Will Islamists benefit?

New York Times, 8 March 2011

The letter at the left was on the 8th March.  Two weeks later and it's looking to be rather closer to the likely outcome in Egypt et al than all the rosy pictures painted at the time by the likes of Roger Cohen, the Beebs, the Guardian and others --  who, implicitly or otherwise, expected the ouster of Mubarrak to lead to establishment of a secular liberal democracy.
All the reports now are of the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood on the post-ousting outcome.  Ditto in the east Libya, aka Cyrenaica.
Robert Sugarman, the letter writer here, points to "anti-Israel animus", which is really rife in the commentariat of the Left.  I was rather shocked when I first saw it in full spittle-flecked flight in the wake, last June, of the Israeli attack on the "peace flottilla" in which 8 "activists" were killed by the IDF.  The Guardian at that time could hardly contain its incendiary fury -- ok, they didn't contain it -- with articles calling for the destruction of Israel.  This was something that I'd thought was not discussed in polite company.  Call for two states, and all the rest of it, to be sure.  But the destruction of Israel?  As Hamas wants?  How far of a step from that to outright Jew-killing as Hamas' charter calls for?