Adam Shatz names the elephant(s) in the (Egyptian) room: Israel, the US imperium

Invaluable article from the estimable Adam Shatz, in London Review of Books. Read it here. Key extract:

The men and women congregating in Tahrir Square have the misfortune to live in a country that shares a border with Israel, and to be fighting a regime that for the last three decades has provided indispensable services to the US. They are well aware of this. They know that if the West allows the Egyptian movement to be crushed, it will be, in part, because of the conviction that ‘we are not them,’ and that we can’t allow them to have what we have. Despite the enormous odds, they continue to fight.