Now, I’m pretty sure that if this situation ends with the MB in actual power, they are not going to set up an Iranian- or Saudi-Arabian-style theocracy, or stone adulterers, or make women quit their jobs and wear burqas in public. That would be Al-Nour, with which the MB has hostile relations, and has stated the MB would not even consider forming a coalition government with Al-Nour.
But what about Egyptian relations with Israel?
The SCAF apparently values the enormous financial aid the U.S. gives Egypt every year ($1.5 billion in 2010; $3.1 billion to Israel that year), which is essentially a bribe for Egypt to continue recognizing Israel and keeping peace with it. They don’t want to do anything that would make that aid dry up, they’re practical (and greedy and corrupt).
But the MB are ideologues. The late leader of the MB in Egypt, Mohammed Mahdi Akef,was quoted as saying, “We believe that Zionism, the United States, and England are gangs that kill children and women and men and destroy houses and fields. … Zionism is a gang, not a country. So we will resist them until they don’t have a country.” Is that actually going to be the policy of the MB now? Are even they crazy enough to de-recognize Israel, let alone risk yet another war with it?
I really don’t think the answer is going to change, no matter how many times you ask. It’s too early to tell, but it doesn’t look that bright. Morsy still has to work with the Egyptian army -or rather, go up against it.
It also depends on what Israel’s leadership looks like in the future.
The military still seems be in control of the country, and US aid makes up something like a quarter of the Egyptian military budget. I suspect the fact that the military council allowed Morsi to be President means they’re relatively certain he won’t do anything to endanger that funding, and thus either they’re convinced he won’t go overboard on the anti-Israel schtick, or at least that they can stop him if he tries.
Well that’s silly really. Yeah, I know balfour declaration blah de blah but objectively speaking in recent time there is no question that the policy of the UK has been pro-Palestinian.
For example, take a look at the remarks of the ambassador to the PA in Extreme Rambling: Walking Israel’s Separation Barrier. For Fun. by confirmed left-winger and very pro-Paelstinian Mark Thomas. Had the ambassador been pro-Israeli Thomas would not have hesitated to report such. And I very much doubt the British Ambassador is a loose cannon.
Clearly the sympathies are with the opressed.
Of course if the “POV of Middle Easterners” is just that Israel shouldn’t exist full stop, that’s retraded - fuck em. But more reasonable educated ones have a friend in the United Kingdom.
The UK also has diplomatic relations with Israel, recognizes it’s existence, the word “Israel” appears on maps of the Middle East/Near East in the UK and the UK’s attitude towards Jews is substantially different than that of most Middle Eastern Muslims and Christians, and I don’t believe that “Zionism” is considered a bad word, much less a racist philosophy in the UK.
From the Middle Eastern POV, you have to do far more than merely criticize Israeli actions to be viewed as “pro-Palestinian”.
It’s not just Israel. Egypt was once a de facto British colony; and it was the British - along with the Israelis and the French - who invaded Egypt in 1956. Even without Israel, the Egyptians wouldn’t like the UK that much.
Name one policy or official statement of UK Government that indicates or proves your claim or any substantial criticism of the way state of Israel treats Palestinians. Well, don’t bother - there isn’t one.
You are mistaking ability of an MP to speak his mind freely with an official policy.
In fact, quite the opposite is true that UK Government is just repeating Israeli and US talking points, does not make any statement or official policy that strays away from the script. Existence of pockets of “free speech” in UK which can call Israel for what it really are remnants of socialist anti-imperialist flavour of the Labour Party generally understood to be impotent.
Anyone who has a different “attitude towards Jews” to the UK can go fuck themselves tbh. I don’t see why bigots are worth listening to.
Even though the Middle Eastern “man on the street” probably is an anti-semite, is it really the case that that is government policy in Egypt? Even if those thoughts are held privately by politicians how can they express such things in public?
Criticizing Israel is hardly enough to be considered “pro-Palestinian”.
The US government under George H. W. Bush was far more openly critical of Israel than any UK government of the past several decades yet no one would argue that the US of that time was more “pro-Palestinian” than it was “pro-Israel.”
I asked for a policy - set of agreed principles, laws and actions Government enacts when it wants something done about an issue generally understood to require Government action — not for a nonsensical posturing that looks almost as written by an Israeli foreign minister.
I may have mixed him up with someone else so the point is probably lost when applied to this guy.
According to a Pew Research Center Study released December 2, 2010, in Egypt 82 percent of Muslims favor stoning adulterers, 77 percent favor whipping or cutting off the hands of robbers, and 84 percent favor the death penalty for Muslims who leave the Islamic faith.
Strange how even the educated people are blinded by islam. I was watching a youtube video showing policemen shooting dead a petty thief in karachi, a comment from a paki read - they shouldn’t have killed him. They should have chopped his hands off as per sharia.:smack:
