Four Israeli journalists were arrested in Cairo as anti-government protests in Egypt turned violent.
Transition in Egypt \”must begin now,\” President Obama said. Obama spoke Tuesday about two hours after after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said he would not run in presidential elections scheduled for September, and would prepare for a peaceful handing over of power to his successor.
For Israel, the popular uprising against the Mubarak regime raises the specter of its worst strategic nightmare: collapse of the peace treaty with Egypt, the cornerstone of its regional policy for the past three decades. That is not the inevitable outcome of the unrest; a modified version of the Mubarak government could survive and retain the \”cold peace\” with Israel. But if, in a worst case scenario, democratic or Islamic forces were to come to power denouncing Israel and repudiating the peace deal, that could herald the resurrection of a major military threat on Israel\’s southern border.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said he would not run again and pledged a peaceful transition to his successor.
President Obama reportedly urged Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak not to run for office again. The New York Times, the Al Arabiya news network and other media quoted U.S. officials on Tuesday as saying that Obama relayed the message through Frank Wisner, a former U.S. diplomat. Egyptian presidential elections are slated for September.
In light of the unrest in Egypt, Israel has been preparing for the possibility that tens of thousands of African asylum-seekers in that country could flood across the border into Israel in fear of their lives.
Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman said on Monday that President Hosni Mubarak told him to start a dialogue with all the political parties as riots continue on the eve of their seventh day.
It was early in the morning in June 1967, during the Six Day War, when, as a young lieutenant in the Israeli Air Force, I was low-flying over the Mediterranean, approaching the coast of northern Sinai. As a kid I read the epic Enemy Coast Ahead, by Wing Commander Guy Gibson V.C., the leader of the 1943 Dambuster raid, so imagine how excited I was.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has instructed his government to begin talks with the opposition parties who support the mass anti-government protests across the country, the pan-Arab satellite network Al-Arabiya reported on Monday.
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