New Egypt Won't Tolerate Religious Tolerance

Lee Smith captures the somber mood of Egypt's few remaining Jews, and notes the hostile conditions they face in the post-Mubarak Egypt.

Still, the Egyptians who lived under Mubarak’s decades-long reign were every bit as anti-Semitic as the electorate that brought Morsi to power. The difference is that Mubarak saw Jewish issues, Jewish artifacts, and synagogues as chips to be used in his bargaining with the United States. But this is the kind of balancing act between Washington, Cairo, and Jerusalem that sustained the peace treaty for more than 30 years. For in the end, it is not fear of Israel that will keep Egypt from waging war, but fear of what the Americans might do.

Morsi apparently doesn’t care about appeasing the Americans in this regard, and it seems that the White House is applying little pressure—even as it plans to provide Egypt with another $1 billion aid package. If the United States blinks when an Egyptian mob scales the walls of its embassy in Cairo on the anniversary of 9/11, there is little chance that the White House is going to stick its neck out for a handful of elderly Jews in Alexandria.