After Much Hope, Israel and Egypt Are Distant Neighbors

CAIRO -- The loneliest diplomatic job in Egypt these days belongs to Gideon Benami, the Israeli ambassador, who has been isolated by the deterioration of relations between two countries that signed a peace treaty 23 years ago.

With President Hosni Mubarak having recalled his ambassador to Jerusalem and frozen contacts with Israel, Benami finds himself cut off at his heavily guarded downtown embassy and his residence in suburban Maadi. Egyptian officials are largely inaccessible to him, and even friendly countries sometimes drop him from the guest list because mixing Israeli and Arab diplomats could make for an uncomfortable gathering.

Demonstrators call for Benami’s expulsion, and drivers honk as they pass his residence to annoy him. A song titled “I Hate Israel” rose to the top of Egypt’s pop charts, and a brand of potato chips became a bestseller after putting a picture of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on the package, even though Egyptians have no particular fondness for Arafat. Political cartoons depict Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as a Nazi storm trooper.

The Israeli Embassy has reduced its number of accredited envoys from six to four. Without access to Egyptian officials, intellectuals and journalists, they have few normal functions of diplomacy to carry out. No Egyptian reporters call the Israeli press attache because, given the current climate, Egyptians have no interest in the Israeli view.

“I don’t think there is any point in continuing with the peace treaty,” said travel agent Osama Mohamed Ahmad, 24, who, like many Arabs, speaks of Israel and the U.S. in the same breath. “What did the treaty give us? Nothing. Innocent Palestinians are still be killed, settlements are still being built, and now they want to bomb Iraq.”

Ahmad may be too young to have much recollection, but the treaty did get Egypt back its land -- the Sinai Peninsula -- and perhaps spared him and his friends from having to go off to fight another war. Despite all the regional tensions today, no Arab armies are massing on Israel’s borders and no Egyptian officials entertain the thought of abrogating the treaty or severing relations with Israel, whose existence is accepted, at least publicly, by every Arab state, except Libya and perhaps Iraq.

“Peace between Egypt and Israel remains the bedrock of U.S. security policy in the Middle East and the Gulf,” said Nicholas A. Veliotes, a former U.S. ambassador to Egypt and Jordan. “The treaty has withstood the shock of Sharon’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the continuous TV reports of bloodshed and suffering in Palestine.... It will also withstand whatever differences we may have with Egypt over Iraq, including war.”

The crisis in Arab-Israeli relations today stands in stark contrast to the mood a decade ago when the psychological barriers of fear and mistrust were slowly being dismantled after half a century of warfare. The Oslo peace accords had been signed, in 1993, clearing the way for Palestinian sovereignty over parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. There was widespread belief in the Arab world that peace with Israel was inevitable.

Israel had opened diplomatic interest sections in Morocco and Oman. Israeli officials participated in regional conferences in a few Arab countries. More than 150,000 Israeli tourists a year were filling Egypt’s Red Sea resorts. The Arab boycott of companies that did business with Israel had crumbled. The term “Zionist entity” in Arab newspapers had been replaced by the word “Israel.” Hardly an echo remained of the vow Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Egyptian leader, had made in the 1950s “to drive the Jews in the sea.”

“The momentum toward peace is irreversible,” Andre Azoulay, the senior advisor to the Moroccan leader at the time, King Hassan II, said then. In Cairo, a foreign ministry official, Nabil Fahmy, who is now Egypt’s ambassador to the United States, was asked if he foresaw any scenario in which the region might step backward into the hate-filled days of the Nasser era. He replied: “Returning to the traditional Arab-Israeli conflict is virtually impossible. So many mistakes would have to be made on both sides for that to happen that the question is really hypothetical.”

The ongoing violence has slowed whatever relations had begun. The Israeli-interest sections in Oman and Morocco are now closed. Jordan’s and Egypt’s embassies in Israel are without ambassadors. The intellectual exchange between Arab and Israeli scholars has ended, the flow of Israeli tourists to the Red Sea resorts has slowed to a trickle. Trade has dissipated, except for some agricultural products. What was meant to be the big payoff of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty -- an economic surge that would benefit both sides -- never materialized.

“Anwar would be very, very sad if he saw where we were today,” said Sakina Sadat, sister of the late Egyptian president who signed the Camp David accords with Israel in 1978 and the resulting historic treaty the next year. “We’re in the worst situation you could ever imagine. Both sides are killing each other every day, the Palestinians’ land is still occupied, and our economy is in a tailspin because people from all over the world are afraid to visit the Middle East.

“The opportunities that have been lost are a very big loss. I remember Anwar meeting with Arafat at the Mena House near the pyramids after Camp David. He said, ‘This time the Israelis are ready to make peace, ready to talk about ending the Palestinian problem.’ What happened? Arafat insulted Anwar and the Arab League boycotted Egypt after the peace treaty. If they had only seized the opportunity, the Palestinians would have had a homeland about 17 years ago and we’d be enjoying an era of peace.”