Like tectonic plates, when a paradigm shifts, we often lose our balance. We seek to hold on to the familiar markers, but they are not where they once were. The plates settle. The paradigm settles. And then so do we.
But it can take a long time.
The paradigm is massively shifting in the Middle East. But it has not yet settled. First Tunisia. Now Egypt where the situation is quite fluid. Events were still unfolding there as these words were written late last week some 13 days after the protests began. Which Arab country will next force the removal of its autocratic rulers?
Out with the old order, the protesting masses have said. But who and what are coming in with the new order? Pundits, analysts, commentators, observers and editors have run amok in every journalistic and blogging medium the past month offering their invaluable expertise on precisely every aspect of the situation in Egypt and the Middle East.
No one clairvoyantly predicted the sudden, even shocking, fall of the Mubarak regime. No one, yet, can predict the regime that will replace it.
From the vantage of someone who lives in an open, free, liberal western democratic society and who deeply cares about the future of the Jewish state, the following are two key recurring thoughts.
1. We hope for the flowering of a successful, democratic society in Egypt in which its people will be free to pursue their personal and societal prosperity and who will consider themselves aligned with the democratic West as well as culturally and historically with other nations of the Middle East.
2. We fear for the future.
Not surprisingly, writers in Israel, who are increasingly concerned over the possibility of enemies soon on all sides of the country’s borders, have been especially poignant in expressing the incongruity of these two competing yet complementary thoughts.
Ha’aretz columnist Anshel Pfeffer, was in Cairo last week in Tahrir Square during the first days of the rioting. For fear of being harmed, he did not disclose that he was Jewish or Israeli. Pfeffer acknowledged President Hosni Mubarak’s steadfast protecting of the bilateral Egyptian-Israeli relationship. But also pointed out that the strong relationship at the diplomatic level did not translate to positive feelings for Israel with the rioting “man on the street.”
“But Israel still remains a convenient bogeyman for all occasions. Those in Israel who have been bewailing the almost certain loss of a staunch strategic ally would do well to remember that in his three decades as president, Mubarak did very little, if anything, to educate his people and change their devilish perspective of Israel.
“I would like to believe that contrary to the prophecies of doom emanating from the corridors of power in Jerusalem this week, the revolution in Egypt will not ultimately result in an Islamic republic on the Negev border. Certainly hundreds of Egyptians I spoke to over the last seven days have no intention of allowing that to happen. Mubarak kept the peace for 30 years, and there is certainly reason to be grateful for that. But it is still considered dangerous to walk the streets of Cairo speaking Hebrew, even when all is calm.”
Writing last week in the Globe and Mail, renowned Jerusalem-based commentator Yossi Klein Halevi expressed profound disappointment in the way that U.S. President Barack Obama seemed to have instantly disengaged from his former ally Mubarak. “Obama’s demand that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak accept an immediate transition of power has hardly calmed an anxious Israeli people watching the fall of its closest Arab ally. For Israelis, the American president doesn’t appear principled and resolute but untrustworthy and flailing. By insisting that Mr. Mubarak immediately resign, Mr. Obama undermines the possibility of a peaceful transition that could empower democrats, rather than the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood,” Halevi wrote.
It appears that Obama was persuaded by the line of thought expressed by Halevi. The American administration entirely changed its approach last weekend regarding Mubarak. As reported in Ha’aretz, Obama’s special envoy for Egypt, Frank Wisner, said on Saturday that Mubarak must stay in power for the time being to steer changes needed for political transition. (The Obama administration subsequently said Wisner didn’t co-ordinate his comments with the U.S. government, but did not contradict the nub of his statement.)
Halevi also astutely noted that “Israelis will not consider a withdrawal from the West Bank at a time when Israel’s treaty with Egypt – so far, the only successful land-for-peace agreement – appears at risk.”
The political ground in the Middle East is shifting. We grasp for new markers of stability, with both hope and fear guiding our hands.