Israel calls Mubarak a "strategic treasure"

US considers US$4 Billions as a 'reward' to authoritarian Egypt

As Israel calls Mubarak a "strategic treasure" ... Indeed ... FP/ here

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a mildly worded statement Tuesday criticizing the Egyptian government's decision to extend its "state of emergency" another two years and urged Egypt to adhere to "legal principles that protect the rights of all citizens."

Meanwhile, her department was preparing to enter into negotiations with Egypt over Cairo's proposal for a new $4 billion aid endowment that critics say would unfairly reward an authoritarian regime that has jailed or marginalized its opponents, rigged elections, and censored or manipulated the press for the nearly three decades that President Hosni Mubarak has been in power.......

Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, argued that shifting the bulk of U.S. economic assistance to an endowment will inevitably be seen in Egypt as empowering Mubarak...... The Egyptian proposal comes as the gap between the Egyptian government and its people is getting wider, warned the Carnegie Endowment's Michele Dunne, who worked on Egypt both at State and on the National Security Council. "This would remove congressional oversight and place the aid into the hands of the Egyptian government, which of course is why they are so keen on it."

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