Hamas does not fear fall of Egypt leader

Hamas does not fear the fall of Egypt’s president Mohamed Morsi and is concerned only with the stability of the neighboring country, a leader in the Islamist party said Wednesday. “We do not fear the fall of President Mohamed Mursi," Ahmad Yousef told Ma’an. “We fear the dramatic changes that could cause things to go out of hand and lead to bloodshed”. “There is no doubt that the whole Arab world is waiting and hoping that the situation in Egypt stabilizes,” he said. “We only care about stability in Egypt regardless of who is in charge. Egypt is a lifeline to us; it’s a major factor in the stability of the internal Palestinian situation -- it is our backbone,” Yousef added. He hoped a political solution could be found for the crisis and lead Egypt to the "shore of safety." In Ramallah, President Mahmoud Abbas called for Palestinians not to interfere in internal issues of Arab countries, hours before Egypt's army chief announced a coup bringing down Mohamad Mursi. Abbas reiterated the Palestinian leadership’s frequently reiterated position that it remains neutral and rejects all interference in any other Arab countries. Abbas added that he hoped Egypt would survive the latest crisis and emerge stronger, and he highlighted that Palestinians respect the will of the country and its people. Mursi, Egypt's first freely elected president, came under massive pressure in the run-up to Sunday's anniversary of his maiden year in office, with his opponents accusing him of failing the 2011 revolution by concentrating power in Islamist hands. Mursi had proposed a "consensus government" as a way out of the country's worst crisis since the 2011 uprising ended three decades of authoritarian rule by Hosni Mubarak. But the United States urged him to "do more" as a military deadline passed for him to meet the demands of the people following a week of bloody unrest during mass protests calling for him to quit. The advice came too late, however, as the army said the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court, Adly al-Mansour, a previously little known judge, would become the new leader of the Arab world's most populous country. Opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei, the UN nuclear watchdog chief, and the heads of the Coptic Church and Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam's highest seat of learning, sat alongside the armed forces chief as he announced Mursi's overthrow on state television. The choreography was designed to show broad civilian support for the military's move to topple Mursi, Egypt's first freely elected leader, dashing the hopes of supporters who had seen his elevation to the presidency after years underground as one of the key achievements of the 2011 revolution. Morsi's camp had earlier denounced the army's intervention as a coup.