Egyptian Election Confounds Some

Islamists' Election Victory in Egypt Leaves Western Predictions in Shambles -Tony Blankley

Just a few months ago leading experts were overwhelmingly predicting that all those great secular, liberal, college-educated kids with their iPhones in Tahrir Square represented the new Egypt and would bring all their wonderful values to the revolution. It was primarily those who have been writing about radical Islamic politics (and, of course, the Israelis, who can't afford to get it wrong on Muslim political habits) who warned that this was all going to end in the rise in Egypt of radical Islamist, anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, anti-American, anti-Western governance.

In the first round of elections, the grand total for all the parties that are considered part of the liberal-secular bloc - the makers of the glorious Arab Spring democracy - was 13%.
(Washington Times)
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Egypt's Sham Election -Daniel Pipes & Cynthia Farahat

What about Western policy?

[I]nstantly cease all economic aid to Cairo. It is unacceptable that Western taxpayers pay, even indirectly, for Islamizing Egypt. Resume funding only when the government allows secular Muslims, liberals, and Copts, among others, freely to express and organize themselves.

[O]ppose both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis. Less extreme or more, Islamists of every description are our worst enemies.
[National Review Online]
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Israel on the Islamist Surge in Egypt: Told You So -Karl Vick

Inspiring as much of the world found events in Tunisia, Tahrir Square and elsewhere, Israelis harbored deep wariness from the start. Some flat-out said Arabs can't govern themselves. Others broke down the elements of Western democracies -- universal education, civil society, rule of law -- and concluded that elections are not the only thing that matter.

"Who says that protests against dictatorship necessarily lead to democracy?" asked Gabriel Ben-Dor, a political scientist at Haifa University, at a recent conference at Bar-Ilan University. "Democracy is not what emerged from the revolution against the Tsars of Russia 100 years ago, nor has democracy emerged in many CIS states that threw off the Communist yoke. Thus there is no rational, logical or historical basis for assuming that democracy will result from the revolutions underway today in the Arab world."
[Time Magazine]
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Egypt: We've Heard What the Majority Thinks -Barry Rubin

Let's figure out what the voting in Egypt means. Basically, nationalism has collapsed completely. Liberalism is weak. Moderate Muslims are few. Radical Islamism is the only game in town. Many Western journalists insist that the Egyptian people don't want an Islamist state. Of course they do! We are seeing the democratic election of a dictatorship.

By the time the election is finished, there should be an easy two-thirds majority for an Islamist constitution.
(PJ Media)
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