Daybreak: Democracy in the Streets
Plus Israel, Arab states push for stability, and more in the news
February 09, 2011
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.
