At Least Israel Thinks the U.S. Is Standing With the People of Egypt

• 

  
   Israel has pundits, like every uncivilized civilized country on Earth. And they no longer care for this Obama fellow. "A Bullet in the Back from Uncle Sam," writes one, Aviad Pohoryles, who sounds alternatively very Jewish and like he's a friend of Harry Potter. Yes, it turns out the United States is supposed to support Mubarak at all costs, even though he is a corrupt dictator who is currently being toppled. Why? Can you guess? "I don't say everything that he did was right, but he did one thing which all of us are thankful to him for: he kept the peace in the Middle East," says Benjamin Netanyahu. Oh: Israel. Mubarak was nice to Israel.Does anyone in world government understand democracies are much more peaceful in general because they have to take time to take care of their own citizens and answer to them? And that it's probably better to get on a new democracy's good side by supporting them in public rather than the dictator who lorded over them for decades? No. Everyone likes to make it hard on themselves. There's much more "peace-building" work to get when there's no peace. [ Reuters ]

• Without saying they're actually supporting them, the Obama administration does at least seem ready to concede Mubarak will fall and is preparing for it. "The Obama administration said for the first time that it supports a role for groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned Islamist organization, in a reformed Egyptian government." As if the United States has any say over how Egypt is or should be run, of course. [ LA Times ]

• But there is some hope for Israel: According to the state-run Egyptian media, nothing at all is happening in the country right now! In fact, they seem to be taking a much-needed vacation, just pointing a camera at an empty street and calling that a television broadcast. "Does anyone even live in this country? Probably not. That is how little is going on here," they seem to say. [ New York Times ]