On the off-chance that you’re living in a cave with restricted internet access that only lets you read Kveller.com, Mubarak has stepped down as president of Egypt.
Everyone I know back in The States (my family and I recently moved from LA to a kibbutz in Israel where my in laws live) is tossing around the words “freedom” and “liberation” like confetti all over facebook. In fact, it seems like the whole world is celebrating.
But I’m not ready to join the party.
Actually, I’m a little nervous: I’m a few hundred miles away from Cairo. And while being this close to Egypt is cool if you want to check out the pyramids or get stoned on a beach in the Sinai Desert and drink sahlab, the fact remains that Egypt and Israel have not always been BFFs.
And, for all his faults, Mubarak helped keep the peace following the Camp David Accords.
In fact, during the recent fire in the Carmel, Mubarak sent planes to help put out the inferno. That’s pretty neighborly if you ask me.
And while katusha rockets come hurtling down onto Israeli towns in the North from our less-neighborly neighbors in Lebanon and Syria, the border between Israel and Egypt has been (relatively) chill.
In other words, there are no tanks in the Sinai ready to “drive Israel into the sea.”
Yet.
Yeah, I know, I know, Israel is not the center of the world. The revolution isn’t about the Jews or Israel or my family on the kibbutz… And clearly Mubarak screwed up during his tenure because obviously his people were unhappy. Hell, even members of the Egyptian military defected on the job and joined the protesters. (That sound you here are students in Berkeley singing Kumbaya.)
But still.
Sure, right now it looks like Egypt might move in a more liberal direction, but the truth is we do not know who will seize power.
And so, while everyone celebrates, I think I’ll stay home and watch the news instead.
