Criticism in Egypt over Meeting between Editor of Government Monthly and Former Israeli Ambassador

Recently, the question of normalization with Israel has been in the headlines in Egypt,[1] in the wake of profuse criticism of a meeting between former Israeli Ambassador to Egypt Shalom Cohen and Dr. Halah Mustafa, editor of the Egyptian government monthly Al-Dimuqratiya of the Al-Ahram media group.

Following the meeting, the Al-Ahram board of directors decided to open an investigation against Dr. Mustafa, and also declared a boycott of Israelis at all levels. The Egyptian Journalists Union likewise had Dr. Mustafa investigated for violating its ban, dating from the 1980s, on all forms of normalization with Israel, and subsequently issued a warning against her. More severe measures were taken by the union's ethics board against the deputy editor of the government weekly October, Hussein Sarag. He was suspended from his post for three months after he admitted to participating in a reception at the Israeli embassy in Cairo and to visiting Israel dozens of times.[2]

Dr. Mustafa said in her defense that her meeting with Cohen was legitimate in the context of her work as a journalist, and that punitive measures against her were inappropriate because she had broken no laws, nor had she violated the constitution. She added that the union's anti-normalization resolution was only a recommendation, and added that it should be reconsidered in light of the current reality.

Following are excerpts from reactions in the Egyptian press to the meeting between Dr. Mustafa and the ambassador.

Journalists Union Issues Warning to Dr. Mustafa

The Egyptian Journalists Union objected to Dr. Mustafa's meeting with Ambassador Cohen, in light, it said in a statement, of "the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people and the continued occupation of Arab lands in Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine." The union's council decided unanimously to summon Dr. Mustafa to face an investigative committee, which eventually only issued her a warning.[3]

Union chairman Makram Muhammad Ahmad called on Dr. Mustafa to apologize for holding the meeting in her office despite objections by Al-Ahram. He said that she could not be accused of conducting normalization activity, since the meeting was part of her work as a journalist; he went on to define normalization as signing agreements with Israeli press institutions, organizing tours for journalists in order to introduce them to Israeli journalists, or inviting Israeli journalists to lecture at the union. Nevertheless, Ahmad said that he himself would never interview Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu or any other Israeli official even if asked to do so by a government representative, because the answers he would receive from such an official could all be anticipated.[4]

Al-Ahram Board of Directors: Boycott All Israelis

At a meeting of the Al-Ahram board of directors, many, including Al-Ahram Al-Iqtisadi magazine editor Anwar Al-Hawari, called for firing Dr. Mustafa,[5] but board chairman 'Abd Al-Mun'im Sa'id decided that she would only be investigated.[6] Furthermore, a boycott of all Israelis was declared at the board meeting. It was also decided to ban Israelis of all ranks from entering the Al-Ahram building – from ordinary individuals to diplomats to senior officials – and to ban journalists from holding conferences and conventions or conducting joint research with Israelis. The board even called on the Egyptian parliament to reconsider Dr. Mustafa's appointment as Al-Dimuqratiya editor.

Al-Ahram chief editor Osama Gheith denied that the move to boycott Israelis was racist or discriminatory, saying: "Al-Ahram is a cultural lighthouse of Egypt and of the Arab world; it respects the individual, whatever his religion. Al-Ahram respects dialogue and discussion, but the Israeli people has distanced itself from human values, and has voted for an Israeli government made up of extremists who oppose peace and support terrorism, destruction, and murder." Gheith added that Al-Ahram opposed normalization with Israel and receiving Israelis within its gates until peace was established, and until Israel withdrew from all occupied Arab land.[7]

Roz Al-Yousef Board of Directors Chairman: The Israeli Ambassador Will Not Be Received until There Is Peace

Many writers in the Egyptian press attacked Dr. Mustafa for meeting with Ambassador Cohen, expressing opposition to normalization with Israel. Karam Gaber, chairman of the board of directors of the Roz Al-Yousef weekly, wrote: "We will welcome the Israeli ambassador and meet with him in our offices if Israel withdraws from the Arab lands occupied in the 1967 aggression – first of all eastern Jerusalem, which no Muslim would agree should be under Israeli sovereignty. We will welcome him if a just and viable peace agreement is attained and if Israel stops its plans of expansion and of swallowing up the Palestinian lands, and stops the settlements and also its plundering of the rights of the Palestinian people. We will welcome him if Israel stops its barbaric attacks on the Palestinian people, the most recent of which was the criminal war against the residents of Gaza, and will give this people hope for life and a future.

"We will welcome the Israeli ambassador after a comprehensive peace is established, but not before, because Israel is an aggressive country that is occupying the lands of the other by force, and that opposes the legitimate international resolutions... Israel is sabotaging the efforts to arrive at a peace agreement, and is obstructing and blocking them in order to evade the commitments it has made to peace. Israel is still the number one enemy of the national Arab security. It has never put forth an initiative for peaceful coexistence with the peoples of the region; it adopts a policy of excessive force in order to subjugate the region.

"Israel wants normalization for free. It wants embassies in the Arab capitals, open skies for its planes to fly across, commercial offices, and normal relations – [but] without paying the price, and without committing to anything... Israel wants everything while paying nothing... It has convinced itself that the obstacle of hatred [towards it] amongst the Arab peoples is [now] unusually low.

"The Arab peoples hate Israel because of its unacceptable deeds – it is an aggressive state that murders Palestinian civilians, and slaughters the elderly, children, and women, with a barbarity known only in the Nazi [era]...

"It is difficult for us to put our hand in the hands of the Israeli ambassador because his are stained with the blood of our children in Palestine, and his clothing exudes the scent of murder, smoke, and gunpowder. It is difficult for us to put our hand in his because he has not brought with him honest intentions or clean motives. The proof of this is that his government refuses to stop the aggression and the settlements that swallow up the remaining Palestinian lands. It is difficult for us to laugh with him or to smile before his pale and cunning smiles, like the smile of a venomous snake... Before there is a comprehensive peace, [we say] no to the Israel ambassador – because he, like his country, wants normalization but does not want peace, while we want peace before normalization, and [an Israeli] withdrawal [from the Palestinian territories] before opening up airspace, embassies, and commercial offices..."[8]

Journalists Union Member: The Union's Anti-Normalization Decision Is No Sacred Cow

Only a very few writers in the Egyptian press sided with Dr. Mustafa, saying that her meeting with Ambassador Cohen was part of her work as a journalist. Fewer still criticized the Journalists Union's opposition to normalization with Israel. Union member Nabil Sharaf Al-Din wrote: "It seems as if the Journalists Union's decisions [to ban normalization with Israel] are a sacred cow that cannot be touched ... But if we amended the constitution, which is the [mother] of all laws, why can't we take another look at decisions made decades ago under essentially different circumstances? I personally, as a union member, will not ratify the continued drawing of this sword [against] journalists' necks via the ban on so-called normalization with Israel...

"What is the problem... with an Egyptian journalist going to Israel or meeting with an Israeli official? Don't Israeli journalists do this, even [interviewing Egyptian] President [Hosni Mubarak] personally? Finally, does visiting a country [like Israel] or meeting with its officials mean [agreement with] its policy?...

"The questions are not over, but what needs to end is the situation of split personality and phobia by the shapers of public opinion..."[9]

Dr. Mustafa: In Egypt, There's a Phobia about the Word "Normalization"

In response to the uproar sparked by her meeting with Ambassador Cohen, Dr. Mustafa said that she was not the first journalist at Al-Ahram to meet with Israeli officials. She said that the chairman of Al-Ahram's board of directors, 'Abd Al-Mun'im Sa'id, had several times hosted both the previous Israeli ambassador and the current one, in his capacity as director of the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. Israeli academics and researchers even participated in conferences held by the Al-Ahram Center, she said.

Dr. Mustafa added that Egypt's foreign minister had known in advance of her meeting, which was about organizing a conference at Al-Ahram on the future of the peace process. She added that no one at Al-Ahram had expressed any objections to Ambassador Cohen's visit, or demanded that it be cancelled.[10]

Dr. Mustafa continued to defend herself in an article in the Al-Ahram daily: "[My meeting with Ambassador Cohen] was the direct reason for the outbreak of a [public] debate on one of the most essential issues on the agenda in our Arab world – relations with the other, particularly the Israeli, that is, 'normalization.' This expression in itself still arouses phobia, embarrasses everyone, and deters them from conducting any kind of fruitful discussion...

"Since the writer of these lines, the one who aroused this broad argument, is of the school that calls for dialogue, there is no need to justify [Ambassador Cohen's] visit [to Al-Ahram]; its purpose was to examine possibilities for holding an academic conference on the future of the peace process in the Middle East...

"Egypt entered an era of peace in the late 1970s, and it has become the reality in which we live... By virtue of this peace, Egypt has gained a relative advantage over the majority of Arab countries. Though some of these countries have joined the so-called radical or rejectionist camp, they nevertheless are trying to get to where Egypt is – that is, to the settlement of the conflict between them and Israel, and to signing peace agreements with this country...

"The opponents of dialogue claim first of all that dialogue necessarily means agreeing with the policies of the other party. Is this so, or is it the other way around? Dialogue is a means of presenting diverse positions until compromise is reached. Second, they claim that there is firm popular opposition to the idea of peace and to the path of dialogue. It is enough to point out here that for over 30 years there has been no popular intifada to demand that the [peace] agreement be cancelled, or [even] to oppose it, and that the People's Council – the representative body that expresses the will of the people – has issued no decisions or legislation attesting to this... This does not mean, [of course,] that the people have no right at all to express their outrage or their opposition to aggressive actions and wars...

"According to judicial conventions, the Journalists Union's [1985] decision [to ban normalization with Israel] is only a recommendation from 30 years ago... This decision needs to be reexamined, not only because it does not include a precise definition of the term ['normalization'], but also because it does not reflect the current reality after recognition of the State of Israel and the exchange of ambassadors with it...

"A recommendation that remains unchanged for three decades while internal, regional, and international conditions change may be a tradition in totalitarian regimes, but it is absolutely not a democratic tradition... This recommendation contravenes the country's constitution, laws and public policy..."[11]