A VIEW FROM THE EGYPTIAN LEFT
Mandel, David
A view from the Egyptian Lett 'We are not against peace' David Mandel Several years ago, Mohammad Sid-Ahmad, a prominent Egyptian journalist, wrote an important and controversial book. It was...
...Concerning the Palestinians, the Saudis want a tamed Palestinian state, which would not backfire into Saudi Arabia...
...People are interested in what we say, even if we cannot express ourselves in the press...
...Whatever promises to get them out of this nightmare is supported...
...But he has not rejoined the Egyptian mainstream...
...Besides, our words are heard throughout the Arab world...
...People are tired," he says...
...But is Israel establishing something stable for the future...
...If not for the weight of the in-tolerability of everyday life, people would not be so confused with the key issues...
...They are not complementary...
...It may not really solve anything, but when they come and say, 'We have regained Sinai, the war is over, there is peace!' — the masses respond, 'Today it is intolerable, tomorrow there is hope, it can't get much worse.' "There is a new rich class in Egypt, spawned by petrodollars, whose existence holds out hope — vain though it may be — to the masses...
...a rupture with Israel would break the treaty...
...For the Saudis, lack of peace is detrimental because it is destabilizing...
...It was called When the Guns Fall Silent, and in it Sid-Ahmad argued for a comprehensive peace settlement in the Middle East...
...The question," he told me, "is how to shift from a bad peace to peace...
...Telephones do not work...
...It is "semi-tolerated, at least until a way will be found to eliminate it," he explains...
...Part of the current impasse," he observes, "stems from the fact that the Palestinians are the weakest link when it comes to arm-twisting and power politics...
...They have little to lose...
...Sid-Ahmad is a leading member of the Progressive Union Party, the "legal" Left under the regime of President Anwar Sadat...
...It would boil down to an alliance between some Egyptian and Israeli classes...
...Such peace would not mean the elimination of contradictions in the region, but at least they would be under control, not exploding into war...
...And he points out that the agreement sets no time limit on the presence of international forces in Egypt...
...I spoke with Sid-Ahmad across his desk at Al-Aharam, Egypt's leading daily newspaper...
...These riches, not the product of labor or civilization or history, are corruptive by definition...
...Besides, objectively there is potential economic competition between the two countries...
...He comes to the office — sometimes — but has little reason to spend time there...
...Despite the harassment and oppression to which his Party and others who share his views have been subjected in Egypt, Sid-Ahmad believes the position of Israeli peace advocates is "a little bit more complicated than ours...
...To move to the agreement's time dimension, Egypt commits itself first to a peace treaty, to be followed by a partial Israeli withdrawal, then diplomatic relations, then the rest of the withdrawal____ Egypt has no way of ensuring that the second-stage withdrawal will, in fact, take place...
...The step-by-step process, however, by definition cannot achieve the aspirations of all parties...
...The Kissinger technique meant small steps on each front simultaneously...
...There is no possibility of open mass activity...
...Such non-Arab solidarity means no parity in the agreement, and no real peace...
...We cannot say that it could be a good beginning, because then we will not get the minimum necessary for real improvement...
...One unresolved question is the status of Jerusalem, which he calls a "conflict of legitimacy": "Begin cannot give in, on religious grounds, nor can the Saudis...
...For them it is a question of how to eat today...
...His work, David Mandel reports from the Middle East for In These Times and other publications...
...He notes it would permit Egypt to sever relations with any nation in the world except Israel...
...Only by articulating this agreement's shortcomings can we hope to improve it...
...But aside from the Palestinians' demands, the Camp David formula cannot even satisfy, in the long run, such 'Camp David provided...
...Eighty-five such arrests took place last October, and the party's weekly, Al-Ahaly, has been regularly confiscated before distribution, preventing its views from reaching the public...
...But this does not mean that the only alternative is peace...
...If the Israelis have to withdraw militarily, their priority will be to establish a permanent economic presence so that if tomorrow there is a different regime, they will not be kicked out...
...Israel will use economic leverage to hold Egypt back not only for military and security reasons, but also for economic ones...
...Camp David provided, Sid-Ahmad is convinced, "a pretense that the Palestinian issue is being solved when, in fact, it is not at all...
...There may be little hope that any stand against what is happening today, in either Israel or Egypt, can resonate today...
...Israelis are in a more difficult position: In nationalistic Israeli terms, Camp David is an enormous victory...
...instead, he finds himself still in dissent...
...Such an Israeli approach cannot solve or even ameliorate Egypt's economic problems...
...For the moment, our task is to come out very strongly against the current process...
...President Anwar Sadat's visit to Jerusalem, and the subsequent Camp David accords, could have been construed as at least partial steps toward the peace Sid-Ahmad had advocated...
...He believes the terms are unfair to Egypt, fail to meet the "legitimate aspirations" of the Palestinians, and do not provide a framework for lasting peace in the Middle East...
...It may be peace, and it may be other forms of convulsions in the region...
...Another is the lack of definition of "autonomy...
...This is the Left stand, not only my personal one...
...But peace on too flagrant Israeli terms would also be destabilizing...
...There is no doubt about it...
...But even that Begin cannot afford to give...
...Nonetheless, Sid-Ahmad concedes that the prospect of peace between Egypt and Israel enjoys widespread support in Egypt...
...In effect, America's treatment of the Arab-Israeli conflict has not gone beyond the step-by-step approach...
...The book was widely denounced in the Arab world —'' even on the Left,'' Sid-Ahmad acknowledges...
...Their problem is the stability of the oil structures and privileges...
...But it could resonate tomorrow...
...For them, 'legitimate aspirations' is the key issue...
...The Saudis are interested in peace, not for Arab national demands, but for class demands...
...this is what I anticipated many years ago...
...Only when the constant threat of another Arab-Israeli war was eliminated, he wrote, would it be possible for the Arab peoples to strive for the political and economic progress that has long been denied them...
...A breakthrough towards peace would have to simultaneously satisfy all the various parties...
...In effect, Egypt's defensive borders are brought back to the Suez Canal...
...Now it is a bit different: Step-by-step means one state, then another state, then a third state, and so on...
...After all," he points out, "we have a constituency...
...There is much to be done, to adjust to struggle within the new context...
...The dispute is irreconcilable...
...But in neither case is a solution found for the Palestinian issue...
...Egypt and Israel do not receive equal treatment," he adds, "with respect to demilitarized zones — they apply only to Egypt — or to the presence of United Nations troops: There are to be some observers in Israel, but troops only in Egypt...
...a pretense that the Palestinian issue is being solved when in fact it is not...' conservative Arab entities as the Saudis, Sid-Ahmad suggests...
...The problem will come later on when they see that things are not getting better...
...Then they arrest our members, because they are assumed to belong to secret organizations as well...
...Cairo is miserably crowded, dirty, and poor...
...So on this issue, there is a stalemate...
...With respect to Egypt's national concerns, Sid-Ahmad views the pending treaty as an infringement of sovereignty...
...But again I am taking a difficult step, adopting an unpopular position...
...On paper, it is not a bad peace for Israel...
...The pattern of the past is no more...
...I could very easily ride the wave," he says, "and become a much more relevant commentator than all those who write in the papers the opposite of what they wrote when my book was published...
...But they can corrupt enough around them to keep the lid on, to prevent, for the time being, a repetition of the January 1977 riots against price rises____ "But advocates of this line forget that Egypt is the weakest of the three parties involved in the current negotiations, and that Israel will be more concerned with guaranteeing its security than with putting Egypt on its feet...
...Israel is involved in all the steps, but each time with different Arab parties...
...We are going to have very difficult times...
...But in our Party's statement on the subject, it is repeated that we are not against peace...
...we can only meet behind closed doors...
...The water is bad...
...One problem he cites is the one that has blocked signing of a treaty since last November — the lack of "linkage" between the timetable for withdrawal from the Sinai and the implementation of "autonomy" for the Palestinians on the West Bank of the Jordan and in Gaza...
...Sid-Ahmad's objections to the Camp David accords go far beyond the "linkage" question that has blocked the signing of a treaty for many months...
...like that of some other prominent journalists at Al-Aharam, is never published...
...So they want a peace which is neither this nor that...
Vol. 43 • April 1979 • No. 4
