Iranian Atomic Urgency
• Is Vancouver Sun columnist Jonathan Manthorpe on to something here?
• Did Egypt abrogate its natural gas deal with Israel for commercial or political reasons? Sam Segev (Winnipeg Free Press), asks, Who cares?
Immediately after the abrogation of the gas deal, senior Egyptian officials sought to reassure Israel the motivation was purely commercial and had nothing to do with the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.
Israel wants to believe this is true. In practice, however, it makes no difference. Since the downfall of Mubarak, the peace with Israel exists only on paper. After the attack on its embassy and the evacuation of its personnel following an American intervention, Israel is still unable to find a new location for its embassy in Cairo. The Israeli ambassador works from home and the embassy staff has been considerably reduced. There are no meaningful contacts between the embassy and any Egyptian agency.
• The Christian Science Monitor‘s Dan Murphy hits the nail on the head:
Egypt in many ways now seems rudderless. It has a government nominally run by a military junta, a frustrated Muslim Brotherhood that has won parliamentary elections but so far been unable to exercise any real power, and a Mubarak-era bureaucracy that is trundling along and largely left to its own devices. But one clear, consistent trend is evident across the country’s many competing power centers: Xenophobia is in, the old ways of doing business with Israel and the US are on the way out.
• There must be a Facebook support group for these people:
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream.
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