Morsi's Moment......Thomas Friedman at its best

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a great article summarizing sophisticated yet extremely complex intricacies of middle east in a very blunt, out of box and rationale manner…A MUST READ but read with an unbiased view...repeating rhetoric will get you nowhere… they key is to find the best and the most practical solution for Palestinian people…Thomas Friedman at its best!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/opinion/sunday/friedman-morsis-moment.html?smid=tw-NYTimesFriedman&seid=auto

             **Op-Ed Columnist**

Morsi’s Moment

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: November 24, 2012 121 Comments

                   THE Israeli-Hamas miniwar last week was the first test of the post-Arab  awakening order in the Middle East. Hamas, by getting embroiled in a  missile duel with Israel and then calling on Arab countries for support,  particularly Egypt, was testing Cairo as much as Israel. And the  question Hamas was posing to Egyptians was simple: Did Egypt have a  democratic revolution last year to become more like Iran or more like  China? In other words, is Egypt ready to sacrifice the Camp David peace,  U.S. aid and economic development to support Hamas’s radical,  pro-Iranian agenda, or not?

Josh Haner/The New York Times

Thomas L. Friedman

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    The answer from Cairo was no. President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood’s party did not want to get dragged into a total breach with Israel on behalf of Hamas, and instead threw Egypt’s weight into mediating a cease-fire. But that raises an even more intriguing question going forward — whether Morsi, having shown himself, for the moment, to prefer being more Deng Xiaoping than Ayatollah Khomeini, has any inclination to also be Anwar Sadat, that is, to use his clout to forge an Israeli-Palestinian breakthrough so that Egypt isn’t caught in this vice again.
    It is impossible not to be tantalized by how much leverage Morsi could wield in the peace process, if he ever chose to engage Israel. Precisely because he represents the Muslim Brotherhood, the vanguard of Arab Islam, and precisely because he was democratically elected, if Morsi threw his weight behind an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, it would be so much more valuable to Israel than the cold peace that Sadat delivered and Hosni Mubarak maintained. Sadat offered Israelis peace with the Egyptian state. Morsi could offer Israel peace with the Egyptian people and, through them, with the Muslim world beyond.
    Ironically, though, all of this would depend on Morsi not becoming a dictator like Mubarak, but on him remaining a legitimately elected president, truly representing the Egyptian people. That is now in doubt given Morsi’s very troubling power grab last week and the violent response from the Egyptian street. President Obama has to be careful not to sell out Egyptian democracy for quiet between Israel and Egypt and Hamas. We tried that under Mubarak. It didn’t end well.
    No doubt Morsi’s price for engaging with Israel would be the Arab Peace Initiative — full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem, save for mutually agreed-upon land swaps, and some return of refugees, in return for full normalized relations. If Morsi advanced such a proposal in direct talks with Israelis, he could single-handedly revive the Israeli peace camp.
    Do I expect that? No more than I expect to win the lottery. The Muslim Brotherhood has long hated the Jewish state, as well as political and religious pluralism and feminism. Therefore, here’s what I do expect: More trouble between Israel and Hamas that will constantly threaten to drag in Egypt. Hamas is a shameful organization. It subordinates the interests of the Palestinian people to Iran (and earlier to Syria), which wants Hamas to do everything it can to make a two-state solution impossible, because that will lock Israel into a permanent death grip on the West Bank, which will be the undoing of the Jewish democracy and will distract the world from Iran’s and Syria’s murderous behaviors.
    Israel left all of Gaza in 2005, and Hamas had a choice: It could recognize Israel, have an open border and import computers, or it could continue to deny Israel’s existence, keep the border sealed, and smuggle in rockets. It chose rockets over computers. With each rocket that lands near Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, another Israeli says, “How can we possibly let go of the West Bank and risk our airport being shut down?” That is just what Hamas and Iran want — a permanent, grinding, democracy-eroding, legitimacy-destroying, globally isolating Israeli occupation of the West Bank — and they are very happy to use the Palestinian people as a human sacrifice for that goal.
    The best way for Israel to undercut Hamas is by empowering the secular Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, in the West Bank to gain greater independence and build a thriving economy, so every Palestinian can compare which strategy works best: working with Israel or against Israel. This Israeli government has failed to do that. It is so shortsighted. But Hamas makes it easy for Israel to get away with that by ignoring what we know from history: that whoever makes the Israeli silent majority feel morally insecure about occupation, but strategically secure in Israel, wins. After Sadat flew to Jerusalem, Israelis knew there was no way morally that they could hold onto the Sinai and strategically they no longer felt the need. When King Hussein of Jordan and Yasir Arafat did the same, they each got land back. Today, nothing makes Israelis feel more strategically insecure and morally secure with occupation than Hamas’s stupid rocket attacks, even after Israel has withdrawn.
    So, as you can see, the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the future of Egyptian democracy and the U.S.-Israel-Arab struggle with Iran and Syria are now all intertwined. Smart, courageous leadership today could defuse the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, advance Egyptian democracy and isolate the Iranian, Syrian and Hamas regimes. Weak or reckless leadership will empower all three. This is a big moment.

                   **A version of this op-ed appeared in print on November 25, 2012, on page SR11 of the New York edition with the headline: Morsi’s Moment.**
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Re: Morsi's Moment......Thomas Friedman at its best

Mursi has scheduled a meeting with judicial agitators to defuse the crisis. I think he will ultimately rescind his decree as anger over his decree is gaining momentum.

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Re: Morsi's Moment......Thomas Friedman at its best

Have not read the article yet. But will state my bias upfront. Mr. Friedman was a cheerleaders for the Iraq war. And so was the NYT. Lost respect for both.

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Re: Morsi’s Moment…Thomas Friedman at its best

fair enough southie and I am not his spokesman but on middle east how many prominent Americans journalists have written such harsh articles against Israeli government calling it dunk, out of touch" and "in-bred…not many if you ask me…

Op-Ed Columnist - Driving Drunk in Jerusalem - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/opinion/13-friedman-Web-cairo.html

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Re: Morsi's Moment......Thomas Friedman at its best

It's good to see some criticism of the Israeli government. If Netanyahu gets reelected then there won't be much hope of a peaceful solution. At the same time, he's right to criticize Hamas.

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Re: Morsi's Moment......Thomas Friedman at its best

Phoenix - read both articles. I thought taken together, they are balanced.

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Morsi's Moment......Thomas Friedman at its best

For Palestine's sake, we need a khomeini, not another shah. Morsi needs to decide, is he responsible to his people; or a foreign country?? Because the people will not tolerate another hosni and will fight to bring him down.

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Re: Morsi's Moment......Thomas Friedman at its best

^ as far as I see him I think he is sincere to his people that's why he has had the issue solved ASAP. There's a big chance of the Hamas problem to spill over into Egypt in the Sinai peninsula. I believe he acted pragmatically and not emotionally.

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Re: Morsi’s Moment…Thomas Friedman at its best

Sinai is being used by militants to launch attacks on Israel, its synonymous to fata in the context of Afghanistan. The danger is there for the war to spill over into Egypt and Morsi I believe is taking cue from Pakistans situation.

How Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula Figures in the Gaza Turmoil | TIME.com

How Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula Figures in the Gaza Turmoil

The word Sinai was never uttered through three presidential debates and almost never on the campaign trail. But ask some foreign policy experts where they fear the next flashpoint will be in the Middle East and it isn’t Iran or, even, Syria. It’s the Sinai. They point to the escalating violence in the Gaza Strip, which borders on the Sinai, as evidence of just how combustible the region in.

The Sinai Peninsula, which is ostensibly ruled by Egypt, is a backwater of mostly desert and rocks. It is famous for three things: the Suez Canal, Mount Sinai where Moses received the 10 commandments; and the luxury resorts of Sharm el Sheikh on the Red Sea. But, with post-revolutionary Egypt in constant tumult, tourist and pilgrimage traffic is down. And as the Egyptian military focused on internal politics, the Sinai has become overrun by smugglers – who deal in everything from drugs to guns to humans — and worse, al-Qaeda affiliated extremists. “After the revolution, disaffected Bedouin tribes in the Sinai cooperated with released jihadist prisoners from [former president] Hosni Mubarak’s jails to begin attacks on security installations and the Egypt-Israel gas pipeline,” says Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brooking Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy. “The jihadists in the Sinai have pledged their allegiance to [al Qaeda leader Ayman al] Zawahiri, and he has repeatedly endorsed their attacks on Israeli targets. Libyan weapons have also found their way into the Sinai.”

Along a 14.5 kilometer stretch of Sinai’s eastern shoulder, is the border with the Gaza Strip. It is through some 400 tunnels under this border that Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist organization that rules the strip, smuggles the rockets in its arsenal. Other Palestinian radicals in Gaza like Islamic Jihad have done so as well. That firepower is now being sent into Israel after the Jewish state assassinated Hamas’ military chief Ahmed al-Jabari on Wednesday and launched an air-and-drone assault that has killed about a score of people in the coastal enclave. Some 200 rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel, killing three Israelis and wounding several others. Israel’s Iron Dome defense system has destroyed 80 incoming rockets; Israel has also targeted Hamas’s cache of Iranian-made rockets. The U.S. has reiterated Israel’s right to defend itself.

The complication comes from the other U.S. ally in the equation: Egypt. President Obama spoke with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy on Wednesday night. But on Thursday morning, on Egyptian television, Morsy said that though he told Obama he respected Egypt’s relations with the U.S., he also underlined “our complete rejection of this assault and our rejection of these actions, of the bloodshed, and of the siege on Palestinians and their suffering.” Morsy recalled his ambassador to Israel over the attack.

Hamas and Morsy’s political organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, are closely aligned. In the weeks leading up to al-Jabari’s assassination, Morsy had been working to ease tensions between Hamas and Israel. “Morsy is concerned, as Mubarak was, about threats to security in the Sinai Peninsula,” Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Endowment’s Middle East Center, wrote last month. “He has made it clear to Hamas that if Egypt is to work with the movement to improve the situation in Gaza, Hamas will have to close the smuggling tunnels across the Egyptian-Gaza border and cooperate in closing down smuggling and terrorist networks in the Sinai.”

One of the reasons the Sinai is such a draw for terrorist groups is because they can easily lob bombs across the Israeli border and Israel cannot respond lest it risk breaching its 1979 peace treaty with Egypt. At Israel’s request, the Egyptian military has added divisions to the Sinai in recent months. And so Israel’s military offensive in Gaza is a message not only to Hamas and Palestinian radicals, but also to the jihadist groups on the peninsula and to the Egyptians who govern the territory. “Sinai is a significant threat. You have jihadist groups which are able to operate relatively freely across Gaza and the Sinai, giving them strategic depth,” says Mike Singh, director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. ”It’s all part and parcel of the same threat as Gaza, and we need to see Cairo and Hamas get serious about getting it under control.” But, until a ceasefire is called in the Gaza Strip, nothing can be done except to take cover.

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Re: Morsi’s Moment…Thomas Friedman at its best

Another masterpiece by Friedman…

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/28/opinion/friedman-my-secretary-of-state.html?smid=tw-NYTimesFriedman&seid=auto