The Arabs Spring

I was fed up to the neck with the drooling announcements of the "Arab Spring" about thirty seconds after I first heard the expression. Fools in the American government and on the left actually believe the overturning of repressive regimes in the Middle East somehow was the foretaste of western-style democracy. That is nothing short of criminal naivete.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss (only worse). As the Arab Spring develops in Egypt with all the happy peace-loving Egyptians skipping down the streets of Cairo, holding hands, and singing kumbaya, something seems slightly amiss. Former strongman president Hosni Mubarak is going on trial for acting like a typical Arab leader, but in one way he was atypical. He maintained peace with his neighbors, most particularly Israel.

The usual Egyptian mob showed up for the weekly freedom (choke) demonstration in Tahrir Square, but as mob mentality took over, the mob decided demonstrating against a government that had already fallen just wasn't enough fun anymore. So last Friday's fun-fest turned into a march on the Israeli embassy in the nearby Giza district. Things aren't working out so well in Egypt. Tourism is down dramatically. The "free elections" have been kicked down the road. Money is becoming hard to come by for the average Egyptian. All good Arab Muslims know why things are so bad. It's the damned Jews.

The average Egyptian has probably never heard the line "the fault, dear Brutus, lies not in the stars, but in ourselves." Knowing that Islam is never in error, and that Egyptians are the very salt of the earth, someone has to be behind the troubles that have made Egypt's situation worse rather than better after the fall of Mubarak. We all know what the default position for failure is in Arab nations--Israel did it. Hatred of the West, the United States, democracy, freedom and civilized values in general are thoughts shared among the denizens of Jihadistan. But hatred of Israel is almost genetic and extremely visceral.

So the mob broke through barriers and entered the Israeli embassy. Shades of Saigon and Tehran. The violence in Eqypt was not as widespread, but the pattern was the same. Throw a thousand years of diplomatic rules and sovereign territory out the window and loot. The Egyptian military at first stood idly by as the mob vandalized everything in sight inside the embassy, destroying a peace that had existed between Egypt and Israel since 1979. After the embassy was gutted, and the Israeli diplomats had escaped, the military finally took charge, killing two members of the mob and injuring many others.

The Egyptian provisional government had already proved itself adept at shooting itself in the foot. One of its first acts was to show those Jews what's what by ending its exports of natural-gas to Israel. That instantly took almost $355 million out of the nation's already-staggering economy (incidentally and entirely coincidentally almost the exact same amount taken out of the American economy by Obama's gift to bankrupt Solyndra). Even after trying Mubarak friends in kangaroo courts, 12,000 of them to be exact, the thirst for the blood of those to blame for Egypt's woes was not slaked. Israel must pay.

The Arab Spring in Egypt is beginning to look a lot more like the long, hot summer. The Egyptian Israel-haters have been encouraged by Barack Obama's ongoing public disrespect for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Obama's support for an independent Palestinian state which includes parts of Jerusalem haven't helped much either. But at least some of Obama's diplomatic functionaries recognized that they have been a little too cozy with the new Egyptian bosses, and forced Obama to render assistance to the trapped Israeli diplomats at the embassy.

Unlike the arrogant and self-centered Obama, Netanyahu behaved like a statesman and a gentlemen (both expressions entirely foreign to the amateur President). Netanyahu praised Obama, saying that the American President "used every considerable means and influence of the United States to help us--we owe him a special debt of gratitude." Watch your back, Mr. Netanyahu.