Fatah and the PA are more radical, and their leaders would not hesitate to repeat Zahalka's statement. Note that Zahalka wasn't afraid to invoke genocide, because he knew he was protected by Israel's democracy and freedom of speech. That's the real situation. The Palestinian leadership's goal of wiping out Israel has not changed. Only if it ever does will there be any chance of a two-state solution.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the equation, The Washington Post printed no less than four op-eds in one week on why the United States should support the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
Robert Kagan's "American Aid Makes the US Complicit in the Egyptian Army's Acts" gives the realpolitik version. His analysis is ludicrous: was the US thus complicit in the doings of every ally, including Egypt, from 1978 to 2011? Should one dump good allies because of things they do? This debate stretches back to the onset of the Cold War.
Anyway, US support for the army would be popular. Indeed, US policy was "complicit" with the army coup against Mubarak, and also with the Morsi Islamist regime, which it also helped install.
Then we have the liberal human rights/democracy project view from Michele Dunne: "With Morsi's ouster, time for a new US policy toward Egypt." She says this is because a US policy supporting human rights must ensure that... the totalitarian Muslim Brotherhood is part of the government, no doubt encouraging stability.
Reuel Marc Gerecht writes: "In Egypt, the popularity of Islamism shall endure." He gives a supposed conservative version for why we need the Brotherhood in power. But just because the enemy can endure is not a reason to refuse to fight them. On the contrary - it is necessary at minimum to ensure it doesn't become stronger.
Finally we have an editorial. The Post's view? Egypt's military should hear from Obama administration. This demands that the Obama administration also pressure the military. Let's be frank: the Egyptian army did a great service not just to Egypt's people but also to the US government, because it saved its strategic balance in the Middle East.
Only one op-ed in the Post - Jackson Diehl's "Egypt's ‘democrats' abandon democracy" - made a salient point: the moderates themselves stopped supporting the status quo and begged for a coup. They support the government now; they want the Obama administration to back the military regime.
Good grief.
