Israel has no right to criticize the US for its current stance that Mubarak should leave. The reality is that both the US and Israel is generally happy with dictators that do the dirty job of suppress those who they rightfully or wrongfully believe to be anti-western or anti-capitalist. As an American I would tend to err as well on an autocratic ruler if it really ensured stability from a people that would otherwise be hostile to America or its allies.
The hypocrisy lies in not admitting this fact when necessary in appropriate venues.After-all is it not true that Israel is autocratic to the Palestinian “State” for that specific reason? Israel making its objection public is disrespectful and undermines the work of the administration as their involvement or perceived involvement will be used by the most extreme radicals in Egypt as a rallying cry.
It is time for Israel to grow up if does not want to simply be America’s tantrum throwing child in the middle east.
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Barack Obama’s Egypt Response Slammed In Israel JERUSALEM — President Barack Obama’s response to the crisis in Egypt is drawing fierce criticism in Israel, where many view the U.S. leader as a political naif whose pressure on a stalwart ally to hand over power is liable to backfire.
Critics – including senior Israeli officials who have shied from saying so publicly – maintain Obama is repeating the same mistakes of predecessors whose calls for human rights and democracy in the Middle East have often backfired by bringing anti-West regimes to power.
Israeli officials, while refraining from open criticism of Obama, have made no secret of their view that shunning Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and pushing for swift elections in Egypt could bring unintended results.
"I don’t think the Americans understand yet the disaster they have pushed the Middle East into," said lawmaker Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who until recently was a Cabinet minister and who is a longtime friend of Mubarak.
"If there are elections like the Americans want, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Muslim Brotherhood didn’t win a majority, it would win half of the seats in parliament," he told Army Radio. "It will be a new Middle East, extremist radical Islam."
Three decades ago, President Jimmy Carter urged another staunch American ally – the shah of Iran – to loosen his grip on power, only to see his autocratic regime replaced by the Islamic Republic. More recently, U.S.-supported elections have strengthened such groups as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Palestinian territories and anti-American radicals in Iran.
"Jimmy Carter will go down in American history as ‘the president who lost Iran,’" the analyst Aluf Benn wrote in the daily Haaretz this week. "Barack Obama will be remembered as the president who ‘lost’ Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt, and during whose tenure America’s alliances in the Middle East crumbled," Benn wrote.
Israel has tremendous respect for Mubarak, who carefully honored his country’s peace agreement with Israel after taking power nearly 30 years ago.
While relations were often cool, Mubarak maintained a stable situation that has allowed Israel to greatly reduce its military spending and troop presence along the border with Egypt.
