Camp David Accords in Jeopardy?

[gilliam]

Camp David Accords in Jeopardy?

Well, no political action has been taken. But even some Egyptian secular liberals are eager to do away with the historic 1978 treaty, which was the foundation for peace between Egypt and Israel — hence the U.S.’s alliance with Egypt — and which was the pretext for Anwar El Sadat’s assassination by Egyptian Islamists. As HotAir notes, Ayman Nour, a liberal Egyptian leader, was recently quoted as saying, “In practice, the Camp David accords have come to an end.” And he’s not a crazy. As Allahpundit writes:
Nour isn’t some random talking head; he’s been in and out of prison for years for daring to demand liberal reforms from Mubarak’s regime, and actually went so far as to run against Mubarak for president in the rigged election of 2005. Not only is he a cause celebre in the west, he’s sufficiently prominent that Bush name-checked him in his speech on democracy in Prague back in 2007. He is, in other words, arguably the Egyptian dissident, a guy whom the U.S. theoretically might like to see elected president because his political sensibilities are so western.
And yet, even this guy is hint-hint-hinting that it’s time to tear up the Camp David accords.
See the video here.

nationalreview.com/egypt-watch/259896/camp-david-accords-jeopardy-matthew-shaffer

 

[Ridgerunner]

Camp David Accords in Jeopardy?

Well, no political action has been taken. But even some Egyptian secular liberals are eager to do away with the historic 1978 treaty, which was the foundation for peace between Egypt and Israel — hence the U.S.’s alliance with Egypt — and which was the pretext for Anwar El Sadat’s assassination by Egyptian Islamists. As HotAir notes, Ayman Nour, a liberal Egyptian leader, was recently quoted as saying, “In practice, the Camp David accords have come to an end.” And he’s not a crazy. As Allahpundit writes:
Nour isn’t some random talking head; he’s been in and out of prison for years for daring to demand liberal reforms from Mubarak’s regime, and actually went so far as to run against Mubarak for president in the rigged election of 2005. Not only is he a cause celebre in the west, he’s sufficiently prominent that Bush name-checked him in his speech on democracy in Prague back in 2007. He is, in other words, arguably the Egyptian dissident, a guy whom the U.S. theoretically might like to see elected president because his political sensibilities are so western.
And yet, even this guy is hint-hint-hinting that it’s time to tear up the Camp David accords.
See the video here.

nationalreview.com/egypt-watch/259896/camp-david-accords-jeopardy-matthew-shaffer

I don’t have a crystal ball, of course, but I would be very surprised if the next government of Egypt, almost no matter who they are, does not declare that the accords are void; that Israel didn’t keep them because the Palestinians don’t have their state, unreasonably opposed the “right of return” etc, etc. All the Arab states and western leftists will praise that announcement to the skies.

Whether that means Egypt will go to war against Israel or not is another question. I’m guessing Egyptian rulers won’t really be all that anxious for martyrdom, but will be wanting to buy Hamas away from Iran by giving them more arms, better rockets and leaning on Saudi Arabia to give them more oil money. Lebanon is one thing, but it’s hard for me to believe Egypt’s future rulers will want a border with the Iranian Empire as close as Gaza.

Regardless, Arabs and Persians know they can wage guerilla warfare against Israeli civilians and the world will pay no attention as long as it doesn’t threaten to fill the air with Strontium 90. I think even the Iranian cleric/businessmen would shrink back from that. If I had to guess, I would guess that five years from now, there will be incessant attacks on Israel from Gaza and Hezbolebanon, Iran will be nuclear, Egypt will be working on it, but that the only thing that will “light the candle” would be a miscalculation on someone’s part. Among the potential miscalculations would be the assumption that the Islamic states can start another conventional war with Israel and keep it conventional. With Israel totally surrounded by hostile Arab states, can one really know the first Egyptian tank column in the Negev won’t trigger the end of Cairo? One would think Egypt would know better than to create a total “corner situation” with Israel. But one can’t know for sure when Israel might perceive a “corner situation”.

During the Cold War, it wasn’t too hard to reason out that the Soviets were very unlikely to start a nuclear war. The leaders were atheists, after all, and had a bounteous life. Why give it up for some ideology none of them really believed in anyway and certainly didn’t live? The danger was some kind of miscalculation; some mistake. Say what one will about “martyrdom” and “loving death more than you love life” I don’t think the leaders of Muslim states, once they achieve power and prosperity for themselves, will be all that keen on martyrdom. But miscalculation in the Middle East? A lot better odds than somebody in the Kremlin miscalculating, and misinformation in the ME is as thick in the air as smoke in a prairie fire.

But for now, I would say the real objectives of the hard core Islamists are finally making the ME “Christian free” and “westerner free”, extorting money from the west but first and more long-term primarily from the petrostates, and simply making Israel as unliveable as possible, hoping the Jews will leave on their own.

We’ll see. But personally, I am not at all optimistic about any of it. Hope I’m wrong. I truly do.

 

[7_Sorrows]

i am not very optimistic about any of it either. i think the accords are in jeopardy even though the military has said that the peace agreements will be adhered to. who knows what will happen next?

 

[Bob_Crowley]

I doubt if any Arab country is willing to go to all-out war with Israel. The last outright war was the Yom Kippur War. Since then Israel has armed herself to the teeth with nuclear weapons, and the Arab and Iranian leaders know they’d use them too if they had to.

That doesn’t mean they won’t use guerilla tactics, and hit and run methods, including suicide attacks.

I’m reminded of two comments by my wise old prophetic pastor.

The first, on Arab / Israeli confrontation, he commented, “That’s going to be a problem for the next 300 years”. No doubt there’s some hyperbole, but I doubt if he would have been impressed by the Camp David accords.

His second comment came when we were talking about Saddam Hussein and the First Gulf War. He had little time for Saddam, but commented, "If he’d taken Kuwait and not been opposed, he’d have then taken Saudi Arabia. He’d have had most of the Middle East oil, and controlled the Moslem pilgrimage site to Mecca. Every Moslem believes he has to make one trip to Mecca if he wants to get to heaven. Saddam would have then been in the position of being able to say to every Moslem, “Right, boy, if you want to get to Mecca and into heaven, then you’ll do what I say first.”

Along the same line, he said, “Suppose you get an Arab statesman who does a bit of fence building with his fellow Arab mates. They then deliver an ultimatum to the West, “Right, boys, either you get Israel out, or we turn off the taps (oil)” We’d all be broke in a week!”

Since I knew how accurate he usually was, I’m wondering what the outcome of all this Middle Eastern turmoil will be.

 

[SamH]

Along the same line, he said, “Suppose you get an Arab statesman who does a bit of fence building with his fellow Arab mates. They then deliver an ultimatum to the West, “Right, boys, either you get Israel out, or we turn off the taps (oil)” We’d all be broke in a week!”
.

How fast do you think the Arab countries would go broke once the oil was turned off? How long would their governments cling to control without cold hard cash to fund their nations? Some of the richest OPEC nations are on the razor’s edge of financial disaster.

Even Dubai is mired in a financial crisis and begged for a $10 billion rescue package from the UAE Central Bank. Take away its oil - even for a short time - and they are in huge trouble.

 

[Ridgerunner]

How fast do you think the Arab countries would go broke once the oil was turned off? How long would their governments cling to control without cold hard cash to fund their nations? Some of the richest OPEC nations are on the razor’s edge of financial disaster.

Even Dubai is mired in a financial crisis and begged for a $10 billion rescue package from the UAE Central Bank. Take away its oil - even for a short time - and they are in huge trouble.

In the long run, every one of them is a fly-blown dust devil-ridden, massively overpopulated hell hole, except for those few areas where one can grow crops. And there aren’t many of those. That’s something of which the better minds among them cannot be unaware.

One would think, then, that they would do the smart thing; which is to try to form an economic zone including Israel, cozy up to the countries (largely in the west) that might have money and knowhow to invest in developing some semblance of an economy.

But the obvious answers are not always the chosen courses, sad to say. Sometimes resorting to utopian notions is much more attractive.

Possibly I’m too pessimistic. I do, however, remember when my brother taught engineering at a major university. The Libyan government (yes Libyan) paid the university to teach a bunch of their students in engineering. Well, all of the students were well connected back home, and wealthy. None had the slightest interest in learning engineering. Each simply wanted to acquire enough education to claim to be an engineer so he could direct some real engineer from some other country in working the oil fields and other projects. By “direct”, was intended to sit in a nice office drinking tea while the foreigner did absolutely everything.

As a consequence, all the students did was party and miss class. Ultimately, of course, my brother refused to teach those classes because they were a complete waste of time.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

How fast do you think the Arab countries would go broke once the oil was turned off? How long would their governments cling to control without cold hard cash to fund their nations? Some of the richest OPEC nations are on the razor’s edge of financial disaster.

Even Dubai is mired in a financial crisis and begged for a $10 billion rescue package from the UAE Central Bank. Take away its oil - even for a short time - and they are in huge trouble.

What makes you think politicians will always do the logical thing? Kim Song Il in North Korea? The Pakistanis with their madrassas, anti-Indian phobia and terrorist training? Saddam in Kuwait? Adolf Hitler invading Russia? Pol Pot in Cambodia? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran? The Washington Treaty of 1924 where nations built hugely expensive battleships and then went and scuttled most of them? Nuclear MAD?

There’s already been one oil embargo in 1974. While it didn’t send the West broke, it caused a lot of trouble. The demand for oil has gone up exponentially since then. And these days there are more major players who will want their share.