Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Shivering Peace

Two articles in Ha'aretz today demonstrate just how cold the peace between Israel and Egypt really is. In the first, an Egyptian academic is being harshly attacked for not walking out (with Iran) of an interfaith meeting that was attended by Israeli President Shimon Peres.
Egyptian parliamentarians representing the Muslim Brotherhood even called for Tantawi's dismissal as university head because of this "display of normalization of ties."

But Egypt's religious affairs minister, Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq, came to Tantawi's defense, saying in a newspaper interview that Tantawi did not shake Peres' hand or the hands of the rabbis at the conference.

A sterling defense if there ever was one (and another example of how hostility to Israel seems to keep magically expressing itself as hostility to Jews).

The second article concerns an Egyptian court ruling annulling the citizenship of any Egyptian who marries an Israeli, as well as stripping any children of the couple of citizenship, on the grounds that such partnerships constitute a "security risk". The government, to its credit, is appealing the ruling. But in a sense, that's just the point -- the "peace" between Israel and Egypt is almost purely governmental -- there is very little indication that the populace as a whole has accepted Israel as a true and permanent neighbor.

The last article also contains a piece on how Jordan is looking to expel (or perhaps "transfer"?) many of its Palestinian inhabitants to the West Bank. But it's okay, because it's not Israel. Or something.

1 comment:

S. Rahav said...

The second article include an interesting factoid. It states that the number of Egyptians legally residing in Israel may be as high as 20000.

This means that there are more Egyptians with Israeli citizenship than Jewish citizens in Arab countries. (This excludes Iran. However, even including Iran, the number is of the same order of magnitude.)

I am not sure what to conclude from that, but still found this to be of interest.

PS. I really like your blog. It makes me think.