President Obama called the winner and the loser of Egypt’s presidential election and emphasized preserving mutual interests, an allusion to the peace treaty with Israel and strong U.S.-Egyptian ties.

In his conversation with the victor, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi, “The President underscored that the United States will continue to support Egypt’s transition to democracy and stand by the Egyptian people as they fulfill the promise of their revolution,” the White House said in a statement. “He emphasized his interest in working together with President-elect Morsi, on the basis of mutual respect, to advance the many shared interests between Egypt and the United States.”

Israeli officials have expressed concern, based on the Brotherhood’s election rhetoric and recent unrest on the Egyptian-Israeli border, that Morsi would lead a rollback from his country’s landmark 1979 peace treaty with the Jewish state.

Morsi, however, also sounded a conciliatory note in his victory speech.

“We will honor international treaties and agreements, and will create balanced international relations based on mutual interests and respect,” he said, according to the Times of Israel.

Obama also spoke to Gen. Ahmed Shafiq, the losing candidate and the last prime minister to serve deposed dictator Hosni Mubarak; Shafiq was allegedly favored by the country’s powerful military establishment.

“The president encouraged General Shafiq to continue to play a role in Egyptian politics by supporting the democratic process and working to unify the Egyptian people,” the White House statement said.

It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!

We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.

This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions. 

We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.

As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday! 

Don't just read the Forward - invest in it. Make a gift and our board will match it.

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$129 $180 $360 OTHER AMOUNT