As Israelis began to adjust to the departure of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, their staunchest and longest-standing regional ally, the alarm and anxiety that Israel has been projecting seemed to give way on Sunday to more nuanced tones, as well as some hints of admiration for the Egyptian people and sympathy for their cause.
“It is difficult not to be awed by the new spirit, the hope and the optimism that gushed forth out of Egypt,” wrote Ben Caspit, a prominent Israeli commentator, in the newspaper Maariv on Sunday. “By the courage of the masses. By the wisdom of the army, by the fight that Mubarak gave (many would have broken before he did). By the comparatively dignified way in which the Egyptian people swept out one of its greatest heroes, who became one of the strongest and most-hated rulers in the modern history of this ancient people.”
The front page of the popular newspaper Yediot Aharonot was taken up entirely by a picture of Egyptians celebrating, with the headline “A New Egypt.”
Israeli leaders had maintained a diplomatic silence — in public, at least — throughout most of the Egyptian uprising, not wanting to sound disloyal to Mr. Mubarak or supportive of dictatorship. With abiding worries about the future and uncertainty about what kind of Egyptian government will eventually emerge, the official hush largely continued Sunday.
Throughout the crisis, Israeli leaders were in almost daily contact with the White House, cautioning the Obama administration against rushing Mr. Mubarak out the door, which they feared might destabilize the region.
In his first public comments since Mr. Mubarak stepped down, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel stated laconically that Mr. Mubarak “resigned over the weekend and left Cairo.”
Speaking at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, Mr. Netanyahu went on to say that the Israeli government welcomed the statement of the Egyptian military that Egypt would continue to honor the peace treaty with Israel. Israel, he said, sees the 1979 treaty as “the cornerstone of peace and stability, not only between the two countries, but in the entire Middle East as well.”
Mr. Netanyahu did not repeat the concerns that he aired last week that a new Egyptian democracy could be exploited by Islamists, or the possibility that Egypt “would go the way of Iran.”
Israeli nerves seemed calmed, at least for the short term, by the temporary takeover of Egypt by its military rulers. Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, spoke by telephone on Saturday evening with his Egyptian counterpart, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the chief of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which is now running Egypt.
Mr. Barak, a former Israeli army chief of staff, and Field Marshal Tantawi first met about 15 years ago. They discovered in the course of their acquaintance that they had fought on opposite sides in a notoriously tough battle for an area called the Chinese Farm in the Sinai desert during the 1973 war.
Mr. Barak told Field Marshal Tantawi on the telephone that they had a responsibility to prevent any return to that situation, according to Israel’s Defense Ministry.
Efraim Halevy, a former chief of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, said in a telephone interview that Israel “has no reason to fear.” The likelihood of Egypt going to war against Israel in the next few years, he said, given Egypt’s economic situation and the fact that its army, like Israel’s, is dependent on American equipment, “is very, very small.”
Mr. Halevy, who now directs the Shasha Center for Strategic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said that the Israeli government was wise to keep quiet during the recent crisis, but that an unfortunate consequence was that the field was left open to Israeli pundits and commentators who acted as “prophets of doom.”
Voices from more conservative quarters in Israel continued to warn of the possible dangers ahead. Yaakov Amidror, a major general in the reserves, said in a recent interview that in the long run, democracy was best. But he told Army Radio on Sunday that the chief challenge was how to hold elections in Egypt that would not be the country’s last, “because the Muslim Brotherhood will have ended up determining Egypt’s fate.”
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was expected to arrive in Israel on Sunday. The original purpose of his visit was to attend the farewell ceremony on Monday for Israel’s departing army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, but it has taken on extra significance in light of the events in Egypt.
The Israeli government on Sunday approved the appointment of General Ashkenazi’s successor, Maj. Gen. Benny Gantz. General Gantz, a former deputy chief of staff, was tapped for the job after another candidate’s appointment was canceled because of accusations surrounding a property deal and after months of bitter infighting among Israel’s top army officials.
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