Washington Backs Islamists as Sinai and Gaza Explode.
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The Los Angeles Times reports that the Obama administration is “deeply concerned” by the Egyptian military regime’s having seized powers so as to prevent a Muslim Brotherhood takeover of the country. Press secretary George Little said that “We…urge the [military] to relinquish power to civilian-elected authorities….” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that “We are particularly concerned by decisions that appear to prolong the military’s hold on power.”
As the report notes, the military regime’s move is aimed at preventing the Brotherhood’s presidential candidate Mohamed Morsi—if he has indeed been elected—from “declaring war on Israel without the agreement of the ruling generals.”
The current round of hostilities from Gaza has also seen Hamas—the Islamist rulers of Gaza—openly taking credit for all the rocket firing for the first time in years. That lack of inhibition is widely viewed in Israel as reflecting a surge of confidence over the developments in Egypt, particularly the prospect of Hamas’s parent movement—the Brotherhood—and other Sunni extremists taking over or at least steadily gaining ground there.
With Washington backing the belligerent fanatics in Egypt against the moderates, and the Administration's allies in the west playing ineffectual games with Iran, Israel will need all the unity and realism it can muster...for realism is in exceeding short supply in Washington. (C) P. David Hornik
