Letters, February 11, 2011
Our vested interest in Egypt’s wellbeing
WHILE the last thing Israel needs on its doorstep is another Iranian proxy and any scenario is not going to be good for Israel, there is some humour as we watch the fighting in the streets of Cairo on our TVs.
Posted on Facebook and Twitter by an Israeli: “Dear Egyptian rioters, please don’t damage the pyramids. We will not build them again. Thank you.”
Michael Burd
Toorak, Vic
West and Israel should stand by loyal allies
A NEW, most perverse, political correctness is emerging out of the Egyptian crisis. It is voiced with “moral” authority from the White House and echoed by Downing Street, as an appeal to a political “rectitude” to a regime that has been battling perhaps the oldest form of terrorist religious militancy, the Muslim Brotherhood.
Yet, amid the criticism by those who should know better, the alternative to Hosni Mubarak and his necessary staving off of Islamic international terrorism is not at all apparent, leaving a vacuum that is highly unaffordable.
The rational conjunction of anti-radicalism with tangible measures of normal coexistence with Israel has made Egypt under Mubarak by far the most desirable political solution.
Sacrificing it to the well-known possible alternatives is simply suicidal for the seemingly political erect Washington. The American Administration should have and should present a front of solidarity with an Egyptian political formula that has invaluably supported American and larger free world interests in the existential fight against Islamic terrorism.
At this stage, it looks like powers-to-be are jettisoning their best ally in what they are, otherwise, engaged in other places, Iraq, Afghanistan, with questionable prospects for real success. More reasons to open wider their eyes and shut up their critical mouths.
Otto Waldmann
Bondi Junction, NSW
Populism and democracy are not inherently good
IT has been a media sport to flagellate Israel as though it were the most repressive regime in the Middle East.
But now suddenly a realisation that Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Jordan, Syria, and others in the Arab world have been under the thumb of dictators who must be overthrown.
A “velvet” revolution? Maybe.
Maybe not. History is replete with bloody, subverted revolutions, paved with good intentions.
We worship populism blindly. One ought rather ask what this brand of “democracy” can offer, than join the hysterical mob.
Will it bring stability, education, healthcare, individual freedoms, or like the Iranian “revolution”, conflict, poverty, and misery?
Paul Rozental
South Melbourne, Vic
Democratic ambitions stand little chance
THE Egyptians may be tantalised by the prospect of moving towards a liberal democracy, however, they will need to reverse all the trends of the Arab and Muslim world to be successful.
Apart from Israel, there is not one Middle Eastern country that demonstrates the slightest interest in a political system that values democratic governance, personal freedoms and human rights. Despite all their noble ideals, popular uprisings in the Middle East usually result in a repressive military dictatorship being replaced by a repressive Islamic one, and for the Obama Administration to expect otherwise is patently naive.
Around this time of year three-and-a-half thousand years ago, the Egyptians learnt a thing or two about miracles, but they will need one of their own this time if they are to break free of the past and step into the modern era.
Alan Freedman
St Kilda East, Vic
The key for Israel is to cultivate friendships
URI Butnaru’s letter regarding siding with dictators (AJN 04/02) has me confused as to any suggested action.
Going back a little further than his time frame, Israel sided with the Shah of Iran to mutual benefit and look where that got it.
Beneficial change in the world can take decades to achieve – see the former Soviet Union – so it seems that the best plan is to cultivate the present and coming generations in the hope that they will ultimately prevail.
In my travels I have found that, by and large, the average Muslim has little interest in Israel one way or the other, but Israel has contributed to many humanitarian acts of support throughout the world. Have these gone completely unnoticed?
I don’t think so. I feel that continuing to follow this direction, coupled with trying to stop false and hateful propaganda, especially in education of coming generations, is imperative.
A good place to start is Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population. They are not inherently anti-Semitic or anti-Israel and regarding their media, which I read in Bali during the Gaza saga, I was surprised that although the tone about Israel was towards what you would expect, they were almost equally critical of the Palestinian provocation and lack of ability to self-rule.
In retrospect, it was more even-handed than some western media.
Israel also has a reasonably benign relationship with the people of Egypt, which is jeopardised by the current situation, and I don’t think backing the incumbent is compulsory, no matter how profitable the relationship has been. Maybe Israel can offer him asylum, thereby winning the trust of both sides. This is said in jest, but it points towards the type of diplomacy Israel must use to tread the fine line of supporting friends and not creating enemies.
Finally, I must add that the further away from Israel a country is, the more virulently anti-Israel they can seem to be, and yet Israel has reasonable relations with its immediate neighbours, including most or many Palestinians in the West Bank. So it might follow that trying to achieve closer ties with enemies is the only way to go. I am sure this is being done in many ways and will eventually pay off in the long term, as long as we don’t forget the man in the shuk!
Jon Sackville
Caulfield North, Vic
Israeli peace intentions in doubt
AS Gideon Levy pointed out in Ha’aretz last week (27/01), Israel would have been unlikely to ever get a better deal than the one offered by the Palestinian leadership on this occasion: all the settlements in East Jerusalem – bar the post-Oslo Har Homa – to be under Israeli sovereignty, settlements near the Green Line to be annexed and the vast majority of Palestinian refugees to lose their claim to return to Israel.
But the Israeli leadership wanted more – a completely supine Palestine – and typically has stalled.
Of course, it is a moot point whether the current Palestinian leadership around Mahmoud Abbas could actually deliver. In the eyes of their own people, they have been exposed for not taking their own people into their confidence.
Notwithstanding these limitations, Israel, as the expression goes, now has no clothes: the oft-repeated nostrums of no partner for peace, an existential crisis, or the need for land and security have been belied by what Palestinians were prepared to offer. Unless Israel’s leadership is ready to pursue a just and meaningful peace that will make sense to the majority of Palestinians, a two-state solution may well become impossible to achieve.
Larry Stillman
Helen Rosenbaum
Australian Jewish Democratic Society
The times they aren’t a changing
WHAT’S that saying about the more things change …?
The AJN’s opinion analysis on January 28 – “The real threat of BDS” – is about the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, Marrickville Council and the NSW Greens. A page earlier in the Past Tense column is an article from The AJN on January 31, 1964, regarding the anti-boycott drive,
It reports on the claims at the 21st biennial conference of the Zionist Federation of Australia and New Zealand that Jewish communities throughout the world should show some fight in counteracting the Arab economic boycott. There was a recommendation that the Jewish community should hit back and set up anti-boycott offices throughout the world, with Australia being the first to take definite action.
We do live in interesting times, but then, as in the past, haven’t they always been interesting, dangerous, horrendous and ongoing.
Was it any different in Moses’s, Abraham’s and King Solomon’s days?
History is a very sobering, frightening and insightful read. Will the world ever really learn from it? By current events, one has to remain a sceptical-cynical optimist.
The more things change …
Stan Marks
Caulfield, Vic
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