A surprising report from Egypt

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

as it a premature announcement, the tip of the iceberg, wishful thinking, or a spin for domestic purposes? It, of course, is the surprising report last night from the Egyptian Middle East News Agency, which seemed to go overboard with a report on an unwritten but full-fledged deal between Israel and the Palestinians that would lead to a peace conference this summer in Washington and to a full-scale peace agreement.

The Israelis were the first to react, last night pouring some cold water on the report. True, government sources said, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised the Palestinains – through the Egyptians, not directly – that in exchange for quiet from the Palestinian side (which was again broken today by mortar fire on settlements in Gush Katif and overnight Israeli gunfire that apparently killed a Palestinian teen) Israel would respond with quiet. But Israel, said the sources, was not going to any international peace conference until the Palestinian government had undertaken security reforms, disarmed the irregular militia and armed cells, and ceased incitement. As far as Israel is concerned, the roadmap is the only way to peace – thought the road map does call for an international peace conference after Palestinian elections.

Israel has already made known its promises to the Palestinians – through the Americans, British, Russians, and Egyptians -- that it would do whatever it can to enable the Palestinian elections, including a withdrawal from Palestinian urban centers to enable freedom of movement on election day. The Palestinians, too, denied that any full-fledged agreement had been struck between them and Israel, but they also admitted that they understand that Israel will allow the same arrangements for election day on January 9th that were in effect for the last PA elections, in 1996.

And speaking of elections, Marwan Barghouti’s wife was widely quoted this morning as saying her husband was negotiating with the Palestinian leadership over his terms for once again withdrawing from the January 9th presidential race. His withdrawal would of course be a relief for Mahmoud Abbas, the PLO chairman even though his victory is practically assured despite public opinion polls proving Barghouti is popular in the West Bank. The only question is by how large a margin will Abbas win – and will it be a majority or a plurality. There are at least a dozen candidates right now, though some might drop out as the date approaches. As for the Hamas boycott of the elections, Israeli reporters are saying that the Hamas leadership might not vote but the eagerness to vote crosses all political lines in the Palestinian territories and it is doubtful that many will follow the official Hamas election boycott line.

he more cynical of Israeli government spokesmen told reporters that the MENA report was a domestic ploy by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to rebuff criticism of his release of Azzam Azzam, the Israeli Druze textile machinery technician who was jailed for 8 years in Egypt on what Israel says were trumped up charges of espionage prompted by a commercial dispute between an Egyptian textile company and the Israeli firm for which Azzam worked.

Yet there was no doubting that Mubarak has put his foot to the gas pedal on the peace process in the last few weeks. Not only has he praised Sharon, long the bogeyman of the Arab world, as the only Israeli politician in the arena right now who can make peace, he has gone to Kuwait seeking Gulf participation in a broad peace offensive that would include Kuwait and other Arab states forging diplomatic ties with Israel and is trying to persuade Syrian President Bashar Assad to take some ‘daring steps,’ as Haaretz reported this morning, to prove to Israelis that he is serious about peace.

The change in tone is already showing up in the Egyptian media, at least as far as Israelis could see: this morning, for example, an Israeli embassy spokesman was interviewed by Egyptian TV – something that has not happened since before the intifada broke out. The acting Egyptian ambassador in Israel appeared on Israel Radio and said that ‘there have been positive changes and improvements and in the coming weeks if these steps continue there will be more and if this happens it will lead to very important developments for Israel and the Egyptians and Palestinians and who knows maybe some other countries in the region and lead to an overall progress in the peace process.’ The ambassador said ‘there is a change in relationship between the two leaders and if you compare what is happening now, in the pone calls for example, to what was happening in 2003 and 2002, there is a very big difference.’ He attributed the improvement to changes in the Israeli leadership and to the changes in the Palestinian leadership.

And something also seems to be happening on the Israeli side. For one thing, there was no denial of reports that as part of the Azzam Azzam deal, Israel had promised Egypt a Palestinian prisoner release that would presumably help Abbas’ election chances. A ‘senior military source’ was briefing reporters this morning about ‘dramatic changes’ in Israeli deployments in the territories, including lifting some checkpoints. Meanwhile, while it appears that Sharon will handily win a vote tomorrow in the Likud central committee allowing him to negotiate a new coalition with Labor and the Haredi parties, it is not so certain that Shimon Peres will win so handily – if at all – in the Labor vote next week. More than half the Labor faction is now demanding a decision on when the party will hold its leadership race and if the party chooses to pick a new leader in the spring of 2005, as some – including Ehud Barak and Matan Vilnai – are demanding, the party is unlikely to join Sharon’s government. Nor is it certain that the Likud central committee will approve whatever deal Sharon works out with Labor, even if Labor agrees to negotiate.

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