The Hill News

The hysterical reaction here in Israel to the dramatic events unfolding in Egypt is predictably based on this country’s obsession with Iran, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning all over the place that Egypt risks an Islamic takeover if President Mubarak goes.

Today’s Israeli newspapers are full of similar warnings about the Muslim Brotherhood, which remains the only organized opposition party in Egypt. But I would offer a different model: Don’t think Iran, think Turkey. In Ankara there is a stable, democratically elected pro-Islamic government with aspirations to join the European Union and where the army still sees itself as the guarantor of the secular state. Indeed, Turkey and Israel had friendly relations until the Israeli raid on the Turkish flotilla that tried to break the Gaza blockade last spring.

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