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Extracted Text (OCR)
3
Alas, though, the main strategy of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas
will be to drag Israel into the Arab story — as a way of deflecting
attention away from how these anti-democratic regimes are repressing
their own people and to further delegitimize Israel, by making sure it
remains a permanent occupier of Palestinians in the West Bank.
Have no illusions: The main goal of the rejectionists today is to lock
Israel into the West Bank — so the world would denounce it as some
kind of Jewish apartheid state, with a Jewish minority permanently
ruling a Palestinian majority, when you combine Israel’s Arabs and
the West Bank Arabs. With a more democratic Arab world, where
everyone can vote, that would be a disaster for Israel. It may be
unavoidable, but it would be insane for Israel to make it so by failing
to aggressively pursue a secure withdrawal option.
The second group that will have to pay retail for stability is the Arab
monarchies — Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Morocco.
These governments have for decades bought stability with reform
wholesale — by offering faux reforms, like reshuffling cabinets, that
never amounted to real power sharing — and by distracting their
people with shiny objects. But these monarchies totally underestimate
the depth of what has erupted in their region: a profound quest for
personal dignity, justice and freedom that is not going away. They
will have to share more power.
The third group I hope will have to pay retail is Egypt’s Muslim
Brotherhood. Under Mubarak, in an odd way, the Brotherhood had it
easy. Mubarak made sure that no authentic, legitimate, progressive,
modern Egyptian party could emerge between himself and the
Muslim Brotherhood. That way, Mubarak could come to Washington
once a year and tell the president: “Look, it’s either me or the Muslim
Brotherhood. We have no independent, secular moderates.”
Therefore, to get its votes, all the Muslim Brotherhood had to say was
that “Mubarak is a Zionist” and “Islam is the answer.” It didn’t have
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