And if the allegation is true that Israel is standing by Sisi, what’s wrong with that? What happens in Egypt is of immediate concern to Israel and it is only natural that she calls them the way she sees them. The US and the EU are wrong on the peace process and wrong in their embrace of the MB. Why should we support wrong policies? Ted Belman
From: Leo Rennert, AMERICAN THINKER
It’s the lead story on the Sunday front page of the New York Times—a lengthy piece on how frantic, behind-the-scenes efforts by U.S. and European diplomats supposedly came close to building a path toward ending the bloody conflict in Egypt between the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and the military-backed interim government.
In the end, as we all know, external prodding failed. But in allotting blame for why diplomacy didn’t succeed, the Times gratuitously points an accusing finger at Israel and AIPAC, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, for allegedly siding with the Egyptian military and undermining U.S. diplomacy (“How a U.S. Push to Defuse Egypt Ended in Failure –Barrage of Diplomacy—Despite 17 Calls from Hagel, Cairo Chose Confrontation” by David Kirkpatrick, Peter Baker and Michael Gordon).
The article not only gets the most prominent spot up front, but continues inside the paper with a spread, including photos, that takes up an entire inside page.
Yet length doesn’t guarantee accurate reporting. In fact, the Times dispatch is built on a deeply flawed premise that outside pressures somehow might have been able to bring Egypt’s agony to an end, especially if President Obama had shown more backbone and cut off $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid to Cairo. The reality, ignored by the Times, is that Egyptians and only Egyptians can put an end to this bloody affair. Suspension of U.S. military aid would be more than offset by more generous military aid from Saudi Arabia and other wealthy Arab oil states.
But in pursuit of external meddlers aligned against Washington diplomacy, the Times prefers to build a case against Israel and AIPAC. Here’s how Kirkpatrick, Baker and Gordon put it:
“The Israelis, whose military had close ties to General Sisi from his former post as head of military intelligence, were supporting the (military) takeover as well. Western diplomats say that General Sisi and his circle appeared to be in heavy communication with Israeli colleagues, and the diplomats believed the Israelis were also undercutting the Western message by reassuring the Egyptians not to worry about American threats to cut off aid.
“Israeli officials deny having reassured Egypt about the aid, but acknowledge having lobbied Washington to protect it.
“When Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, proposed an amendment halting military aid to Egypt, the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee sent a letter to senators on July 31 opposing it, saying it ‘could increase instability in Egypt and undermine important U.S. interests and negatively impact our Israel ally.’ Statements from influential lawmakers echoed the letter, and the Senate defeated the measure, 86 to 13, later that day.”
There’s more here than a whiff of Jewish conspiracy theories that fueled medieval anti-Semitism.. Notice that AIPAC is tagged as an ”influential” pressure group presumably capable of swaying the U.S. Senate. AIPAC cracks the whip, purportedly, and 83 senators jump to Israel’s tune. It apparently doesn’t occur to the Times that 83 U.S. senators are capable of voting based on their own agendas and beliefs – without a need of “influential” external lobbying to make up their own minds.
As for Israel’s supposed role in taking sides against the Muslim Brotherhood, the authors of the article never bother to identify their sources. Never mind that Israeli officials from Prime Minister Netanyahu on down are on record as having decided that Israel will avoid involvement in Egypt’s conflict. So why rely on dubious, unattributed sources like “the Israelis” and “Western diplomats ” and “the diplomats believed,” and General Sisi “appeared to be” etc.? Could it be that on-the-record pronouncements would have spoiled the conspiratorial atmospherics favored by the Times’ reporters?
And not given the Times a pretext to build a breach between Israel and the United States?
LEO RENNERT
@ Eric R.:
I totally agree.
Please release my #4 from moderation.
Beating up on the NYT is standard fare for the conservative – right factions. Rennert, takes umbrage at the NYT for fostering the long held notion that AIPAC- the Jews hold sway over America’s political elite, by singling out one small paragraph in a very lengthy op-ed:
Reference to AIPAC was, as Rennert points out, gratuitous. Add to that, such reference does nothing to assist the reader in understanding what is going on in Egypt as NYT reports and where the U.S. is at in that regard.
This is an opinion piece however and as such it is a mix of known and verified facts, surmises on presumed beneath the surface facts and opinions and guess work assessments based on facts, surmises and the coloration the writer gives both.
Nothing new there.
As for the NYT reference to Israel’s seeming support of the military coup and General Sisi, that is fair comment, whether one agrees with that comment or not.
The article more importantly identifies how the Obama administration is pretty much in a no win situation, even as it tries to do something to meaningfully respond to the Egyptian situation as if that something is going to influence things one way or another. Cancelling the joint military exercise is an optics thing, but the downside is rejecting an opportunity for close private communication with General Sisi and other influential military leaders.
Attention is however, given to Senators McCain and Graham’s fact finding mission to Egypt and their own efforts to influence the course of events. That attention is not flattering. Assuming McCain and Graham represent the thinking of the Republican party, they are reading from the same page in the U.S. guide to foreign policy as the Obama administration when it comes to dealing with Egypt’s new interim military government that seized power by a coup.
The U.S. has long had an aversion to supporting military coups. That is a bi-partisan view as can be deduced by reference to not only the reported words of the Obama administration but those of McCain and Graham. Both are calling upon General Sisi and his military government to turn Egyptian leadership over to civilian leadership through a democratic electoral process a.s.a.p.
That U.S. aversion is not just a matter of policy, but of law as well. U.S. foreign aid to any nation is by law required to cease where such foreign nation is taken over in a coup by the military.
Not calling the Egyptian military coup, a coup is a transparent effort to put political and practical considerations borne of the exigencies of the moment, ahead of the law.
The Republicans are ad idem with the Obama administration on that. In this instance at least, they see that the consequences of ceasing funding to the Egyptian military in compliance with the law is worse than flouting that law.
Fundamental to this thinking is that America, if it is to have any influence at all with the course of events in Egypt, must keep channels of communication open with the military interim government and cancelling aid funding would close those channels.
Egypt needs financial aid far more than it does joint military exercises with the U.S. The fact is however, when it comes to providing Egypt an economic safety net, U.S. aid of about $1.3 billion dollars is less than 10% of the funding the Saudis and OPEC nations are giving Egypt.
The U.S. should take note that their much touted great ally, the Saudis and other OPEC nations are giving Egypt this aid because they the Saudis et al disdain the Muslim Brotherhood which, being even more hardcore Islamist then them poses a challenge to their own influence in the Middle East and the Saudis et al fear that if the aid is not given to shore up Egypt, Egypt will spin out of control and the MB, being the only organized political entity will be there to pick up the pieces.
Obama however, is not listening. His reasoning can only be speculated on, but many attribute it to his rigid ideological mind set that is impervious to facts and reality that do not fit his view of the world, what it should be and his set agenda for making his world vision a reality.
Recall that Obama also refused to heed the Saudi appeals over the last several years for the U.S. to launch an attack against Iran, which the Saudis fear threatens their own influential hegemony in the Middle East.
From what the world has seen, particularly with the Obama administration these past 5 years, is that U.S. foreign policy thinking related to U.S. perceptions of its own self and best interests as regards the Middle East, Egypt, Israel, China and Russia appears dazed and confused.
That thinking, so resistant to reacting to changing realities and facts on the ground and instead, sticking with guidelines applicable to times past, has led to U.S. foreign policy actions that are not just inept, but which are causing the world to lose its respect and fear of U.S. power and influence.
Under Obama’s governance, America’s decline on the world stage is being hastened.
America however, is still a superpower and it can reverse that decline for itself, either with a dramatic change in the Obama administrations’ thinking or change coming with a new administration following the next presidential election.
The concern however, is whether the U.S. can reverse that decline before small less powerful nations might be irreversibly harmed by America’s current dazed, confused and inept handling of its foreign policy.
@ jlevyellow:
Levy – I think this Administration is too stupid to think that strategically long-term on foreign policy. They only think that long term on domestic policy, where their goal is to crush their real enemy – the GOP – and create a one-party Marxist state as we have now in California.
As to the article itself – Israel should say “F**k yeah, we’re helping to crush the MB Nazi savages, you got a problem with that?”
@ jlevyellow:EXCELLENT
Why would Obama wish to support the Muslim Brotherhood? It is possible to speculate that Israel stands in the way of a united Arab body that the MB would facilitate. For lack of a better term, the Caliphate would arise and it would be in natural opposition to Russia and China, relieving America of its role as the the sole opposing force to these two hegemonic giants. Ideological opposition to Russia and China would be stronger in a Caliphate than simple nationalism that might vary from country to country.
What cannot be is that the United States and Europe simply like Islamic positions and beliefs. That is not how big-stakes political thinking works. A truncated, dependent Israel – or its disappearance – would serve to strengthen the notion of a Caliphate. With the United States’ hand in reducing Israel to its “proper” size, the Caliphate would be duly grateful and recognize the value of friendship with the US and an Islamisized Europe.
Poor thinking, if this is indeed the US reasoning! It stinks of the same obsequious treatment that Russia received before and during World War II. It plays with the world as though it was a child’s game of “Risk.” with the world of power ruling over the world of ideas, since those are the rules of the breed of people who engage in such games. That approach may satisfy a group of strategic thinkers in the bowels of the White House, State Department, and Pentagon, but it will not satisfy the masses of people who will be sacrificed to this balancing of power on their bones. Most people want simply to raise their children without sacrificing them periodically on some alter dedicated to the god of strategic thinking. Let us hope that the real human revolution arises where individuals can en mass refuse to die because someone else thinks it is peachy-keen.