"Brief Thoughts on Egypt"

Arlene Kushner

The situation is very much in flux as I write, and preparations for Shabbat prevent me from doing more than make these brief, but not unimportant, comments now. There will be no further posting until after Shabbat, and who knows what the situation will be by the time people in N. America and elsewhere read this. However...

I wish to emphasize something I've certainly written about before but which merits repeating, and repeating:

There is no such thing as instant democracy. Democracy requires preparation of a populace and institution of values that will support it -- freedom of speech, respect for the individual and for minorities, etc. etc. There is no tradition of these things in Egypt. There is also no such thing as democracy by mob. There is a vision of this mob in the Cairo square representing "the people" such that their gaining control of the situation would lead to a popular democratic government. Utter and dangerous nonsense.

If this mob was (in the main) of one mind and one moderate ideology, headed by a charismatic leader, having consolidated and planned over a period of time, and in possession of funding, and a solid platform and specific democratic principles they would want to institute if governing, then maybe. Just maybe.

But the reality is that disparate groups are within the mob. They are represented by no strong leader. They have no one set of guiding principles and seem in the main just set on seeing Mubarak go (and, if he went, I suspect Suleiman and everyone else tainted by the old regime).

But following this would be chaos. (And I'll come back to this.)

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I emphasize this because Obama yesterday made a statement about a speedy transition in Egypt to a genuine democracy.

My friends, these are buzz words that reflect either a serious misunderstanding of the situation or an attempt to represent a certain stance for political purposes -- or a little of each.

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Back to the issue of chaos. Within that mob there is the Muslim Brotherhood.

In testimony yesterday to a House Intelligence Committee hearing Thursday, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, referred to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as "largely secular." Don't know how many of you will have heard about this.

I saw a video of this testimony on Fox news, and when Clapper made his statement, I was sure I had heard wrong. In fact, I called a friend who I knew was also following events on TV and asked her, and she said, yes, he said it. Later I saw it in print.

That is beyond stupid.

I have a granddaughter who says, about something very special, "it's awesome-er than awesome." Well. Clapper's statement is stupider than stupid.

Either that, or he's serving as a shill for an administration that prefers to have the Brotherhood seen as harmless.

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Whatever the case, I am urging you not to be influenced by this dangerous line of thinking. I don't know everything. But here I am absolutely on solid ground.

I've presented to you over the past few days a large amount of material regarding the true intentions of the Brotherhood -- from intelligence people and analysts here in Israel. I believe here we, who are closer to the situation, understand better.

The Brotherhood guys are not dummies. They are laying low for now, and they are presenting a face of relative moderation and peacefulness, so as not to alarm. It's just a matter of time. And chaos or a "speedy transition" would serve their purposes well.

It's the students in the mob, who have written the e-mails some of you have seen about freedom and democracy, who are least organized, least prepared in terms of the many criteria for solid transition I wrote about above. The Brotherhood, on the other hand, has money, a guiding ideology, and leadership and a written charter of their purposes. They hate Israel and the US, they are for sharia, which is draconian law and permits no tolerance of "infidels" (putting Coptic Christians at great risk), and they are for the creation of a caliphate.

The Egyptian Brotherhood, I remind you, spawned both Hamas and al-Qaeda.

They are the ones who would come to the fore in a situation of chaos. They would do it slowly, so as not to alarm, but they would do it. In case after case in this part of the world "popular revolution" has led to take over by the radicals.

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It seems exceedingly likely at this point that the army will be in control, and possibly institute military rule, but my crystal ball is broken at the moment, so I cannot be sure. There is no tradition in Egypt for democracy, but there is a strong military tradition: both Mubarak and Suleiman are military men.

In my opinion, this is the best of several bad alternatives for Egypt right now, for chaos may be avoided (although I suspect bloodshed will not be).

I think that what has been offered by Mubarak and Suleiman, in terms of dialogue with different groups, changes in the constitution, an open election in September, etc. offers the best (if meager) hope for something resembling democratic process in Egypt. A transition, if it is be meaningful, must be done slowly because so much preparation is required. From now until September is actually a very small amount of time. The mob that seeks instant turnover has, of course, no interest in due process or preparation.

But even in September, if there are open elections, and the Brotherhood -- which is technically outlawed in Egypt -- is permitted to take part, things are likely to go badly after a period of time.

Remember please what happened when former-president Bush pushed for " -- look at Gaza today.

Here in Israel, we are rooting for Suleiman.

Shabbat Shalom.

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