UNITED WITH ISRAEL

U.S. Congress Proposes to Move U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem


http://unitedwithisrael.org/u-s-congress-introduces-legislation-to-relocate-u-s-embassy-to-jerusalem/?inf_contact_key=126a015ca98eee4b94ecc20e6335e77fa3518ec8af56734fac4e5089c3315043

Members of the US Congress have proposed legislation for the United States to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Members of the US Congress have submitted legislation calling upon the United States to move her embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The bill, titled HR 2846: Recognition of Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel Act, which is sponsored by Trent Franks (AZ-08), Brad Sherman (CA-30), Doug Lamborn (CO-05), Gene Green (TX-29), and Juan Vargas (CA-51), is now being circulated among members of Congress. Earlier in the year, members of the House and Senate proposed a similar bill.
“The United States was the first nation to recognize Israel’s sovereignty, a mere 11 minutes after the new state was formed in 1948. Today, 65 years later, Israel remains a uniquely precious ally. Just as the United States has assisted the Jewish people in restoring their ancient state, it is only fitting that we lead the way in recognizing Jerusalem for what it is: the undivided, eternal capital of Israel,” said Congressman Trent Franks.
The text of HR 2846 recognizes that Jerusalem has been the undivided capital of the Jewish people for the last 3,000 years. It claims that Jews have had an uninterrupted presence in the city since antiquity and have constituted a majority of the city’s residents since 1840. The bill cites that in “1990, Congress unanimously adopted Senate Concurrent Resolution 106, which declares that Congress ‘strongly believes that Jerusalem must remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic religious group are protected.’”
HR 2846 also states that “The United States maintains its embassy in the functioning capital in every country except in the State of Israel.” The bill also recognizes that the government of Israel has met all of the standards for establishing a capital city according to the international law set forth by the 1907 Hague Regulations stating “Israel has far exceeded the 1907 Hague Regulation as directed by international law. Israel has taken all measures to restore and ensure public order and safety in Jerusalem. Jerusalem has been far safer and more protected under Israel’s administration than under any previous authorities.”
Knesset“It is long overdue for the US government to relocate our embassy to Israel’s capital, Jerusalem,” said Congressman Brad Sherman. According to Congressman Doug Lamborn, “For historical, biblical and moral reasons, we are committed to the unity of Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital with no waivers and no caveats. Our unflinching support is especially crucial at this critical hour of turbulence throughout the region.”
U.S. CITIZENS! Please contact your congressional representative and tell them you support HR 2846 the “Recognition of Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel Act”!
Click here to find your representative: http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/
http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/
By Rachel Avraham, staff writer at United With Israel

Facebook Upgrades Investments In Israeli Market
http://unitedwithisrael.org/facebook-upgrades-investments-in-israeli-market/
Social media giant Facebook is now officially operating in Israel and has hired a Tel Aviv based PR firm to attract Israeli investment and software developers.
shalom tel avivFacebook recently hired Israeli PR Company Shalom TELAVIV Public Relations Firm to serve as the social network’s media advisor in Israel, with the aim of expanding Facebook’s operations within the Jewish state. According to the company website, “Shalom TELAVIV’s mission is to provide comprehensive communications management targeted to meet our clients’ business and organizational goals, based on a deep understanding of business and marketing strategy together with a strong emphasis on creative thinking.”
Facebook Israel
Yedioth Achronot reported that Facebook seeks to strengthen their marketing in Israel in order to enhance their status as a favored platform for developers of applications and games. Already, Facebook claims that five out of the social networking sites ten fasted growing games were developed by Israelis. While Facebook has reached out to Israeli developers in the past by hosting conferences in Israel, this marks the first time that Facebook has reached out to Israel in such a public manner, preferring in the past to keep Facebook’s Israel connections lower key. Facebook also seeks to increase the number of Israelis marketing and advertising on Facebook, as well as to maintain the influence of Facebook among the Israeli population.
Two Israeli Facebook employees based in Ireland, Elad Brindt and Nimrod Halevi, are tasked with marketing the company’s ad tools in Israel more aggressively. Both Brindt and Halevi have made a number of trips to Israel, meeting with large Israeli advertisers to convince them to increase their advertising on Facebook’s homepage in Israel. If the marketing efforts succeed, Facebook might expand its Israeli operations and even open up an office in Israel, although that is not on the table at present.

Another aim of Facebook is to maintain its brand names among Israeli users. With over four million Israelis active on Facebook; the influence of the social networking site within Israeli society is expected to further expand following these developments. The decision of Facebook to upgrade the company’s presence in Israel comes in the wake of Facebook’s collaboration with MASA (a joint media platform under Nano10), which exclusively sold ad space on Facebook, ended.
By Rachel Avraham, staff writer for United With Israel

UN accredits NGO whose head is ‘glad to be labeled anti-Semitic’
UN_General_Assembly_hallDecision to recognize organization chaired by Malaysia’s former PM ‘comes as no surprise at all,’ Israel’s Foreign Ministry says

A United Nations committee dedicated to Palestinians’ rights last week accredited a nongovernmental organization headed by the former prime minister of Malaysia, a controversial figure who has reportedly said he was “glad” to be called an anti-Semite, sparking protests by pro-Israel groups.

At a session Monday in New York, the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People officially granted accreditation to five civil society organizations, among them the Perdana Global Peace Foundation, which was founded by Mahathir Mohamad.

Continue reading at the Times of Israel.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/un-accredits-ngo-whose-head-is-glad-to-be-labeled-anti-semitic/

'The Israeli Government Has Surrendered the Temple Mount'
Activists call for mass-protests after police say Judaism's holiest site will be closed to Jews at least until after Ramadan, on August 11.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/170452#.UfqeANKUQuf
By Ari Soffer and Chana Ya'ar
First Publish: 7/31/2013, 6:52 PM
Temple Mount
Flash 90
In an "unprecedented" move, police on Wednesday informed Jewish groups that the Temple Mount will be closed to all non-Muslims until at least the end of Ramadan, on 11th August. The announcement has provoked renewed anger over anti-Jewish discrimination on the Temple Mount, and sparked calls by activists for a mass-protest on 7th August, at the start of the Hebrew month of Elul.

Temple Mount activists had complained that for the past three days the Temple Mount - the holiest place in Judaism - remained inexplicably closed to non-Muslim visitors. The only "explanation" offered was a bland sign which simply read "Today the Temple Mount will be closed to visitors." 

Those restrictions did not, however, apply to Muslim visitors, who continue to receive unrestricted access.

On Wednesday, Police Commander Avi Bitton finally informed representatives of the Organisation of Temple Movements - an umbrella of various Temple Mount groups - that the sign would remain up for at least another two weeks, until after the Muslim festival of "Eid", which marks the end of Ramadan.

Since the beginning of Ramadan, Islamists have upped their campaign to prevent Jews from setting foot on the Temple Mount - let alone praying there.

On the eve of the 9th of Av - the Jewish day of mourning over the destruction of the Holy Temples - a group of Jews including Deputy Foreign Minister Ze'ev Elkin were driven off the Mount by a mob of Muslim extremists.

The next day, police banned Jews from the site altogether, provoking angry reactions from worshippers, activists and Members of Knesset, including government ministers.

Since then, say activists, Jews who wish to ascend have either been turned away without explanation, or otherwise subjected to even more severe restrictions than they had previously experienced.

In a statement following the meeting, the Organisation of Temple Movements accused the police of caving in to Islamist threats of violence, and failing in their duty to secure freedom of worship:

"Since the beginning of this month, groups of Muslims have used violence to try to prevent Jews from entering the plaza of the Temple Mount. Police could not deal with the rioting Muslim extremists, and time and time again stood helpless before them,

“Now it turns out that the police have collapsed completely in their mission, and have failed in their effort to keep order on the Temple Mount."

Yehuda Glick,  a spokesman for the Organisation of Temple Movements, slammed the police decision as "illegal":

“All of these [closures of the Temple Mount] were illegal actions taken by police, violating freedom of access to holy places," he said.

Glick called on Jews and government ministers to immediately begin visiting the Temple Mount around the clock, in response to attempts to deny access to Jews.

The Temple Mount is Judaism's holiest site, where the two holy Temples once stood before being destroyed by the Babylonian and Roman empires respectively.

Despite its supreme importance to Jews worldwide, Jewish visitors are subject to draconian restrictions on the Mount, including a ban on praying, due to the presence of an Islamic complex, administered by the Waqf Islamic Trust, and amid threats by Islamist groups. The Israeli police have bypassed several court decisions upholding the Jewish right to prayer there by citing unspecified "security concerns", either to ban individual activists or even to issue blanket prohibitions on Jews ascending at all. Religious Jews are followed closely by Israeli police and Waqf guards to prevent them from praying, or from carrying out any other religious rituals. Non-Jewish visitors are not subject to such restrictions.

But Wednesday's decision to close the Mount for such a prolonged period of time is "unprecedented," according to Rabbi Chaim Richman of the Temple Institute.

"This sets a new and dangerous precedent," warned Rabbi Richman.

"Over the past few weeks there have been several attacks by Muslim extremists on the Temple Mount, and the police have aided and abetted them by standing by and allowing our rights to be violated. Even the Deputy Foreign Minister was not granted the right to freedom of worship."

Rabbi Richman accused the government of having "surrendered sovereignty over the Temple Mount."

"By granting the Jordanian-run Waqf free reign on the site, even aquiessing to their demands to ban Jews from ascending, the State of Israel has effectively abandoned the Temple Mount altogether.

"No matter what posturing the government performs, and no matter how many times they repeat the meaningless mantra that 'The Temple Mount is in our hands' [a reference to the famous declaration made after the liberation of Jerusalem in 1967 - ed.], the fact is that the Temple Mount is actually in the hands of the Waqf and the Jordanian government."

"Test balloon"

The Organization of Temple Movements is taking this latest development very seriously, viewing it as a "test balloon" as to how the Israeli public - and wider Jewish public - will respond. 

As a result, they have announced a demonstration at 7:30am on the 7th of August, which is also the start of the Hebrew month of Elul, marking the beginning of the period of repentance in the run up to the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashana) and the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur.

"This week we commemorated the 10th anniversary of the reopening of the Temple Mount to Jews, after it was closed for three years following the outbreak of the Arab intifada," said Rabbi Richman.

"During those three years of abandonment the Waqf took the opportunity to destroy countless precious artifacts in an attempt to erase the Jewish connection to the Mount.

"It is truly tragic that the government has chosen to mark this occasion by once again imposing an extended ban on Jewish ascents.

"If this situation passes quietly, we will have reached a point of no return. The police are testing the waters: how important is the Temple Mount to the Jewish public? Our message - and the message of Jews around the world - must be clear: the Temple Mount is the heart and soul of the Jewish people, and we will not abandon it again."

Israeli Terror Victims Oppose Releasing Terrorists for Negotiationshttp://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-terror-victims-oppose-releasing-terrorists-for-negotiations/?inf_contact_key=9752b9bcdbb933afe6998f4ff3ab68f7f7f86218f1c381410ae810db4d321c6e
Aftermath of a suicide bombing Most Israeli terror victims say “no” to releasing convicted Palestinian terrorists especially when it won’t save a life. 

The majority of Israeli terror victims are opposed to releasing terrorists in order to jump start peace negotiations with the Palestinians. So says Mark Belzberg, Chairman of One Family, an Israeli organization which assists Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism.
Belzberg is responding to a US suggestion that Israel release Palestinian terrorists from the pre-Oslo period as a goodwill gesture to encourage the Palestinian Authority to negotiate with Israel. Israel has agreed to release 82 Palestinian terrorists with blood on their hands in the course of four stages over the next eight months, yet has refused to set free Israeli Arab security prisoners.
“Whenever terrorists are released, it brings back the horror and terror, even if the released terrorist wasn’t the one who did it to you,” said Belzberg. “It hits the terror victims in the heart. It brings back grief and anger and it is very difficult for them.”
Second Intifada bus bombing
Although Israeli terror victims oppose releasing terrorists, Belzberg reports that the victims are often less opposed to releasing terrorists if it results in saving a Jewish life. “Jews are willing to do any thing to save another Jewish life,” he says. “The Jewish people are willing to pay a price to save someone from injustice.”
For example, Belzberg says, half of the Israeli terror victims supported the Gilat Shalit prisoner exchange for this reason. Although it was painful for them to see murderers walk free and in many cases return to terror, they saw the tangible benefit that a young man was able to have his life back, he says. Belzberg also argues that many victims would consent to releasing Palestinian terrorists in exchange for the freedom of Jonathan Pollard, viewing it as a means to correct a miscarriage of justice that would permit Pollard to live out the rest of his days in peace.
Yet, the vast majority of Israeli terror victims do not support the idea of releasing Palestinian terror victims simply in order to pursue peace talks that they doubt will lead to peace between the two peoples. “If you took a life, you should be punished … If you are releasing a person who should be executed, there is a sense of injustice being done,” Belzberg says.
Palestinian terroristsSince a great number of released Palestinian terrorists have returned to terror upon their release, the victims are skeptical about any value to such a deal, he adds.
And, while he understands that the Americans are making this request for pragmatic reasons, assuming the Palestinians are unlikely to agree to negotiations otherwise, nevertheless, Belzberg added, in speaking for the victims, that “this Palestinian request shouldn’t be condoned.”
By Rachel Avraham, staff writer for United With Israel

UNITED WITH ISRAEL
Abbas Honors Convicted Terrorist, Murderer of Israelis and Americans
Abbas honors terroristPalestinian President Mahmoud Abbas honors a Palestinian terrorist convicted of murdering 15 Israelis and Americans.  
http://unitedwithisrael.org/abbas-honors-convicted-terrorist-murderer-of-israelis-and-americans/
Palestinian Media Watch has reported that the Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, has honored Palestinian terrorist Ahmad Abu Sukkar, who murdered 15 Israelis and Americans, and wounded 77 others in the Zion Square Refrigerator Bombing on July 4, 1975. Among the dead were American citizen Rivka Ben-Yitzhak and husband Michael, who left behind two small children. Daoud Khoury, an Arab accountant at the King David Hotel, was also murdered.

Muslim Doctor: Israel is an Inspiration to the Islamic World

Qanta AhmedQanta Ahmed is a Muslim physician, author, and British citizen. In a recent exclusive interview with United With Israel, she called Israel’s achievements in women’s and minority rights an inspiration to the Muslim world.
Qanta Ahmed is a physician, a Muslim of Pakistani origin, a British citizen and the author of “In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor’s Journey in Saudi Arabia.” Ahmed told United With Israel that she has traveled virtually everywhere in the Middle East, and has found no other country in the region with the same “level of freedom and integration.” Based on her experience, she acknowledges Israel as a special and unique country, a fact she believes no one should take for granted.
Ahmed recounts, “There was a very powerful sense of national identity in Israel, and in a certain way an acceptance of people wanting to be different. I found Israel extraordinarily liberating, for Muslim men and women. I met with Israeli Muslims…I visited the Beit Issi Shapiro Center in Kalansua, where Israeli Arab women were taking care of children with special needs. These women participated in the society, whether veiled or not. They had a role outside the household.”
Qanta Ahmed with Israeli Arab women
Ahmed remarked that during her visit to the Technion, she was amazed by the various programs offered and the strong minority presence on the campus. She noted, “20 percent of the undergraduates at the Technion are Arab Muslims and seeing how they were thriving is very different from even the privileged women in Saudi Arabia. There is a different climate. I don’t feel in Israel that women are under siege or unequal or victims, but that is a strong feeling in the Muslim world. They aren’t fully empowered and they aren’t equal. I found Israel very refreshing. I did not find it in any way oppressive.”
Ahmed was also impressed that Israel provides a safe haven to the Ahmadi Muslim community, which is “persecuted across the Muslim world.” In contrast, the Ahmadi Muslim community in Haifa has “been thriving for the last 100 years.” They have their “own mosques, cemeteries funded by the Israeli government, and a school,” while in Pakistan “Ahmadi cemeteries are frequently desecrated, Ahmadis are barred from giving the Muslim call to prayer, and it is forbidden to call their holy places mosques.” Ahmed relates, “When I was visiting the minorities in Haifa, there were young men who recently converted [to Ahmadi Islam]…[and] some of them were Palestinians from the West Bank. They were excommunicated by their families in the West Bank for adopting their views and sought shelter in Haifa.” She acknowledged, “Israel is a guarantor of religious freedom. Religious freedom is an absolute human right under Israeli law, but not in the Palestinian Authority.”
Ahmed concluded, “The Muslim world needs Israel as an inspiration more than Israel needs the Muslim world’s acceptance. It is very bleak times, but Israel is extraordinarily hopeful…a hope I really experienced through the Israeli Muslims I met.”
By Rachel Avraham, staff writer for United with Israel

Op Ed: Egypt Mends the Morsi Mistake

An Op-ed by Noah Beck
Tahrir_Square_on_February11 Critics who call the Egyptian army’s recent coup “undemocratic” are placing form over substance and forgetting that the election of Mohamed Morsi was itself arguably undemocratic. With the Muslim Brotherhood emerging as the only organized political force in the election, there was little chance of meaningful competition in the mere six months between Hosni Mubarak’s overthrow and Egypt’s first free elections. That fact might have mattered much less had Morsi used his presidency to promote individual freedoms and build democratic, power-sharing institutions. Instead, Morsi reverted to the same undemocratic policies that he was elected to change. In effect, Morsi simply replaced a secular autocratic rule with an Islamist one.
Unsurprisingly, persecution of Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority worsened under Morsi. According to Middle East expert Raymond Ibrahim, “The persecution of Copts [was] practically…legalized, as unprecedented numbers of Christians…[were] arrested, often receiving more than double the maximum prison sentence, under the accusation that they ‘blasphemed’ Islam and/or its prophet. It was also under Morsi’s reign that another unprecedented scandal occurred: the St. Mark Cathedral—holiest site of Coptic Christianity and headquarters to the Pope Tawadros himself—was besieged in broad daylight by Islamic rioters. When security came, they too joined in the attack on the cathedral. And the targeting of Christian children—for abduction, ransom, rape, and/or forced conversion—has also reached unprecedented levels under Morsi.”
Mohamed_Morsi_cropped Morsi’s reign was not only a disaster for human rights, the Egyptian currency lost more than a tenth of its value, making it harder for Egypt to import food and fuel. Morsi shunned the tough decisions needed to reform the Egyptian economy and gain the confidence of the IMF and foreign investors. His ties to the Muslim Brotherhood all but guaranteed economic failure, with his Islamist policies squelching the bikini-and-beer-style beach tourism that bolster seaside areas. Morsi’s Islamist leanings were also bad for non-beach tourism. Demonstrating a shocking lack of astuteness, last month Morsi appointed Adel Mohamed al-Khayat as the new governor of the ancient city of Luxor, despite his ties to the Islamist group responsible for the 1997 massacre of around 60 people in that same tourist destination. That decision might have solidified Morsi’s political power, but how could it possibly have benefited Egypt?
And what signal did Morsi send Egyptians and the rest of the world in August 2012, when he became the first Egyptian leader to host an Iranian president since the 1979 revolution imposed an Islamic theocracy on Iranians? How could Morsi’s attendance at a June 15 Islamist rally calling for jihad in Syria possibly serve Egypt, which can barely stay afloat much less enter foreign wars? With so little time to solve Egypt’s colossal problems, Morsi’s Islamist ineptitude quickly worsened virtually everything. To the credit of Egypt’s people and army, they swiftly reclaimed the power they had given to Morsi before he could take them further down the all too familiar path to autocratic oppression, made even worse this time through greater instability and rapid economic descent.
As the most populous Arab state, Egypt’s single greatest challenge for years has been employing its population, which now hovers around 85 million. That problem intensified when tourism and foreign investment dropped precipitously after 2011, when the decades-long stability of Mubarak’s rule was replaced by the unknown. It’s no wonder that unemployment for the first quarter of 2013 was an estimated 13.2 percent.
Adly_Mansour_oathRecently sworn-in interim president Adly Mansour, and whomever ultimately succeeds him, will need to restore the stability, security, tourism, and investor confidence necessary to revive the economy. Any leader facing this daunting challenge should also realize that without better family planning policies, the country’s chronic overpopulation will continue to exacerbate the poverty, pollution, overcrowding, power outages, and illiteracy that plague Egypt.
To help restore domestic peace and foreign confidence in Egypt’s commitment to religious freedom, full protection and equal treatment must be given to Egypt’s Christians — the largest religious minority and a vital and ancient part of Egypt. Given how important Copts are to the history of Christianity, their community and holy sites should be a source of Egyptian pride. They can even help revitalize Egyptian tourism by attracting Christian tourists, provided that the Copts’ legitimate political and security concerns are adequately addressed.
The taboo of dealing with Israel should also be eliminated, if for no other reason than the ensuing economic benefits that could result. Israel’s successful transition from an agricultural, low-tech economy, to one based on entrepreneurial innovation can provide some guidance, inspiration, and opportunities for joint ventures in tourism, textiles, cleantech, and other sectors. Scandalous as it may seem to Egyptians, their northern neighbor’s 65-year democracy may even have some useful experience with separating religion and state, keeping the peace among an ethnically and religiously diverse population, protecting individual liberties, and developing democratic and power-sharing institutions. To realize the full potential of the 1979 treaty, Egypt’s media and politicians must start viewing the Israeli-Egyptian peace as a blessing rather than a curse.
Unfortunately, militarily toppling Morsi before his second year in office establishes a problematic precedent for checks on presidential power in Egypt. Due to the depth and magnitude of Egypt’s problems, even the most adept leader will probably disappoint “the street” one year into office. Historical perspective may be useful here: the French Revolution was sparked by a fiscal crisis and demands for individual liberties that ultimately overthrew the absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries. That revolution involved about a decade of turmoil and tens of thousands of deaths before Napoleon Bonaparte assumed power in 1799. Fixing Egypt could be a long and bumpy road, but at least the repairs have started.
Noah Beck is the author of The Last Israelis, an apocalyptic novel about Iranian nukes and current geopolitical issues in the Middle East.

Kuwaiti Officials Call For Trade Relations with Israel
Photo's  and Video above link
Kuwaiti legislator
Nabil Al Fadhl (Photo Credit: MEMRI)
Two Kuwaiti legislators declare Islam supports improved trade relations with Israel to benefit their nation. 

Two Kuwaiti Parliament members, Hammad Al Dossari and Nabil Al Fadhl, took the rare step of not only acknowledging that trade and military ties exist between Israel and Kuwait, but actually praising Israel as a country. The Kuwaiti officials made these statements despite the pervasive anti-Israel sentiment in the Arab world at large and Israel’s lack of  formal diplomatic relations with Kuwait. The interview was aired on Al Adala TV and was translated into English by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
According to Al Fadhl, “If the security of Kuwait requires the purchase of Israeli equipment, I will do so, and I will love the Israelis for it. It is permitted to deal with anyone for the sake of Kuwait’s security.” The interviewer, appearing shocked, asked, “Even with Israelis?” Al Fadhl answered, “So what? We’re talking about my country’s security. How exactly did the Muslims benefit us, when our Arab neighbor [Iraq] invaded our country? I am willing to buy equipment from Israel to protect my country from its Arab and Muslim neighbor.”
Ad Fahl’s statement was made in the historical context of the first Gulf War, during which Iraq attacked Kuwait, committing innumerable atrocities against the Kuwaiti people and violating 16 international laws under the Geneva and Hague conventions. Kuwait did not receive military aid from neighboring Arab nations and the Iraqi invasion went unchecked until the U.S. intervened.
Al Dosari claimed, “The sharia permits us to have dealings with the Israelites. We follow the example of the Prophet Muhammad, who died while his shield was mortgaged with a Jew.” Al Dosari claimed Islamic critics who protest trade with Israel do so, “Because they are ignorant about the sharia. I tell you that the Prophet Muhammad had dealings [with the Jews]. You criticize me? Go criticize the Prophet Muhammad. A Muslim does not talk. He obeys the instructions of the Prophet Muhammad.”
Watch the video of the interview with the 2 Kuwaiti legislators:

By Rachel Avraham, staff writer for United with Israel

Egypt Must Maintain Peace with Israel


Mordechai KedarMiddle East scholar Dr. Mordechai Kedar says for Israel the most important issue concerning Egypt is the new Egyptian regime’s commitment to maintaining the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement.
Middle Eastern Affairs expert Dr. Mordechai Kedar of Bar Ilan University recently told United With Israel, “It is nice for Israel that the Muslim Brotherhood does not control Egypt, yet all that matters is that the peace agreement is kept. I’m not expecting hugs and kisses. All we need is that the peace agreement will be kept and implemented. The rest is not our business. If Morsi kept it, we have basis to believe that the others less committed to the Islamist way of thinking will not break the rules, especially because they need foreign aid.”
Some Israeli officials believe that the next Egyptian President will be better for Israel than Morsi, whose anti-semitic statements included comparing Zionists to the descendants of apes and pigs and calling upon Egyptians to nurse their children and grandchildren on hatred for Jews. Additionally, Morsi cut off gas deals with Israel, radicalized the Egyptian media to be more anti-Israel, and actively worked to disable the Israeli Embassy in Cairo.
Egyptians protest against MorsiKedar noted that the Egyptian secularist movement’s prospects in future Egyptian elections were improved by their unification under one candidate. He emphasized, “[I]t is better to have one candidate; it increases his chances of winning.” Kedar reflects the opinions of many Tahrir Square protesters, who blame previous secularist election failures on the proliferation of liberal candidates, which ultimately weakened secularist voting power. Kedar also noted that the military’s announcement that it will “reshape the constitution” will influence upcoming Egyptian elections.
With regard to the Muslim Brotherhood’s political role in Egypt’s future, Kedar said, “[They] won’t be silent, as their achievements were nullified. They will regroup. They definitely will try to go back to the government by elections or by demonstrations because they feel the government was taken from them without justification and they were pushed to the margins.” Kedar warned, “Some people from the Muslim Brotherhood may regroup as a terrorist organization. They might carry out terrorist attacks against those who acted against them.” Indeed, Morsi supporters have already threatened their opponents with suicide bombings, which would be detrimental to security in Egypt and the surrounding region.
Hamas rocket launchersKedar also noted that current lawlessness in the Sinai adversely affects Israel and is unlikely to get better regardless of who is in charge. He suggested that the Egyptian military doesn’t need “tanks and airplanes” to take care of the problem. Instead, they merely “need commander units to go to the caves, mountains, and rocks” where radical jihadists are hiding. He emphasized, “As long as the Egyptian Army doesn’t do this, they can’t do a thing to change the situation.” At this point, the Egyptian military appears “more concerned about what is happening in Cairo and Alexandria” than lawlessness in the Sinai, which worsened under Morsi. Kedar emphasized that putting the matter of  fresh leadership aside,  “The problems of Egypt exist regardless of who is in power.”
By Rachel Avraham, staff writer for United with Israel