JERUSALEM: There may be momentary relief in Israeli after Egypt's Husni Mubarak swore in his intelligence chief Omar Suleiman as Vice President – for the first time in Mubarak's entire term of office. There were also unconfirmed rumors that Suleiman might soon serve as interim President for a period, if Mubarak were to leave the country. Suleiman was the important go-between who has been involved in trying to broker deals between Israel and Hamas, as well as between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Earlier, conflicting reports over the possible recall of Israeli diplomats from Cairo were an indication of the high level of official Israeli concern over the mounting protests in cities throughout Egypt. Some reports said that only Israel's Ambassador in Cairo, veteran diplomat Yitzhak Levanon – who was himself born in Lebanon, and is an Arabic-language speaker – was said to be remaining behind, for the moment. But, just after sundown, it was announced that the families of Israeli diplomatic personnel had been evacuated from Egypt and had returned to Israel. It is not yet clear how many diplomats were still staying in Egypt. Earlier, Haaretz reported that “At this stage, Israeli diplomatic families will remain in Cairo until further notice.” The Israeli Embassy in Cairo is located in a comfortable residential building in Maadi, where protestors reportedly burned at least one store on Saturday morning. Israeli government offices are closed on Friday and Saturday for the weekend. Religiously-observant Israelis who keep the quiet of the Jewish Sabbath (Shabat) from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday do not normally even answer the phones – except in emergencies, where lives are at risk. Haaretz has, nevertheless, also reported that Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has been in regular touch every few hours with Ambassador Levanon in Cairo. Ynet reported that the “Israeli embassy in Cairo was left empty [on Saturday] as workers do not generally arrive on the weekend, but authorities were debating whether to return to business as usual on Sunday … In addition, an official at Cairo International Airport said El Al was trying to arrange a special flight Saturday to take roughly 200 Israeli tourists out of the country”. The Jerusalem Post reported that two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu ordered all government spokespersons to avoid commenting on the protests in Egypt, although “security officials said they worry the violence could threaten ties and spread to the Palestinian Authority … The security officials said they are worried that a regime change could threaten Israeli-Egyptian relations and that violence could spread to the Palestinian Authority.” There were particular mentions of concern about a possible rise in the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in the aftermath of the protests. But Israeli Foreign Ministry and Defense officials were monitoring the situation closely, evaluating events on the ground that might entail, one said, a “revolution in Israel's security doctrine.” The 1979 Israeli-Egyptian Peace Treaty is considered a major strategic asset in Israel, and it has been scrupulously observed to the letter – despite the progressive cooling of relations in the ensuing decades, mainly due to Egyptian objections about Israeli treatment of Palestinians living under continuing occupation. Egyptian journalists (like members of other professional associations) continue to avoid any actions that might constitute normalization of relations until there can be a negotiated resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The previously-unknown scale of the casualties in Egypt – at least 100 protesters have been reported killed so far – only emerged on Saturday. Toward the end of the week, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu ordered government officials to keep quiet about the growing protests. A Foreign Ministry spokesperson said that there would not be comments about Egypt's internal affairs. But, Israel's former Industry and Trade Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer who “resigned from the Israeli cabinet last week and can now freely express his opinions as a member of the opposition Labor Party”, as Gil Yaron reported in Die Speigel, said two days ago (to general scorn on Twitter) on Israel's Army Radio – the most popular station in the country – that he didn't think a revolution was possible in Egypt: “I see things calming down soon.” Another unnamed Israeli cabinet minister said much the same thing to Time magazine. In an analysis published in Haaretz, Aluf Benn wrote that “The fading power of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's government leaves Israel in a state of strategic distress. Without Mubarak, Israel is left with almost no friends in the Middle East … From now on, it will be hard for Israel to trust an Egyptian government torn apart by internal strife”. Benn noted that “Starting in 1985, peace with Egypt allowed for Israel to cut its defense budget, which greatly benefited the economy.” By contrast, in an article in +972 magazine, Hebrew University media student Elizabeth Tsurkov writes that “In discussions I've had with people since the beginning of protests in Egypt, several points became clear. The most obvious one is that the majority of Israelis don't really care about what is happening in the countries neighboring them, at least not until events become significant enough to potentially affect Israel. Another important phenomenon is that the Israeli media managed to cover the protests without addressing the core of the issue, which are the demands of the Egyptian people that have brought them out into the streets and made them willing to face harsh treatment from the police … What many Israelis don't seem to think is that while Israel benefits from cooperation with Egypt, especially in the counter-terrorism efforts, there is a moral problem with favoring our interests over the interests of millions of Arabs who are being silenced, tortured and murdered so that the mirage of stability can be maintained for a little longer.” The significance about reports of the withdrawal, on Saturday afternoon, of Egyptian military forces from the Rafah border with Gaza, is still unclear. Protests had spread to the Egypt's El-Arish port, on the Sinai's Mediterranean Coast, and also to Rafah. And, there were also reports of unrest elsewhere in the Sinai peninsula. Gaza's Interior Ministry reported Saturday afternoon that the border with Egypt had been secured. Part of the Egyptian-built wall along the border had reportedly been torn away. The number of Egyptian military forces allowed in the entire Sinai was strictly capped at about 750, by the terms of the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty which stipulated a demilitarized Sinai – and, despite Egyptian requests for an increase, particularly after the Hamas rout of Fatah/Palestinian Preventive Security forces, but the Israeli military did not agree. There have recently been renewed calls for Israeli forces to return to the Philadelphi Corridor that runs all along the Gaza-Egypt border. There have also been indications in response that signaled positive interest in Israeli Defense circles. BM
