Israel's quest for cleaner energy sources just got muddied, with the explosion in a pipeline supplying natural gas from Egypt. The explosion occured at a measuring station in Arish and damaged the line supplying Jordan. The line supplying Israel was shut down at first as a precaution. This proved wise as it turned out that the fire overheated the pipe and compromised the entire supply line. It will take several days to cool and for the supply to resume.

The Merhav group, the Israeli partner in the EMG consortium that exports Egyptian gas to Israel, said Saturday it could take up to a week. According to news reports, Israel buys about $10 million worth of gas a week from Egypt in many long-term deals. Meanwhile, it's been reported that Egyptian businessman Hussein Salem, who owns 28% of EMG, has fled to Dubai- with $500 million.

Israel produces about 45% of its electricity from natural gas that comes from two main sources: 60% domestically from a reserve off Israel's southern shore, and from 40% from Egypt. Israel was hoping to get about 70% of its electricity from gas by the end of the decade, for environmental reasons as well as economic. Its southern field has reserves thought to be enough to last until the end of 2013 but could be depleted a year sooner if Egyptian supply isn't resumed.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held consultations Saturday morning with the ministries of national infrastructures and defense.  Israel is prepared for such a situation, Netanyahu said, and has the immediate possibility to switch to alternative energy and gas sources. National infrastructures minister Uzi Landau said that in coming days, the electric company could use gas, coal and even diesel if necessary to run its power plants. In the long run, extra costs could make their way down to the citizens, warn observers.

The Knesset's economics committee, the parliamentary body that oversees the issue, is scheduled to address related concerns Sunday. Committee chair Carmel Shama Hacohen told media Israel must take these scenarios into consideration, as well as possible terrorist threats to gas fields, exploration and energy facilities too. Security measures have been stepped up around all relevant facilities, now more clearly than ever a matter of strategic importance.

 Israel has large gas sources of its own — potentially, at least.

Leaders, media, academics and arm-chair politicians (basically most Israelis) continue to monitor the upheaval rocking its big neighbor, just one door down. If there's a theme de jour, it seems to be "careful what you wish for."

Monday, during a news conference with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted that while the main cause of unrest doesn't stem from radical Islam, such forces could take over a country in turmoil. The next day he said -- in a closed-door diplomatic-security consultation -- that Israel supports advancing free and democratic values in the Middle East, but warned that neither would be achieved if radical forces are allowed to exploit the processes and take power.

President Shimon Peres also spoke in this vein, advising the world to study the results of the pressure for free elections that brought Hamas rule to Gaza but not a single day of democracy to Gazans since. "Democracy is not just elections because if you elect the wrong people, you bring an end to democracy." True democracy, he said, starts the day after elections, in ensuring the people's human rights and welfare.

These messages are intended for the West, whose pressure on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has been successful, whether by design or miscalculation, to the point where results could be out of the comfort zone for Israel and others.

The question is, who needs to do what about it.

The U.S. position on Egypt has taken Israel by surprise and left people wondering what the Americans are doing and what this means for other allies in the region, including Israel.

When the administration first urged Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to address demonstrators' legitimate demands, commentators in Israel were puzzled, almost appalled.  OK, Mubarak's s not perfect, but why would America think his replacement would be any more democratic or pro-Western? Once again, the Americans are looking at the region through Western eyes and clearly, they don't know what they're doing, was the tone of many Israeli analysts. Politicians are not talking much about the crisis.

As the protests continued, some began thinking maybe Obama does know what he's doing — but they're not sure they like it.

"A knife in the back," was how Dan Margalit of the Yisrael Hayom free-sheet described the American treatment of Mubarak. "Obama threw Mubarak to the dogs," wrote Eitan Haber in Yediot Aharonot. Others were more subtle but most share the opinion that the Obama administration is sending its partners in the Middle East a message through Egypt.

Ephraim Halevy, former chief of Mossad and a highly respected former diplomat, said he's having a hard time understanding some of the American moves, reminding that Egypt was a key strategic partner to them too. But, Halevy notes, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once said that all strategic alliances are conditional, as in both "temporary" and with actual "conditions." American conditions, at least in principle, are democracy and rights.

But only Mubarak is getting read the riot act, which suggests to Halevy that this isn't a principled move but a practical one, with a specific purpose. The question is, what does Obama think he will get in return.  "Obama is not naive; this is a gamble," Halevy said.

Uzi Rabi, head of Middle East and Africa studies at Tel-Aviv University, notes that this sends a "very negative message." Shaking off Mubarak in rather a cruel way should raise questions in other Arab countries who dwell "under the American umbrella," Rabi said, adding that this might cause leaders to calculate their moves differently as part of the geopolitical change the region is undergoing.

Does this include Israel?

There are many lessons to be had from the events in Egypt events — and Israel needs to learn some of them yesterday, according to Eitan Haber, former adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Unlike his predecessors, the current U.S. president has no sentiments for Israel, he writes. Watching him sell Mubarak down the river "in return for popularity with the masses", Israel's lesson should be "that the man in the White House could sell us from one day to the next." The thought that the U.S. might not be there for Israel on D-day is "chilling," he wrote.

Breaking official silence over the escalating unrest in neighboring Egypt, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday he was monitoring events with "vigilance and worry" and feared radical Islamists could take advantage of any leadership vacuum.

Netanyahu told a news conference in Jerusalem that he was concerned about the fate of Israel's peace treaty with Egypt should President Hosni Mubarak be forced out of power and replaced by someone more belligerent toward Israel.

The comments made at a press event with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel were the first substantive admissions by Netanyahu of concern over potential consequences for Israel from the weeklong protests demanding Mubarak's ouster.

Netanyahu said the demonstrations paralyzing Cairo and other major Egyptian cities weren't instigated by the Muslim Brotherhood movement but that, as one of the few organized opposition groups in the Arab country, the movement could "take advantage" of the situation to enhance its power.

Mubarak's predecessor as head of state, Anwar Sadat, was assassinated in 1981 by Islamic radicals angered by the 1979 peace treaty with Israel signed at Camp David. Egypt was the first country in the region to make peace with Israel, and Mubarak, who came to power after Sadat's death, has maintained a stable relationship with Israel throughout his nearly 30-year rule.

Foreign telecommunications companies stepping in to connect protesters to Internet

Egypt's police return; foreigners try to evacuate

Photos: Unrest in Egypt

-- Carol J. Williams

Photo: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a press conference in Jerusalem. Credit: Oliver Weiken / EPA.