Coup alleviated Israel's fear of 'Islamist winter'

Israel’s Defence Minister said on Sunday that Egypt’s coup last year has alleviated the fears of Israel and several other countries about what he described as an “Islamist winter”. Moshe Ya’alon made his remarks during the Munich security conference.

“Ousting the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is an important event,” said Ya’alon. “The Islamist winter would have spread to several other Arab capitals in the region.” He claimed that he could feel a sense of relief to get rid of “this burden” in many Arab capitals, including Amman, Riyadh and the Gulf states. “These regimes feared that the Muslim Brotherhood would form a new wave of Islamisation that controls the Middle East region,” he claimed.

According to the Israeli minister, “The Iranian revolution in 1979 led to the emergence of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Hamas movement in the Palestinian arena, and strengthened Muslim Brotherhood elements in the region.” Ya’alon then, outrageously, tried to link the resistance movements and the Brotherhood with Al-Qaeda, “which we could see emerging from the Sunni Wahhabi schools following the global jihad movement.”

He concluded by saying that Egypt’s coup has alleviated the feeling that Islam is the solution. “Nevertheless,” he insisted, “the Middle East will be faced with a state of instability over the coming years and even decades.”