Israel Should Not Misread Egypt Again
Until now, Israel’s leadership regarded the Egyptian revolution as a threat, but the millions demonstrating in Cairo prove that there is room for opportunity there, too.
Immediately after the election of Mohammed Morsi as president of Egypt in June 2012, Israel’s political and security leadership eagerly adopted the saying, “This is not an Arab Spring, but an Islamic Winter.” The millions of demonstrators who are now returning to Tahrir Square and taking to the streets of Egypt testify to the fact that the Israeli approach ignores the complex reality in the other states of this region, and how deep the processes of change run in them.
Official sources in Israel tried to dampen the West’s enthusiasm over the revolution in Egypt, even before Muslim Brotherhood representative Morsi came to power. They adopted a pessimistic approach to the struggle underway in Egypt, linking it to the rise of Islam throughout the world. At the same time, they slighted the populist, social dimensions of the protests, which called for freedom and progress.
So, for example, immediately after Morsi’s election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office praised the democratic process in the neighboring state. At the same time, however, a senior diplomatic official was quoted as saying, “The world laughed at us when we called the Arab Spring the Islamic Winter. Now everyone understands what the real implications of the revolution are.” This unattributed quote expressed the mood in Netanyahu's office and the feelings of then-Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman and other senior ministers.
In speeches he delivered over the past two years, Netanyahu has made frequent reference to the changes underway in the Arab arena, while highlighting those elements of instability and uncertainty. In his address to the Knesset in November 2011, he announced, “The Middle East is no place for the naive,” and claimed he knew well in advance that the revolution in Egypt did not bode well: “As I stood on this podium this February, millions of Egyptian citizens poured into the streets of Cairo. At the time, commentators and quite a few members of the opposition explained to me that we are standing before a new order of liberalism and progress, which will wash away the old order. … I told them that despite all the hope, chances are a wave of Islamism will wash over the Arab states.”
