Egypt
takes what it sees as its rightful place in the Middle East this
week when it hosts the first Israeli-Palestinian summit in four
years. Its motives? Stability, a good image and foreign investment,
analysts say.
Egypt
has prepared for months for an event like the Middle East meeting in
the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Tuesday, with a charm
campaign towards Israel and carefully balanced mediation between
competing Palestinian factions.
Egyptian
intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, set the summit up last week on
one of his increasingly frequent visits to Israel. He has acted as
informal mediator between the Israelis and the Palestinian militants
of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
But
apart from the strong desire to see an end to conflict between
Israelis and Palestinians, President Hosni Mubarak has subsidiary
motives for showing he is indispensable to the mechanics of making
peace in the Middle East, analysts say.
Internationally
he faces closer than usual scrutiny of the authoritarian Egyptian
political system, which has barely changed since Mubarak took office
23 years ago.
The
Bush administration’s campaign for democracy in the Middle East
makes it important for Egypt to prove what a valuable partner it is
in the region, analysts say.
“Mubarak
is trying to appear as someone doing his utmost to help Israel and
the United States in the Middle East, not to be in confrontation
with U.S. foreign policy,” said Hassan Nafaa, professor of
political science at Cairo University.
For
a quarter of a century Washington has been tolerant towards Egyptian
governments on repression and human rights abuses in exchange for
Egypt’s 1979 treaty with Israel and what it sees as Egypt’s
constructive influence over the Palestinians.
That
comfortable arrangement is now in dispute. “The helpful role of
Egypt’s president ... should not earn him immunity from criticism
of his self-perpetuating dictatorship,” The New York Times
said in an editorial last week.
Domestically
the new cabinet’s priority is to encourage foreign investment,
even if that means economic cooperation with Israelis through the
Qualified Investment Zones (QIZ) agreement signed with Israel and
the United States in December.
Charm
Offensive
Washington
has been tolerant towards Egypt on human rights abuses in
exchange for Egypt’s 1979 treaty with Israel. |
|
Though
popular with the textile workers who might benefit, the agreement
makes the government vulnerable to the argument that it is giving
Israel backdoor access to Arab economies.
The
charm offensive towards Israel began in the weeks before the signing
of the agreement, which allows companies in Egypt to export to the
United States without restrictions, provided their products contain
at least 11.7 percent Israeli inputs.
The
highlight was the release of convicted Israeli spy Azzam Azzam, a
textile industry technician whose continued detention might have
deterred Israelis interested in investing.
“There
seems to be a new deal, with a campaign in Egypt to improve the
image of Sharon and to show Israel as a peace-loving nation,”
added Emad Gad, a senior researcher at al-Ahram Center for Political
and Strategic Studies, a Cairo think-tank.
He
noted that the Egyptian state press already has stopped attacks on
Sharon and cartoons portraying him as a bully.
Prime
Minister Ahmed Nazif implicitly linked the QIZ agreement and the
Sharm el-Sheikh summit on Sunday. In the context of the QIZ, he
said: “Taking care of Egypt’s interests goes hand in hand with
moves in the Palestinians’ interests.”
On
the ground, diplomats say, Egypt has earned a voice in
Israeli-Palestinian talks because of the role it is already playing
in preparing for Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Some
40 Palestinian police officers went to Egypt last week for training
at Egyptian institutions and Egypt has offered to reinforce its
security presence on the border between Gaza and Egypt to prevent
arms smuggling, a chronic Israeli complaint.
Under
a draft agreement which could be signed later this week, Egypt would
substitute 750 border guards for the lightly armed police who now
patrol the border, officials said.
Speculation
has raged for several days about whether Mubarak will agree at Sharm
el-Sheikh to another goodwill gesture -- sending an Egyptian
ambassador back to Tel Aviv.
Mohamed
Bassiouny, the former Egyptian ambassador withdrawn in 2000 in
protest, said that if peace talks resumed and the Israelis stopped
some of their practices in the Palestinian territories, there would
be no obstacle to sending an envoy.
