Israel Concerned By US Hesitancy in Egypt
In view of American hesitant reactions to events in Egypt, Israeli officials wonder: Is the United States losing its grip on events in the Middle East?
Omar Suleiman, the late Egyptian intelligence minister, who was the strongman in ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s regime and the person whom the Muslim Brotherhood dreaded, once met with a delegation of Israeli Knesset members, explaining to them how he was able to suppress the Brotherhood movement.
It’s not much of a problem for us, Suleiman related. If I get the right means and the right budget, I can overcome it. You need to want it and have the money. On a different occasion, Suleiman told his Israeli interlocutors that he couldn’t understand Israel’s great hesitation in releasing Palestinian prisoners in exchange for freeing Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Let them go free now, then apprehend them and later kill them. That shouldn’t be a big problem for you, he said.
