Subject: Egypt withdraws ambassador from israel
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 9:22:11 -0500November 22, 2000
News Analysis: Mubarak's Move
By SUSAN SACHS
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Related Article
• Egypt Recalls Envoy, Protesting Israeli Attack on Gaza (Nov. 22, 2000)
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IYADH, Saudi Arabia, Nov. 21 — Egypt's decision today to recall its
ambassador from Tel Aviv marks the end of a long period of relative
restraint in Arab-Israeli relations.
President Hosni Mubarak's action may not mean a return to the days when
countries on each side of the divide spoke to each other rarely, if at all.
But his angry response to Israel's bombing of the densely populated Gaza
Strip on Monday signals that at least for now, he has abandoned the chatty
personal diplomacy that had become his trademark.
Egypt has recalled its ambassador only once before during 21 years of peace
with Israel. That was in 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon, and the freeze
lasted four years. Since then, even during the strained periods under
rightist Likud Party prime ministers, Egypt has maintained an
ambassadorial-level presence in Tel Aviv.
The implications of Mr. Mubarak's action today go beyond style to the
substance of Arab engagement in peacemaking, which in any case seems to
have collapsed with the growing violence between Israelis and Palestinians.
Like the Egyptian president, a number of other Arab leaders invested
personal political capital in supporting American efforts to forge a
negotiated settlement.
Pressure on the rulers of Jordan and Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf
states may now intensify with public demands to punish Israel or cool
relations with the United States, which is widely seen in the Arab world as
biased toward Israel.
President Mubarak has long staked his political credibility, inside and
outside the region, on playing the role of a mediator trusted by both
Palestinians and Israelis. But his policy of moderation and dialogue has
been sorely tested by the last few weeks of bloodshed.
That has opened Mr. Mubarak to a relentless storm of criticism from Arab
commentators and Arab leaders who have said he should not deal with Israeli
officials until the fighting stops.
On its face, the recall of the long-serving Egyptian ambassador to Israel,
Muhammad Bassiouny, conformed to resolutions that have been adopted at
recent Arab and Islamic summit meetings.
Both gatherings ended with agreements to try to isolate Israel
internationally and in the region. The few Arab countries that had
established low-level diplomatic contacts — Oman, Qatar, Morocco and
Tunisia — were told to end them, and they did. Countries with full-fledged
diplomatic relations, though, were merely invited to cut them if they saw
fit.
Egypt fought hard in those summit meetings to preserve its diplomatic ties
to Israel. Arguing that more can be accomplished for the Palestinians by
keeping lines of communication open, Egyptian diplomats managed to tone
down militaristic proposals from less moderate nations and to fend off
increasingly strident demands for a definitive break.
But like other Arab leaders, Mr. Mubarak also faced demands for stronger
actions from his own citizens, who have been exposed to daily television
and newspaper reports on the Palestinian-Israeli clashes.
This morning they woke up to a new batch of agitated newspaper headlines
about the Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the bombing
of an Israeli school bus. A front-page headline in El Gomhouriya read:
"Barak Loses His Mind After Bombing of Israeli Bus. Gaza in Flames."
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NEW YORK TIMES
November 30, 2000
Israel's Crisis Within a War - By DEBORAH SONTAG
JERUSALEM, Nov. 29 — As the Israeli election campaign unofficially
kicked into gear today, local political experts forecast turbulence on
all fronts. Anticipating a rematch of Ehud Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu
in spring elections, they dourly envisaged a battle between two failed prime
ministers against the backdrop of a deeply flawed political system and in the
midst of a violent conflict with the Palestinians.
And those were the optimists. "It's a very serious crisis," said Yaron Ezrahi,
a leading political scientist. "In the middle of an emergency situation between
us and the Palestinians, the Knesset is declaring a political war among the Jews.
Usually democracies suspend the political process during such times. Not us.
We choose to accentuate our domestic conflicts when the country is under siege."
[Editor's note: there is little support for anyone else as candidate for Prime Minister ]
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