NYTimes: Israel's Fault

Following the opening salvo yesterday, the New York Times continues to concoct the new conspiracy theory that Egypt's woes are all ... Israel's fault.

First, as Leo Rennert points out

...in pursuit of external meddlers aligned against Washington diplomacy, the Times prefers to build a case against Israel and AIPAC...There’s more here than a whiff of Jewish conspiracy theories that fueled medieval anti-Semitism..  Notice that AIPAC is tagged as an ”influential” pressure group presumably capable of swaying the U.S. Senate.  AIPAC cracks the whip, purportedly, and 83 senators jump to Israel’s tune...As for Israel’s  supposed role in taking sides against the Muslim Brotherhood, the authors of the article never bother to identify their sources.   Never mind that Israeli officials from Prime Minister Netanyahu on down are on record as having decided that Israel will avoid  involvement in Egypt’s conflict.   So why rely on dubious, unattributed sources like “the Israelis” and “Western diplomats ” and “the diplomats believed,” and General Sisi “appeared to be”  etc.?  Could it be  that on-the-record pronouncements would have spoiled the conspiratorial atmospherics favored by the Times’ reporters?

 

And not given the Times a pretext to build a breach between Israel and the United States?

Jodi Ruderon continues with reliance on an "official, speaking on the condition of anonymity" and publishes:

Israel Escalating Efforts to Shape Allies’ Strategy

and writes:

Israel plans this week to intensify its diplomatic campaign urging Europe and the United States to support the military-backed government in Egypt despite its deadly crackdown on Islamist protesters, according to a senior Israeli official involved in the effort...the message, in part, is that concerns about democracy and human rights should take a back seat to stability and security because of Egypt’s size and strategic importance.

While that is a line of argument and/or persuasion consider that since the MB's Morsi government has been in power, certain human rights and democratic values have been harmed.  That would include the Copt Christians and given the destablization in Sinai, the anti-Israel terror with attacks on Eilat, facilitaitng weapons smuggling, Beduins-turning-into-Al Qaeda, murdering Egyptian soldiers, etc., you'd think we all need to be anti-MB.


Anything real she can depend on?


Nope:

Israeli leaders have made no public statements and have refused interviews since Wednesday’s brutal clearing of two Muslim Brotherhood protest encampments...Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who convened an emergency meeting of his inner cabinet Friday regarding Egypt, has not spoken since the crackdown to President Obama...But Mr. Netanyahu has discussed the situation with Secretary of State John Kerry; Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was in Israel last week; and a visiting delegation of more than two dozen Republicans from Congress, led by the majority leader, Eric Cantor of Virginia.

And its always about the money:

While Israel is careful to argue that Egypt is critical to broad Western interests in the Middle East, its motivation is largely parochial: the American aid underpins the 34-year-old peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, so its withdrawal could lead to the unraveling of the agreement. More immediately, Israel is deeply worried that Egypt’s strife could create more openings for terrorist attacks on its territory from the Sinai Peninsula.

Ah, so regional instability is indeed a factor, one that affects not only Israel but Jordan and Saudi Arabia and are they not allies of the US and receive money too?


Interestingly, she does quote a firm right-winger academic:.

“This is a very big mistake to interfere in what happens in Egypt,” said Mordechai Kedar, a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University and director of its new Center for the Study of the Middle East and Islam...“Israel, by supporting explicitly the army, exposes itself to retaliation. Israel should have done things behind the scenes, under the surface, without being associated with any side of the Egyptian problem.”

And we have this rather contradictory point to the NYTimes' line:

...Yitzhak Levanon, Israel’s ambassador to Egypt until 2011, said the lobbying had not been aggressive.

“We are talking to a lot of friends,” said Mr. Levanon, who teaches a course on Egypt at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya. “Pushing? I don’t think that this is the word. We are expressing what we believe is best for the region...We have to choose here not between the good guys and the bad guys — we don’t have good guys. It is a situation where you have to choose who is less harmful.”

So, no one quoted actually knows anything first hand but are punditing.



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