The Middle
East and Eastern Mediterranean is indeed
heating up. Last night Egyptian demonstrators succeeded to demolish part of the
wall that had recently been erected around the Israeli Embassy in Cairo, which had become a
negative symbol for the Muslim mob.
According
to Greece’s
defencenet.gr news site, protestors burned the Israeli flag and threw cabinets
and documents from the windows. For some strange reason, Egyptian police who
had halted the demonstrators earlier in the afternoon, were absent while the
rioting was going on.
Saturday morning hundreds of
policemen and tanks remained outside the
building, while the Ministry of Health said that clashes between police and
protesters resulted in 235 people being injured, while a further 450 protesters were
injured in the area near the Interior Ministry. A report from Skynews said that at least three people were killed and more than 1,000 hurt during clashes with security forces.
The
ambassador of Israel in Egypt, Yitzhak Lebanah, (phonetic spelling) left
Cairo immediately
after the incidents.
Earlier, the state media
said that Israeli aircraft arrived at Cairo’s
airport to receive the ambassador, his family and diplomatic personnel and fly them back to Israel for
safety. They also noted that the Israeli Consul and that Deputy Ambassador
Lebanah would remain in Egypt
in order to continue operating the embassy.
Parallel to
all of this, dozens of Israeli citizens in Cairo also began fleeing the country.
The
Egyptian Ministry of the Interior issued a state warning and called on all
police officials to postpone their time off and be on alert. Egyptian prime minister, Isam Saraf
called for a crisis
team to be convened.
Israel requested US assistance to protect the Embassy.
Specifically, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak held a telephone conversation
with his US counterpart Leon
Paneta as well as with Special US Envoy of Barack Obama in the Middle East, Dennis Ross, and asked them for assistance to safeguard the Embassy from any
protests.
A report
from the White House said that US
President Barack Obama expressed deep concern over the developments in Cairo when he held a conversation
with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and he called on Egyptian
authorities to protect the diplomatic delegation.
And all
this happened just several days before a scheduled visit by Turkish President
R. T. Erdogan to Cyprus,
which is expected to trigger even more Israeli protests, and also ten days before the
start of drilling in Cyprus’
EEZ.
Coincidence?
It is perhaps the first time that an Israeli embassy was attacked and the
Israelis did not react in defense of their building, as in similar cases in the
past.
Another
thing that cannot be ignored is the fact that a few hours before all the
incidents happened the US government
gave assurances to all concerned that it would defend the platform of Noble Energy on
September 21 which will begin drilling for natural oil and gas in Cyprus’ EEZ.
Ankara is 100 percent against this event,
and continues its opposition to drilling.
Noble
Energy promises to give wealth and prosperity to Cyprus. Around
the floating drilling rig a safety cage will be formed, said to be the greatest
one of its sort that has ever been set up around such buildings, while armed
guards will be stationed on board...
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