July 5, 2013

The US

Headline: U.S. Officials Approach Egypt Crisis With Caution

To Read:  The Washington Post believes the US should make it clear that a military regime ruling by force is not an acceptable long term arrangement by withholding aid to Egypt-

Had the armed forces not intervened, democracy probably would have led to the defeat within months of the Muslim Brotherhood in legislative elections. If it does not provoke the eruption of violent conflict, this coup may well ensure that Islamist forces, including more radical groups, grow stronger. The United States must focus on preventing the worst outcomes in a vital Arab ally, including civil war or a new dictatorship. That means dropping its passivity and using the leverage of aid to insist on a democratic transition.

Quote: “Despite the fact that Mohamed Morsi recently convicted 16 Americans of political crimes in a show trial, the Obama administration still sent them over $2 billion this year. American tax dollars flow no matter which despot rules”, Senator Rand Paul sees the whole Egyptian affair as further evidence for his anti-interventionalist position.

Number: 71, the percentage of Americans who believe that the founding fathers would be disappointed.

Israel

Headline: Fatah calls on Palestinians to overthrow Hamas in wake of Morsi's fall

To Read: Israel Factor panelist Alon Pinkas writes about Israel's mixture of confusion and denial concerning the Egyptian situation-

Israel is denying. Israel is in denial that Mubarak was a reliable ally, that Morsi was “okay,” that Morsi's ouster is an advantage or a disadvantage. Everything happening in Egypt is an internal Egyptian matter which does not concern Israel, and in fact contributes to the weakening of the Arab world.

 Israel will get along better with the Egyptian army, with its pro-American inclination, as most of the Egyptian army's senior officers studied in the US Army's military academies. With General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi we share a common language which we didn’t share with Morsi.

Quote: “We’ve built many little, little temples. But we need to build a real Temple on the Temple Mount”, Israeli housing and construction minister Uri Ariel making mischief.

Number: 100, Israeli doctors have aided over 100 Syrians affected by the conflict.

The Middle East

Headline: Pro-Morsi supporters gather in Cairo

To Read:  Martyn Indyk, unlike the Post, thinks that this is the time to embrace Egypt's generals-

The Egyptian military is now the key actor in Cairo — the one actor that the United States can still influence. The U.S. military has strong ties, developed over decades of close cooperation, with its Egyptian counterparts. The Egyptian officers are heavily dependent on U.S. military assistance for their all-American equipped forces.  We should be communicating to them through private, not public, military channels that they need to put quickly in place a credible transition to civilian, democratic rule because, without that, U.S. law dictates a cut-off of American aid to coup-makers. Some American politicians are already calling for that spigot of money to be shut off after Wednesday's removal of the Morsy government. But actually cutting off the aid now would be highly counterproductive, turning the United States into the adversary of the very actors we now depend upon to return Egypt to a democratic path. 

Quote:  “[Hamas is] in complete and utter shock”, a source close to the Gaza government talks to Yediot in an interesting piece about Palestinian reactions to the Egyptian coup.  

Number: 4 million, the number of people who are unable to buy or produce enough food for their needs in Syria, according to the UN.

The Jewish World

Headline: Claims Conference accused of withholding probe results from board

To Read: Was the Haskala movement really 'the Jewish enlightenment', or was it more like a Jewish romantic movement? A new book offers a new perspective on the matter (review by Daniel B. Schwartz)-

Despite the caricature of the maskilim as belated but ardent partisans of the Enlightenment, they were in fact more ambivalent toward its legacy. Certainly, they often wielded reason as a cudgel against what they saw as retrograde and parochial social mores and religious practices in the Jewish community. Yet they were no less disparaging of the growing number of “modern” Jews who were eager to leave Judaism behind, effectively surrendering their Jewish identities to the melting-pot logic of Enlightenment universalism. Like the Romantics, the maskilim were haunted by the fear of total rupture with tradition and community, and their solution for repairing it—the pursuit of religious renewal through the medium of Jewish cultural creativity—bore a similarity to what the Romantics hoped to achieve through art, poetry, and the imagination.

Quote: “This is old-fashioned anti-Semitism with a very strong nationalist flavor. You can draw a direct line from the anti-Semitism of the 1930s to this anti-Semitism today”, the Wiesenthal Center's Avi Zuroff opposing an event planned by Latvian nationalists to mark a World War II event that led to the massacre of a town's Jewish population.

Number: $2m, the amount given by the AVI CHAI foundation to support the Conservative movement’s Solomon Schechter network of Jewish day schools.