Israeli officials: Mubarak wants honorable exit

[February 11, 2011]  JERUSALEM (AP) -- Hosni Mubarak realizes he must step down and is looking for an honorable way out, a former Israeli Cabinet minister who has long known Egypt's embattled leader said Friday.

Binyamin Ben-Eliezer of Israel's Labor Party, a former Israeli defense minister, said he spoke with Mubarak just hours before the Egyptian president's speech late Thursday in which he transferred some authorities to his deputy but refused to step down.

This refusal angered hundreds of thousands of Egyptian protesters demanding he relinquish his three-decade grip on power. Anti-government demonstrations have rocked Egypt for more than two weeks.

Describing his conversation with Mubarak to Israel's Army Radio, Ben-Eliezer said: "He knew that this was it, that this was the end of the road."

"He was looking for only one thing -- give me an honorable way out. Let me leave in an honorable fashion," Ben-Eliezer said.

Another former Israeli defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, now an opposition lawmaker who chairs an influential parliamentary defense committee, echoed Ben-Eliezer's statement, telling the same station that Mubarak "wants to end it on his feet and not on his knees."

Egypt signed a peace treaty with neighboring Israel in 1979.

Israel is concerned that the disappearance of Mubarak, a longtime ally, could mean a breakdown of order in Egypt or the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest and best-organized opposition group, which is hostile to Israel. Both scenarios would threaten Israel's security.

In 2007, the Islamic group Hamas -- which identifies itself as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and is backed by Iran -- seized control of the Gaza Strip. Last month, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, also backed by Iran, toppled the government in Lebanon, showing its growing influence over Israel's northern neighbor.

On Friday, some speeches by Egyptian protesters took on a tone increasingly critical of foreign influence, especially that of the U.S. and Israel. One theme heard in speeches was that if Mubarak fell, Israel would be next.

"At this very moment in our area the balance of power is changing, and the situation is working against Israel," Mofaz said. "Iranian radicalism is becoming stronger and improving its position."

Another Israeli official, the former Soviet refusenik Natan Sharansky, sounded a note of optimism about events in Egypt. Israel was wrong to depend on a dictator to keep the peace and must encourage democracy, said Sharansky, who was released from a Soviet prison 25 years ago and now handles ties with Diaspora Jewry as head of the Jewish Agency.

"This is the moment for those Israelis who believe that peace has to be built bottom-up," he told the daily Jerusalem Post in an interview published Friday. "This is a great moment. Let's try to use it."

In the Gaza Strip, a Friday protest inspired by the Egypt demonstrations -- and organized on Facebook -- against Hamas rule in the Palestinian territory attracted virtually no supporters.

Hamas security personnel in uniform and plainclothes were deployed in force around the areas where the protests, organized by supporters of the rival Fatah, were set to take place. In the town of Khan Yunis, police briefly detained two youths who were seen filming with a cell phone camera.

[Associated Press; By MATTI FRIEDMAN]

Associated Press writers Hadeel al-Shalchi in Cairo and Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City, Gaza Strip contributed reporting.

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