Middle East Eye reported July 7 that Egypt's dictatorial President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi received a delegation representing the American Jewish Committee (AJC) at his presidential headquarters in Cairo. The delegation, headed by the president of the organization's executive council, Stanley Bergman, discussed ways to "defeat terrorism" and militancy in the region. We'd love to know what the hell Sisi was thinking by agreeing to this meeting. Way to play right into the hands of the jihadis, fool. What a cynical, duplicitous game this guy is playing. Trying to appease the Islamists by sending atheist bloggers to prison, and then cozying up to the dreaded Zionists as an "anti-terrorist" ally. Who does he think he's kidding?
This also points up yet again the elastic and politicized nature of the word "terrorism." Maybe AJC didn't get the memo about Sisi's massacres of protesters after his seizure of power in 2013, which has even caused the White House to at least consider cutting aid to his regime. But I guess that doesn't count as "terrorism." Nice friends you got there, AJC. Which "anti-terrorist" dictator you gonna schmooze next, Bashar Assad?
Actually, it's not that far-fetched. Middle East Monitor noted July 7 how a growing number of Israeli military officials, politicians and pundits are calling for Netanyahu to prop up the Assad regime in order to keep the jihadis at bay. Ex-military intelligence official Azer Tsfrir apparently warned in Ha'aretz that allowing the Assad regime to fall would mean turning Syria into a "black hole" in which the border areas could become launch pads for operations against Israel. Commentator Jacky Houki reportedly made similar noises on the Yizrael Pulse website.
We are having trouble independently verifying these quotes through Google, so we cannot vouch for the accuracy of the Middle East Monitor account. But we have pointed out before that—contrary to the prevailing conspiracy theory of an Israeli destabilization campaign in Syria—a significant chunk (at least) of the Israeli security establishment and its neocon allies in Washington would rather stick with Assad as the Devil they know.
The AJC has exhibited such cognitive dissonance before. They have weighed in for an annexationist agenda on the West Bank while (of course) conflating anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism in water-muddying manner. The Zionists and dictators will never defeat terrorism, because they are part of the problem. They and their imperial allies (whether in Washington or Moscow) constitute one of the region's two poles of terrorism.
