29 March - 4 April 2001
Issue No.527
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 29 March - 4 April 2001 Issue No.527 |
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Interpreting Wye
A court verdict supporting an EgyptAir pilot's decision not to permit Israelis to inspect his plane seemed to underscore the gap between peace treaty stipulations and facts on the ground, writes Amira Howeidy
The saga of EgyptAir pilot Ali Murad was back in the headlines last week when a High Disciplinary Court ruling, on 21 March, absolved him of any wrong doing. In September last year, Murad, as chief pilot of an EgyptAir flight to Gaza, refused to allow armed Israeli soldiers to inspect his plan upon arrival in Gaza air port. He flew his plane back to Cairo rather than submit to the inspection. The media and the public considered him a hero, his publicly-owned air company, on the other hand, considered him insubordinate. Accused of causing EgyptAir financial loss, he was referred to the Administrative Prosecutor who suspended him from work. In the eyes of the court, however, Murad had acted professionally and "preserved the dignity of his country."
Murad
The saga began with a routine EgyptAir flight to Gaza on 2 September -- Murad's first. Soon after landing, when the passengers disembarked, three trucks packed with armed Israeli soldiers surrounded the plane and Murad was informed that they wanted to inspect the plane from inside. It was the first time in 15 years of flying that his plane was subject to inspection by armed officers and he was uneasy.
He contacted EgyptAir headquarters in Cairo, but received only "vague replies." He then contacted the Egyptian embassy in Tel Aviv, which dispatched an embassy diplomat. When Murad asked the diplomat if armed Israeli soldiers should be permitted to inspect an Egyptian plane, the diplomat did not reply and left the plane. Meanwhile, the soldiers were attempting to come aboard and Murad was forced into making the decision himself: he would not allow them on the plane. The Israelis responded by turning away passengers booked to return to Cairo on the same plane, saying that they would not be allowed on the plane until it was inspected. Murad returned to Cairo without the passengers.
Although Murad says he has never been a politicised person, his case took on decidedly political dimensions and became a matter of national sovereignty and an occasion for lambasting Israel. Murad became a hero overnight, appearing on popular TV shows and making headlines in the press. His stance won national sympathy and at least 58 lawyers, many of whom are stars in their field, volunteered to defend him.
Murad had reasoned that an Egyptian plane in any airport is considered Egyptian land -- and, therefore, still under Egyptian sovereignty. "How can I allow armed Israeli soldiers to inspect [the plane] when I had no instructions to allow this to happen?" he said. "This is over and above the fact the this kind of thing is not done anywhere."
The court agreed. The International Civil Aviation Regulations decided by the 1944 Chicago Agreement -- to which both Egypt and Israel are signatories -- local authorities can inspect a plane's papers and "visits" by the specialised authorities are permitted, but armed inspection is not mentioned. The agreement is backed up by Egyptian Civil Aviation Law. Murad's superiors, the court was at pains to point out, had evaded their responsibilities by not responding clearly to the pilot's queries about whether to allow the inspection. "It is obvious that his superiors should be fully aware of the civil aviation regulations," the ruling said.
Embarrassing as the court's decision must have been to EgyptAir, the national carrier was still in for more. On 25 March, Al-Arabi newspaper, mouthpiece of the Nasserist party, published a letter dated 25 January 1999 from the Civil Aviation Authority to the security department of EgyptAir regarding the status of EgyptAir planes after the signing of the 1998 Wye Accord. The agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority had included the construction of Gaza Airport, but stipulated that all Palestinian planes are subject to armed inspection. EgyptAir had inquired whether this applies to its own planes. The verdict, issued by the head of the Civil Aviation Authority, Abdel-Fatah Kato, was that the Wye Accord only applies to its signatories, "and, therefore, does not apply to any other country." Kato noted that since Egypt does not inspect Israeli planes in Egyptian airports, it should be treated equally in Gaza Airport.
"I'm not a hero," Murad insisted in an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly. "What I did was done for purely professional reasons. I was the pilot of that plane, and, therefore, responsible for its safety, which I felt was in jeopardy. It had nothing to do with politics. I didn't even know of the 'Wye Accord'." Until the Weekly went to print, EgyptAir had not responded to the court order. According to Murad, the company owes him the pay withheld during the last seven months of his suspension -- a combined total of LE19,800 and $10,428.
Although EgyptAir officials would not comment on the case, the company's stance is clear from the letter Chairman Fahim Rayan sent to Murad notifying him of his suspension, which argued that the pilot's actions had been prejudicial to Egyptian-Israeli relations. And yet, the glaring disparity between the way the national carrier had interpreted Murad's actions in light of relations between the two former enemies and the way that the public responded to Murad's defiance is telling manifestation of the difficult distinction between politics and peace treaties and the reality on the ground.
"All I want now, after the justice I was given by the court, is my job back," says a happy Murad. "EgyptAir is like a home to me. My father worked there and so do I. We know nothing about politics, and the fact that I have a problem with the operations sector [of EgyptAir] doesn't mean that I'll ever turn against the company."
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