These strong arm Arab states are the only things standing between burgeoning al-Qaida (and affiliates) terror camps and the free world. We may not like them, but the alternative is worse.
“the next Arab domino may be oil darling Algeria.”
What does Algeria’s election mean for Israel?
When Yuval Steinitz, minister of strategic affairs, criticized last week an agreement that allows Iran to move toward a rapid breakout to nuclear weapons capability, he said it would spark “Sunni Arab countries like Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, perhaps also Turkey and the UAE, to seek to launch a nuclear-arms race.”Algeria, which saw the election of Abdelaziz Bouteflika on Thursday, who secured his fourth term as the country’s president in a vote marked by irregularities, could be an increasingly important factor for Israel.
The stroke-ridden and wheelchair- bound 77-year-old Bouteflika will oversee a country riddled with corruption, stagnation and social unrest among its huge youth generation.Algeria in 2014 mirrors in some ways the former Egypt until the removal of president Hosni Mubarak in 2011.Algeria has not been front-and-center in Israel’s national security priorities, largely because the country has not become a hub of anti-Israel terrorism.
There are, however, troubling signs.
