Whilst our collective knowledge of the Middle East is very good, over the years our attention has been directed towards Palestine.
That said, every man and his dog, knows that Egypt is to human mankind the very seat of civilisation. Therefore what is being witnessed in Egypt brings a mixture of both pride and sadness.
Pride for the fact that this once great nation, repressed for so long, may be on their way to freedom. Sad from the point of view of the loss of life, 150 dead thus far and there are over 4,000 injured.
There have been alleged reports of government thugs (government special forces) trawling the streets looting and destroying property, their aim it is alleged, is to replace the collective fear of the people.
In other words creating a picture of total lawlessness in the hope that such crime will encourage the protesters to return to their areas to protect their belongings, the end result being that this way the protests become smaller and easily controlled. However, so far this has not been working and civilians have formed local protection groups, who patrol their areas during the night.
Interestingly, the statements from the USA, have only served to actually confuse things, they at least appear to be sitting on the fence, worried about attacking Mubarak in case he holds on to power and at the same time unwilling to go against the people for the same reason.
Needless to say Israel is increasingly worried about this situation, the repression of the Egyptian people has served Israel well over the past three decades and the people of Egypt are fully aware of this fact. Netanyahu's only statement is that they are watching things unfold in Egypt.
There is an old saying, “A good neighbour who may not share ones beliefs, is STILL a good neighbour” in other words, one can have friends of differing beliefs or morals, who may differ in almost every way, yet because they are good friends they are accepted.
Perhaps something for Egypt’s neighbours to consider.
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