Dennis RomeroEgyptian president Hosni Mubarak finally stepped down Friday after weeks of unrest on the streets of Cairo and Alexandria. The question for us is, could he come to L.A?
Mubarak is widely reported to own property on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills — and somewhere on that East Coast island known as Manhattan. While known for its luxurious Walk of Style (Armani, Versace, Tom Ford … ), Rodeo is also a residential street south of Wilshire Boulevard and north of Santa Monica Boulevard.
Not a bad way to spend your days in self-imposed exile after 30 years of near-totalitarian rule. But …
… and this but(t) is bigger than Kim Kardashian's:
People of the Jewish faith and the Egyptian government haven't always been the best of friends. (Although Mubarak added some stability to the relationship that Israel might end up missing pretty soon).
Rodeo Drive.
And Beverly Hills, well, despite all those Housewives (most if not all of whom don't actually live in the town), it's a Jewish city. Nearly one of every four people in B.H. is of Iranian descent, and a vast majority of those are Jewish.
Most of the gilded city's Persian Americans have family roots in the Iranian Revolution, when they fled the Islamic takeover of the government there.
In fact, today is the anniversary of that revolution, and more than a few people have made comparisons between the overthrow of the U.S-friendly Shah in '79 and Mubarak's downfall.
“Some analysts say history is repeating itself – the start of an Islamic revolution in Egypt, just like Iran in 1979.”
Still, that doesn't mean Mubarak would be welcome with open arms in a city that is so far from Egypt, economically and ideologically.
Mubarak would probably need the okay of the U.S. State Department to come to California. And even then we wouldn't expect citizens of the 90210 (and 90212 and 90213, et. al.) to roll out the welcome wagon.
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