By Joel Magalnick, JTNews Correspondent
The Israelis and Palestinians can’t make peace alone. Whether it’s the United States, or Egypt, or somebody else, said Ambassador to Egypt Nabil Fahmy, there needs to be a third party to make sure that both sides live up to their agreements and stop the violence from bringing peace negotiations down yet again.
“We can’t afford the luxury of time,” said Fahmy to a small gathering at a Mercer Island home last week. “If you leave it to the two sides — Palestinians and Israelis — you’re never going to get there.”
Fahmy came to Seattle at the behest of local peace activist Yaffa Maritz, and spoke at several events including an evening at Congregation Herzl-Ner Tamid and a speaking engagement at the University of Washington’s Kane Hall. He gave his impressions of forming a peace between the two peoples from his distinctively Egyptian perspective.
The Israel Policy Forum and Find Common Ground, two groups that have been seeking peace at both the diplomatic and grassroots levels, sponsored Fahmy’s visit.
Though it is in the best interests of the Israelis and Palestinians to make peace — the violence goes down while the economy goes up — it is also in Egypt’s best interests to see stabilization in its back yard, Fahmy said, because a quiet region means all of the parties can attract foreign investment.
Yet Egypt’s role is “different and uncomfortable” from any other relationships with the two nations. It does not want to be a “go-between,” yet it must be aggressive in pushing for peace, because “if we only cater to the loudest voice in the Middle East today,” Fahmy said, “you will end up supporting the right wing on both sides.”
The peace movement, he added, with a few exceptions has been pushed underground over the past three years since the intifada began.
While acknowledging Israel’s suffering, Fahmy said Palestinian rights is the negotiations’ utmost priority. But a solution must come now, and not in five years — even if the Palestinian bargaining position is stronger then.
Fahmy said that Egypt recognizes the solution to the conflict must be two states, and that a withdrawal by Israel to the pre-1967 borders would best serve both sides.
“I cannot politically say I’m equidistant between Palestinians and Israelis,” Fahmy said, but he recognized that if, in 15 years, Israel occupies the same amount of land it will either become a non-democratic state — with Palestinians as second-class citizens — or a non-Jewish state, because there will be a Palestinian majority.
In his 30 years as a diplomat, Fahmy said much of what has happened over the past 15 years would have been unthinkable when he began his career. Whether it was the idea of bringing peace between his nation and Israel — he said after 7,000 years of history, responding to the constant prodding of the upstart country next door was a huge step for then-president Anwar Sadat — or the Oslo agreement of 1993, which Fahmy called “a tremendous success and a terrible failure,” the concept of getting along with the Jewish State did not exist then.
Yet he said that the animosity toward Israel then was not about hatred toward Jews, it was about the territory. In recent years, however, that has changed. “Killing an Israeli or killing a Palestinian has been an acceptable fact,” Fahmy said, and referred to civilian deaths as what politicians call “collateral damage.”
To stop the violence, however, Israelis and Palestinians “both conclude that neither has a partner on the other side,” Fahmy said. Therefore, it must be up to the U.S. or Egypt, to restart the momentum.
Though Fahmy reiterated a withdrawal to pre-1967 borders throughout his talk, he did address Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s planned withdrawal from Gaza, and the Bush administration’s support of a withdrawal.
President Bush’s announcement has drawn harsh rebukes from the Arab world as well as criticism from within the U.S. and in Europe that he is not treating the two sides equally.
Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak met with Bush a day before Sharon’s visit, and was unaware that such an announcement would be made. Fahmy said that Egypt was at first optimistic about Sharon’s plans, but has since become much more suspicious of his intent. He said Egypt has doubts about how far Sharon will go and whether his actions will create closure and peace. He also said that neither Israel nor the U.S. should be able to unilaterally change the country’s borders — they should be decided upon through direct negotiation.
When these negotiations occur, and as Fahmy repeated, they must happen sooner than later, putting faces onto the victims could help in stop the killing on both sides. “It’s the cycle of violence that’s dehumanizing the other side that’s stopping further movement,” he said.