Skin Is Starting To Look Old

A villa in the jungle "



What lessons Israel pulls out of the insurgency in Egypt?
By: Uri Avnery

What is happening in Egypt now, will change our lives. As usual, no one foresaw. The much acclaimed Mossad was totally surprised, just like the CIA and all the other acclaimed services of this kind, but it should be there have been no surprise - apart from the incredible power of the outbreak. In recent years we have mentioned many times that in the entire Arab world is growing a lot of young people who have a deep contempt for their leaders, and in that it will sooner or later come to an uprising. These were not predictions but rather a sober analysis of probabilities.

The revolt in Egypt was determined by economic factors: the increasing cost of living, poverty, unemployment, the hopelessness of the educated young people. But we can pay no misunderstanding: the underlying causes lie much deeper. They can be summarized in one word: Palestine.

In the Arab culture, nothing more significant than the honor. People can endure deprivation, but not humiliation. What every young Arabs from Morocco to Oman daily saw was that its leaders are humbled by the Palestinian brethren in the lurch, to obtain favors and money from the U.S.. They collaborated with the Israeli occupation and cat buck bright with the new colonial masters. Nowhere is the loss of honor

was more apparent than in Egypt, which collaborated openly with the Israeli leadership, in which it imposed the infamous blockade on the Gaza Strip and 1.5 million Arabs surrendered Sun malnutrition and worse. It was not just an Israeli blockade, but an Israeli-Egyptian, which was lubricated with 1.5 billion U.S. dollars per year.

I have many times - Loudly - to reflect on how I would feel as a 15 year old boy in Alexandria, Aleppo, Amman, when I see my guides, as they like submissive slaves of the Americans and Israelis behave as they suppress their own subjects and plunder. At this age, I joined a terrorist organization. Why would an Arab boy to be different?

A dictator can be tolerated if it reflects the national honor. But expressing a dictator, the national shame, is a tree without roots - a strong wind will bring him down. For me it was only the question of where it would start in the Arab world. Egypt - like Tunisia - were at the bottom of the list. But right here in Egypt held the great Arab revolution. When Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak no longer see the reality, so this is also true to his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu. He and his cabinet are incapable of understanding the significance of the fateful events of Israel.

When Egypt moves, will be followed by the Arab world. Whether in the near future in Egypt or a military dictatorship is democracy - it is only matter of time before falling to the dictators in the Arab world and create a new reality to the masses without generals.

All what the Israeli leadership has done in the past 44 years the crew or the 63 years since the existence of the country, has become obsolete. We are facing a new reality. We can ignore them and insist that we have a villa "in the jungle, as Ehud Barak once said - or find a suitable place in the new reality.

peace with the Palestinians is no longer a luxury. It is an absolute necessity. Peace Now, and quickly. Peace with the Palestinians and then peace with the democratic masses throughout the Arab world, the reasonable peace with Islamic forces - such as Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, the quite different from Al-Qaeda. Peace with the leaders who are about to emerge in Egypt and everywhere. Ellen Rohlfs together