This morning, former Egyptian President Hosni Hosni Mubarak wore prisoner's garb. The leader of the largest Arab country became an ordinary prisoner in the country where he was born and which he served for 60 years. The manner in which he is ending his life engenders pity, but he honestly earned his fate. Who if not him, in complete indifference to the suffering of his people, permitted the existence of kangaroo courts.
MK and former Minister of Defense Benjamin Ben-Eliezer may have lost a friend, but Israel has the right not to be swept up in the response about the fate of former Mubarak. Mubarak was no friend of Israel. He did offer real peace between the two countries, but detracted from it. During his time as president, relations between Jerusalem and Cairo were mainly a military alliance. The apparent friend, whose bitter fate is being mourned by many, consistently castrated any chance of bequeathing solid foundations of brotherhood to future generations.
On the excuse of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Mubarak and his aides refused to let Egyptians visit Jerusalem, prevented exchanges of delegations, blocked contacts by men and women of letters, athletes, actors, and scientists. He did not ask the average Egyptian whether he favored such boycotts, but decided on their behalf that they should do their bit to pressure Israel to withdraw from Palestinian land.
Under the table, Mubarak applied a heavy hand on the Palestinians, as if his concern for their welfare was only apparent when it came to Israel. Had Mubarak truly been interested in the good of the Palestinians, he would not have blockaded Gaza alongside Israel's blockade. When buses were being bombed in Israeli cities, Egypt's leaders were silent, and religious leaders from the establishment called the suicide bombers shahids (martyrs).
Israeli-Egyptian relations warmed only after the suicide bombings reached Sinai, and with the emergence of the common Iranian-Hamas enemy, when it became clear that the Gaza Strip had been turned into a box of dynamite in Egypt's backyard.
Peace as a strategic option
Ben-Eliezer is right when he said that Mubarak provided stability and that Egypt chose peace as a strategic option. But he sent different messages to his aides. In public, Israel was inflated as a murderous entity, government offices were ordered to obtain security and diplomatic advantages, but no more. It is doubtful whether Mubarak sought this stability out of an honest concern about the future of the Middle East, rather than out of a desire for continuing the quiet he received from his predecessor in order to bequeath it to his son and heir as president. A regime run by force of arms is not a byword for stable. It's dictatorship, and in the end it exploded in the face of its rulers.
We Israelis tend to look at yesterday's play in the Cairo courthouse through Western eyes. But let there be no mistake. This tribunal was set up at the order of the Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, and the judges were appointed at its order. The hearings were held behind closed doors and most of the testimony was kept secret.
As comedian Gavri Banai once said in a Gashash Hahiver skit: The fans choose the referee and the spectators fix the results. The fans are the angry crowds in the street, which forced the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to put Mubarak on trial. When the judicial establishment, the army, defense and economy are still controlled by the Army, it is quite possible that the Army HQ decided the political sentences on Mubarak.
Evidence of this is the acquittal of the six top police and intelligence officers who were indicted with Mubarak. The acquittal is meant to send a message to the public that the establishment will not let its commanders take the blame for the death of 850 protesters during the revolution.
The Egyptian Army has a hidden and updated agenda in this trial: in addition to the need to calm the public's anger, the generals are running former Air Force commander Ahmed Shafiq for the presidency. Mubarak's heavy punishment is part of General Shafiq's election campaign. An acquittal of Mubarak could have ignited riots or led to the public questioning the collapse of the revolution's achievements.
By acquitting Mubarak on the corruption charges on the gas deal, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is sending a message to both the Egyptian public and to Israel that the deal is kosher. But, the more important news is the functioning of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. As time passes, it is becoming apparent that there is a king in Cairo. True, there is not yet complete transparency, and the Army is guided by the interests of its officers, but the processes are inexorable, albeit slow. The compensation, for now, is the maintaining of the stability of a country that has experienced a national trauma. A revolution, let it be remembered, is not built on the thrust of a sword.
The author is the Arab Affairs commentator for “IDF Radio" (Galei Zahal)
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 3, 2012
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2012