| The newly elected, Islamist-dominated Egyptian parliament has voted to halt natural gas exports to Israel and expel Israel's ambassador to Egypt. However, the motion is largely symbolic because only the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces currently has the authority to make these decisions. A parliamentary committee report stated that Israel is Egypt's "number one enemy" and that "Revolutionary Egypt will never be a friend, partner, or ally of the Zionist entity." Tension has grown between the two countries since the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak last year, and last September, the Israeli ambassador had to be evacuated when the Israeli embassy was invaded by Egyptian mobs. The Egyptian pipeline which supplies natural gas to Israel has also been attacked over a dozen times in little more than a year. Many of Mubarak's generals are currently members of the Supreme Council, but the upcoming presidental elections are hastening the transition to an Islamist government which has now started to use the same language to refer to Israel as the Iranian regime. |
