New polls released this week show a solid majority of Americans opposed to continuing military aid to the Egyptian junta after last week’s massacres, but the White House is denying reports that they are close to doing so.
Officials insist President Obama and others are engaged in an ongoing “review” of Egypt since last month’s coup, but have offered only tepid criticism of the military’s massacres, and spoken in generally supportive terms about the takeover in general.
Egypt junta Prime Minister Hazem Beblawi warned the US against doing so, insisting it would be a “very bad sign” for US ties with the nation’s military. He added that Egypt was more than capable of finding a replacement for aid, noting that Egypt had long been getting Soviet backing before the US started throwing money at them instead.
Saudi Arabia has already said that it is prepared to “replace” any lost aid to Egypt’s military caused by Western opposition to their brutality, and Israel has promised to use its diplomatic connections to lobby on behalf of the junta, insisting that the stability brought by military rule trumps concerns about the human rights violations they are committing.