CAIRO: Leading American writer Thomas Friedman said that the Arab uprisings are on the verge of ending the era of the “wholesale of the Middle East” to start the era of “the Middle East retail,” pointing out that all parties now have to pay a higher price in order to enjoy stability. Friedman, in an article published in the New York Times titled “End of Mideast Wholesale,” stated that “over the past 30 years, Israel enjoyed peace with Egypt, in terms of wholesale, through peace with only one man, former President Hosni Mubarak.” Friedman then added that the post-Mubarak phase will make Israel forced to “retail selling” in order to achieve peace with 85 million Egyptians. “In the last era, a single phone call by Israel to Mubarak could turn off any crisis in relations, but that era ended,” he wrote. He also believes that Amr Moussa, outgoing Secretary General of the League of Arab States, and the “front-runner in polls to succeed Mubarak as president” in the coming elections, is widely popular because of his tough stance toward Israel, as he spent a long time “jousting” with the Jewish state, and said “I hope he has a broader vision of what's coming.” The writer sees Israel as trying to pull itself out of the Arab story. “Alas, though, the main strategy of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas will be to drag Israel into the Arab story, as a way of deflecting attention away from how these anti-democratic regimes are repressing their own people and to further delegitimize Israel, by making sure it remains a permanent occupier of Palestinians in the West Bank.” Friedman felt that the third group that he hopes to “pay for the retail” is the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, saying that “Mubarak made sure that no authentic, legitimate, progressive, modern Egyptian party could emerge between himself and the Muslim Brotherhood.” In Friedman's opinion, “to get its votes, all the Muslim Brotherhood had to say was that ‘Mubarak is a Zionist' and ‘Islam is the answer'. “It didn't have to think hard about jobs, economics or globalization. It got its support wholesale, by simply being the only authentic vehicle for protest against the regime. Now the Muslim Brotherhood is going to have to get its votes retail, I hope,” he continued. “The Egyptian centrists from Tahrir Square now need to show that they can form parties to get stuff done. Nobody pays wholesale anymore,” he ended his article. BM
