By Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel
CHULA VISTA, California — Barely eight months have passed since the “Arab Spring” has taken root in Egypt. At the time of his departure from power, President Obama and Hillary Clinton hailed Hosni Mubarak’s eviction from office as one of President Obama’s crowning achievements.
Nearly eight months later, the Muslim Brotherhood has taken political control over Egypt. Does the leopard change its spots? The Muslim Brotherhood’s legacy of antisemitism is unique in the modern Arab world. During WWII, Egypt supported Hitler until he began to lose the war. Several decades later, the Muslim Brotherhood quietly planned for the day when it would overturn everything Hosni Mubarak tried to achieve in a lifetime.
On Tuesday, the Egyptian parliament decided to expel Israel’s ambassador over Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip. “Egypt will never be the friend, partner or ally of the Zionist entity which we consider as the first enemy of Egypt and the Arab nation!” Egypt’s Parliament called upon its government to “revise all its relations and agreements with that enemy.”
One day later, Iran applauded Cairo’s decision.
The fruit of the Arab Spring appears to be bitter; the entire region has become more unstable as a result of President Obama’s efforts to remake the Middle East into a safer environment.
The text from the Egyptian Parliament called for supporting Palestinian “resistance… in all its forms” in the face of the Jewish state’s “aggressive policies,” Egypt’s official Middle East News Agency reported. The statement – approved unanimously in the Islamist-dominated chamber – also called for pulling Egypt’s ambassador from Tel Aviv and for an immediate end to natural gas exports to Israel.
Let us not assume the worse. It is crucial to remember that the Egyptian military makes all the final decisions regarding the peace treaty with Israel. However, the situation could quickly deteriorate if Washington fails to handle this situation properly. Will the Israeli-Egyptian Peace Treaty be the next casualty of the Arab Spring? What about the Jordanian-Israeli peace accords? A Palestinian-Israeli peace treaty becomes a practical impossibility. The prognosis does not look appetizing.
Hosni Mubarak is not a candidate for sainthood. Nevertheless, he accomplished something miraculous: he made a peace treaty with Israel that lasted over 35 years. There is an old saying, “Sometimes the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know.” In this case, however, we know exactly what the Muslim Brotherhood stands for and personifies.
I am reminded about the story of an outlaw who went to the preacher and he told the preacher, “You had better say something nice about my brother, (who also happened to be an outlaw) or I will kill ya!” The preacher composed an original eulogy that was perfect for the occasion, “Jesse was a horse-thief, a bank-robber, an adulterer, and a cold-hearted murderer, but compared to his brother, Jesse was a real saint!” Compared to the chaos and destruction the Muslim Brotherhood is capable of unleashing, Mubarak looks like a saint in comparison!
This old anecdote sums up the problem quite accurately. Let us pray that President Obama receives some sage-like advice in dealing with this problem.
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Rabbi Samuel is spiritual leader of Temple Beth Sholom in Chula Vista. He may be contacted at michael.samuel@sdjewishworld.com