The U.S. gives Egypt about $2 billion a year in aid, mostly for its military. The least they can do is put that money to good use, but they would rather attack a key ally and familiar foe.
“The latest months have seen the Israeli lobby’s efforts to harm Egypt’s interests with the Congress. The Israeli lobby inside the (U.S.) Congress was behind some positions adopted by Congress and the Israeli media campaign in the last few months falls within this trend,” said Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Egypt’s foreign minster
Israel has every right to be concerned about Egypt’s failure to control the smuggling of arms across its border with Gaza. Egypt is not entitled to the aid we give them and should accept responsibility for their failures instead of blaming Israel for their own shortcomings. If they are not doing their part in the war on terror, they should lose the aid we are providing to perform this crucial role. The last thing Hamas needs is more weapons. I hope Arlen Specter is serious when he says, “Egypt can do a lot more. And if they don’t, I think it would be appropriate to condition aid to them.”
The aid should have been conditioned from the start. Better late in addressing this fundamental flaw in the policy than never.
In his 2005 State of the Union Address, Bush promised, “America will stand with the allies of freedom to support democratic movements in the Middle East and beyond, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.”
Suuure. His grand words ring hollow– we still prop up Egypt’s modern Pharaoh, the repressive dictator Mubarak, with this massive aid, and we continue to support the medieval monarchist dictatorship of the Saudi royal family militarily.
And as New York Rep. Anthony Weiner said in 2006, “The Saudis have not cooperated with American investigations, they continue to provide financial support to terrorists, and they continue to nurture fanatical Wahhabism” (the fundamentalist branch of Islam followed by Saudi Muslims).
The United States has a long history of supporting dictators when it was convenient (for example, Saddam Hussein for many years). This is why Bush’s blind support for democratic institutions is both hypocritical and dangerous for our national security.
Extremists have always been able to win elections to no one’s surprise except our own foreign policymakers (one recent example that comes to mind is Condi Rice proclaiming that no one could have predicted that Hamas would win Palestinian elections when they were leading in the polls for days prior to votes being cast).
Hamas is nothing but cowards, what did they think will happen after the shoot civilians for 8 years now and hide missiles inside civilian territory, anyone should have known that israel will have to shoot like that hamas should have known and they chose to abuse the palastinians
Hamas prevailed because their military successes gave credence to their supporters that Hamas would prevail over Israel. The question now is how much they are willing to bleed for their convictions. Much as we did not question the air operations over Dresden, or Tokyo during WWII, neither should we be standing in judgement of the Israeli’s at this time. Only the strong survive according to the rules Hamas and Hezbullah play by. Therefore, play by their rules. Why not!?!?