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RUMBLINGS IN EGYPT


Mubarak sets up committees to advance reforms in Egypt


Haaretz reports: “Egypt’s embattled President Hosni Mubarak has set up a committee to discuss and recommend constitutional changes that will relax eligibility rules for who can run for president and limit the number of presidential terms.

Vice President Omar Suleiman said that Mubarak also decreed the creation of a separate committee to monitor the implementation of all proposed reforms.

The moves are the first concrete steps taken by the longtime authoritarian ruler to implement reforms promised during two weeks of mass protests. So far government concessions have fallen short of the demands of protester demands that Mubarak immediately step down.

Mubarak also ordered a probe into clashes between the protesters and supporters of the president.

Moreover, Suleiman said Egypt has a plan and timetable for the peaceful transfer of power, and added that the government will not pursue protesters who have been demanding President Hosni Mubarak step down now.

‘The president welcomed the national consensus, confirming that we are putting our feet on the right path to getting out of the current crisis,’ Vice President Omar Suleiman said after a briefing with the president on the national dialogue meeting.

‘A clear road map has been put in place with a set timetable to realize the peaceful and organized transfer of power,’ he said in comments broadcast on state television…” (I believe the tumbling of the world’s dictators could signal the beginning of a movement that will pave the way for the rise of the one and only Dictator of the New World Order – Daniel 7:23; Revelation 13:1, 7, 8.)


Netanyahu: Egypt could fall into hands of radical Islamists


Haaretz reports: “Egypt could fall into the hands of radical Islamists as a result of the country’s uprising, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu warned about the result of the riots in Egypt while speaking at an event for European diplomats held at the Knesset.

‘Egyptians can choose a state with secular reforms. However, there is also another possibility that the Islamists will exploit the situation in order to gain governance over the country and lead it backward,’ the Prime Minister said.

‘The third possibility is that [Egypt] will go in the direction of Iran,’ Netanyahu said, adding that they would ‘oppress the country and threaten all those surrounding it.’

In Israel’s neighboring Egypt, demonstrations and riots have continued unabated for two weeks with protests insisting that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak leave the government.

When the protests began at the end of last month, the Prime Minister issued a similar warning, saying that a radical regime could take over in Mubarak’s place.

‘Our real fear is of a situation that could develop … and which has already developed in several countries including Iran itself — repressive regimes of radical Islam,’ said Netanyahu…” (The entire Arab confederacy of nations will soon come against Israel in alignment with Russia – Ezekiel 38, 39; Daniel 11:40; Ezekiel 38: 5-7; Psalm 83:5-7.)


Egyptian VP Holds Unprecedented Talks with Muslim Brotherhood


Voice of America News reports: “The Egyptian government offered a package of concessions after an unprecedented meeting with the officially banned Muslim Brotherhood as well as other opposition figures.

However, the opposition is divided over how to bring about an end to President Hosni Mubarak’s nearly 30-year rule. Despite the talks, protesters rallied for a 13th day in Cairo and other cities.

The newly appointed Egyptian vice president, Omar Suleiman, met with representatives of some opposition groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, which is officially banned in Egypt.

After the talks, the government said the participants had agreed on a package of concessions that include freedom of the press, the release of detained protesters and the eventual lifting of emergency laws.

But the opposition is divided. George Ishaq of the Kefaya movement, which is boycotting the talks, says any government concession is a nonstarter as long as President Hosni Mubarak remains in power. ‘We (will) never open our mind or make negotiations before Mubarak leaves. We insist about that. After that, we can open doors to negotiations,’ he said.

Still, the talks were a milestone because it is the first time Mr. Mubarak’s regime openly met with representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood.

One protester on Tahrir Square said he worries the group’s ultimate aim is to turn Egypt into an Islamic state. ‘I’m Muslim, but I do not like Iran, like Hezbollah or something like that,’ he said…” (The Muslim Brotherhood is an Islamic organization similar to al Qaida, the Taliban and Al Sabob. God will defend and spare Israel – Ezekiel 39:6; Zechariah 14:4, 12, 16; Daniel 12:1. See also the next report.)


Muslim Brotherhood wants to end Egypt-Israeli peace deal


RIA Novosti reports: “Egypt’s banned Muslim Brotherhood movement has unveiled its plans to scrap a peace treaty with Israel if it comes to power, a deputy leader said in an interview with NHK TV.

Rashad al-Bayoumi said the peace treaty with Israel will be abolished after a provisional government is formed by the movement and other Egypt’s opposition parties.

‘After President Mubarak steps down and a provisional government is formed, there is a need to dissolve the peace treaty with Israel,’ al-Bayoumi said.

Egypt was the first Arab country to officially recognize Israel and sign a peace agreement with the Israeli government in 1979. It is also a major mediator of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Muslim Brotherhood has recently come to light amid mass anti-government protests in Egypt. Some media voiced concerns that the banned Islamic movement could eventually take power in the riot-hit Arab country.

The deeply conservative Islamic movement, which wants to move Egypt from secularism and return to the rules of the Quran, failed to win a single seat in the 2010 Egyptian parliamentary election…”


Israel shocked by Obama’s “betrayal” of Mubarak


Reuters reports: “If Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak is toppled, Israel will lose one of its very few friends in a hostile neighborhood and President Barack Obama will bear a large share of the blame, Israeli pundits said.

Political commentators expressed shock at how the United States as well as its major European allies appeared to be ready to dump a staunch strategic ally of three decades, simply to conform to the current ideology of political correctness.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told ministers of the Jewish state to make no comment on the political cliffhanger in Cairo, to avoid inflaming an already explosive situation. But Israel’s President Shimon Peres is not a minister.

‘We always have had and still have great respect for President Mubarak,’ he said on Monday. He then switched to the past tense. ‘I don’t say everything that he did was right, but he did one thing which all of us are thankful to him for: he kept the peace in the Middle East.’

Newspaper columnists were far more blunt.

One comment by Aviad Pohoryles in the daily Maariv was entitled ‘A Bullet in the Back from Uncle Sam.’ It accused Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of pursuing a naive, smug, and insular diplomacy heedless of the risks.

Who is advising them, he asked, ‘to fuel the mob raging in the streets of Egypt and to demand the head of the person who five minutes ago was the bold ally of the president … an almost lone voice of sanity in a Middle East?’

‘The politically correct diplomacy of American presidents throughout the generations … is painfully naive.’

Obama called for an ‘orderly transition’ to democracy in Egypt, stopping short of calling on Mubarak to step down, but signaling that his days may be numbered…” (Kissinger’s proposal to make Obama the ruler of the New World Order may be the beginning of this final prophecy before Christ returns – Daniel 2:44.)


Iran Supreme Leader: Egypt unrest inspired by our Islamic Revolution


Haaretz reports: “Uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia will spell an ‘irreparable defeat’ for the United States, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, adding that the recent wave of unrest sweeping through the Mideast was a result of Iran’s Islamic Revolution.

Throngs of Egyptians took to the streets in the largest anti-government protest movement to sweep the country in the last quarter-century. Demonstrators are calling for the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, who has served as president of Egypt for over 29 years.

Speaking with worshippers during Friday prayers in Tehran, Khamenei said that ‘if they [protesters] are able to push this through then what will happen to the U.S. policies in the region will be an irreparable defeat for America.’

‘Today’s events in North of Africa, Egypt, Tunisia and certain other countries have another sense for the Iranian nation. They have special meaning. This is the same as ‘Islamic awakening,’ which is the result of the victory of the big revolution of the Iranian nation,’ the Supreme Leader was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying.

The comment by Iran’s Supreme Leader wasn’t the first time Iran had equated the current run of Egypt protests with the battle against U.S. influence in the region, with Tehran’s Foreign Ministry saying on Thursday that Egypt protests would lead to the emergence of ‘a real independent Islamic Middle East.’

‘Iran supports the rightful demands of the Egyptian people and emphasizes they should be met,’ the official IRNA news agency quoted a statement as saying…” (In the light of Psalm 83:4 which has the world’s greatest enemy of the Jews proclaiming their annihilation, the above headline may be the beginning of this latter day prediction: “They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.”)