Losing our brothers-in-arms

A feeling of loss laced with panic enveloped the country on Sunday. Egyptian General Hussein Tantawi was removed from his post. Had it been President Hosni Mubarak who sacked his secretary of defense, the main headlines would have dealt with some marginal matter such as the Iranian threat or the cost of housing. Yet when "Muslim Brother" Mohammed Morsi carried out what any Egyptian president has the right to do, fright spread beyond Egypt's borders. Who will we talk with now? Who will fight for us in the Sinai peninsula? With whom will we be able to pursue foreign policy now?

This is the same sense of panic that erupted when it became clear that Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Erdogan was pushing Turkey's army out of politics, and ended up arresting generals and admirals who were formerly close allies with Israel. Israel finds it hard to accept that both Turkey and Egypt have undergone a transition, building a civil society out of a military or semi-military regime.

In both cases, Israel imagined that its policy of allying with the country's military leadership would last forever, since military regimes needed the links with Jerusalem, either to maintain relations with the United States or to fulfill other strategic goals. In Turkey, Israel's situation seemed much more solidly entrenched than it did in Egypt. Even when a religious government took root in Turkey in 1996, and, subsequently, when the Justice and Development Party won a large majority in 2002, Israel could find encouragement (even as it publicly issued concerns about Turkey's turn to Islam ) from the Turkish army's continued hold on a decisive share of power. The Turkish army would serve as a counterweight to political Islam, reasoned Israel in its arrogance.

By contrast, in Egypt there was virtually no need to conduct a dialogue with the army - Mubarak was effectively commander in chief. Peace relations with Egypt were never warm, and vehement criticism of Israel was sounded throughout Egypt; yet for Israel, the security aspects of the peace agreement counted as the cause and effect of relations with Cairo, so nobody in this country really cared what the Egyptian public believed, or how many Egyptian tourists might want to visit Israel. Mubarak and his army were on our side, and that was enough.

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/losing-our-brothers-in-arms.premium-1.458289