Egypt Is Burning

Sondra Oster Baras * Breaking Israel News

For the past week, Israel’s news broadcasts have focused on the situation in Egypt.  Just over a week ago, millions of Egyptian citizens took the streets in Cairo and all over the country, calling for the resignation of President Mohamed Morsi.  Morsi is the head of the Muslim Brotherhood and in the aftermath of the Egyptian revolution of 2011, was elected president of Egypt after his party won the largest bloc of seats in the Egyptian parliament.  His is an Islamist party which calls for the adoption of Sharia law throughout the Muslim world.  His party is anti-Western, although Morsi has had to make accommodations to enable the US to continue providing much-needed financial aid to the country’s collapsing economy.  Representatives of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood are behind forces of instability in many countries throughout the Arab world, including among the rebel forces in Syria.  The Muslim Brotherhood is the parent organization of the Hamas in Gaza.

From the beginning of the Arab unrest more than two years ago, many in the west, and especially President Obama, identified the unrest as a call for greater democracy and liberty.  While there were and continue to be Egyptians and others in the Arab world who truly desire a freer society, democratic values are not well known nor understood in the Middle East.  Indeed, in many cases, it is the most undemocratic forces in the area who study the principles of democracy well in order to manipulate the weaknesses of democracy to obtain their own undemocratic ends.

Egypt is a case in point.  For decades, Mubarak governed Egypt with an iron hand.  There was no freedom of the press and the political process was far from free.  But Mubarak was determined to restrain the Muslim Brotherhood, because he understood that their particular brand of totalitarianism would create far more instability than his.  It was the Muslim Brotherhood who assassinated Sadat, who supported terrorist groups in Gaza and in Egypt and who represented the most extreme of Islamist ideology.  They were Mubarak’s enemies and many rotted in his jails.

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