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Hard Questions, Tough Answers with Yossi Alper - January 31, 2011

How does the emerging situation in Egypt affect Israeli and American interests?

Apropos the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, now that al-Jazeera has finished revealing the "Palestine papers", how do you assess the Qatari satellite station's role?

Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon, al-Jazeera: are we witnessing some sort of coordinated attack on the forces of status quo in the Middle East?

...last week marked 50 years to the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem. In what way is this relevant today?

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Q. How does the emerging situation in Egypt affect Israeli and American interests?


A. There is huge potential here for far-reaching change throughout the Middle East. As pan-Arab al-Quds al-Arabi editorialized on January 27, when the unrest was just beginning in Egypt, "The Egyptian nation is as large as an elephant. When the elephant goes berserk, it destroys everything in its path without mercy or pity. Change in Egypt could mean change in the entire region."

Yet the problem in assessing the nature of change generated by events in Egypt is that we simply do not know where those events are leading. We don't even know how to properly understand the changes that have taken place so far.

Clearly, the army is the key actor. But is the appointment of a military vice-president (former Intelligence Minister Omar Suleiman) and a military prime minister (former Air Force chief Ahmad Shafiq) an indication that the army has taken over from President Hosni Mubarak and will soon push him aside, or an indication that Mubarak himself is circling the military wagons? Does the absence of serious confrontations between soldiers and demonstrators in the streets of Cairo reflect a refusal to obey orders on the part of the army rank and file because it is siding with the anti-Mubarak revolution or, on the contrary, does it reflect a clever tactic of the military?

Are the army and police encouraging anarchy and crime in the streets and releasing criminals to that end, as the opposition alleges--all in order that the public-at-large crave law and order--or have the security forces simply lost control? Is Muhamed ElBaradei a genuine opposition leader or a parody of one, totally bereft of "divisions"? Is al-Tahrir square in central Cairo the cradle of a revolution or the convenient place where the regime can channel protest until it peters out or the secular opposition is bought off?

The spectrum of potential outcomes and their ramifications is wide and frightening for both Israel and the US: from ongoing pro-western but autocratic and unpopular rulers in Cairo who work well with both but merely postpone an even bigger internal Egyptian explosion, to rule by elected Islamists--the Muslim Brotherhood--who tear up the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, export their revolution and place the entire region on a war footing. In between, there are endless variations.

But this is all pure speculation. The only seeming certainty is that the genie of active public participation in the Arab political process appears to be out of the bottle--an apparently inevitable outcome of Arab regimes' failure to find employment for and give political freedoms to tens of millions of unemployed or underemployed, educated youth.

Nor are Israeli and American interests regarding the outcome in Cairo necessarily identical, at least in the short term. Israel wants to continue to deal with a stable regime that sees eye-to-eye with it regarding the forces of militant Islam in Iran and Gaza. The US concurs, but is also demanding that the Mubarak regime expand human rights and foster a more inclusive and open political system or, according to many interpretations, leave the scene entirely. These pressures, in turn, could conceivably bring to the top forces that are democratic but do not share Israel's strategic view and that generate a domino effect in Jordan and elsewhere.

On the other hand, insofar as the administration's new preoccupation with Egypt seriously diverts its attention from the Israel-Arab peace process, the Netanyahu government in Jerusalem is presumably at least temporarily satisfied that it won't have to deal with American pressure. Netanyahu has wisely told his ministers to avoid commenting on the situation in Egypt: almost anything said by official Israel is liable to be misconstrued or prove counter-productive in terms of both Israeli-Egyptian and Israeli-American relations. Indeed, even the prime minister's own innocuous remark on Sunday morning that "our objective is to ensure that relations with Egypt continue" was seized upon in Cairo as an expression of Israeli lack of faith in the stability of the regime.

What Netanyahu, sadly, does not seem to appreciate is that the absence of an Israeli-Palestinian peace process under his premiership makes matters all the more discomfiting for the beleaguered Egyptian leadership and for neighbors like King Abdullah II of Jordan, who fear the unrest will spread.


Q. Apropos the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, now that al-Jazeera has finished revealing the "Palestine papers", how do you assess the Qatari satellite station's role?

A. Based on what I've seen and my own personal experience, that role is radical and negative. Last week, al-Jazeera asked me to appear on one of its live evening exposes of the peace process leaks, to comment on documents concerning security cooperation between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. When I asked to review the documents in advance, I was told I could see them 15 minutes before the broadcast. I refused, and a good thing I did. The broadcast--indeed, the entire series of revelations--turned out to be extremely one-sided and selective, with commentary from a series of sanctimonious Arabs, Americans and British (who indeed did have prior access to the documents) known for their generally pro-Hamas approach.

It was clear that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was right when he accused the network of targeting him and the peace process (even if, despite Abbas' protests to the contrary, the documents were all authentic).

On the other hand, the Jazeera leaks did not necessarily have the effect the Qataris intended. They presented very little that was not previously known to the informed public. Hence they generated relatively little criticism of the 2008 Palestinian negotiating position inside the West Bank, Abbas' support base. In Israel, the details of those talks appeared in the eyes of many to reflect well on Tzipi Livni's negotiating skills and her firm stand on some of the issues. Then too, many Israelis came to appreciate the seriousness of Palestinian negotiators--particularly in view of hostility in the Arab world to their readiness to compromise. Settlers took note of the revelation of PLO readiness to enable settlements to remain on Palestinian sovereign territory. In general, the leaks dissipated right-wing demonic images of Palestinian goals and tactics.

While the gaps between the two sides' negotiating positions on issues like territory and settlements were understood to have remained substantive, the leaks also generated among Israelis a clear sense that another round of talks could definitely narrow those gaps, hence was worthwhile.


Q. Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon, al-Jazeera: are we witnessing some sort of coordinated attack on the forces of status quo in the Middle East?

A. A coordinated attack does not appear to be the case. The events in Tunisia and Egypt were spontaneous, and all began--albeit against the backdrop of Wikileaked descriptions of regime corruption and oppression and through the use of Facebook and Twitter--when a frustrated young man in Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia set himself on fire last December 17. We have no firm idea where these events are taking us. But they are certainly local, and non-Islamist and non-radical in origin.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah clearly registered a success in getting Sunni multi-billionaire Najib Mikati appointed prime minister-designate (he has yet to form a government). But Mikati can hardly be considered an inappropriate or pro-Iran choice. He already served briefly as prime minister after the 2005 murder of Rafiq al-Hariri, with the approval of the moderate camp. While Saad Hariri's loss of power reflects yet another step in the Hezbollah-Iran drive for hegemonic influence in the Levant, Mikati could yet surprise everyone--particularly if and when an indictment of Hezbollah leaders by the international tribunal investigating the Rafiq Hariri murder is made public.


Q. Finally, last week marked 50 years to the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem. In what way is this relevant today?

A. It's relevant to me personally, because the trial was one of the factors that awakened in me an awareness of Israel, Zionism and my Jewish national identity, and quickly led to my immigration to Israel. But there is another, more universal and problematic context, too.

The Eichmann trial was an unusual instance of one country, Israel, citing jurisdiction over a national of another country, Germany, apprehended in yet a third country, Argentina, for crimes committed before the first country even existed. When, some years back, Chilean ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested in London and extradited to Chile for trial, the British cited the Eichmann trial as partial justification for their decision. Today, a number of Israeli serving and retired military officers and politicians are "wanted" in several European countries that have decided they have the right or obligation to enforce requests to arrest the Israelis for alleged "war crimes".

There is a link between all these instances. Uncomfortable as this is for most Israelis, myself included, Eichmann is an important precedent.