secular Wafd Party, not the Muslim Brotherhood, that has the most support in Egypt.”
Just today, Yishai Fleisher brought to my attention his article in YNET in which he says Israel should wlcome the overthrow of the dictators. Its worth a read.
What do you think?
The more they beat each other the better is for Israel and to the rest of normal world. I would stay on the side and shout “Hit them hard”…
The military is really in charge in Egypt.
The military gets most of the aid bestowed by the USA to Egypt.
That’s all.
Egypt presidential hopefuls seek end to peace deal with Israel
RIA Novosti
16:59 27/04/2011 MOSCOW, April 27 (RIA Novosti) – An Egyptian presidential candidate says he wants to scrap the late 1970s Camp David Peace Treaty with Israel.
The secretary general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, said the Camp David peace agreement with Israel, signed in 1979 by then president Anwar Sadat and the Israeli prime minister, Menachem Begin, was a “failure.”
“It should be scrapped,” Moussa said during an election campaign rally in southern Egypt. He called for Israel to halt construction in the West Bank and recognize a Palestinian state on all of the territory Israel occupied in 1967, including the Gaza Strip.
A presidential election may take place as early as October, after 77 percent of voters in last month’s referendum backed constitutional changes that would allow the country to move on to elections. The referendum followed the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak by a popular uprising in February.
Judge Hesham Bastawisi, another contender, demanded that the Camp David Treaty be reconsidered.
Under the deal, Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula which it had occupied since 1967. In return, Egypt agreed to demilitarize the area. The deal was the first recognition of Israel’s independence by a major Arab country.
Recent polls have suggested that more than half of Egyptians want the deal to be scrapped.
May God bless the land and the people of Israel with health, with happiness, with prosperity, and yes, with peace so that the day will come when our sons won’t have to go to war and those living outside of our country will come without fear and find out what Israel is actually like.