but unlike other democracies it cannot just hope for the best, but must prepare for the worst, Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday.
Speaking to the annual Jerusalem meeting of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Netanyahu said that part of preparing for the worst was “to alert leaders and policy-makers around the world of possible dangers that may lie ahead, not because I want them to materialize – I don’t – but because I have a responsibility to do whatever I can to increase the chances that they don’t materialize.”
With these words the prime minister was taking on criticism articulated in recent days – most notably by New York Times columnists Thomas Friedman and Roger Cohen – that Israel has been on the wrong side of history in not fervently applauding the recent events in Cairo.
“No one knows what the future in Egypt will bring,” Netanyahu said. “People in Washington don’t know, and people in Tehran don’t know, and – this may be hard for some of you – but even columnists in The New York Times don’t know.”
Netanyahu said that while changing the status quo led to a much better situation in Europe in 1989 with the collapse of the Iron Curtain, the same cannot be said of the Russian Revolution in 1917, or the Iranian revolution in 1979.
Even more recently, he said, most of the world applauded the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon in 2005. But just a few years later, Hezbollah – “a terror organization that respects no human rights, that crushes human rights into the dust” – has taken over the country.
Ultimately, the Egyptians themselves will determine their own fate, Netanyahu said, “but Israel cannot profess neutrality about the outcome, because above all, we want the future Egyptian government to remain committed to peace with Israel.”
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