Venting anger

Parliamentarians take the foreign minister to task after accusing him of soft peddling over Israel's 1967 massacre of Egyptian prisoners of war, reports Gamal Essam El-Din

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Abul-Gheit

On 17 April Mohamed Sayed Saber, a nuclear engineer who worked for the Atomic Energy Authority, was arrested and charged with spying for Israel. Four days later a State Security Emergency Court convicted Mohamed El-Attar, an Egyptian-Canadian citizen, of spying for Israel and sentenced him to 15 years in prison. El-Attar's trial opened on 24 February.

As well as two Israeli espionage cases within two months, the public's attention has been focussed on issues arising from Ruch Shaked (The Spirit of Shaked), a documentary film on the 1967 War that claimed that Israel's elite Shaked reconnaissance unit killed 250 unarmed Egyptian POWs in Sinai at the end of the 1967 War, and after they had surrendered to the Israeli army. The unit was under the command of Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, currently Israel's minister of infrastructure.

The espionage cases and the documentary have inflamed not just public opinion but also MPs, feelings that came to a head in a meeting with Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit on Sunday. MPs, led by those belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood or with leftist sympathies, used the occasion to vent their anger, accusing Abul-Gheit of adopting a soft line against the Israelis. Uncowed by the attacks, Abul-Gheit responded that "a handful of MPs" were making a lot of noise about the Shaked film while the People's Assembly speaker Fathi Sorour intervened to contain the exchange of accusations between the foreign minister and his parliamentary detractors.

Abul-Gheit opened the meeting by apologising that it had taken so much time for him to appear before MPs to answer questions arising from the Shaked documentary, saying his busy schedule was behind the delay. In a written statement Abul-Gheit told MPs that "on 4 March I summoned the Israeli ambassador to provide an explanation while the Egyptian Embassy in Tel Aviv was ordered to consult with the Israeli Foreign Ministry over the Shaked issue". Abul-Gheit further said he had been keen to raise the issue with the Israeli foreign minister. "When we met in Belgium I told her about the public anger the Shaked film had caused, and she promised a response." Some days later the Israelis provided the Foreign Ministry with a copy of the Shaked film.

"The film shows clearly that the practices of Israeli forces against our unarmed soldiers were savage," said Abul-Gheit, and as a result he asked the Israelis for an official explanation. "I also asked the International Red Cross Commission to provide us with all the information they might have about Israeli treatment of Egyptian soldiers in the 1956 and 1967 wars."

Abul-Gheit argued that revelations concerning the Shaked massacres were hardly new and that "the killing of unarmed Egyptian soldiers by Israeli hands in 1956 and 1976 came into sharp focus for the first time in 1995.

Then, following a request from the Foreign Ministry, Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres formed a fact-finding commission. "On our side," said Abul-Gheit, "a commission was set up comprising representatives from the ministries of defence, justice and foreign affairs to document the Israeli massacres".

Abul-Gheit said that last March, President Hosni Mubarak had ordered the Foreign Ministry, alongside other "sovereign agencies", to collate all available information on the military, political and legal aspects of the Israeli massacres. "These agencies are now in the process of collecting this information so we can decide what step to take next," said Abul- Gheit.

Foreign Ministry legal experts, he said, agreed that the case fell under the jurisdiction of the 1949 Third Geneva Treaty which "gives Egypt the right to file a case against Israel for violating the rights of Egyptian POWs". At the same time, added Abul-Gheit, the families of victims have the right to file cases against the Israelis in Egyptian courts and "in case the Israelis are found guilty by these courts Egypt could ask Interpol to arrest them".

It would be difficult, Abul-Gheit said, to file a case with the International Criminal Court (ICC).

"ICC regulations state that it cannot deliberate on war crimes before July 2002 unless the two concerned parties -- Egypt and Israel -- approve the referral." Establishing a special international tribunal to investigate Israeli war crimes would, he added, require approval from the United Nations Security Council, which makes the process "very difficult given the countries which have veto powers".

Abul-Gheit ended by urging civil society organisations to join hands with the Foreign Ministry in preparing a dossier on Israel's war crimes in the 1956 and 1967 wars. "In this way we can serve our case rather than making a lot of hollow noises," he concluded.

Abul-Gheit's statement failed to mollify many MPs. Mustafa Bakri, predictably, led the charge, accusing Abul-Gheit of having no real policy towards Israel over the issue. Bakri urged the foreign minister to expel the Israeli ambassador from Cairo.

Ragab Hilal Hemeida, Al-Ahrar Party's sole MP, described Abul-Gheit's speech as very diplomatic. It showed, he said, that "he is not serious about investigating Israeli massacres".

Angered, Abul-Gheit responded by accusing some MPs of seeking to make a great deal of noise for their own ends. Hemeida then described Abul-Gheit as "the biggest noise-maker" forcing speaker Sorour to intervene.

Abul-Gheit subsequently apologised for any heated remarks, saying he had been upset by MPs describing him as "reckless and aiming to protect Israel".

Muslim Brotherhood deputies claimed they had documents implicating Israel in war crimes in 1973. Ibrahim El-Gaafari, a Brotherhood MP, claimed that in 1973 the Israelis had committed atrocities in Suez and Ismailia. Brotherhood MPs clashed with NDP member Adel Shaalan, after he said he was "sure that during wars our soldiers killed a lot of Israelis in the same way they killed our soldiers". Mustafa El-Guindi, an independent MP, warned not to allow the Ruth Shaked film to stir sedition among Egyptians. "We all have to join forces in standing up to the Zionists."

Speaker Sorour supported Abul-Gheit on the difficulty of filing a case with the ICC.

"It is a highly political issue," said Sorour, who revealed that after he had seen the Shaked film he had refused to meet with the Israeli ambassador.