Roger Cohen in the NYT gives three reasons he thinks Israelis are anxious about the Arab world upheavals.
Israel is anxious. It preferred the old Middle Eastern order. It could count on the despots, like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, to suppress the jihadists, reject Iran, and play the Israeli-Palestinian game along lines that created a permanent temporariness ever more favorable to Israeli power.
Notice "permanent temporariness." Cohen is implying that everyone knew deep down that there would be a wave of popular revolutions in the Arab world, and that Camp David was Israel's way of stopping that inevitability in order to impose its hegemony on the region.
I'd love to find the Roger Cohen columns from between 1979 and 2011 that gave us a glimpse of this inevitable Egyptian revolution.
Moreover, his very premise is that the Israel/Egyptian peace agreement was a means to ensure Israel's power. In the end, though, Israel is the only party that took a risk at Camp David - giving up a huge amount of territory for nothing more than a piece of paper. His characterization of the peace agreement as some sort of Israeli coup rather than a frightful gamble is ridiculous and borderline slanderous. (And nowhere in his article does he mention that likely Egyptian leaders are all calling to re-examine Camp David, something that gives great credence to the Israeli fears he likes to downplay.)
Israelis are doubly worried. They wonder, Mr. President, if you like them in a heart-to-heart way. You’ve been to Cairo, you’ve been to Istanbul, so what’s wrong with Jerusalem? Why won’t you come and kvetch with us, President Obama, and feel our pain?
What does this have to do with Egypt? It is true that Israel doesn't feel the same warmth from Obama that it felt from George W. Bush and from Bill Clinton. The reason is because it simply isn't there.
Israelis are triply worried. Elections are unpredictable — just look at Gaza — and now they may be held across the Arab world! There’s the Muslim Brotherhood talking a good line but nursing menace. And what if Jordan goes, too?
"Just look at Gaza?" Perhaps we need to remind this self-styled Middle East expert that Hamas was not only elected in Gaza but by Palestinian Arabs as a whole across the West Bank as well.
Here's a bit of education for Roger Cohen - the 2006 election results by district:
Hamas won in Jerusalem, Tulkarem, Nablus, Salfit, Hebron - and even Ramallah!
