History did not end when Mubarak stepped down

Western media outlets are celebrating the fall of Hosni Mubarak as if the Egyptian crisis is now over—and that it concluded with a happy ending. But as Barry Rubin reminds us, history did not end on February 11, no more than it ended that same day in 1979, when the shah’s dictatorship finally collapsed in Tehran.

Now that Mubarak is gone, the question is: What happens next?

Bible prophecy reveals the answer. This is why the Trumpet warned 18 years ago that “Islamic extremism is gaining power at a frightening pace in Egypt.” Gerald Flurry wrote, “I believe this prophecy in Daniel 11:42 indicates you are about to see a radical change in Egyptian politics!” (Trumpet, July 1993).

According to Israeli legislator Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, Hosni Mubarak issued a similar warning the day before he resigned. Haaretz reports on the 20-minute telephone conversation the two of them had on Thursday:

“He had very tough things to say about the United States,” said Ben-Eliezer, a member of the Labor Party who has held talks with Mubarak on numerous occasions while serving in various Israeli coalition governments.”He gave me a lesson in democracy and said: ‘We see the democracy the United States spearheaded in Iran and with Hamas, in Gaza, and that’s the fate of the Middle East,’” Ben-Eliezer said.”‘They may be talking about democracy but they don’t know what they’re talking about and the result will be extremism and radical Islam,’” he quoted Mubarak as saying.

Throughout the crisis, President Obama urged Mubarak to listen to the voice of the Egyptian people. Yet, judging by a Pew Research Center poll conducted last year, it is the Obama administration, not Mubarak, that refuses to hear what Egyptians are saying. A few highlights from the Pew survey:

• Ninety-five percent of Egyptians would prefer that religion play a “large role in politics.”• Eighty-four percent favor the death penalty for people who abandon the Muslim faith.• Fifty-four percent believe suicide bombings aimed at civilians can be justified. The same percentage supports segregating women from men in the workplace.

The Egyptian people clearly do not want what we have been told they want by the romantics in the Western media. “Egyptians are revolting against Western-style democracy,” Investor’s Business Daily recently editorialized. “They want an Islamic theocracy.”

Mubarak understood this, which is why he told President Obama on February 3, “You don’t understand the Egyptian culture and what would happen if I step down now.”

Now that Mubarak is gone, we are about to see what happens next. As Mubarak told Ben-Eliezer during their telephone conversation, “I won’t be surprised if in the future you see more extremism and radical Islam and more disturbances—dramatic changes and upheavals.”