Adam Shatz in LRB rightly anatomizes Israel’s role in the counter-revolution, sees the geological shift underway– and also singles out the regrettable “mob” claim by former-liberal Richard Cohen. But the analysis:
Mubarak, when he stands down, is not likely to be missed by many people in Egypt, where he has pledged to spend his last days, but he will be missed in Washington and, above all, in Tel Aviv. Mubarak and Omar Suleiman, now the interim vice president, worked closely with Israel on everything from the Gaza blockade to intelligence-gathering; they allowed Israeli warships into the Suez Canal to prevent weapons smuggling into Gaza from Sudan, and did their best to stir up tensions between Fatah and Hamas. The Egyptian public is well aware of this intimate collaboration, and ashamed of it: democratisation could spell its end. A democratic government isn’t likely to abolish the peace treaty with Israel – even some of the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood have said they would respect it. But Egyptian foreign policy would be set in Cairo rather than in Washington and Tel Aviv, and the cold peace would grow colder. A democratic government in Cairo would have to take public opinion into account, much as Erdogan’s government does in Turkey: another former US client state but one that, in marked contrast to Egypt, has escaped American tutelage, made the transition to democracy under an Islamist government, and pursued an independent foreign policy that is widely admired in the Muslim world. If Egypt became a democracy, it might work to achieve Palestinian unity, open up the crossing from Gaza and improve relations with Iran and Hizbullah: shifts which would be anathema to Israel.
Almost from the moment the demonstrations began, while much of the world rejoiced at the scenes in Tahrir Square, Binyamin Netanyahu and other high-ranking Israeli officials were urging Western politicians to stop criticising Mubarak, and raising fears of an Iranian-style revolution. For years, Israel had said it could hardly be expected to make concessions in such a dangerously undemocratic region. But as calls for Mubarak’s exit grew, Israeli officials and commentators began to talk about Arab democracy as if it constituted another existential threat to the Jewish state. ‘If, the day after elections [in Egypt], we have an extremist religious dictatorship, what good are democratic elections?’ Shimon Peres asked, while Moshe Arens, the former defence minister, wondered in Haaretz whether Israel could make peace only with dictators like Mubarak. As one Israeli commentator wrote in Yediot Ahronot, Israel has been ‘overtaken by fear: the fear of democracy. Not here, in neighbouring countries.’
Djinn,
I think you are wrong. From formal point of view, the religious body and the Supreme Lider, Highest Jurisprudent and Object of Emulation are elected. In a very strange way, so hoi polloi have basically no input there.
Theocrats outright ban people with wrong views from running for office, and are quite bold in censoring press and new media. One could say that plutocracy in USA has a similar role if in a more indirect way, but a “revolution” seems easier. New media is not censored, and a politician may collect enough money from small individual donations.
Nevertheless, it is very misleading to say that Iran is a dictatorship. The very peculiar feature of Iranian system is that while Supreme Leader COULD be a dictator, he is not. Day to day affairs are run by other people, so changing the course of the government on lesser matters like, well, anything not directly related to religion, is pretty simple.