Gripped by the Egyptian uprising from the very beginning, as I followed events hour-by-hour my thoughts turned to Naguib Mahfouz’s masterpiece, The Cairo Trilogy. Although my memory of the details of the first volume, Palace Walk, is very patchy, I knew that the 1919 demonstrations against the British were central to the book and rather hazily felt that there was perhaps a parallel of some kind with the current developments.

At the end of Palace Walk the central character, Al-Sayyid Ahmad, is in his store when three young men bring him the news that his son Fahmy had been killed in the demonstration that day. Mortified by the news, he says ‘I thought the time for killing had passed.’

The youth answered angrily, ‘The demonstration today was peaceful. The authorities had given permission for it. Top men from all walks of life participated in it. At first it proceeded safely, until the middle section reached Ezbekiya Garden. Before we knew what was happening, bullets fell upon us from behind the wall, for no reason at all. No one had confronted the soldiers in any manner. We had even forbidden any chants in English to avoid provoking them. The soldiers were suddenly stricken by an insane impulse to kill. They got their rifles and opened fire. Everyone has agreed to send a strong protest to the British Residency. It’s even been said that Allenby will announce his regrets for what the soldiers did.

Many things come together to intensify the terrible sadness of this moment, not least Al-Sayyid Ahmad’s feelings of guilt at the way he had treated his son. That very day ‘Fahmy had appealed for his affection and he had reprimanded him’. Al-Sayyid Ahmad also had no idea that Fahmy had been one of the principal leaders of the demonstrations.

Today I came across the Informed Comment blog of Juan Cole, Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan, an expert on the Middle East.  This is what he has to say about 1919 and now:

So the parallel is to 1919. After World War I, Egyptians began demanding independence from Britain, which had occupied the country in 1882. Nationalist leader and politician Saad Zaghlul and others wanted to lead a delegation (Wafd) to the Versailles peace conference to ensure that Egyptian aspirations for self-determination were heard. The arrogant British jailed Zaghlul early in 1919, and thereby provoked huge multi-class and cross-sectarian demonstrations throughout the country. Copts were as nationalistic as Muslims and as eager to see the backs of the British, and they are clearly visible in photographs of the day, carrying banners with crosses on them. Egyptian women also played a visible role in the protests.

1919 Demonstration of Copts, Muslims Against British

1919 was a foundational moment for the Egyptian nation. The subsequent history of Christian-Muslim relations has had its ups and downs. But at Tahrir Square, Sunday, February 6, 2011 was another such 1919 moment of unity.

As a result, Britain granted Egypt independence in 1922 and a new constitution in 1923. But British forces remained in Egypt and Britain continued to be highly influential in Egypt up to the time of the Suez Crisis in 1956.

It’s understandable and predictable that many Jews would be looking at the events in Egypt with the implications for their own concerns in mind. I have already written about the dangers of this kind of narrow-mindedness, especially if it entirely ignores the aspirations and fate of the people of Egypt and the future of other repressive Arab regimes. But as long as concerns about Israel’s future, the impact on the Israel-Palestine conflict, Jewish-Muslim and Jewish-Arab relations in Europe, America and other places where there are Jewish communities are set in the wider context of support for the advancement of democratic values and human rights and the interests of the people in the region, I see no reason why Jews should not be seeking to explore such concerns.

In so far as they might be looking at Jewish sources and Jewish and non-Jewish commentators likely to be read by Jewish audiences  for guidance, what are they finding?

Not unsurprisingly, the cautious tone of many is largely driven by fear of power eventually ending up in the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is seen as likely to tear up the Egypt-Israel peace treaty. Lorna Fitzsimmons, head of the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM), wrote in Jewish News on 3 Feb 2011:

In Israel, the hope for increased civil liberties is therefore viewed with caution, as one of its key regional allies undergoes a period of political turmoil. . . . In the Middle East vacuums are perilous and, at present, it is uncler how the vacuum will be filled. The most organised opposition group, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, is strongly anti-Israel, but does not have a clear revolutionary programme for assuming power. Other opposition groups are fragmented and unorganized . . . As Hamas’s violent takeover of Gaza proved, respect for civil liberties is essential for tyranny to be avoided.

If opposition groups were so ‘unorganized’, would they have got this far? And it doesn’t make sense to refer to Hamas, but to ignore so glibly the responsibility of Israel for Hamas’s rise to power.

While Fitzsimmons makes some attempt to stand back from creating a bogeyman out of the Brotherhood, the Jewish News leader has no such qualms:

It is tempting to get swept up in the high emotion of the people’s revolution currently taking place on the streets of Cairo and beyond. The sight of an oppressed nation demanding its freedom is intoxicating. But, despite Egypt’s hunger for democracy, what comes after Mubarak could be far worse. . . . Israel’s enemies clearly have high hopes for life after Mubarak.

A column by Charlie Wolf in the paper makes much of the parallel with the 1979 Iranian revolution and President Jimmy Carter’s failure to do anything about the seizure of power by the Islamic radicals and warns that the same could happen in Egypt:

Don’t fall into the trap laid by the press about the Brothers. [They] are the progenitors of Hamas. They will bide their time for the chance to send Egypt to the dark ages and strike at Israel. . . . Freedom takes time and effort.

Groundless certainty and a patronising tone only feed paranoia.

One might have expected more extensive coverage and analysis in the Jewish Chronicle but, apart from a good piece by Lawrence Joffe, with some very useful background history, and good reportage by Anshel Pfeffer, who writes also for Haaretz, there was very little. Joffe is sanguine and sensible about the Brotherhood, showing that their position is far more complex than other commentators make out:

the mainstream Brothers have allied with Egyptian political parties. Having become a vehicle of dissent, it will be intriguing to see how they react in the new age of openness.

Might they seem like another atrophied old guard institution? Few have focused on their divisions between ageing seers and a younger breakaway group, Wasat (Centre).

Quoting Nachman of Bratzlav: ‘The world is a narrow bridge; the point is, don’t be scared’, Jofffe writes:

Nothing Israel does can change the will of the Egyptian people. Surely this is the first law of democracy, and as an established democracy, Israel should respect the 80 million Egyptians trying to find their own way across that narrow bridge.

For full-blooded scaremongering, go no further than Melanie Phillips on her Spectator blog. Egypt is a ‘fulcrum of Nazi-style Jew-hatred which it exports to the Arab and Muslim world.’ And the Muslim Brotherhood are poised to turn the country into an Islamic republic sooner or later if democracy runs free. Phillips pours venom on the Obama administration, arguing that it is now ready to accept a government that would include the Brotherhood:

The Obamites are in effect offering up America’s throat to be cut – cheered on, of course, by the western left, who are representing the Brotherhood as the poster-boys of Middle East democracy.

Bereft of any evidence-based arguments, Phillips, as she does so often, resorts to Nazi analogies: ‘The Brotherhood is at war with America – and is furthermore, through Hamas, in something resembling a kind of Molotov/Ribbentrop-style alliance with Iran (even though they also hate Iran)’. For those who need their fix of Phillips to feed their paranoia, they will be well-pleased with her fulminations on the Egyptian uprising.

Many people will have turned to Jonathan Freedland for a balanced but liberal view of events. In his Guardian column on 1 February he expresses sympathy with Israel’s concerns but he asks, rhetorically, how ‘[big] a prize would be an Israeli peace with the Egyptian people, one underpinned by their genuine consent? That, and that alone, would be a treaty to last.’ And he concludes:

For now, as Israelis watch their neighbour, fear is outstripping hope. But another reaction is possible. It would acknowledge that peace with Arab rulers alone could never last, that one day Israel will have to make peace with the peoples it lives among. That day may not be coming soon – but that truth just got a whole lot harder to avoid.

But Freedland seems to go too far in giving credence to Israel’s fears and doesn’t appear to realise that it simply may not be up to Israel to decide what’s next at all.

For those who buy into the Jewish Chronicle‘s latest theory that the Guardian wants to do nothing else but promote Hamas, the publication of Benny Morris’s piece on the paper’s Comment is Free website would have come as a surprise. Morris puts the Brotherhood centre-stage and argues that it is deliberately adopting a low profile so as not to frighten the Western horses. ‘This is not a movement for which democracy has any appeal, worth or value. Its leaders see democratic processes merely as means to an end, an end that includes an end to democracy.’ And once it has taken over the state, one of its first acts is likely to be the annulment of the 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

But it seems that Morris is not so sure after all. He speculates that the Brotherhood might follow the path of Turkey’s Islamists, following democratic norms and being neutral between Iran and the West. ‘But it is more likely, given Egypt’s position and history, and its own history, that the Brotherhood will follow the model of Iran and the Gaza Hamas’–i.e., use extreme violence to maintain power. How they would attain power Morris never explains.

In a far better informed piece, Daniella Peled, writing in Haaretz on 4 February, makes no attempt to minimise the challenge represented by the Muslim Brotherhood, but inists that:

change is happening, defying all kinds of standard tropes about the Arab world − not least the idea that Arabs only understand a strong hand, and that the only alternative to dictatorship is an Islamic fundamentalist regime.

Being better organized than any other opposition group, they are likely to do relatively well in any elections, but the outcome is hard to predict. And if they are part of a new government that maintains the peace treaty, Israel will have to do business with them. Highlighting the retrogressive thinking that prevails in political circles in Israel and among Jewish leadership elsewhere, Peled writes bluntly:

Surely the finest minds in Jerusalem could have come up with something better than Netanyahu’s hint this week that he wants to impose the same kind of ideological conditions on a new Egyptian government that he did on Hamas. If he thinks that his international allies will go along with this, as they did with Hamas, he is deluding himself.

Rachel Shabi’s Guardian article on 4 Feb 2011 also drew attention to dangerously unbalanced thinking in Israel. She writes:

Israel’s reaction has been of rising panic, as typified by Jerusalem Post editor David Horovitz. He today warned that Israel’s ‘concrete strategic assumptions were liquefied almost overnight’, representing a ‘colossal psychological blow’ and a reminder that Israel is ‘territorially and demographically dwarfed by the seething entities arrayed around us’.

Israel’s apparent inability to see beyond next week is straining relations with some who have been strong supporters of the country’s robust security policy and tough stance towards the Palestinians. In a piece for the Atlantic on 2 February, Jeffrey Goldberg describes how some neoconservatives have ‘split’ with Israel over Egypt. They ‘made democracy promotion in the Middle East an overarching goal, [and] are [now] scratching their heads at what they see as Israeli shortsightedness.’ Goldberg quotes neocon Elliott Abrams, a former Bush administration official, now with the Council on Foreign Relations:

The Israelis first of all do not believe in the universality of democracy.  They believe what many American ‘experts’ did in, say, 1950–democracy was fine for us and Western Europe, but not for Latins (too much Catholic culture) and Asians (too much Confucianism).  They believe Arab culture does not permit democracy.

They see a danger in Mubarak’s fall, and they are right: we do not know who will take over now or in a year or two from now.  But this is at bottom a crazy reaction.  What they are afraid of is the Muslim Brotherhood, right?  Mubarak has ruled for THIRTY YEARS and leaves us a Brotherhood that is that powerful?  Isn’t that all the proof we need that dictatorship is not the way to fight the Brotherhood?  He crushed the moderate and centrist groups and left the Brothers with an open field.  He is to blame for the Brothers’ popularity and strength right now.  The sooner he goes the better.

A Middle East expert I suspect few Jewish readers will be aware of endorses Abrams view. Asked whether the Muslim Brotherhood is likely to win fair elections in Egypt, Gilbert Achcar, who grew up in Lebanon and is professor of development studies and international relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London (and author most recently of The Arabs and the Holocaust: the Arab-Israeli War of Narratives), replied:

I would say that it is the lack of democracy that led religious fundamentalist forces to occupy such a space. . . . In such conditions, the easiest venue for the expression of mass protest turns out to be the one that uses the most readily and openly available channels. That’s how the opposition got dominated by forces adhering to religious ideologies and programmes.

Although the Brotherhood is officially banned, the regime took steps to appease them, thereby boosting their position in a society where no serious political opposition has been tolerated. But Achcar soberly assesses their objectives:

The Muslim Brotherhood’s goal is to secure a democratic change that would grant them the possibility to take part in free elections, both parliamentary and presidential. The model they aspire to reproduce in Egypt is that of Turkey, where the democratisation process was controlled by the military with the army remaining a key pillar of the political system. This process nonetheless created a space which allowed the AKP, an Islamic conservative party, to win elections. They are not bent on overthrowing the state, hence their courting of the military and their care to avoid any gesture that could antagonize the army. They adhere to a strategy of gradual conquest of power: they are gradualists, not radicals.

In the interview Achcar gives a subtle, multidimensional and insightful review of the opposition forces in Egypt. But the dominant force in the uprising is not an organized political grouping but ‘the amazing surge of democratic aspirations’. He continues:

Neither in Tunisia, nor in Egypt or anywhere else, were popular protests waged for religious programs, or even led principally by religious forces. These are democratic movements, displaying a strong longing for democracy. Polls have been showing for many years that democracy as a value is rated very highly in Middle Eastern countries, contrary to common ‘Orientalist’ prejudices about the cultural ‘incompatibility’ of Muslim countries with democracy. The ongoing events prove one more time that any population deprived of freedom will eventually stand up for democracy, whatever ‘cultural sphere’ it belongs to.

Would that more Jewish readers were accessing such well-informed assessments of the developments in Egypt. My very incomplete survey suggests that while there is some good reportage and sensible analysis, the more shrill, fearful, patronising and narrow-minded views are dominant. Sticking out like a sore thumb is the hypocritical approach which at one moment is praising Israel as the only ‘real’ democracy in the Middle East and at the next is questioning whether Egyptians or Arabs in general will ever know what to do with democratic freedoms if they secure them. I would have expected more well-known right-of-centre Jewish or pro-Israel columnists to pronounce on these matters, but perhaps their silence (temporary, I’m sure) arises out of an awareness of the dilemma in which they find themselves: reconciling their belief in the paramount value of democracy with their negative assessment of Arab societies and a stereotypically negative view of what the ‘Arab mind’, a completely outmoded concept, is capable of.

This piece is cross-posted from Eretz Acheret where it was published today.

The implications of the uprising in Egypt, especially if it ends with the ousting of the Mubarak regime, will be felt far and wide. Israel in particular has much to consider and reconsider. But for Jews everywhere, the fallout from a successful popular revolution, coming after the collapse of the Ben Ali dictatorship in Tunisia and occurring in parallel with the unrest and political changes in Syria and Jordan, could be deeply significant. And it all throws up vital questions about relations between Israeli Jews and Jews around the world.

This may sound odd to Israelis who will understandably see themselves as at the eye of the storm and will find it hard to imagine that Mubarak’s fall has any significance to the day-to-day life of a Jew living comfortably in North London. Certainly, the fear that whoever comes to power after a democratic election might wish to tear up the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, especially if it’s the Muslim Brotherhood, should not be lightly dismissed. It has been a cold peace but it has held. And you could almost say that it is the rock upon which Israeli governments have been able to build policies that have led to the entrenchment of the occupation of the West Bank and the split between Hamas and Fatah. The US-Israel-Egypt triangle has proved to be a rigid structure which, despite occasional wars and more limited military incursions, has ensured the perpetuation of an uneasy stability, however deeply dubious the consequences have been for the Palestinians.

I am sure that many Jews here in the UK and in Europe more generally share the anxieties being expressed by Israeli leaders past and present. The cynicism about the uprising and the propensity to see it as just another opportunity for Arabs to express their hatred of Jews, as articulated by some of the more outspoken Jewish bloggers and commentators, is plain for all to see. So you could argue that Egypt’s upheavals have led to a renewed sense of common concern between Israel and the Jewish Diaspora. And some Jewish leaders will find this comforting.

But this is a shallow and short-sighted view of the possible consequences of the mass demand for change in Egypt. More than that, I very much doubt that the cynicism of right-wing, ultra-nationalist bloggers and columnists reflects the thoughts and feelings of most of the Jews of Europe. Democracy may not be perfect, but I would guess that for most European Jews it represents the very bedrock of a good society. Democracy and the freedom to practice and benefit from it were key impulses driving the Western allies in the Second World War. They were the same impulses that drove the revolutions in Eastern Europe and the USSR in 1989, which led to the release from cultural oppression of more than 2 million Jews. Young and old alike, Jews will, in common with the rest of the population, be looking at the rainbow of protestors in Tahrir Square and their hearts will go out to the Egyptians as they yearn for the dignity, human rights and freedom that are taken for granted in this country, for all its faults.

And whether Jews realise this or not, it makes good sense and shows vision and foresight to take a favourable view of the current popular ferment in the Arab world. Because what is happening has the potential to bring about a decisive and positive change in relations between Jews and Arabs, Jews and Muslims. For Arab populations to suddenly find that they can bring down seemingly unmoveable dictators, after decades of living with their own cynicism and hopelessness, the result must be a restoration of self-esteem and self-respect. The regimes under which so many of them live have crushed those fundamental human attributes; for all their high-flown rhetoric about the ummah, the nation, Arab rulers have treated the people with contempt and disdain. To hold your destiny in your hands and not to feel that it’s in the hands of a brutal regime or a neo-imperialist West is likely to lead to an undermining of one of the key factors feeding enmity towards Jews in the Arab and Muslim worlds. And this will undoubtedly have an impact on Arab and Muslim communities, opening up the possibility of a reduction in tensions between them and Jewish communities.

I wish I was wrong, but I don’t see much appreciation of this opportunity on the part of Israeli commentators, many of whom would rather see US-backed Arab strongmen remain in power. And so rather than providing a new sense of common worry and even fear, the upheavals in the Middle East seem set to aggravate differences between Israeli and Diaspora Jews. While there is nothing positive in the former, at least in the latter, some part of the Jewish people is showing itself ready to embrace the new reality, albeit aware that it is not without its dangers and uncertainties. It’s true that there is hostility to Israel among the activists and that diplomatic relations between a new authority in Egypt and Israel may change. But to assume that change means abrogating a peace treaty and preparing for war is to ignore the tone, tenor and spirit of virtually everything we have seen and read about the uprising so far.

What is most dispiriting about this situation is the woeful lack of intelligent thinking among some prominent Israeli and Jewish leaders and opinion-formers. They don’t seem to see that when others express a heartfelt yearning to be able to live by the same values as they profess to adhere to, this offers hope for true peace. It’s only when there are grounds for sharing a common future, when people not only aspire to live by common values but have the opportunity to do so, that lasting reconciliation becomes possible. This is why the real common interest of Israeli and Diaspora Jews is to reach out and extend the hand of encouragement, respect and hope to the broad mass of people in the Arab world who are struggling for change. If Israel and its die-hard Diaspora supporters continue to judge such developments on the grounds of narrow self-interest; if they have the arrogance to think that somehow Israel is powerful enough to play a decisive part in propping up neighbouring authoritarian regimes, so as to preserve its position as an exceptional little island, forever separated from the peoples in the region—I believe the future for Jews everywhere will be bleak.

After days of confused and mixed messages, the Obama administration finally seems to be making it clear that it wants Mubarak to go now. Officials still refuse to say this bluntly in public, but it’s being reported that this is what Mubarak and his close associates are being told behind the scenes. Nevertheless, the brutal attempts to intimidate and frighten off the anti-government activists, clearly orchestrated by the regime, indicates that Mubarak has no intention of immediately agreeing to the US’s demands. The White House’s special envoy, US ambassador Frank Wisner, who had been sent to ‘nudge Mubarak to the exits’, returned home last night without success. As dawn breaks on 3 February and clashes between pro- and anti-Mubarak supporters continue – though it seems that the pro-democracy activists have secured control of Tahrir Square and only a few hundred Mubarak supporters remain in the immediate vicinity – it’s unclear how events will unfold.

Sitting here in London, safe and sound, with access to whatever news is coming out of Egypt, I have doubts that the relentless concentration by many media outlets on the events in Tahrir Square is giving us the real picture.

First, we have no clear idea exactly what is going on behind the scenes, either between the regime and the Obama administration or within the regime itself.

Second, unless you search it out, there is little exposure of what is going on elsewhere in Egypt (except in Alexandria): in the side streets and suburbs of the cities, the towns, the villages.

Third, one imagines that the activists are furiously trying to regain the initiative and are organizing behind the scenes to mobilise support in huge numbers, but there must be great fear that the intimidation and violence of yesterday will deter many people from gathering in the centre of the city again, especially the women, children and whole families who came out to demonstrate in the peaceful and carnival-like atmosphere on Tuesday.

Fourth, although the main media outlets have carried some detailed reports that give a good sense of what’s happening on the ground at particular moments and that feature interviews with Egyptians of different views, they still seem to fall back on simplistic lines of questioning about the ‘threat’ of the Muslim Brotherhood, the danger to the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, the possible ‘domino’ effect in the region. It’s not that these issues are of no account, but they reflect Western concerns rather than the concerns of the Egyptians who are behind the uprising: democracy, freedom, social justice, economic reform, jobs, corruption, ‘the excesses of the state, lack of good governance, rule of law and accountability’.

With the stance of the Obama administration hardening, it looks increasingly difficult to see how Mubarak can cling on to power. And yet there are those who think that if not Mubarak, then at least the system he imposed will survive. The Guardian quotes from a particularly pessimistic article in Foreign Policy by Robert Springborg, ‘Game over: the chance for democracy in Egypt is lost’: ‘The historic opportunity to have a democratic Egypt led by those with whom the U.S., Europe, and even Israel could do business will have been lost, maybe forever. Uncle Sam will have to eat yet more humble pie, served up by the dictator who has just been insulting him.’

Springborg is particularly harsh on the Obama administration, and even though there’s no guarantee that the scenario he predicts – ‘It will be back to business as usual with a repressive, U.S.-backed military regime, only now the opposition will be much more radical and probably yet more Islamist’ – will come about, questions do indeed have to be asked as to whether the US, and Europe too, might have made a mistake of historic proportions in not coming out much sooner and more strongly, and in public, in support of the pro-democracy activists.

The responses of the Obama administration and the European Union to the uprising in Egypt have looked distinctly flaky at times. Caught between the Scylla of fear of an Islamist takeover and the Charybdis of appearing to prop up a brutal regime, at first the administration seemed incapable of conveying a clear message about what it wanted the Mubarak regime to do.  And in its desperation not to appear to be dictating events, it fell into the trap of calling for restraint on both sides, thereby drawing an equivalence between an almost completely peaceful anti-Mubarak mass movement and bands of thugs hired by the regime to terrorise the activists.

The Europeans have been just as inept. As Timothy Garton Ash points out:

Politically, Europe’s reaction has so far been embarrassed silence, followed by very cautious encouragement of peaceful change . . . Unlike US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, Catherine Ashton, has been invisible.

If we hadn’t woken up to this fact before, we are now certainly seeing the bankruptcy of putting faith in authoritarian and dictatorial Arab leaders. The West sought influence in the region to secure oil and regional stability through the supply of military hardware and the implied threat of force against states branded as ‘rogue’ or ‘terrorist’. Lip-service only was paid to the need to help encourage the development of Arab civil society, democratic parties, freedom of expression and the rule of law. As this architecture appears to be in a state of collapse, there is no Plan B. There are no significant embryonic liberal-democratic groups in a position to fill the political vacuum. And this makes Obama’s Cairo speech of 4 June 2009, in which he pledged a new beginning between the US and Muslims around the world, look rather hollow: nice sentiments, but lacking any new policy thinking to back it up.

It may still not be too late for the US and Europe to play a potentially historic role in encouraging the pro-democratic forces in the region. But if the US and Europe fail the millions of young people yearning for change in the Middle East, by not using their influence to empower rather than control them, the disaffection that may set in could have catastrophic consequences, not only in the region but inside America and countries in Europe. And as the global centre of gravity shifts to the Far East and the subcontinent in general, and to the BRIC countries in particular, the decline of Western political and economic power will become ever more apparent.

Now that the Mubarak regime appears to have instigated concerted attacks against the pro-democracy activists, everyone with an opinion about whether its rapid fall is essential and to be welcomed, or whether there must be a gradual handover that prevents the Muslim Brotherhood taking advantage of a political vacuum, is being put to the test.

Hugely persuasive sense on this can be found at normblog. In ‘Egypt – what dilemma?’, where he surveys the views of various bloggers and columnists, Norman Geras concludes:

The point is that nobody can foresee for a certainty where this process is heading or where it will end. But one cannot profess democratic and liberal values and shut off in advance their possible strengthening and development on the grounds that the democracy established might deliver the wrong result. The result delivered might indeed be wrong. If a people votes in politicians intent on stealing their newly won rights and liberties, that is a tragedy for them and possibly for others. But it’s a risk inherent in the democratic process and has to be worn – by genuine democrats. No democrat, on the other hand, is bound by their democratic commitment to support, much less admire, the political beneficiaries of a democratic process regardless of their political complexion. If a democracy in Egypt were to put in power a new round of tyrants, repressive theocrats or what have you, then this would have to be faced and they would have to be criticized, opposed, constrained, by all legitimate methods. For now, as between that danger and the democratic possibilities, there ought to be no practical dilemma. The people on Tahrir Square deserve our support.

I would add that now, more than ever, as Mubarak is exposed as having lied to his people (not for the first time), the argument in favour of embracing democracy, even if it brings instability, wins hands down.

It looks almost too good to be true. Good-natured but passionate demonstrators massing in their tens of thousands in Tahrir Square today. The manifest desire for political and economic reform, not bloody revenge. The army pledging itself to protect the rights of the demonstrators. The determination to stay put until the regime is ousted, despite the deprivations people will suffer in the interim. And Omar Sharif interviewed for BBC2’s GMT praising the young protesters for being kind and polite: ‘I am proud of them’.

No one who witnessed the 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe could fail to see some parallels with what is now unfolding. And all those who have characterized Arab societies as only able to achieve change through some form of very violent upheaval or revolution should be scratching their heads and questioning their assumptions.

And yet, as in some of the Eastern European revolutions, there have been violent incidents resulting in many deaths as well as wanton destruction – on television last night, the image of a Cairo shopping centre looted, trashed and burnt was very disturbing, as are reports that in certain areas people have been frightened out of their wits at night at the sound of gangs of looters roaming streets. But it would surely need to be those who want to discredit the popular uprising who would want to see these incidents as characterising the unfolding revolutionary events. It’s not over yet and there may still be some form of violent crackdown, but it is beginning to look as if even an attempt at heavy-handed repression would not halt the momentum that has been building up.

It’s understandable that Israeli spokespeople would take a ‘glass half-full’ approach. The Star of David scrawled on the neck of what I believe was an effigy of Mubarak will certainly not provide any reassurance for the Netanyahu government or for ordinary Israelis following events. But sober assessment would surely suggest that it cannot be in the interests of any of the main opposition forces to want to abrogate the peace treaty with Israel in preparation for a possible war. Renewed hostilities would result in precisely the sort of social, political and economic turmoil that the uprising wishes to avoid. Would it not therefore make sense for Israel to stress the positive at this time, as a means of paving the way for a dialogue between aspiring democracies that could put flesh on the bones of the Arab Peace Initiative and lead to a completely new approach to peace negotiations?

Well, it would seem not. The former Israel Ambassador to Egypt, Zvi Mazel, interviewed by George Alagiah on GMT at 12.30 pm UK time today, refused to express wholehearted support for full-blown democratic change in Egypt. He stressed the need for stability, expressed fears about a new leadership that did not know where it was going and seemed thoroughly grumpy about what it would mean for Israel. To me, this seemed like a very patronising performance. Democracy has to come slowly to Egypt; it’s not like a European state, Mazel said.

As my grandmother might have said, ‘He’s thinking with his kishkes and not his kop‘ (his stomach, not his head). And now I hear that King Abdullah of Jordan has dismissed his cabinet and appointed a new prime minister in the face of large street protests. Is it really feasible that the Israeli government will continue to convey the distinct impression that it wishes to side with unelected leaders and would like nothing more than to restore the status quo ante?

This is quite a moment to be starting a blog in which I plan to comment on, among other things, developments in the Middle East. As I write, tens of thousands of Egyptians are still in Tahrir Square in Cairo demanding that President Hosni Mubarak go. They are insisting on a change of system not just a change of government; they want democracy, the lifting of martial law, freedom of expression and assembly, an end to torture and corruption. Whether they will achieve these aims remains to be seen, but with the army having made it clear today that it will not use force against the people while they are publicly expressing a legitimate desire for democratic reform, it looks increasingly likely that Mubarak will be forced to step down. If the demonstrators can continue to build on the numbers gathering in the square and elsewhere – the call went out for 1 million people to gather on Tuesday – perhaps their wish that Friday will be ‘goodbye day’ will come true.

It must be right for everyone who believes in human rights values to support the Egyptian people at this time. Yes, it’s very uncertain what will follow a successful overthrow of the Mubarak regime, but concerns that it might open the door to the Muslim Brotherhood or some other Islamist political force cannot be an excuse for denying people their basic rights and trying to prop up what is so clearly a discredited and distrusted structure. These concerns may well be exaggerated and are almost certainly being encouraged by the regime, which wants to frighten people into staying with the devil they know. But it seems that the appeal of jihadi or Islamist political power, such as it was, may well have waned in Arab countries – it played no part in the so-called ‘Jasmine Revolution’ in Tunisia – and universal secular values are what the broad mass of those demonstrating care about, first and foremost.

It’s understandable that Western governments are nervous. Many will be worrying about the attitude of any new political force that comes to power to Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel. But it’s tremendously dispiriting to read that Prime Minister Netanyahu has instructed Israeli embassies to convey the message to Western leaders that stability must come first, even if that means propping up Mubarak. This is surely a narrow-minded, short-term view of the situation, typical of the blinkered, counter-productive, self-centred approach that the Israeli government displays when thinking about the security of Israel. They cannot continue to proclaim that they alone in the region stand for the values of democracy and freedom and at the same time deny it to the Egyptian people. It must be in Israel’s long-term interest to demonstrate a much warmer and far more welcoming response to the Egyptian uprising.

Tomorrow is another day and it may bring developments that dampen optimism. But we have to live in hope that the people living under corrupt, dictatorial, oppressive and brutal regimes in the Middle East, regimes that care nothing for human rights, will find the will and the way, with the help and good wishes of millions of supporters around the world, to attain their freedom.