Mubarak

While attention in Israel and elsewhere is focused on the sudden deterioration in relations with the Obama administration, Iran's seemingly unstoppable push for nuclear weapons, and the possible outbreak of a third intifada, few have commented on the implications of the continued hospitalization in Germany of 81-year-old Hosni Mubarak, president of Egypt.

On March 4, Mubarak placed Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif in charge of Egypt's affairs and entered a Heidelberg hospital to have his gall bladder removed. German doctors said they are satisfied with his recovery. Nevertheless, rumors that Mubarak had died sent share prices temporarily falling on Cairo's stock market. After two long weeks of uncertainty, images of the president in his hospital room were finally broadcast Tuesday on Egyptian state television.

In the fullness of time, Mubarak will leave the scene. In his drive to stifle political reform in Egypt, he has ended by strengthening the semi-tolerated Muslim Brotherhood as the most potent and cohesive opposition force. The smart money is on Mubarak's son Gamal succeeding his father as Egypt's next president.

Enter Mohammad ElBaradei. An Egyptian expatriate, formerly the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, ElBaradei has been testing the political waters for a presidential run in 2011.  Remarkably, he has been able to unite behind him most of Mubarak's opponents, from the Muslim Brotherhood to liberal reformist Ayman Nour.

Meanwhile, with the president incapacitated abroad, Egyptian authorities are on edge.  Citing "conditions in occupied Palestine," they have canceled a ceremony set for March 21 to inaugurate the government-restored Ben Maimon Synagogue in Cairo; nor, contrary to expectations, will the synagogue be transferred to the nominal jurisdiction of the remnant Jewish community. Anti-Israel demonstrations were held Tuesday on a number of Egyptian campuses.

What if, against all odds, ElBaradei were to take the helm and set Egypt on a path toward representative democracy? Would relations with Israel improve? Unlikely: ElBaradei himself has called Israel the "number-one threat to the Middle East," and demonization of Zionism and Jews has become, by now, a deeply ingrained feature of Egyptian life. No wonder the prospect of Hosni Mubarak's demise has raised concerns in Jerusalem about, among other things, the durability of the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty.

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