One thing you pick up in Yeshiva in the first question one asks when a major (or minor) event happens, “Is it good for the Jews?”.
It’s not egotistical or self-centered. It’s just a historical fact that events, whether we Jews were involved or not, will ultimately start having ramifications for Jews.
The answer isn’t always clear either. Sometimes it might look good for the Jews, but not be, and sometimes it might look bad, but actually turn out good.
Egypt is an interesting case study. Morsi wasn’t exactly good for the Jews.
An unstable and collapsing Egypt is dangerous for Israel, as is a more radically Islamic Egypt. So Morsi was bad for the Jews.
Except, as a result of his and the Muslim Brotherhood’s takeover and mess, the Gaza Islamists and the Egyptian Islamists aren’t the best of friends anymore. And that’s likely to stay that way for a while. And that’s good for the Jews.
And now, once again we’re seeing the possibility of the more secular and more democratically inclined Egyptians trying to take over Egypt, as well as an Egyptian distaste for radical Islam, and that would also appear to be good for the Jews.
It would mean a stable Egypt, hopefully a less extreme Egypt, and perhaps even a democratic Egypt. Except that last part’s unlikely.
The reality is that somewhere between 30% to 50% of Egyptians are illiterate and uneducated.
Given the opportunity they will probably vote for the Muslim Brotherhood again. (It will be interesting to see if I’m proven right or wrong on this theory).
It’s in the cities, where Egyptians are more educated and more secularized, where they understand and want a less religiously fanatic leadership.
Only problem is, they aren’t the majority, so the only likely way they’ll get what they want is if they find a non-democratic method of getting a non-Muslim Brotherhood leadership installed.
Good for the Jews? Don’t know.
But there are other after-effects from this latest Egyptian revolution.
In Tunisia, they are now also trying to reignite their revolution, and empower moderate leadership.
Perhaps this could even affect the final results of the Syrian civil war, and teach them to also reject Islamic leadership.
Regardless, it’s good to see the Egyptians are rejecting their radical Islamic elements, and all we can hope is that this will be good for the Jews.
Of course, as one Rebbe of mine once said, as long as they’re busy fighting each other, they’ll be too busy to attack us.
And that unfortunate reality is good for the Jews.
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