By Tony Karon, TIME
As a raucous mob of protestors on Friday stormed past passive Egyptian policemen, breaching the wall around Israel's Cairo embassy and sacking the unsecured parts of the building, Israel turned for help to the Obama Administration. Looking to the U.S. to shield it from international opprobrium has become a familiar pattern for Israel in recent years, but the result was telling: President Obama got on the phone with the Egyptians and ensured a restoration of order that allowed the safe and orderly evacuation of the Israeli embassy.
But nobody expects the ambassador, who flew home late Friday on an emergency flight, to return to Cairo any time soon. The best Washington was able to was to ameliorate the damage - just as it had tried (but failed) to do amid mounting tensions between Israel and Turkey that led Ankara to expel Israel's ambassador last week. And, of course, the U.S. has also failed to bully or bribe the Palestinians into stopping their bid for recognition of statehood at the U.N. later this month in what would be an international vote of no-confidence in the U.S.-led peace process.
Read: Hamas and Fatah can't even agree what time it is.
The wave of people-power rebellion that has swept across the Middle East over the past year has left Israel increasingly isolated as newly empowered Arab publics reject the passive tolerance of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and acceptance of U.S. regional authority that had been hallmarks of the regimes like that of President Hosni Mubarak. Even before the Arab rebellion, Turkey - its own government more responsive to public opinion than any in modern Turkish history - had taken a lead in breaking with the Oslo-era consensus, under which European and Arab nations tacitly accepted that the Israeli-Palestinian file was the exclusive preserve of the United States. Ankara had challenged Israel's collective punishment of the Palestinians of Gaza, to the point of backing a flotilla to defy the blockade of the territory, which culminated in the Israeli raid on the Maavi Marmara in which nine Turks and a Turkish-American were killed. Israel's refusal to apologize for those deaths prompted Turkey to downgrade diplomatic ties last week.
Read: The failed state that keeps failing: Quake-ravaged Haiti still without a government.
Turkey's move, and its promise to mount an aggressive diplomatic campaign in support of the Palestinians' U.N. bid for statehood in September had seemed to signal the arrival of the "diplomatic tsunami" that Defense Minister Ehud Barak had warned was bearing down on Israel in September. (Barak, of course, had been trying - in vain - to warn the Netanyahu government that forestalling the deluge required urgent and dramatic concessions on Israel's part to restart the peace process.)
It had been widely predicted that Egypt - whose interim military junta is under pressure from mounting public anger over the pace and content of the post-Mubarak transition, and which has sought to relieve that pressure through symbolic concessions such as putting Mubarak on trial - would find it difficult to resist popular demands that it follow the Turkish lead. While the Egyptian military is likely to resist any pressure to repudiate the 1979 Camp David peace treaty with Israel, it looks increasingly unlikely to maintain Mubarak's tactical alliance with the Israelis. But even before the generals could decide whether a diplomatic downgrade was another of the symbolic concessions it could make to its ever-restive public, the crowd that gathered outside Israel's embassy - outraged by Israel's recent killing of Egyptian five border guards during a hot-pursuit action against militants who had staged a terror attack across the Egypt-Israel border, and by what they saw as the generals' feckless response - decided to force the junta's hand.
Read: Ahmed Shah Massoud: A decade after his murder, would Afghanistan be different were he alive?
The U.S. by virtue of its annual stipend to the Egyptian military can ensure that they keep the peace, but it can't persuade Middle Eastern governments responsive to the will of their own citizens to follow the U.S. diplomatic line on Israel. Still, Egypt's interim rulers can't afford the spectacle of chaos and the violation of international law and diplomatic norms on display in Friday's embassy storming, and the "state of alert" declared by the generals on Saturday may portend a wider crackdown on protest action.
But for Israel, it's a harsh reminder of Washington's diminishing ability to protect it from the diplomatic consequences of its own domestic political surge to the right over the past decade. An eleventh-hour Obama Administration effort to prevent the breakdown with Turkey by brokering an agreement that would involve an Israeli apology for the deaths aboard the Maavi Marmara was scuppered when Netanyahu was dissuaded from apologizing by his right-wing foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman. And Netanyahu has given Washington and the Europeans precious little to work with in their efforts to forestall a diplomatic confrontation at the U.N. later this month. That's why many Israelis worry, with good reason, that the departure of their ambassadors to Cairo and Ankara in the space of a single week are a grim portent of things to come - and the fact that the U.S. may not be able to much more for them diplomatically than FEMA had done for the residents of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
© 2012 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Here's all you need to know about this. Egypt=Muslim. Israeli =Jewish. Muslims hate Jews. Stand stands to reason they would storm the Israeli embassy and cause all the damage they can. To all non-Muslims – stay out of Muslim countries. Very dangerous.
You can't ignore Muslims, there are over 1 billion of them all over the world! Most of them are decent!
There're many reasons for the diplomatic quagmire in Israel. The flottila incident las tyear off the coast off Gaza was unfortunate. Although the Palmer report vindicated Israel, it can no longer afford to sit on a high horse and has to make up with Turkey, a former strong ally. Now especially when there's a change of heart in Egypt after the Mubarak's fall, it is very much on its own in the region.
You are correct. Muslims are on a rampage to destroy Israel and will not stop. They hate America because we support Israel. But the US will never turn it's back on one of our best allies Israel!
Google "Dancing Israelis"
@Israesl Gods cursed is more like it. Read your history moron, had it not been for Muslims, JEWS would have been wiped out. Muslims do more than tolerate Jews they accept them. History has witnesses what the Europeans have done to the Jews, Nazis, the Brits, the Spaniards etc. In all events it was the Muslims that saved the Jews. Muslims and the entire civilized world are anti Zionism Not Jewdaism. And yes They will not rest until Zionism is defeated.
A vicious foreign policy will only increase the attacks against Israel. For the love of God and each other make peace!! The stronger of the two must make the first move toward peace. Israel is the stronger!!
The word is changing fast. Alliances are changing fast. Israels situation is changing fast. The getto's (occupied territories) must have some dignity and the ability to decide their own future, just as we in the "west" do.
Peace will be a messy and dangerous process, but hate and war will be far worse. Die for peace, not for war!!
Well do not be so sure Obama has sided with the Palestinians when he told Bibi to give back all the land taken in the 1967 7-day war give it back to the Palestinians and THEN sit down and discuss land swaps. Please do not be so sure as sympathesis with the Palestinians and said.."we will never be at war with Islam" Not so sure Obama recognizes God's plan for Israel as described in The Bible's Old Testament and in The Torah...true Christians know what America has to do!
Sherri, you have a very simplistic view of the world. You simply cannot ignore Israel's arrogant actions in the region. Israel continues to implement collective punishment on the Palestenians and continues to illegally build settlements on Palestenian land. You expect people to not be mad about this? Use your brain and think objectively about the situation.
It's another b.s. term collective punishment. The government of Gaza does not stop anyone from sending rockets into Israel nor did it stop Gazans from heading into Egypt to launch missiles further south than they could from inside Gaza. Israel is obliged to respond, and no matter how hard they try, innocents in Gaza will pay the price for the actions of others. Israel shouldn't feel the least bit bad about it either, since all the rockets from Gaza target civilians. After all if the government in Gaza prevented any rocket attacks, there would already be peace and possibly a lifting of the blockade, but until Gazans stop sending rockets Israel will keep them as isolated as possible.
Jason, you could let all the Palestinians in the world return to Israel, and they would still hate Jews and need to destroy Israel. It's part of their religion.
muslims aren't as dangerous as americans
Muslims are not humans. Just animals
you are not even an animal...
Rita you are an animal, you have no right to badmouth one religion. that is the difference between animals and people. i guess you are an animal
Strange. The article calls the citizens of Egypt, '..the General's public'. Would you call Israelis as their Army's public? American's as the public of US army, or it would be the other way around? The Army belongs to the Public, to the Citizens.
It seems that you're confused because what you READ is not what is WRITTEN in the article. The difference between the 'GENERAL' public and the 'GENERAL'S' public is that the former means "common, prevalent, usual, not specific, universal" and the latter means "belonging to THE [military] general" which is very uncommon and specific.
what they, cnn, bbc, and all the islamic apologist and enablers, don't want you to know... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsreFBy_8Ao&feature=mh_lolz&list=FLBUcoFK5iy6neoaLCu-8Eeg
Jewish are racist too. They must behave regardless of the persons ethnicity. They are affecting Millions of Ethiopians lives.
Jews are HUMANS, my friend, and HUMANS tend to save their own family members first in case of an emergency. If this rule does not apply to you it mean that you're either unhuman or a liar.
It figures that with radical groups behind the mid-east revolutions that anti-jew and anti-american violence would increase. But this is what you can expect from the "religion of peace".
For years the Arab governments have found that Israel makes a perfect scapegoat For deflecting the anger of their repressed populations. As the millions of Arabs, especially the increasingly angry young men that are part of a tsunami of population growth in these countries, find that the revolutions have not created economic opportunities, their leaders will continue to demonize Israel. israel is a tiny country that is not reponsible for the economic misery across the Arab world, but when you need to blame someone, just blame the Jews-Israel. If israel made peace with the Palestinians tomorrow, this country would still be vilified across the Arab world. No one has the guts to acknowledge the Arab countries are responsible for their own misery, no one did it to them, they did it to themselves.
I fail to see how anyone could think israel is one of our 'best allies'. As far as i know, there were no israelis in any of our endeavors.. And just about every time drama comes our way, israel is involved.
Lots of our politicians may have been bought, but the majority of americans could give a flip about israel.
"As far as you know" does not necessarily mean that you know what you're talking about.
If you knew different, your post would mean something.
How many troops did israel send to either gulf war or afghanistan?
Israel did not send troops to Iraq or Afghanistan, Lee... just like the US did not send troops to the wars Israel fought.
On the other hand, I DO know different. I know about tens of thousands of orders placed by the US military and aerospace industries in Israel to develop and manufacture high-tech devices for Boeing, General Dynamics, NASA, Lockheed Martin and many other similar companies. I know about the MIG-21 and MIG-23 fighter jets captured by the Israelis and delivered to the US to learn about the dreaded Soviet military technology. I know about processors, memory and other chips developed in Israel for Intel, Motorola, AMD and other semiconductor manufacturers. I know about Israeli avionics systems installed in American F-15s, F16s, F18s and more recent fighters and bombers. I know about Israeli-developed laser power monitoring systems and military grade Tadiran batteries. I know about many other things... but, hopefully, you've got the idea.
Hate will get you nowhere.
Lol.. I don't hate israel. The feeling you're looking for is indifference. Israelis, i care about, as i care about anybody. Arab, white, black, what have you.
It's middle-eastern politics, and players of it, and the same old same old, that has turned me off to the whole deal.
One turkish-american died on attack of mavi marmara, and america just silent about that. Maybe in the future there will be italian-american or latin-american who die in israel attack, and the america just silent about that. So where is "No man left behind" comes to that?
If someday israel change their mind about their promiseland from mid-east to washington, what would america do?
There is no bad jewish, no bad moslem, no bad christiant, the only thing exist are there is a "bad people" who use america and arab as a puppet to destroy each others. Learn the history.
If the people of Mavi Marmara did not try to breach the Gaza blockade and did not try to attack Israeli soldiers no one would be harmed. The fact is that it is PERFECTLY LEGAL to blockade enemy territory during a war and it is PERFECTLY LEGAL to stop, inspect and even SINK any vessel delivering supplies to the enemy during a war. This means that Israeli actions were PERFECTLY LEGAL. If you have a problem with Israelis defending their country using PERFECTLY LEGAL means... TOO BAD.
turkey saved hundreds of thousands of jews fleeing today spain. turkey is been real friend to jews always protecting them. israel should start listening to them .arab countries are changing to democracy bud still dont like israel usa cant tolerate that forever.either turkey.
Turkey had no business allowing a flotilla to leave it's ports, that is not the action of a friend. When they come with Turkish naval vessels, then it will be an act of war. One wonders if Erdogan is willing to go that far.
Turkey is using the flotilla to start a war with Israel. Not because they care about the Gazans but because they want to grab the gas. Turkey should realise it may mislead some most of the time but it cannot mislead all, all of the time.
Audrey Kadis is correct.
You have aptly described the situation.
I
Turkey`s manuvering is `not strange`
It is a planned strategy to drag Israel into a war by using the flotillas and then shift the war to grab the gas.
Politicians make the mistake of thinking that everyone else is too uninteligent to see through their games.
This is in reply to Sherri, Yah stay out of muslim countries KSA, Kuwait and IRAQ. Those are little bit tasty !!
"it's a harsh reminder of Washington's diminishing ability to protect it from the diplomatic consequences of its own domestic political surge to the right over the past decade." This is a simple-minded quote that simply is blaming the victim? It seems that blaming the Jews is always the path of despots and demogogues. Again, it is not Israel's problem that Islam cannot tolerate a successful Jewish nation in its midst. This has absolutely nothing to do with Israeli policy, but all to do with the Islamic swing to radicalism. Why should Israel apologize to Turkey for protecting itself.? Turkey's leader is an Islamic demagogue seeking leadership of the Islamic world AT THE EXPENSE OF ISRAEL. Any questions?
...may I suugest to the readers and to Mr. Zakaria to take a look, not from a religious view but a political view, the words written in Daniel 11:36-45.
The parallel is evident and cannot be denied.
In the name of freedom, President Bush declared war on the axis of evil., and the belief in "freedom " has been implanted in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the name of freedom, President Obama gave a UN speech in 2009, in which he outlined his vision for and pledge in freedom of rights...i.e. "freedom now".
Consequently, In the name of freedom, the Arab nations have and are overturning their rulers.
Consequently, In the name of freedom, the Palestinians will demand , and will get, their independance.
Consequently, In the name of freedom, Israel will be forced to respect the freedom of the Palestinians.
President Obama will not defend Israel. In fact he wants Israel to be forced to give in to the "freedom" of the Palestinians.
This was clearly shown in his support for the 1967 border negotiations.
The pressure for "freedom" from the US, from the Arab nations, from the EU, from the UN, and from Israel's own people will force Israel to give Palestine their "free independance" ...all in the name of "freedom".
Soon, all nations will carry the mark of a democracy.
In the name of freedom, Jerusalem will become the city of peace, universal inter faith values,...the city whose generic, universal god will be the belief in freedom of rights.
Soon, Christ will return to bring forth the kingdom of the One and Only True God....and bring an end to the love of man's glory and self-will.
when you follow a false prophet you will do bad things...Pray to Our Lord and God Jesus Christ.
Opprobrium? I think that's too harsh for Israel. There are other countries that deserve that word use more than Israel!
You are all idiots
The Israelis should just apologies to Erdogan & the Turkish people for the murders. They are just too used to killing the natives (Palestinian Children) when they throw rocks we call Rockets. The Turks are the only friends they have left in the area.
The Turks stopped being their "friends" as soon as they allowed a flotilla to head to Gaza. It is Turkey that caused this situation and like the morons they are, blame Israel for their failure to act with consideration! Erdogan owes Turkey and Israel an apology.
The history, and long term viewpoints, hates, etc, are just the context here.
What is really key is that the current Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his foreign minister, Avigdor Leiberman, are right wingers who do not want peace because in a situation of peace they would not be elected. Ehud Barak predicted this decline in Israel's foreign relations, and properly identified the cause.
Silly Americans need to stop seeing Israel as monolithic and realize we have a number of political parties which represent a much wider set of goals and policies. Netanyahu represents one of these; the Likud party, and this is a right wing party which does not want peace with the arabs, or at least does not wish to make any concessions for this.
This issue is not a pro-Israel/anti-Israel one, it is about what kind of policies Israel should have and the results of electing a person like Netanyahu, and even worse, Leiberman.
It's no loss for Israel if there's no one worth talking to in Ankara or Cairo. In the case of Turkey all the problems are entirely their fault, the Israeli blockade is legal as they are in a defacto state of war with Gaza. If Erdogan follows through in supporting another flotilla, Turkey will suffer a major embarrassment when Israel prevents them from docking in Gaza and sinks one of their ships! In Egypt the cause of the trouble is Egyptian failure to secure the Sinai. Israel won't tolerate being attacked by Gaza and it won't tolerate Gazans traveling to Egypt to attack further south. Public opinion means very little in the Muslim world, these are the most dysfunctional governments anywhere outside of Africa. Turkey looked to be on the way to becoming a modern Islamic state until Erdogan took over. There may be little negative response when he picks on Israel, but this will only get him into trouble when push comes to shove. If a war broke out between Israel and Turkey, there would be no doubt as to who caused it!
Americans, STOP thinking about war and oil... This is so ugly!!! USA is a wonderful country, you should help the world with new ideas, friendship, responsability... But it seems that your country was created for war, it´s a very sad thing to see... Let´s unite the humanity. Forget the wars!!! Let´s help each other!
Interesting article. It seems like we will continue going to war for things like oil. Hopefully one day it will stop.
But my question is simple...when?
-Jamie
http://www.oilchangecouponsv.com/
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