In response to pro-democracy protests the Egyptian military has removed former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi & the Muslim Brotherhood from power and established an interim government.
The Egyptian military has deposed Egyptian President Morsi and his regime, in response to Egyptian pro-democracy protesters rallying in the millions for Morsi to resign. Former Egyptian President Morsi is currently in the custody of the Egyptian military, as are senior level Muslim Brotherhood leaders. At least 14 people were killed and hundreds more were wounded in clashes that occurred between Morsi supporters and opponents.
Chief Justice Adly El-Mansour was sworn in as the new transitional president of Egypt. El-Mansour announced that he plans to hold fresh democratic elections and that “Egypt corrected the path of its glorious revolution.” El Mansour was previously the head of Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court. “The most glorious thing about 30 June is that it brought together everyone without discrimination or division,’ said Mansour. Millions of Egyptians celebrated his rise to power by setting off fireworks and chanting pro-army slogans. “The people and the army are one,” they shouted.
Pro-democracy activists within Egypt have made it clear that this was not a military coup and that the Egyptian military was merely responding to the wishes of the Egyptian people. As one Egyptian demonstrator claimed, “Over the past few months, Morsi unilaterally bestowed upon himself legislative powers, led a charge to cleanse all the high courts of independent judges, appointing his stooges to secure control of the last branch of the government he didn’t control and his attorney general filed trumped up tax investigations and other charges against the owners of all private media channels that are critical of his policies. Morsi’s idea of democracy was ‘one man, one vote, one time.’”
Liberal Egyptian opposition leader Mohammed El-Baradei concurred, claiming that the Arab Spring Revolution of 2011 had been reignited. The Egyptian Army’s pro democracy coup and its road map to restore democracy within Egypt enjoys the support of leading Muslim and Christian clerics within the country. President Obama stated in response to recent developments, “I now call on the Egyptian military to move quickly and responsibly to return full authority back to a democratically elected civilian government as soon as possible through an inclusive and transparent process, and to avoid any arbitrary arrests of President Morsi and his supporters.”
The United States government has announced that they were reviewing foreign aid to Egypt in light of the current situation. One Egyptian pro-democracy activist responded, “Let me say one last thing to my non-Egyptian friends on the Egypt situation! Try having a terrorist for a president and then tell me how you feel about him being democratically elected. WE ARE HAPPY! We have a civilian interim president. We’re going to have a new constitution, new election laws, and finally we are on the right path. The Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization! Good riddance!”
Former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi has emphasized that Morsi’s overthrow does not pose any immediate danger to Israel. However, he warned that the decreased presence of the Egyptian military in the Sinai could present an opportunity for Islamists operating there to take hostile actions against Israel. Tzachi Hanegbi, a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, was nevertheless optimistic about the regime change, stating he hopes that it will bring an end to the largely frozen contact between the Israeli and Egyptian governments, adding that the Egyptian military has good relations with Israel.
By Rachel Avraham, staff writer for United with Israel