Egypt Beyond Mubarak
Brad Macdonald
Fourteen years.
That’s how long Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has been warning about a radical change in Egypt’s moderate, Western-friendly government. “The radical Islamic movement, led by Iran, is very strong in Egypt,” Mr. Flurry wrote in December 1994. “This religion will probably take control … very soon.”
In 2001, Mr. Flurry wrote, “Islamic extremism is gaining power at a frightening pace in Egypt …. Daniel 11:42 indicates Egypt will be allied with [Iran]. … I believe this prophecy indicates we are to see a radical change in Egyptian politics!” (emphasis mine throughout).
Several factors emerged in recent years that have drastically increased the likelihood of this “radical change in Egyptian politics”: Mubarak’s ailing health, the rising popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood, the desire among some inside Egypt for a closer relationship with Tehran, Iranian interference, economic instability and social unrest.
Then Gaza erupted.
Now the whole world realizes just how precarious is Hosni Mubarak’s control over Egypt. Fourteen years on, even the evening news shows that a radical change in Egyptian politics is inevitable—perhaps imminent.
Mubarak is trapped in an untenable, unenviable, unwinnable position. On one side is Israel, with whom Egypt has a signed peace treaty; America, from whom Egypt receives billions of dollars in aid; and Mubarak’s own fears that supporting Hamas will embolden the Muslim Brotherhood (the radical Egyptian Islamist party that has close ties to Hamas) and loosen his increasingly slippery grip on Egypt. On the other side are millions of Arab Egyptians, much of the Muslim world, and regional radical Islamic national governments and groups, all of which heartily embrace the efforts of their Hamas brothers and are irate at Mubarak’s refusal to staunchly condemn Israel and lend Hamas a hand.
“Rarely has an Arab leader been so widely perceived as backing Israel and the United States against the Palestinians,” the Washington Post reported Friday. Mubarak’s fortitude is quite impressive. Early last week he told a group of European foreign ministers that Hamas “must not be allowed to emerge from the fighting with the upper hand.” And despite intense criticism at home and from regional powers, he has refused to condemn Israel, banish its ambassador from Egypt, pull Egypt’s ambassador from Israel or allow free passage of goods and people in and out of Gaza via Egypt.
But that resistance has come at tremendous personal cost.
Writing from Egypt, New York Times reporter Michael Slackman observed last week that the “mood on the streets of Cairo feels somber, dark, dejected.” Cognizant of the disgruntled state of the populace, Mubarak has increased security measures across the nation and has arrested dozens of Muslim Brotherhood members over the past two weeks. Slackman continued,
Over three days of interviews here, people seemed deflated about the public criticism their country had received, let down by the failure of their own government to help the Palestinians and sickened by the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians, not only combatants but many women and children as well. Over and over, Egyptians said they felt the only ones they could trust were the Islamists—not their government.
Former Egyptian ambassador to the United States Abdel Raouf el-Reedy agrees: “The pressure is mounting on Egypt,” he said recently. “The system is on the defensive. Public opinion is more clearly on the side of Hamas.”
The schism between the public and the government is a gift to the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s primary opposition party and the mother of Sunni terrorist groups in the Middle East. “Since the crisis began,” the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, “the Muslim Brotherhood has capitalized on Mr. Mubarak’s stance, publicly challenging the government’s position on Gaza.” Across Egypt, MB representatives are furiously stoking resentment against Mubarak over Gaza. The Brotherhood’s popularity is soaring, thanks to this and the MB’s ongoing grassroots campaign of winning the loyalties and filling the bellies of Egypt’s millions of poor, unemployed and disaffected through charity and humanitarian programs.
Outwardly, most Egyptians submit to Mubarak’s harsh rod. But in their hearts, it’s the beliefs and promises of the Muslim Brotherhood they support and admire!
Muslim rage at Mubarak resonates far beyond the gentle shores of the Nile. This clip from a recent anti-Israel, pro-Hamas demonstration in London is a scary glimpse into the white-hot hatred seething among millions of Muslims around the world. Notice, the blood libel isn’t merely aimed at the Jewish state, it’s also aimed at “moderate” Muslim leaders, including Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, the Saudi royal house, and—you guessed it—Hosni Mubarak.
Enraged Muslims around the planet are screaming for Mubarak’s head on a platter!
In Lebanon, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah recently urged Egyptians to rise up against Mubarak. “Can the Egyptian police kill millions of Egyptians?” he asked on satellite television December 28. “Of course not. You, the Egyptian people, go, and open the border. I am calling for a revolution in Egypt.” His is merely one voice in a deafening chorus making this point.
Then there’s Iran, which is beside itself with giddiness over what’s happening in Gaza, particularly the unifying effect it’s having on Muslims worldwide, and the pressure being put on moderate Arab governments such as Mubarak’s. Hamas’s war with Israel is a “gift from heaven” for the mullahs, says Menashe Amir, chief editor of the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s website in Persian. “It’s exactly what they have been trying to do in the region for the past 30 years. The more struggles, tension, bloodshed, war there is, the more it serves their interest in inflaming passions in the region ….”
The Egypt angle of the war in Gaza—especially the opportunity it affords Tehran in Egypt—warrants close scrutiny. As Reuel Marc Gerecht observed in the Wall Street Journal last week,
Through Hamas, Tehran can possibly reach the ultimate prize, the Egyptian faithful. … As long as Hamas remains the center of the Palestinian imagination … Egypt’s politics remain fluid and potentially volatile. Tehran is certainly under no illusions about the strength of Egypt’s military dictatorship, but the uncertainties in Egypt are greater now than they have been since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981.
President Hosni Mubarak, Sadat’s successor, is old and in questionable health. His jet-setting son or a general may succeed him. Neither choice will resuscitate the regime’s legitimacy, which has plummeted even among the highly Westernized elite. The popularity and mosque-power of the Muslim Brotherhood, which would likely win a free election, continues to rise. A turbulent Gaza where devout Muslims are in a protracted, televised fight with the cursed Jews, could add sufficient heat to make Egyptian politics really interesting.
For Israel, the transformation likely underway in Egyptian politics is beyond “really interesting.” Notice what Dr. George Friedman from Stratfor wrote one week after Hamas overran the Gaza Strip in June 2007: “The only thing that could threaten the survival of Israel, apart from a nuclear barrage, would be a shift in position of neighboring states. … The single most important neighbor Israel has is Egypt” (June 19, 2007). As far back as the time of King David, the national security of the Jewish state, as we have explained before, has largely depended on the entity that controls and dominates the southern Levant and the eastern Mediterranean!
A new radical Islamist government in Egypt, which the Trumpet has forecast for 14 years would come to power, is almost here. Now the question becomes, what does the Bible say will happen next in Egypt, Israel and the Middle East?
In the short term, the replacement of Mubarak’s relatively moderate, pro-Israel government with an anti-Israel, anti-Western, Iran-friendly regime in Egypt will be a national security nightmare for the Jewish state.
Surrounded by an arc of radical Islamic hatred, the Bible shows that Israel will turn to Europe for help. When Egypt aligns itself with Iran, we should expect to see the Jewish state look desperately to Europe—especially Germany—for security guarantees. Also, the emergence of a more radical Islamic regime in Cairo (in conjunction with America’s diminished presence) will embolden Iran and its radical Islamic proxies throughout the region, likely revolutionizing the balance-of-power equation in the Middle East, leading to a more radicalized, more volatile, more dangerous region.
But where exactly will these trends lead?
The answer is found in the same scriptures used by Mr. Flurry 14 years ago to forecast the now imminent “radical change in Egyptian politics.” You can read it in Daniel 11:40-43. This prophecy is about the clash of two great world powers: the king of the south (radical Islam led by Iran), and the king of the north (a Catholic-inspired, German-led united states of Europe). Verse 42 underpins our long-standing forecast that Mubarak will be replaced by a radical Islamic regime that forms an alliance with Iran: “He [the king of the north] shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.” The reason Egypt is conquered by the king of the north, explains Mr. Flurry in The King of the South, is that it is allied with Iran and radical Islam.
Now read verse 40: “And at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him: and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.”
The time sequence of this prophecy informs us that before the violent Daniel 11:40 clash can occur, a radical Islamic government must be established in Egypt, and an alliance be formed between Cairo and Tehran!
Watch the Gaza war closely! This crisis could easily precipitate the downfall of Hosni Mubarak, the emergence of a radical Islamic regime in Egypt, and the beginning of the terrifying Egypt-Iran alliance that God said would precede the eruption of war across the Middle East!