Al-Ahram Weekly 8 - 14 July 1999 Issue No. 437
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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For reconciliation

By Dina Ezzat

The controversial conference of the International Alliance for Arab-Israeli Peace was held this week in one of the biggest halls of a leading five-star Cairo hotel, the Marriott. Opening on Monday night, the delegates concluded their business Wednesday morning, speaking beneath a banner which bore the title of the event, clearly calligraphed, save for the word "peace" which had run into an amorphous stain.

To the surprise of many of those taking part very little of what had been promised actually materialised. There was no new Israeli prime minister, as Ehud Barak was detained in the Knesset delivering his inaugural speech. There was no Palestinian President, as Yasser Arafat, although in Cairo for talks with President Hosni Mubarak, was disinclined to drive the few miles from Heliopolis to the downtown hotel where delegates from Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Territories had gathered to discuss peace making between Arab and Israelis. Nor did the organisers' announcement that an address by President Hosni Mubarak would be delivered at the conference materialise.

Instead, deputy secretary-general of the ruling National Democratic Party, Mustafa Khalil, who chaired the conference, read a brief message to the approximately 300 participants, telling them, "I would like to convey to you the greetings and well wishes of President Mubarak". And, to the relief of the many opponents of the event, there was nothing either by, from or on behalf of Foreign Minister Amr Moussa, who had already come under considerable attack for allegedly sponsoring, or at least encouraging, the conference.

"The Foreign Ministry has nothing to do with this conference," Moussa commented. "I did not attend because I thought the timing was wrong. As the foreign minister of Egypt, I thought that I could not go and make a major policy statement [with regards to Egypt's future involvement in the peace process] when the conference is [being] held before the new Israeli Prime Minister has declared the political programme of his government," commented Moussa.

The US, Russian and Danish ambassadors attended the opening session of the Marriott conference; Peres and Khalil chaired the meeting
Prominent intellectuals, media personalities and religious figures turned out en masse at the anti-normalisation rally
Peres enjoys a break; participants at the anti-normalisation meeting step on the Israeli and US flags (photos: Khaled El-Fiqi, Sami Boushra, Salah Ibrahim)

This sense of bad timing seemed to echo even among some conference participants. According to one Jordanian participant, "had this conference been held after the Barak government was sworn in, we would have done a much better job."

However, Salah Bassyouni, one of the conference organisers and a founding member of the Cairo Peace Movement, dismissed the issue as of little importance. "The timing is a purely organisational matter, and this is what we managed to do," he said.

The only prominent Israeli political figure who was actually there as promised was former Prime Minister Shimon Peres. As the most prominent advocate of a New Middle East -- the title of his famous book -- Peres reiterated his vision of an integrated Middle East of which, in his opinion, Israel deserves to be a part, since, he argued, it has given more to peace-making than any other Arab country has ever done.

Kofi Annan addressed a short message to the gathering which was read out by Bassyouni. Conspicuously absent in the UN secretary-general's message, however, was the expression of any serious commitment by the international organisation towards the implementation of resolutions on the Arab-Israeli conflict, issued by its own Security Council.

"Time to act" was the conference theme, but that too seemed to have been a difficult commitment to keep. From the inaugural session on, all the speakers, including Khalil, former prime minister and a leading figure of Egyptian-Israeli peace-making, and Bassyouni had little to say on what needed to be done now to reach a comprehensive and just Middle East peace. Speakers opted rather for giving various histories of regional peace making, or to reiterating rhetorical statements about the necessity of upholding the choice of peace, no matter what, and to spread the culture of peace and oppose the culture of violence.

The ambassadors of the US and Russia -- whose two nations had co-sponsored the peace process launched in Madrid back in 1991 -- offered general words of support and well wishes. The ambassador of Denmark, meanwhile, whose country has acted as sponsor for many of this Arab-Israeli non-governmental organisation's activities, was there with a promise of unfailing 'support'.

Much was said by the Arab participants, and particularly the Egyptians, concerning the Alliance's dedication to ensuring a comprehensive peace is granted to this region, under which Israel would withdraw from occupied Arab territories in return for the normalisation of relations and the certainty of security. But none of the speakers seemed to offer any clear vision of what the Alliance would actually be doing to help bring about this peace.

Even in the corridors where the coffee breaks were hosted, this basic practical question seemed to be avoided. Indeed, several participants were more concerned about the lamentable lack of official participation in the conference. Some were even blaming this absence on the big fuss that had been orchestrated by the event's opponents.

The question of official support, or the lack thereof, seemed to have cast an overriding shadow over conference proceedings. Throughout the three-day conference Bassyouni made a point of asserting government backing for the function. But according to one senior government official, "the government is not really supporting this group as such. But we're not opposed to it either. When it was launched two years ago in 1997, there were hopes that it would be doing much more in terms of building in-roads for peace within Israeli society. This objective was not met as such. But we are letting them do what they want to do."

For his part, Moussa maintains that he never promised to take part, for he saw no point in attending a conference merely to restate a few well-known points about the need to revitalise the peace process on all tracks.

Moussa, who does not seem to view the conference as a premature act of normalisation, argued, "This conference is an NGO activity and government officials should not necessarily participate in it; NGO activities, whether they represent the views of the majority trend, or of other tendencies, should be left to the NGOs, for it is they who will have to bear the consequences, be they negative or positive."

The result was an event which was highly predictable in almost every aspect: clear Israeli participation, yet few signs of any Israeli commitment to accepting the establishment of a viable Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital; much applause from the hall at every mention of the need of security 'for all', and hardly any applause at all for any remarks concerning the Palestinians' legitimate rights, and to cap it all, much talk about the rosy future of the peace process, now that Binyamin Netanyahu is out of office.

In a concluding statement, the participants confirmed "the inherent right of the Palestinians to establish a national independent and viable state along the state of Israel." They also called for "the full implementation of all existing agreements," "stopping the construction and expansion of settlements, expropriation of land and any unilateral actions which can prejudice the outcome of the negotiations." They further demanded the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, and "the implementation of effective measures by all parties to prevent actions of violence and terrorism which could undermine the process."

The most controversial demand made at the final news conference concerned Jerusalem. The participants' concluding statement called for "solving the issue of Jerusalem in the final status negotiations in a way which keeps it an undivided city while recognising the national rights of Israelis and Palestinians in it." Many journalists present drew the conference's attention to the fact that this position falls far short of the longstanding Arab demand for full Israeli withdrawal from all Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem.

Against normalisation

By Amira Howeidy

It wasn't the Friday khotba (sermon) and it wasn't even Friday. It was, in their words, "Black Monday." But Monday's rally in the Nile-side Helnan Shepheard Hotel began with a recitation of Qur'anic verses and the zeal of a religious event.

For almost three hours in the morning and three more in the evening, representatives of various political forces and trends and professional syndicates, as well as actors and actresses, rallied against the Cairo for Peace Conference, which opened the same evening.

The rally sent one message across: normalisation of relations with Israel will not take place unless a just and comprehensive peace is achieved; in other words, unless the 4.5 million Palestinian refugees are allowed to return to their homes, Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders and Jerusalem is restored to the Palestinians to become their capital.

Each speaker gave a five-minute speech, denouncing the conference and its organisers as well as Israel's "expansionist, imperialist and fascist" policies.

The large hotel conference hall was packed with approximately 1,000 attendants. Banners, hanging on the walls of the hall, read "Normalisation with the Zionists is a disgrace" and "Egypt's national forces unite in combating submission." The audience applauded and cheered as the conference's coordinator victoriously announced that Foreign Minister Amr Moussa would not attend the Cairo for Peace conference and that the Foreign Ministry has nothing whatsoever to do with the event. "We are here today to say it out loud that we are against the trend of surrender to the enemy. This noble and sacred meaning has been distorted by the new terminology used by Israel and its allies," said the coordinator. "It is odd that, in the age of globalisation, those who lost their memory and history managed to develop a term that describes their surrender, and that term is normalisation."

The definition of normalisation was a subject on which the speakers focused. The term acquired different connotations, depending on the speaker's ideology. But they agreed that since "Israel occupied a land that belongs to the Palestinians, killed our brothers, mothers and fathers, violated our rights and continues to do so," then it is not a "normal" state and does not deserve to be treated like one.

Mustafa Bakri, editor of the independent weekly Al-Osbou', which organised the rally, accused the organisers of the Cairo for Peace conference of receiving financial support from "foreign forces hostile to Egypt." The aim of the "so-called peace conference," he argued, is to promote an Israel-friendly discourse, avoid the issue of Jerusalem "as much as possible" and enhance cooperation between Arabs and Israelis.

The alliance, sponsored by the Danish government, was proclaimed in Copenhagen in January 1997 by a group of Egyptian, Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli intellectuals who issued what they called the Copenhagen Declaration. The Egyptian participants then went on to found a non-governmental organisation called the Cairo Peace Society (CPS). Bakri said: "We call on the [Egyptian] government, which allowed the CPS to register as an NGO, to allow us to register a counter-NGO."

Dr Hamdi El-Sayed, head of the Doctors Syndicate, said that if Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak began his term with his famous 'no's', "we too have our 'no's'; 60 million 'no's' to normalisation and the culture of normalisation; 'no' to letting go of Arab land; 'no' to depriving the Palestinians of Jerusalem and 'no' to preventing the Palestinian refugees from returning to their homes." He boasted of the fact that the Doctors Syndicate was the first union to declare rejection of the 1979 peace treaty with Israel. He was interrupted by lawyer Yehia El-Gamal, a former cabinet minister, who said that it was the Bar Association that took action against those who normalised relations with Israel.

A telefax sent by the son of the late President Gamal Abdel-Nasser, Khaled, declared support for the rally and urged "all Egyptian citizens to resist the [Cairo for Peace] conference." Prominent intellectual Tarek El-Beshri also sent a telefax, expressing full support for the anti-normalisation rally, maintaining that "our battle with the Zionists will not end unless we regain our rights and our land." Celebrities such as actor Nour El-Sherif, actress Soheir El-Murshedi, actress Raghda, actor and theatre director El-Sayed Radi, actress Fardous Abdel-Hamid and prominent directors Mohamed Fadel and Galal El-Sharqawi attended. Other participating intellectuals and politicians included: retired general Mohamed Fawzi, former minister of defence, Ibrahim El-Mo'allem, president of the Arab Publishers Union and owner of the prestigious publishing house, Dar Al-Shorouk; Ibarhim Shukri leader of the Islamist-oriented Labour Party; No'man Goma'a, vice-chairman of the Wafd Party; Fahmi Howeidi, senior writer and columnist at Al-Ahram newspaper; prominent lawyer Mohamed Selim El-Awwa; Mohamed Fayek, president of the Arab Organisation for Human Rights; leading Nasserist Party member Hossam Eissa.

But despite the wide array of political trends, Nasserist sentiments prevailed. When Seif El-Islam Hassan El-Banna, son of Hassan El-Banna, founder of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, quoted Nasser's famous saying that "what is taken by force can only be regained by force," the hall cheered and applauded spiritedly: "Nasser! Nasser! Nasser!"

The conference's six resolutions declared that an anti-normalisation NGO will be established, condemned all Arab-Israeli accords as null and void, called for freezing all forms of normalisation with the "Zionist enemy", denounced the "notorious" normalisation conference, and called for "exposing" all Arabs who cooperate with the Israelis by placing their names on a black list.

A few hours later, and a few metres away, the Nasserist Party held another rally at its downtown headquarters on Talaat Harb Street. Attended by almost the same people, with the exception of a few more actors and actresses. Fervent young people chanted pan-Arab songs, shouted anti-Israeli and pro-Nasser slogans, eventually triggering the anger of the conference's coordinator, who snapped that "time is tight, it is hot and we are tired." But the excitement would not stop.

Some bored participants sitting at the back began chatting with each other. One participant turned to another sitting next to him and asked: "Why are they repeating what they said in the morning; don't they have anything else to say?" The answer was, "It's the Arab intellectuals, my friend."

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