‘Israel undermining Western diplomatic efforts in Egypt’
Strongman El-Sissi has been in ‘heavy’ contact with Jerusalem since Morsi’s ouster, says report in NY Times, quoting unnamed diplomats
Times of Israel
El-Sissi, who ousted former
Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi and replaced him with an interim
government led by Hazem el-Beblawi, was said to have cultivated close
ties to Israel during his tenure as head of military intelligence in
Egypt.
The 58-year-old general and his
close circle, said the report, kept in close contact with Israel even as
fierce clashes erupted on the streets of Cairo, killing 173 over the
weekend.
Foreign diplomats told the New
York Times that they believed Israel was “undercutting” Western
diplomatic efforts by telling el-Sissi that the US would not cut off its
aid to Egypt, despite threats to the contrary.
They said Jerusalem had
undermined Washington’s efforts to forestall the violent, chaotic
deterioration from democracy to autocracy in Egypt, spearheaded by the
generals who had ousted Morsi – the same generals who had had close
relationships with Western powers for decades and who enjoyed the
support of Israel, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states who viewed them as
less dangerous than their Islamist counterparts.
“When Senator Rand Paul,
Republican of Kentucky, proposed an amendment halting military aid to
Egypt, the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee sent a
letter to senators on July 31 opposing it, saying it ‘could increase
instability in Egypt and undermine important U.S. interests and
negatively impact our Israeli ally,’” the Times report said. “Statements
from influential lawmakers echoed the letter, and the Senate defeated
the measure, 86 to 13, later that day.
Washington, meanwhile, tried to
press Cairo for a transition back to civilian rule and freedom for
Islamist leaders, but was warned again and again of the danger posed by
the Muslim Brotherhood.
“Their whole sales pitch to us is
that Muslim Brotherhood is a group of terrorists,” the report quoted an
American officer as saying.
However, not even the best
Western efforts – including US President Barack Obama’s decision
Thursday to opt out of Egypt’s Bright Star war game — could put a stop
to the bloodshed, which went on despite the diplomats’ warnings and
entreaties.
Egypt has been wracked by mass
protests and counterprotests since the week of June 30, when opponents
of Morsi took to the streets by the hundreds of thousands and called for
his resignation. Following Morsi’s forced resignation, Muslim
Brotherhood supporters and secular opponents of the Islamist president
have been engaging in bloody clashes throughout Egypt.
Egypt’s Interior Ministry said in
a statement Saturday that a total of 1,004 Brotherhood members were
detained in raids across the country and that weapons, bombs and
ammunition were confiscated with the detainees.
The Muslim Brotherhood-led
anti-military coalition has called for a week of protests, further
escalating unrest in the country. The coalition says that they won’t
back down until it topples the government installed by the military —
which overthrew Morsi on July 3.
Meanwhile, hundreds remained
inside the al-Fatah mosque in Cairo on Saturday morning after
barricading themselves inside overnight. They shoved furniture against
the doors to stop police from breaking their way in.
“The million-dollar question
now,” one American military officer was quoted as saying, “is where is
the threshold of violence for cutting ties?”
The Muslim Brotherhood group,
founded in 1928, came to power a year ago when its leader Mohammed Morsi
was elected in the country’s first free presidential elections. The
election came after the overthrow of longtime autocratic president Hosni
Mubarak.
The Brotherhood rocketed to power
after decades of being a banned group in Egypt. While sometimes
tolerated, its leaders often faced long bouts of imprisonment.
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