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The Egyptian Army Has More Support than the Brotherhood
(Jerusalem Post) Ariel Ben Solomon - Zvi Mazel, a former Israeli ambassador to Egypt, said the army gave the protesters a number of weeks to end their protests or agree to mediation and a negotiated solution. Because the Brotherhood refused to be flexible in its demands, it became obvious that a crackdown was coming. Mazel noted that the new Egyptian government was pro-West and will have decent relations with Israel. "What is better than that?" he asked. He emphasized that the West must understand that the army was in a fight with radical Islam. "The Brotherhood was building an Islamic dictatorship," and it was the army that moved in to prevent that. He added that the killings were bad, but compared to the situation in countries like Iraq or Pakistan, the Egyptian crackdown was less severe. On the significance of Vice President Mohamed ElBaradei's resignation, Mazel said that ElBaradei had been a shadowy character who helped Iran develop its nuclear program when he was head of the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. "He defended Iran and then came to Egypt at the beginning of the revolution and was close to the Muslim Brotherhood." The army has more support from the people and is more organized than the Brotherhood, Mazel asserted, predicting that there would not be a lengthy civil war and that the army would calm the situation and try to get Egypt back on its feet.