CAIRO, Sept 16, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Forty years after signing the Camp David
Accords, Egypt and Israel live in uneasy peace, as cool diplomatic ties have
failed to unfreeze other relations.
“There is still a psychological barrier between us and the Israeli people,”
said Egyptian ex-lawmaker Mohammed Anwar Sadat, nephew of former president
Anwar Sadat.
Mohammed Sadat proudly keeps a photo of his late uncle in his Cairo office.
Egypt’s then head of state risked everything in making peace with Israel at
the US presidential retreat Camp David on September 17 1978.
The Accords, cemented by a peace treaty in 1979, saw regional powerhouse
Egypt temporarily shunned by the rest of the Arab World.
Sadat himself was assassinated on October 6, 1981.
The late president “had great courage and a vision for the future”, his
nephew said.
But the peace, he said, “has always been cold”.
– Palestinian cause stirs passions –
While many Egyptians welcome the absence of war, they remain hostile to
Israel.
“Egypt’s acceptance of full diplomatic and political normalisation” has not
translated into “a cultural or popular normalisation”, said Mustafa Kamal
Sayed, professor of political sciences at Cairo University.
This uneasy but stable status quo is reflected on Cairo’s streets, where
many put their antipathy towards Israel down to their neighbour’s policies
towards the Palestinians.
“The normalisation failed to gain popular support because of events linked
to Palestinians,” said bank worker Mohammed Oussam.
He said he could not forget Israel’s bombing of “schools and refugee camps”
during Lebanon’s 1975 to 1990 civil war.
“The Israelis have not adhered to the principles of peace with the
Palestinians or the Arabs,” said another Mohammed.
It’s a sentiment also shared by Islam Emam.
“We speak of peace, of normalisation — then they kill our brothers and
take their land”, he said, referring to the Palestinians.
He blames Israel’s government, rather than its citizens.
“In the end, nobody truly chooses his government,” he said.
– Controversy affects sport, tourism –
Enmity towards Israel often crystallises over sporting events.
Egyptian and Liverpool football maestro Mohamed Salah has been criticised
at home for appearing in a Champions League match in Israel in 2013, when he
played for Switzerland’s FC Basel.
Salah said he did not make political decisions.
Three years later, Egyptian judo Olympian Islam El Shehaby refused to shake
hands with Israeli rival Or Sasson at the Rio games — a gesture that
embarrased Egyptian authorities.
Writer and Hebrew translator Nael el-Toukhy said any Egyptian who reaches
out to Israelis faces intense pressure.
Israel is a hot topic for Egyptian talk shows, guaranteed to stoke the kind
of high feelings seen in debates on gay rights.
More than 65 percent of Egyptians alive today were not yet born when the
Camp David Summit took place, according to official figures.
But Egyptian public rejection of Israel is a constant.
National politics is also affected, despite decades of formal diplomatic
ties.
In March 2016, Egyptian lawmaker Tawfiq Okasha paid a high price for
inviting Israel’s ambassador to dinner at his home.
Accused of discussing issues linked to national security, he was ousted
from parliament in a two-thirds majority vote.
Even the country’s all-important tourism industry is a victim of “cold
peace” — of the 3.9 million tourists who visited Israel in 2017, only 7,200
were from neighbouring Egypt.