The Attempt is Blatant

The Egyptian elections have sparked worries, bordering on panic, among the Israelis and American Likudniks. The reason is that they were held in a democratic and free and fair atmosphere to a large extent, and have shown a lead by the Muslim Brotherhood over other candidates, with the Salafis in second place. I think the sale of valium pills will increase greatly in Israel in the coming months. The first round of the parliamentary elections will be followed by two other rounds, with runoffs in the districts where no particular side has secured the needed majority of the votes. There are also three rounds for the Shura Council elections which end on March 11, and before and after that, there will be partisan and popular campaigns for the presidential elections which we hear may be held next summer, or delayed further until late 2012. In addition, there are complaints of violations and abuses, and there will be many challenges filed against the results in certain districts and subsequent investigations. The preliminary results have left Israeli commentators and the U.S. Likudnik media in a quandary. I read commentaries by them that said that the military council is allied with the Muslims Brotherhood. I also read that Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi was a guarantee against them, so much so that the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as I read in Maariv, has sent messages to London, Paris and Berlin, and also to Washington, requesting support for Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi and that actions that would weaken the authority of the Egyptian army should be avoided. The Ministry warned against transferring authority in Egypt to a civilian regime. However, I say that it will be indeed transferred whether Avigdor Lieberman and all the other terrorists like it or not, and that the Muslim Brotherhood will form a cabinet where the first item of their program, even if they do not declare it, will be hostility to Israel and the occupation. If I were to translate the Israeli position to something that the Arab reader can understand better, it would be that the fascist extremist Israeli politicians are trying to incite division between the military council and the people. Yet, the attempt is so blatant that it will most likely backfire. For one thing, Field Marshal Tantawi and the senior leaders of the military council are Egyptian patriots, and any relationship they have with Israel, through the peace treaty, is a legacy that they did not ask for or one that they wanted. Of course, in such a situation, campaigns against the Muslim Brotherhood in particular were the most numerous and the most severe. I was struck by the fact that the Israeli extremists were complaining that the victory of the Muslim Brotherhood would mean that Sharia will be imposed on the people. I do not understand this. If Sharia were to be imposed, then this would affect the Egyptians, not the Israelis. Further, the Egyptians who are voting for the Brotherhood know their stances on Sharia and other issues, and this means that their choice is a democratic one, from beginning to end. Then the Sheikh of Al-Azhar Grand Imam Dr. Ahmed Al-Tayeb and Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, along with the Muslims who share their views, were accused of anti-Semitism. This mainly comes after both Muslim authorities spoke about resisting the Judaization of Jerusalem, and urged Muslims to liberate Al-Aqsa Mosque. At least, the Arabs and Muslims are demanding back a city in which they have a thousand archaeological traces, both before Muhammad’s time and after, while the Jews are claiming to have roots in a city where they do not even have one trace. The Arabs and Muslims speak of liberating Al-Aqsa, which exists. However, the religious Jews speak of the Temple of Solomon, which does not exist outside of biblical myths. In fact, successive Israeli governments have looked for the Temple since Rabin’s first government in the eighties, when the Israeli authorities excavated and found the remnants of an Umayyad palace. Israeli archaeologists also excavated in search of the Temple, but found nothing but dust. Personally, I wish that the results of the Egyptian elections were close between the various religious and liberal parties, so that we can see a real democratic exchange that has been absent from Egypt for decades. However, I quote what I heard a British politician as saying, i.e. from the country that invented the rules of modern parliamentary democracy. He said that democracy is not about voting for a party to win the elections, but for the ruling party to lose the elections and leave parliament. In this sense, the next Egyptian elections will be the most important measure, as they shall show whether Egypt has become democratic in name and in deed. Only then will the other Arabs follow suit.