Egypt in crisis over attack on Israeli embassy in Cairo

Maybe you're totally missing the message. Maybe not much changed at all, and the revolution is going on in Egypt. Maybe Egyptian people are not as happy with the treaty as the Egyptian government.

There's nothing wrong with re-considering an Israeli presence in the country. There are too many things to think about. It could be better for the security of the people who work there to stay out till things stabilize. It could be better to hold the vandalists/terrorists/criminals accountable, along with the Egyptian army for whatever the people think they've done. At the moment, many countries in the world do not have an Israeli presence, many are re-considering the presence, some are cutting ties, and most of the world is in support of a 1067-ish palestinian state.

It's not unusual that Israel's murder of 6 people across the Egyptian border recently, refusal to freeze settlement construction, blockade of Gaza, murder of flotilla activists, etc. has led to local terrorism in an unstable country which hosts some hard-to-control radicalists (like any country of at least 50+ million people).

I don't necessarily agree with all of this. I just wanted to say none of this is unusual or unexpected. Instead, it's just sad.

FYI religious congregation has historically been a place where people come together for a cause, violent or non-violent.

 

Is that ok?

If you shot my friend because he's Arab/Muslim/whatever, should a millitary assault be launched in retaliation?

 

If we left Israel to fend for themselves, we wouldn't be so hated in the Middle East. Have fun Israel, whatever time you have left.

 

I would have left them to their own devices years ago, we no longer need a beachead in the middle east.

Let them fend for themselves....

DD

 

There's nothing wrong with re-evaluating ties. Turkey just kicked out the Israeli ambassador and has more or less cut ties with Israel. Yet there wasn't a mob at the door of the Israeli embassy in Istanbul. My problem isn't with Egyptian dissatisfaction with the treaty, its with how the Egyptians have chosen to display that dissatisfaction.

These types of events show a lack of control and stability in Egypt, that's all. Egyptians are free to cut off ties entirely with Israel if they choose. And frankly I'm ok with that because they're one of the few countries in the world (along with the US) that have any real leverage over the Israelis. The Israelis will jump through hoops to ensure the Egyptian treaty holds so if Egypt wants to play hardball, by all means do so.

That said, don't play hardball by ransacking embassies.

 

Define "democracy."

 

Ok this part is fairly inaccurate. Arabs are granted citizenship in theory but there is plenty of open discrimination in practice. Hiring discrimination is common and rather blatant. Housing discrimination is legal. And many other basic freedoms are not exactly available for everyone. The courts have selectively enforced identical lawsuits from Jews and Arabs. Even basic government funding allocations for essentials like education, utilities, etc.. are wildly different between Arab and Jewish neighborhoods.

50 years ago when Israel was founded, I think many zionists sincerely felt the need to ensure that Arabs had equal rights with Jews but with the rising power of the religious right, that is no longer true. And as the religious right gain a stronger foothold in government institutions, this will become increasingly prevalent.

Second, the Knesset part is also silly. Arab members of the Knesset are more or less boycotted by the jewish parties. It is a not so secret rule that Jewish parties do not form coalitions with Arab parties to form governments. The result is that Arabs are elected but don't actually get to do anything. And since they use a parliamentary system, you more or less have zero power as a minority party outside of the ruling coalition. Futhermore this kills off any incentive to cater to the Arab vote (which in any normal democracy would happen since 20% of Israel proper is Arab) Yet if you do cater to this large minority, the other parties will simply wall you off and prevent you from joining a ruling coalition.

Third you are only referring to Arab citizens of Israel whereas the vast majority of Arabs are in the Palestinian territories who are not entitled to citizenship rights. In their case, they have far fewer rights in terms of freedom of movement, economic and property rights, etc...

Lastly, I get the desire to support Israel. But to blindly do so without pointing out the fundamental flaws in its democratic system is foolish. Even internally the Israeli leadership has failed as demonstrated by the massive protests there over the widening economic gap between the rich and the poor. They have had bad leadership in terms of domestic and foreign policy for decades and no amount of GDP growth can hide the slow decay of fundamental institutions of the country. I have no problem with someone like you supporting Israel but when you continue to parade the notion that Israel is some model for the Middle East, then I start to have questions because it might be better than the autocratic dictatorships around it but in terms of a functioning democracy, it is quite bad.

Israel lacks a constitution and by extension a basic set of laws to govern the country. The result is tons of unanswered questions regarding the role of government, separation of powers, citizenship guarantees, immigration policy etc.. Everything is done in an ad-hoc short-term manner that promotes poor and reactionary governance. That's not the sign of a good democracy, that's the sign of a government. Even the basic Jewish right of return law has never been fully settled because like most Israeli laws, it was done quickly and wasn't really thought out at the time.

So cheer for the idea of Israel all you want, but don't praise their "democracy" Their working government is more broken than the US Congress is right now. There's nothing to admire about that.

 

Even if the Mexican Army managed to kill only Mexican drug dealers, we'd still be pissed if they did it on US soil. If they've got perps coming to the US, they should and do tell us so that American authorities can engage them.

The first affront would be the Israeli incursion onto Egyptian territory. It's just compounded by them screwing up and killing the wrong people. I'm sure the Israelis feel justified in compromising Egyptian sovereignty on the idea that Egypt isn't willing or able enough to secure the border to protect Israel. Though that's kind of like us being mad at Mexico for not stopping the drug trade or Mexico being mad at us for not stopping the gun-trade. It helps that there is some basic trust between our two governments that Israel/Egypt don't have.

 

Total agreement. Officially condemn the action, seek an apology, and investigate the cause, but attacking their embassy in DC would probably not appear on the list of things to do.

Israel has become their own worst enemy by being so intractable and reactionary for so many years.

 

why are people in this thread not finding distinction b/t the egyptian government and the rogue civilian extremists who actually attacked the embassy?

i guess their government can be faulted for incompetence/negligence in not properly securing the embassy beforehand, but at least give them credit for successfully rescuing the embassy employees afterwards

and by contrast, the israeli government is actually guilty of killing egyptian police *in egypt*. i would think the israeli government would be held to a higher standard for behavior than these crazy terrorists who stormed the embassy, but i guess not...

 

I agree man - Israel is totally super cool. Illegal occupation of Arab lands, illegal settlement expansion, treatment of Arabs as second class citizens, brutal occupation, barbaric sieges, and oppression of Palestinians. It is something all of us can get behind!

 

sorry, we thought you were a jew...

religion of peace, yo.

 

The UK also has no written constitution and is governed by a policy of parliamentary supremacy. Does that mean that the UK does not have a basic set of laws to govern the country, has tons of unanswered questions regarding the role of government, separation of powers, citizenship guarantees, immigration policy etc., and is not a good democracy? Also, Israel does have the "Basic Laws" which have been given Constitutional force by the Supreme Court of Israel. Does this make their government better than that of the UK?

 

I am glad Israel is a democracy, but we spend more $$$ per citizen on folks in Israel than we do on US citizens.

DD

 

Lulzz

 

Um, no. Not even close. We spend about $500 per Israeli citizen on aid to Israel. In just Social Security and Medicare we spend roughly five grand per US citizen (that would be 10 times as much, and doesn't include any other domestic spending).