Hate from the right
A sizeable segment of the Israeli populace sees Egypt as the enemy. Emad Gad tries to discover why
The Israeli media took up dozens of domestic and foreign issues this week, one of the most prominent of which was the improvement in Egyptian-Israeli relations. There was virtual consensus that relations with Egypt had witnessed tangible improvement. Many writers confirmed that there was something new in the firmament of such ties, seeing in the planned March visit of Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom to Cairo a clear sign that relations were emerging from the cold.
Clearly, bilateral relations between the two countries have improved, as seen in the recent repeated diplomatic communications between the countries, whether in meetings between Israeli and Egyptian officials in Israel or those held during several visits by Egyptian officials to the territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority. President Hosni Mubarak and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon have also exchanged telephone calls and Mubarak met with Shalom in Geneva.
Another indication of improved relations was the discussion of issues pertaining to Israeli assaults on the Palestinian people. That is, Egyptian-Israeli relations are affected by what happens on the Palestinian front. If calm prevailed in the Palestinian territories, one argument goes, Israeli aggression would end, negotiations would be revived and Egyptian-Israeli relations would experience a big leap forward. Indeed, Egypt often resolves contentious issues with Israel in order to see positive developments on the Palestinian front. The opposite is also true: if conditions in Palestinian territories deteriorate and negotiations are frozen, Egyptian-Israeli relations usually witness a degree of tension relative to the degree of deterioration in the Palestinian territories. Bilateral disagreements quickly become prominent and any improvement in relations is stalled.
As a result of this dynamic, Egypt's relations with Israel have generally improved and developed during reigns of the Labour Party, starting when Yitzhak Rabin became prime minister in 1992. Rabin's government kept Egypt abreast of the secret negotiations in Oslo. It supported and helped Egypt play an important role in facilitating negotiations on thorny issues, as seen in the process leading up to the Oslo accords and the implementation of the first phase of the agreement. This period, which lasted from 1992 until Rabin's assassination in 1995, witnessed no major crisis in Egyptian-Israeli relations. Bilateral crises were usually resolved quickly.
The situation is completely different with Israeli right- wing governments. They usually halt any development in negotiations with Palestinians, a step that leads in turn to the rapid deterioration of bilateral relations.
Although the Israeli media generally agrees that there has been a notable improvement in Egyptian-Israeli relations, there is a trend in Israel that is hostile to Egypt and which refuses to deal with the improvement in diplomatic relations which it considers only a brief retreat from what it calls Egypt's historical enmity towards Israel. This trend has made its presence known in comments on the news of the improvement, both in the Israeli press and on Israeli Web sites. These comments are extremely hostile to Egypt and spring from a historical view adopted by Israeli right- wing discourse that sees Egypt as an enemy that has never renounced its objective to destroy Israel. Partisans of this ideology believe that the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt is not at all reliable and that Egypt, like all other Arab countries, only understands the language of force.
These comments reveal a historical enmity towards Egypt -- as a nation and a people -- not linked to politics. This is clear, for example, in the comments sent to the Israeli Web site News First Class (www.nfc.co.il) following a news report about an Egyptian attorney who has sued Sharon for the torture and murder of Egyptian prisoners of war. One reader commented that if Sharon has indeed tortured and murdered Arabs, he should be re-elected. Another reader wrote: "Egyptian impudence knows no bounds."
Responding to Egypt's objections to Israeli threats to assassinate Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin, one reader wrote to www.walla.co.il saying, "Egypt is Israel's enemy. Even though there is a peace agreement, Arabs only understand the language of force." Another comment on News First Class read, "Egypt is still Israel's enemy because it allows weapons to be smuggled through Rafah, along with drugs and whores." Another news item that had no relation to Israel discussed President Mubarak's response to members of a Libyan delegation that complained of campaigns against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in the Egyptian press. Mubarak responded that while he rejects any defamation of presidents, the Egyptian press is free and independent. One Israeli reader wrote that he wished all Egyptians (whom he described as "bastards") would fall prey to a destructive earthquake so he could see "Egyptian corpses washed up on the shore."
Such comments express the opinions of a not-so-limited segment of the Israeli population. At the same time, they reveal the enmity and racism directed at anything Egyptian or Arab, showing that Israeli society lacks a culture of peace, acceptance of others and the principle of coexistence. It is apparent that the Israeli right has had an effect and that there is a trend in Israel that fundamentally rejects peace with the Arabs. Some segments of this trend view the Arabs as subhuman. There are dozens of examples of such comments that can be viewed on the Web site of Arabs Against Discrimination, in Arabic, English and French, along with the Hebrew originals (www.aad- online.org).
