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Daybreak: Democracy in the Streets

Plus Israel, Arab states push for stability, and more in the news

by
Marc Tracy
February 09, 2011
Demonstrators near the Egyptian parliament building in Cairo this morning.(Chris Hondros/Getty Images)
Demonstrators near the Egyptian parliament building in Cairo this morning.(Chris Hondros/Getty Images)

• Day 16, and increasing strikes and work stoppages are only increasing the clamor for a more rapid transition than is currently in the works. [NYT]

• And yet even as protesters push for a faster timetable, democracy activists question if elections in the near future are feasible and will not prove counterproductive. [WP]

• U.S. regional allies—which is to say, several Arab states and Israel—have lobbied extremely hard for the United States to back a process that retains as much stability as possible. [NYT]

• To reinforce Israel’s message, Defense Minister Ehud Barak meets with Secretary of Defense Gates and others in Washington, D.C., today. [Laura Rozen]

• Good to know someone is still listening to Mohammed ElBaradei. (I’m being mean: Friedman also talks to Wael Ghonim, in many ways the protesters’ leader. But why does everything have to be “post-ideological” with him?) [NYT]

• A Jewish refugee from Austria who fought hard and sucessfully—in her 80s—to recover several Gustav Klimt works that had belonged to har family died at 94. [NYT]

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.