"Israel cannot participate because it has not brought the peace we expect. That's the position of all Egyptian intellectuals toward Israel," Fahmi told reporters during a press conference inaugurating the Cairo Film Festival on Wednesday.

Egyptian intellectuals complain that viewing Israeli films would simply promote peace on Israeli terms.

Israel has never been allowed to attend the annual festival, which started in 1976.

Egypt became the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, but many Egyptians do not accept the government's position for religious or political reasons.

They say that Israel refuses to withdraw from the lands it occupied in 1967, continues to build settlements for Jews on Palestinian areas, refuses to share Jerusalem with other religions and refuses to allow the Palestinians who fled Palestine during the Arab-Israeli wars to return.

French actor Alain Delon, a guest of honor for the festival's opening, said he was not aware of the problem about Israeli participation. "I don't know the festival's selection."

Egyptian artists working with Israel are suspended from the artists union.

Over the next two weeks, 157 films from 42 countries will be projected in Cairo cinemas.

Presiding on the jury will be French filmmaker Yves Boisset. The other jurors include two Egyptians, a Brazilian, a Briton, a Frenchman, an Indian, a Pole, a Tunisian and an American.

France has the most entries of any country at 23.

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