Are you watching TV? This is how Israelis responded when contacted Friday evening after Omar Suleiman's announcement that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had instructed the High Military Council to run the country. The weekly Shabbat shut-down, from Friday sunset to Saturday sundown, had begun, but many in Israel were transfixed. Angela Godfrey-Goldstein, a human rights worker in Jerusalem with a long involvement in the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) said, “I'm absolutely over the moon and back. I hope Nobel-Prize winner Obama's Cairo speech had something to do with it, and not only the terrible murder of Khaled Said, and all of the torture and repression. This is the age of the internet, the Facebook age. It got some 20 million Egyptians out on the streets today, and hundreds of millions around the world watching on television. Not bad for what was earlier put down as just a Facebook revolution. As somebody who has lived in Egypt for four years, I trust the Egyptian people, and I know they're perfectly capable of running a free, non-corrupt, sensible, democratic government.” Lisa Goldman, journalist of Canadian origin and one of the co-founders and editors of +972 magazine (named after the country's international dialing code) tweeted: “Crowds going crazy. Caution… Wasn't the call for a civil government?” Journalist, blogger, photographer and activist Dmitry (Dimi) Reider, who is also part of the +972 magazine collective, tweeted after the announcement from Cairo: “Egyptians, you are amazing. All of you. I'm so proud to be part of the Middle East right now, so proud to be an activist. Thank you.” In a piece just posted on +972 magazine, journalist Yuval Ben Ami wrote: “Let's be amazed at the fact that people can topple the dictatorial regime to which they were subjected. Let's be shocked at how difficult that was. Let's be awed by how they dealt with this difficulty, by how stubborn and united they have been over the past 18 days. I'll make no secret of it. I'm in love with the Egyptian people. A few days ago I took part of a poetry event in their honor, reading ‘Easter 1916′ by Yeats on Tel-Aviv's Magen David square. One of our foremost poets, the veteran Aharon Shabtai, also read in that event. Before beginning his poem he said into the megaphone: ‘Anyone who's ever been to Egypt knows that it's a land of extraordinary people. Anyone who's been there is bound to love them and root for them'. This is entirely true. These people are inspiring. They have done everything right. Mubarak has done everything wrong. He didn't even have the integrity to go out honorably last night. I wouldn't be surprised if he left tonight with a gun to his forehead. Everyone wanted him to go, from Hilary Clinton to myself to whoever caused him to finally change his mind, every one except perhaps Binyamin Netanyahu. Anything can happen now, including the worst. With all the worry voiced here it seems almost ‘un-Israeli' to voice optimism. Allow me to voice optimism nevertheless. I'm inspired by the Egyptian and have faith in them as I do in all humankind when it stands up to tyranny”. This was published here. Mossi Raz, of the Meretz Party – he once served as the youngest elected member of Knesset representing Meretz – said “I'm happy that a first stage of a democratic revolution in Egypt will succeed, but I do remember that in other places, like Iran and Russia, revolutions were successful in the first stages, then things became worse than before the revolution. I do hope Egypt will succeed to have democratic leadership – it will be better for them. And I hope that the peaceful relations between Egypt and Israel will continue, and will even expand, first to the Palestinians, then to the rest of the Arab world, on the basis of the Arab League Peace Initiative”. Does he think the Israeli government is really nervous about what has been happening in Egypt? “I think in a way, yes”, Mossi Raz said. “Of course we have a peace agreement that has been very fruitful for both Egypt and Israel, that lasted for decades. We don't know who will be the next leaders or leadership in Egypt, and there are some thoughts and some worries about it. But I hope first for Egypt that they will have democratic leadership, then for all the nations in the region”. Dr. Ron Pundak, who participated in backstage negotiations in Norway and elsewhere with Palestinian representatives that led to the mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and to the Olso Accords, and who is now with the Peres Peace Center, agreed. “Yes, I'm sure the Israeli government is nervous. It is the uncertainty of tomorrow. The question is, who will eventually be steering things. Unlike Europeans and Americans (who should, by the way, also be happy), we should be very happy for these democratic forces … though it's definitely a different ball game for Israel. Let's just take a worst-case scenario: in elections three months from now, the Muslim Brotherhood could come to power, democratically, as happened (with Hamas) in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel has legitimate reasons to be nervious”. However, Pundak said, “Personally, I have the unfortunate tendancy to be optimistic, and I hope this is the authentic and genuine outcry of the younger generation of Egyptians which was not heard before. Egypt has one of the largest percentages of population under age 25 in the world. This is the outcry of the younger generation who is not thinking about Israel, but about Egypt, and I hope they will vote for positive forces, and I hope to see a better and stronger Egypt. But, in the back of my mind, I also have my fears”… Sari Bashi, Executive Director of GISHA, which has worked to try to lift the Israel-military-administered sanctions on the 1.5 million souls in Gaza, said “We're concerned that the Rafah crossing has been closed for over two weeks now, and we hope that any future developments in Egypt will take into account Gaza's dependence on the Egyptian border for access in light of the Israeli-imposed closure. We hope Rafah Crossing will reopen, and people will be able to live normal lives in Gaza”. BM
