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The following article has been translated from the Hebrew daily Yediot Achronot by Amir
Schwarz and Sarah Michaels Levy. It deals with Palestinian politics and the wider Arab world.

Mubarak is Waiting for Barak
An Arab Voice / Roee Nahmias
Yediot Achrono, 3 January 2009

The moderate Arabs countries do not oppose the Israeli actions in Gaza. No, they have not become
Zionists, but they understand that a victory for Hamas is a victory for Iran – the non-Arab country took
over the Arab peoples.

The last week, which started with the beginning of the IDF operation in Gaza, was most dramatic in the
Arab world, if not historic. The number of events, public statements, and speeches – there is no better
word than ‘historic’ to describe them – just keep increasing.

The divide within the Arab world is not new. Even during the Second Lebanon War it was clear what the
two camps were, and what the agenda of each was. Each of these camps has stood against the other
regarding every event since. Who remembers the Arab League Summit in Damascus, just 9 months ago,
to which the axis of “moderate countries” sent a low-ranking delegation?

Since the IDF started this military operation, this divide has widened. The overtones being heard from
1
Hezbollah’s Dachia towards Cairo are astonishing by any scale, and will not be forgotten in the coming
years. Here the leader of a Shiite militia, Hasan Nasralla, not a formal leader of any country, tries to
turn the Egyptian public and officers against its ruling regime. Nasralla did not sweeten his words or
take them back. He did attempt to blur them a bit, but did not change them.

The Egyptians got the message and reacted against Nasralla’s supporters. “There is a clear conflict
between us and Iran” stated Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abu Al-Gheit, only three days ago in an
interview with the Al Arabiya broadcasting channel. “They have declared war against us… Sheikh
Nasralla has declared war against us when he called on the Egyptian armed forces and the Egyptian
people to go down to the street and create havoc, as he did in Lebanon. And I say to him – you have made
a bitter mistake, and the Egyptian people have expressed their total rejection of your words, as did the
2
Muslim Brotherhood . The armed forces are sacred in Egypt. And no one should think of addressing
them in such a manner.”

The Egyptian press aligned themselves with these statements, and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
added his voice just yesterday, saying that in his view Israel should be the body that should supervise
the Rafiah border crossing [between Egypt and Gaza], and check that no weapons go through it. No,
Mubarak did not accidentally become a Zionist; rather, he did this to justify Egypt’s refusal to open the
border for free passage. The real reason is obvious, as explained a Hamas representative in Lebanon,
Osama Hamdan: “Egypt is fearful of attempts to place the burden of the Gaza strip on its shoulders.”

Whichever way it goes, the outline is becoming clearer than ever, and the overtones are only increasing:
on one side is the “moderate” camp, publicly led by Egypt, and followed by Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and
other countries. On the other side one can mainly find Syria, but this is not the true story. The country
that leads the “extremist” camp is Iran, with Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah joining it as supporting
characters.

1 Dachia is a quarter in Beirut, Lebanon, known as Hezbollah’s headquarters
2 A trans-Arab organization of Islamic extremists, outlawed in some Arab countries; in Egypt, its affiliated institutes are heavily
supervised by the army