The World from Berlin: 'A New Phase of Dangerous Instability'

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Hundreds of thousands of people packed the streets of the Egyptian capital city again on Tuesday in what is believed to be the largest protest yet on Cairo's Tahrir (Liberation) Square. And once again, demonstrators demanded that Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's ruler for three decades, step down.

"Mubarak may have thick skin, but we have sharper nails," the crowd shouted. Chants of "Leave! Leave! Leave!" could also be heard.

"We can sense the smell of freedom, and no more compromises are possible with Mubarak," protester Mustafa Amer, 35, told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

It's a call that was repeated by opposition politician Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient and former International Atomic Energy Agency chief, who is positioning himself as a possible transition leader if Mubarak steps down. Arab news station Al Arabiya is reporting on comments from ElBaradei that Mubarak must step down and leave the country in order to prevent bloodshed.

Protesters felt bolstered by a statement by the Egyptian military on Monday that it would not fire on demonstrators at Tuesday's marches. The military also said protesters had "legitimate grievances."

The ouster in January of the leader of Tunisia through a popular revolt inspired similar protests against Mubarak in Egypt last week. The country has been stable under the autocrat, but his government is accused of mass human rights violations -- including what Human Rights Watch calls "endemic torture" in the country -- and corruption. The main goal of the protesters, however, is believed to be better social conditions in a country where nearly half of the people live under the poverty line of $2 per day. Under Mubarak, the gap between rich and poor continued to grow. Last week, resentments erupted into violent protests in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez and other cities.

UN Estimate: 300 Dead

The United Nations is estimating that 300 people have so far lost their lives in the Egyptian unrest and that 3,000 have been injured, according to UN High Representative for Human Rights Navi Pillay. "The authorities have a clear responsibility to protect civilians, including their right to life, and to freedom of assembly and freedom of expression," Pillay said. "People must not be arbitrarily detained, simply for protesting or for expressing their political opinions -- however unwelcome those opinions may be to those in power."

But Tuesday's protests also attracted hundreds of Mubarak supporters. At noon, around 200 loyalists could be seen on Tahrir Square, according to a SPIEGEL reporter. "Mubarak is better than you think," they called out. "We don't want a theocracy," they added, in reference to fears over the possible growing influence of the radical Muslim Brotherhood, which is currently banned as a political party in Egypt. Those concerns are shared by many Israeli and Western leaders.

A possible shift towards radical Islam also served as a subject of meetings between German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Jerusalem and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday and Tuesday. For Israel, the stakes are high. For three decades it has had an important ally in Netanyahu and if Islamist groups rise, they would likely take a far more critical view of their neighbor.

"In a state of chaos, an organized Islamic group can take over a country," Netanyahu said on Monday in his strongest words yet on the situation in Egypt. "It happened in Iran. A takeover of oppressive regimes of extreme Islam … poses a terrible danger to peace and stability."

Germany and other Western countries have long supported Mubarak's regime precisely because they felt he was the best insurance to ensure Egypt doesn't shift in the direction of radical Islam. Some papers have argued that those concerns are not entirely unjustified. The conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung notes that while pluralist political voices may be emerging in Egypt, it is also the country that brought the world Osama bin Laden's right-hand man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Muhammad Atta, one of the 9/11 suicide pilots.

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"The government in Jerusalem must now see for itself what it can do to defuse the incipient threat. At the same time, it must also ask itself what, exactly, it has done in the 30 years in which peace with Egypt has opened up the opportunity to reach other peace agreements. Israel arrogantly wasted that opportunity. Efforts to find a settlement with Syria were shelved, and an agreement with the Palestinians was torpedoed by settlement construction. Now precisely two possibilities remain: Israel can either attempt a new peace initiative in order to steer the power of transformation in a positive direction. Or it should prepare itself for a new phase of dangerous instability in the Middle East. The government in Jerusalem would be well advised to do both."

The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"As was the case in Tunisia, it has recently become apparent in Egypt that those who are politically aware think in a much more nuanced way than is readily apparent from the outside. Should greater pluralism indeed develop, it will show that the political landscape in Egypt isn't as monolithic as once thought. Either the regime or the Muslim Brotherhood -- such has been the outside view of the choice facing Egypt. Mubarak and other leaders of his regime had an interest in preserving this impression because it ensured unlimited aid from the Americans and undisturbed cooperation with the Europeans."

The paper also looks at what a new political pluralism in Egypt could mean for Israel:

"A pluralistic Egypt would be less inclined to accept Israeli policies as Mubarak has done for decades. Most of the protesters are certainly mostly interested in social improvements and in a greater political say. They also hate the ruling family in a way similar to the loathing the people of Tunisia had for Ben Ali. But sympathies for the Palestinians as well as Hamas, which rules Gaza, would also certainly play a greater role. If the United States, in order to make us forget the last, manipulated, elections, demands fair elections in the near future, then that poll would presumably benefit forces that are critical of Israel. The Middle East is facing changes whose consequences are almost impossible to predict."

The leftist Die Tageszeitung writes:

Everything at the moment suggests that it is only a matter of time before Mubarak takes himself off the playing field. But what will come after Mubarak? Some fear chaos. … But fears that the Islamists will take over power, which are being fomented in some corners, are hugely exaggerated. Egypt in 2011 is not like the Iran of 1979, when radical Islamists rose to power after toppling the Shah. While it may be true that the Muslim Brotherhood would surely play a larger role in a democratic Egypt, that in no way means that the country will be transformed into an 'Islamic state.' The Muslim Brotherhood long ago abandoned that goal. The Taliban in Afghanistan or the mullahs in Iran no longer serve as role models for most Arab Islamists. Al-Qaida has also, of course, done its share to discredit radical Islam. Today the Islamists prefer to orient themselves towards Turkey's AKP government, which has shown that you can find a balance between moderate Islam and democratic principles and have success in elections."

The conservative Die Welt writes:

"It is astonishing that German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle is now vehemently supporting democratization in the Arab world (given Germany's past tolerance of autocratic regions). ... This readjustment of Germany's policy reflects the recognition that the apparent calm and stability of dictatorships is dangerous because an enormous frustration accumulates within the society, which might eventually be discharged explosively. Unfortunately, this view has never been prevalent in European politics. It appeared too risky, and too much work, to encourage autocrats to genuinely open up their societies."

"Now Europe has egg on its face and is forced to recognize that, for decades, its policies were aimed against the Arab populations. Hence Westerwelle has made a change in course that was sorely needed. But it's not enough just to find the right words. While the situation in Egypt still hangs in the balance, change is moving forward in Tunisia. Europe should offer concrete help to the country. ... Europe should invest as quickly as possible in the Tunisian reforms. After all, it is in everyone's interest that the Tunisian experiment -- which might soon be followed by an Egyptian one -- be successful."

The left-leaning Berliner Zeitung writes:

"Europe is the continent that invented human rights. The Europeans have managed to achieve for themselves peace, prosperity and the rule of law almost everywhere -- lucky them. One would imagine they would be happy for the rest of the world to enjoy these things too. But only, it seems, if promoting human rights and democracy does not entail any risk or discomfort."

"Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya could always count on the fact that the oppression in their countries would not be mentioned too loudly by the Europeans. There are two reasons for this: the fear of Islamist terrorist attacks and the Europeans' effort to deter illegal immigrants. With those two interests in mind, European governments ignored the repression in the Maghreb region of North Africa. They were silently complicit in detention, torture and expulsions. It was all justified with the argument that stability was important -- but we should have realized that political change was overdue, and its suppression could only encourage radicalization."

"Now courageous protesters have disabused us of our misconceptions. Their thirst for freedom, their persistence and their fearlessness have exposed European duplicity."