(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Israel is monitoring the Egyptian developments silently but with concern. Israel, the entity that always has an opinion on any topic, had in recent days been silent on the ongoing protests in Egypt against the 30-year-rule of its ally President Hosni Mubarak. It's not because Israel does not care about the situation there but Israel fear the downfall of Mubarak’s regime which it has many interests and deals with.
Israel fears that the Muslim Brotherhood could take power and start supplying arms to Hamas.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has ordered silence on Egypt protests but security officials said they worry the protests could threaten ties and spread to the Palestinian Authority. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the two officials said Netanyahu had told all government spokesmen not to comment on the situation in Egypt.
"Israel cannot do anything about what is happening there," Israel's former Industry and Trade Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer claimed in remarks to Army Radio. "All we can do is express our support for (Egyptian President Hosni) Mubarak and hope the riots pass quietly." He added that Egypt was Israel's most important ally in the region.
An anonymous Israeli minister blatantly voiced support for Mubarak saying Friday that the Egyptian regime will use the necessary force to remain in power as protests rock the country. Mubarak is “strong enough to overcome the unrest,” the minister said, adding that there might be more violence.
But Israeli diplomats in Egypt feared the protests and reports have said that they left the country. According to Al-Quds Al-Arabi report, the Israeli diplomats were transferred by a helicopter to an aerial base, and then were carried to the occupied lands by a special plane.
A report published on As-Safir newspaper on Friday describes how Egypt had been stripped off from its Arab identity and how its security forces are trained to curb the citizens. Egypt is objected to American hegemony, politically and militarily, as it is also subjected to Israeli unfair colonial conditions: the number of the Egyptian armed forces in its different departments is limited. Their US weapons are defensive and undeveloped compared to that owned by Israel. The officers are trained in the United States and the expense of their training is deducted from the “U.S. aid”. Concerning their education on their enemy, it strikes off “Israel” and even considers it a “friend” if not an “ally”.
“The army is prohibited from entering the Sinai, and therefore prohibited from defending their land, waters, while the Israeli battleships, submarines are crossing the Suez Canal from the Mediterranean to the Gulf of Eilat on the Red Sea, and the objection is prohibited!” the report written by the newspaper Publisher Talal Salman said.
Also, the report added, the Egyptian army is prohibited from communicating with other Arab armies, and particularly with his partner in the October War ally [Syria]. “On the other hand, the Security Forces (about a million!) were strengthened to protect the regime, turned them into the suppressing forces always mobilized. If a hundred citizens protested, they found themselves trapped by a thousand of the wearers of helmets and black shirts with sticks in their hands and tear gas,” it said.
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