By Khalid Amayreh

There is no doubt that the election of Muammed Morsi as President of Egypt is a heartening news for all free men and women around the world.

It is certainly good news for the Egyptian people, exhausted and thoroughly impoverished by decades of corruption and decadence sustained by military dictators who were mostly answerable to foreign powers rather than to the masses.

It is good news for the Arab world where Egypt always assumed the ultimate leadership role, a role without which the Arabs were left like disoriented orphans, immersed in their endless tribal preoccupations and conflicts.

We also hope it is going to be good news for the Palestinians and their enduring just cause. Needless to say, the Palestinian cause suffered immensely when the traditionally commanding role of Egypt was marginalized, even neutralized, following the conclusion of the camp David treaty with Israel.

That infamous treaty enabled the criminal Zionist entity to have a free season on the Palestinians, culminating in the genocidal blitzkrieg on the Gaza Strip in 2008-9, which killed and maimed thousands of civilians and wreaked havoc on man, stone and plant.

The shocking collusion between Israel and the defunct Egyptian regime of Hosni Mubarak during that Nazi-like aggression prompted Israeli cabinet minister Benjamin Benalezer to remark that Egypt was Israel's main and most important ally in the Arab world.

To be sure, the road is not going to be paved with roses for the new President of Egypt. The challenges awaiting him or laying in wait for him are formidable. However, with the mind of an engineer and a sense of a wise man, Morsi should be able to tackle or at least neutralize most of these odds.

The Egyptian economy is virtually in the intensive care unit and needs immediate revival and recuperation. Thirty years of corruption, mismanagement and disastrous policies, based on favoritism, nepotism and cronyism, brought millions of Egyptians to the brink of starvation.

Egypt doesn't lack the skills needed to transform the country from a perpetual recipient of aid into another Turkey or even another South Korea. It just needs an honest leadership that puts the country's future and interests above the ruler's ambitions and political expediency.

More over, Egypt under Morsi will have to deliver itself from the clutches of American bullying and political and economic pressure. We are not suggesting that the new Egypt should adopt a hostile discourse against the United States. Far from that, friendly relations, based on mutual respect and mutual interests, ought to be sought with all countries. That is the sane and wise policy to adopt.

None the less, Egypt should make it sufficiently clear to Washington that things have changed in Cairo and much of the Arab world and that the 90 million Egyptians and another 230 million Arabs will no longer allow themselves to be humiliated and enslaved by a few Jewish robber barons controlling the government and Congress of the United States.

In short, Egypt must guard its sovereignty and national dignity, even at the expense of displeasing Washington and other western capitals.

As to Israel, the perpetual criminal aggressor and lebensraum-seeker, Egypt must make it clear to the Zionist leadership that Egypt can never be a friend or peaceable neighbor of the Jewish state as long as the Zionist regime occupies Palestine, especially Jerusalem, and pursues its ethnic cleansing enterprise against its people.

Again, no one is suggesting that Egypt should wage an all-out war against the criminal entity. However, Egypt under the new leadership can't and must not allow Zionist terrorists and gangsters to have a free season on the Palestinians with impunity.

Egypt is also advised to renegotiate its peace treaty with Israel since that oblique and disgraceful treaty effectively deprived Egypt of its sovereignty over the Sinai peninsula.

In addition, Egypt must strengthen itself militarily in order to repulse all actual and potential predators. This necessarily means that Egypt must seek the possession of a strategic deterrent if only to protect its people and their vital interests from the morbid vagaries and sick tendencies of Israel.

Finally, Egypt must lend a helping hand to all Arab peoples seeking freedom and liberation from their tyrannical regimes as in Syria where a decidedly criminal minority sectarian regime is effectively exterminating its people in order to stay in power.

In 1968, the late British writer and journalist, Peter Mansfield, wrote that the Muslim Brotherhood was a spent force and that it wouldn't see the light of the day again, thanks to Nasser's repression of the group.

The fact that the MB has been able to recuperate and even reach the helm of power in the most important and populous Arab country testifies to the Islamic movement's resilience and enduring vigor.

We hope and pray that this great event, the first of its kind since the downfall of the Ottoman state in 1924, will herald an entirely new era for this region, an era of freedom, true democracy, liberation and peace.

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By Khalid Amayreh Source: The Palestinian Information Center http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7B96xuvEN7A6Z25wd7Zv0913VgLCOgqVC5OHsCIqTO76BMabAof0jgodwOar5IOJwNSflW8vbxklU9fjy%2b0hZztLg8lVaDtS5k0bl7YDkH1Y%3d