Israel: Mubarak here to stay

An Israeli minister has claimed that Egypt’s troubled President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak would be able to crush the current wave of nationwide protest.

“We believe that Egypt is going to overcome the current wave of demonstrations…,” the unnamed official told Time magazine in an interview, which was published on Friday.

“…I’m not sure the time is right for the Arab region to go through the democratic process,” he noted.

The Israeli minister, however, acknowledged, “It seems now we have quite an earthquake.”

The comments come while Israeli embassy personnel have reportedly fled Egypt.

Media sources say helicopters evacuated the embassy staff to an Egyptian air-base, where they were flown back to Tel Aviv. Reports say Israel’s ambassador to Egypt had already fled the country.

Israel’s foreign ministry is also said to be monitoring the situation in Egypt very closely.

Mubarak’s government faced, on Saturday, the fifth day of consecutive anti-regime demonstrations. At least 100 people were reportedly killed during crackdown by the security forces, which were earlier reinforced by tank battalions and army soldiers.

The entire Egyptian cabinet has resigned and a curfew has been extended in three cities of Cairo, Suez and Alexandria.

Also on Saturday, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah ensured the Egyptian head of state of his support and said the outraged public were “tampering with Egypt’s security and stability in the name of freedom of expression,” AFP reported. “Saudi Arabia stands with all its power with the government and people of Egypt.”