Obama? Look Who’s Talking

Obama was chosen to change the status quo. So who is Fuad that he can tell him what he should and should not do in the Middle East and how he should react to the events in Cairo?

Barack Obama is a leader with ideology. This is why he was elected to be the president, and it is also the reason that his incumbency is under question. An ideology of struggle for human rights, equality and democracy; an ideology of opposing regimes that torment citizens and throw them in prison for dissent: This is not a successful political strategy. That is how it is in the United States — it is also the way it is with us.

Truth is, we prefer a prime minister who does not have a clear or understandable ideology or agenda, with no vision for leadership to point to. Only surveys and news headlines determine the management of the country. We therefore decide one thing on one day and reverse it the next. We have gotten used to stagnation, and we can’t imagine things any other way.

We feel intense disdain for a leader of the free world who establishes himself against Mubarak, in favor of the millions protesting because they are fed up with the corrupt rule that the president of Egypt has been conducting for the past 30 years with the aid of the oppressive secret police. What is he — this Obama character — a scout leader in the Boy Scouts? How dare he openly support protests by citizens who are weakened, fed up, futureless? He doesn’t understand anything happening in the Middle East. He arrives here with his own personal values to the most complicated neighborhood imaginable and thinks he can run the place. And besides, he’s not winning any favor with the man who has been oppressing his people with an iron fist for decades. Instead of backing him up, he informs him that he has to leave the political ring and go home. Is this how a president should behave? This is a shameful way for the most powerful man in the world to behave.

No Love of Israel

At a crossroads, we’re screaming that our country is run without even a spark of ideology, of morals, when what we really want is that they won’t confuse our minds with the same ideology and morals we crave. Spare us. Give us “stability” so that we can continue silently gazing at what “big brother” tells us to. Do not change anything. Not our relations with the Palestinian Authority, that God forbid could yield peace talks and maybe even a complete solution, complete with concessions on “our fathers’ land.” Are you crazy? Who has the power to initiate concessions, compromise and arrangements? What’s wrong with what we have now?

Obama arrived at the White House in order to change the status quo. Not that he is particularly successful in it, but it is completely clear that, according to his very broad and correct worldview, he cannot support Hosni Mubarak, nor can he support his son Gamal. So who then is Fuad (Benyamin) Ben-Eliezer, who runs to every microphone and mourns his good friend, the father of rule by fear and terror, the man who received hundreds of billions of dollars from the U.S. in order to improve the lives of his citizens, but very little of it actually reached the people? But somehow, Fuad continues to think that the ousting of this man is a huge loss. The U.S. government, on the other hand, thinks that his ousting is in the interest of all of the free world, that it is forbidden to support dictatorships anywhere in the world.

It was no love of Israel that brought Mubarak into his good relations with Israel; it was need, and that is how it should be. The continuation of the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt is in their interest in the same way that it is in ours. Therefore, there is a good chance that whoever it is that stands at the head of state in Egypt will continue with it. The toppling of Mubarak’s regime could bring positive change to the Middle East that in turn may yield a breakthrough with the Palestinians. After all, democracy in a country like Egypt is in the Israelis’ interest no less than that of the Americans.

Tens of millions of poor and hungry Egyptians are explosive, and lucky for us, they exploded in Mubarak’s face instead of Israel’s, as they have in the past. Maybe this was the thought process for the U.S. government, with Obama at its head, that with a combination of ideology and interests, the people will really be interested in bringing about a peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. Maybe he sees the United States’ interests in a different way from the way that Fuad sees them. And maybe, only maybe, it’s a good idea to listen to him before we yearn for the cauldron of anger and mockery that comes from the Israeli friend of the Egyptian dictator.