Posted by: Joe Yudin | February 12, 2011

It’s a beautiful thing. To watch one of the most oppressed and poverty stricken people in the world rise up and oust their dictator of over 30 years, those of us who live in democracies are cheering for the revolution to succeed. Most Israelis wish no ill will towards the common people of Egypt. On the contrary we want them to be free. However we are worried and this collective feeling of apprehension should be shared by the rest of our western allies. 

As you already have heard, the leading opposition "party" in Egypt is the Muslim Brotherhood. Yes they built schools, hospitals, aid facilities, charities and mosques all over Egypt but this does not make them a secular, charitable organization. They are quite simply a terrorist group bent on the downfall of the West and the destruction of Israel. Statements made to the contrary, most recently and most notably by United States Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, who said before congress that the "Muslim Brotherhood" is:

largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried Al Qaeda as a perversion of Islam...They have pursued social ends, a betterment of the political order in Egypt, et cetera…..In other countries, there are also chapters or franchises of the Muslim Brotherhood, but there is no overarching agenda, particularly in pursuit of violence, at least internationally.

Really Mr. Clapper? Lets take a look at their stated goals. Well, Kamal al-Halbavi, of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Executive Council stated on February 8th that he hopes Egypt will have “a good government, like the Iranian government, and a good president like Mr. [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, who is very brave.” That is just a recent statement. A quick Google search of the Muslim Brotherhood will show you their close connections to terror organizations all over the world including Al Qaeda, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and their support for suicide bombing, the destruction of Israel's and the spread of militant Islam all over the world.

We also must remember the current attitudes in Egypt. A Pew Research Center of Muslim attitudes, published in December found that 54% of Egyptian Muslims believe suicide bombings can be justified and 59% side with the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups while only 27% with secular pro modernizing groups when asked about what direction Egypt should strive for in the future. The Muslim Brotherhood is a direct contributor to these anti-western feelings and the spread of terrorism around the globe.

As a people living in the Middle East's only true democracy, we Israelis would like nothing more than to see a democratic Egypt living side by side with Israel at peace. However what exactly is democracy? Not too long ago Adolf Hitler was elected into power by the German people before he eliminated the democratic process which brought him into power in order to expand his power. Hamas in the Gaza Strip did exactly the same thing: They used the democratic process to win an election and then rounded up the opposition leaders, binding their limbs with rope and then succeeded in throwing the off the rooftops of Gaza City to their deaths. The Iranian student revolution of 1979 began as a popular uprising that was initially thought to lead to a new democracy in the Middle East and after the mullahs seized power they are still living in one of the most oppressive societies in the world 32 years later. Recently the prodemocracy movement resurged in Iran only to be smacked down in the style of Tiananmen Square. Lebanon as well held free and fair elections only to see Hezbollah seize a large part of the seats in parliament and then strangle the rest of the government to its will using Mafioso tactics. Turkey itself has seen its semi democracy, once guaranteed by a secular military move towards Islamic fundamentalism with the ruling Islamic party infiltrating the military and passing laws limiting the freedom of speech as anti-western and anti-Semitic rhetoric takes center stage in mainstream, government controlled cinema, television, radio and education.

Democracy is fine if its ideals, all of them, are enshrined in an unbreakable constitution, upheld by an independent judiciary which is backed by the security forces of the state. In Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Iran and Turkey and every other country in the Middle East (other than Israel) does not have this. Democracy cannot be one election and out. Freedom of speech and assembly and the freedom of minorities to have the same rights as the majority are of the utmost importance in a democracy.

We Israelis want nothing more than the Arab world and the rest of the nations in our neighborhood to be truly democratic. Democracies have yet to go to war with each other but please do not pass judgment on Israel for not embracing this revolution. History has shown that revolutions in this part of the world do not necessarily mean a step forward towards progress but rather a step backward into our medieval past. And Egypt with its 80 million people and billions of yearly dollars in American military aid can mean a very troubling future for our little county of 7 million people. But all we can do is hope and pray that freedom shall indeed ring. We are holding our collective breath for the democratic future of Egypt, the Middle East and the entire world.