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The prevailing optimism in media reports concerning the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist party's readiness to adhere to the peace treaty with Israel is based on general statements made by senior officials in both parties. These statements maintain that Egypt must honor the international treaties that it signed.
Citation preview
The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Are Egypt's Islamic Parties Planning to Nullify
the Peace Treaty with Israel?
Jonathan D. Halevi
The prevailing optimism in media reports
concerning the Egyptian Muslim
Brotherhood and the Salafist party's
readiness to adhere to the peace treaty with
Israel is based on general statements made
by senior officials in both parties. These
statements maintain that Egypt must honor
the international treaties that it signed.
Yet a more rigorous examination of the two
parties' stances identifies a markedly
different tendency. Both seek a way to cast
off the Camp David agreement in a manner
that will incur minimal diplomatic and
economic damage to Egypt, and restore
Egypt to its leading role in the circle of
states confronting Israel.
The Muslim Brotherhood has set a number
of criteria for examining international
agreements, including the Camp David
agreement: the considerations of Islamic
canon law (Sharia), the position of the
Egyptian people, and the degree of Israel's
compliance with the agreement from Egypt's
perspective.
The strategic objective of the Egyptian
Islamic movements is to transform Egypt
into a prime regional force that will lead the
diplomatic and military battle against Israel.
This means re-examining the Camp David
agreement and submitting it to the decision
of the new parliament that will be controlled
by the Islamic parties or to a referendum -
thereby alleviating the responsibility of any
future Egyptian government for cancelling
the peace treaty.
These developments can be averted if the
U.S. and its allies take a firm position
against any initiative to undermine the
Treaty of Peace between Israel and Egypt,
and all echelons of the Egyptian
establishment are made to understand the
implications of any such action.
The revolution in Egypt, followed by elections
to the parliament, has elevated the Islamic
parties to a position of power as they enjoy an
absolute parliamentary majority after the two
initial stages of the parliamentary elections. The
Muslim Brotherhood movement's Freedom and
Justice party won 49 percent of the total seats
that it contested (73 out of 150) in the first stage
of the elections and the Salafist al-Nur party
won about 20 percent of the seats (30 seats). In
the second stage of the elections the Muslim
Brotherhood won about 40 percent of the votes
and al-Nur about 35 percent. The final stage of
the elections will take place in January 2012.
However, we can already form the distinct
impression that the Egyptian parliament will be
controlled by the absolute majority retained by
these two extreme Islamic parties.
In recent journalistic reports we repeatedly hear
the claim that the Freedom and Justice party and
the al-Nur party will continue to honor the
Camp David peace agreement with Israel after
the new regime has been consolidated under
their leadership. These reports are essentially
based on general statements made by senior
officials in both parties to the effect that Egypt
must honor the international agreements that it
signed. However, a rigorous examination of the
two parties' stances indicates a totally different
tendency: namely, the two parties seek to cast
off the Camp David accords in a manner that
will cause Egypt the minimal possible
diplomatic and economic damage.
The issue of Egyptian adherence to the Camp
David agreement was brought up during
discussions that Senator John Kerry conducted
together with the American Ambassador to
Cairo, Anne Patterson, with leaders of the
Freedom and Justice party on December 10,
2011. Dr. Mohammed Morsi, the party
chairman, referred to the issue in general terms.
A report on the meeting by the official website
of the Muslim Brotherhood stated:
Morsi noted that Egypt is a large country with a
deep-rooted history that fulfills an important
role in the Arab, Islamic and international
arenas and therefore it honors the agreements
and contracts which it has signed. He demanded
that the American administration listen directly
to the people rather than listen to what is said
about them, while emphasizing that the United
States could play a role in facilitating economic
stability and prosperity for all peoples should it
choose to do so.1
New Egyptian Conditions
The Muslim Brotherhood set a number of
criteria for examining international agreements,
including the Camp David agreement. First,
there is Islamic canon law (Sharia); second, one
must take into account the Egyptian people's
position which Morsi mentioned in his talk with
Senator Kerry; and third, one must weigh the
degree of compliance by the other party to any
agreement that was signed with Egypt.
The platform of the Freedom and Justice party
determines that it will honor international
human rights agreements, provided that they do
not contradict the Islamic Sharia. Regarding the
peace agreement with Israel, the platform states
that agreements between countries must be
acceptable to the people and conform to the
principles of justice and the interests of the
parties. Respect for these agreements is
conditional upon an obligation by the parties to
fulfill them in full, as is the norm in
international relations. "Therefore, the party
considers it obligatory to reappraise many of the
agreements that were signed in various fields by
the old regime."2
Calls to Re-examine the Treaty with Israel
Senior leaders of the Freedom and Justice party
have on numerous occasions in recent months
favored amending or abrogating the Camp
David accords and severing diplomatic and
economic relations with Israel. On August 25,
2011, party chairman Dr. Mohammed Morsi
demanded a re-examination of the Camp David
agreement, and contended that Israel's "attack"
on an Egyptian army border position (that was
in response to terrorist fire at the IDF from this
position) exemplified Israel's systematic
violation of the agreement.3
Dr. Ahmed Abu Baraka, the Freedom and
Justice party's legal advisor and a senior leader
of the party, said on August 28 that it was
necessary to re-examine all the clauses of the
Camp David agreement to see whether its
abrogation was mandated. He emphasized the
importance of deploying Egyptian army forces
in the Sinai, equipped with heavy and advanced
weaponry, in order to deter Israel.4
Dr. Mohammed Gamal Hismat, a senior leader
of the Freedom and Justice party and a former
parliament member, proposed on August 24 to
establish a legal committee that would examine
the Camp David agreement in light of Israel's
"continued violation" of the agreement.5
Dr. Essam El-Arian, the deputy leader of the
Freedom and Justice party, on August 23
minimized the importance of American threats
to terminate assistance to Egypt if it were to
disown the Camp David agreement, and
contended that Israel was violating the
agreement "in a blatant fashion."6
Dr. Hamdy Ismail, the party secretary in the
Ismailiya district, explained on October 31 that
the issue of the Camp David agreement directly
affected the Egyptian citizenry, and therefore
raised a proposal within the party to submit the
decision on the issue to a referendum.7
Dr. Ahmed Rami, a senior Freedom and Justice
party leader in the Qalyubiya district, called on
August 27 for a re-examination of the Camp
David agreement, noting that the revolution in
Egypt marked the outset of a journey to
liberate Jerusalem in view of the fact that the
"Zionist entity is near collapse."8
These positions received additional validation
from the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Dr.
Mohammed Badie, who in his weekly letters to
movement activists elaborates his doctrine and
positions with regard to the United States and
Israel following the revolutions in Egypt and the
Arab world. Badie terms the Camp David
accord "a surrender" agreement and he presents
a list of demands on this issue. In his letter of
May 5, 2011, Badie wrote:
We vociferously call for the termination of
normalization, that provided our enemy [Israel]
with stability, putting an end to securing the
Zionist borders and the killing of infiltrators into
the enemy's [territory], the abrogation of the
issues of economic interests such as the QIZ,9 a
[halt] to gas exports that wrought damage to our
national security, urgent action to complete the
opening of the Rafah crossing on a permanent
basis and a re-examination of the Camp David
agreement so it can be presented to the National
Assembly elected in free elections, thus
allowing it to have its say after it was denied
this for years.10
Badie defines Israel and the United States as
Egypt's principal adversaries. In his weekly
letter of October 6, 2011, he reaches the clear
conclusion that "our main enemy is the Zionist-
American plan, which aspires to take over the
entire region in order to establish Greater Israel
and the New Middle East."11
Badie does not mention any option for
cooperation with Israel or the United States, but,
on the contrary, in his evaluation these two
countries, that represent the most dangerous
threat to Egypt, are currently in a state of
historic decline:
The global forces, the Zionists and Americans,
are absorbing a succession of debacles and
defeats, commencing with Israel's isolation and
loss of its regional supporters, and the American
failures in the military realm (in Iraq and
Afghanistan), and in the economic arena that
threaten the collapse of the capitalist regime as a
result of failed policy and the huge expenses and
wars prosecuted under the pretext of liquidating
what they call terror. They've forfeited their
credibility among peoples and now they've lost
their financial sources, and we do not rule out
the possibility that their fate will approximate
the Soviet Union's fate....At the same time the
blessed revolutions of the Arab Spring presage a
total change in the Arab national map.12
The irrelevance of the Camp David agreement
finds expression in the Muslim Brotherhood
movement's overt aspiration to bring about the
"liberation" of the entire territory of "Palestine,"
a concept that dovetails with its Islamic
ideological platform, and which finds
expression in the current optimistic assessment
by the Muslim Brotherhood leader on the
prospects for realizing this vision in practice. In
his weekly letter of June 9, 2011, Badie writes:
Victory is near with the help of Allah, it is
definite and there can be no doubt about it. The
restoration of Palestine, al Quds [Jerusalem],
the Golan, and all the lands that Israel
conquered is no longer feverish imagination, but
a hope that will soon be realized after the [Arab]
nations have revolted....The era of "Israeli"
superiority has ended and "Israel" has begun to
doubt its continuity and survival.13
The official position of the Salafist al-Nur party
resembles that of the Muslim Brotherhood. Dr.
Emad Abdel Ghafour, the party leader, says:
It is obligatory to honor the agreements to which
Egypt is affiliated, and we demand that they be
met. There are many passages in the peace
agreement that were not implemented [by
Israel], such as a solution to the Palestinian
problem, the right of self-determination [for the
Palestinian people], and the autonomy of a
Palestinian state on Palestinian soil. There are
many issues that must be implemented so that
the Palestinian people will sense that it has
benefited from the peace process....The peace
agreement of Camp David requires a re-
examination.14
Dr. Yousry Hamad, the spokesperson for the al-
Nur party, explained that the party's position on
the Camp David agreement would be adopted
on the basis of Sharia,15 and vigorously denied
journalistic reports that the party was ostensibly
prepared to maintain contacts with the Israeli
ambassador in Cairo.16
Unfounded Optimism
The optimism regarding a radical change in the
positions of these extreme Egyptian Islamic
movements regarding Israel grasps at the straws
of general statements that do not attest to an
ideological reversal, but convey the tactics for
obtaining the strategic objective: casting off the
Camp David agreement and transforming Egypt
into a prime regional force that will lead the
diplomatic and military battle against Israel.
The Muslim Brotherhood, as well as the al-Nur
party, is seeking a convenient exit point from
the Camp David agreement, due to an awareness
of the implications of violating a binding
diplomatic treaty under international law and the
immediate damage that the Egyptian economy is
likely to absorb as a direct result of an initiated
abrogation of the Camp David accords.
Egypt receives $1.3 billion annually in U.S.
military assistance, while in 2010 American
economic assistance totaled $250 million. The
Egyptian army's main strength is predicated on
American weapons systems including F-16 and
F 14 aircraft, Apache helicopters, M1A1 and
M60A3 tanks, surface-to-air missiles, spy
planes, and more. In the framework of bilateral
military cooperation, the armies of the two
countries customarily conduct joint training and
maneuvers.
How to Nullify the Peace Treaty
Yet the die has been cast and the strategic
choice has already been made. The only
question on the agenda is how to implement this
decision at a minimal diplomatic and economic
cost. We can infer from comments by senior
Muslim Brotherhood members that they are
interested in playing the "democratic game" to
the hilt on this issue as well. This means re-
examining the Camp David agreement and
submitting it to the decision of the new
parliament that will be controlled by the Islamic
parties or to a referendum - thereby alleviating
the responsibility of any future Egyptian
government for cancelling the peace treaty. The
immediate pretext will be Israel's
noncompliance with clauses in the agreement, in
order to attribute to Israel the blame for the
treaty's abrogation.
It would appear that the Muslim Brotherhood's
appraisal is that following their seizure of power
and additional achievements of the Arab Spring,
the U.S. will be compelled to accept the new
reality, just as it has made peace with the
situation up to now. American leaders have even
reiterated their praise for the democratic
process, although this process has elevated the
radical Islamic forces to new positions of power.
These forces aspire to drain democracy of
content and gradually (the Muslim Brotherhood
strategy) or immediately (the al-Nur party
approach) implement Islamic religious law.
From Israel's standpoint, the revolution in Egypt
and its translation at the ballot box into the
Islamic Revolution carries the serious potential
for transforming Egypt in the foreseeable future
into an enemy and restoring it to the circle of
confrontation states. Israel is doing its utmost to
preserve the Camp David agreement even for
appearances sake. However, developments in
Egypt will inevitably lead to the creation of a
serious security challenge on Israel's southern
border. The new Egypt will try to exercise its
full sovereignty in Sinai and deploy regular
forces there, employing various pretexts,
beginning with Israeli "violations" of the Camp
David agreement, proceeding with the need to
defend itself against an Israeli attack, and
concluding with Egypt's obligation to protect its
Palestinian brothers in Gaza.
Furthermore, the Muslim Brotherhood
movement in Egypt, the parent movement
of Hamas, provides ongoing assistance to
Hamas and furnishes it with strategic backing
that is growing more potent due to the
Brotherhood's increased strength in the recent
elections. A high proportion of Izzedine al
Qassam Brigade activists who were killed in
recent years in Gaza were simultaneously
Muslim Brotherhood activists and Hamas
members. The plausible assumption is that one
of the Muslim Brotherhood's first objectives
after it assumes the reins of power will be to
guarantee an open border crossing between
Gaza and Egypt, and to provide comprehensive
economic and military assistance to Hamas that
will pose new security risks for Israel.
Furthermore, the strategic alliance between the
Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas may constrain
Israel's freedom of military action in Gaza (as
well as in the West Bank) because this could
provoke an Egyptian military response,
including the transfer of aid, weapons, and
intelligence to Hamas, the deployment of
Egyptian forces in Sinai and/or in Gaza,
stationing Egyptian antiaircraft systems on the
border of Gaza, and threats of direct military
action.
These developments can be averted if the U.S.
and its allies take a firm position against any
initiative to undermine the Treaty of Peace
between Israel and Egypt, and all echelons of
the Egyptian establishment are made to
understand the implications of any such action.
* * *
Notes
1.
http://www.ikhwanonline.com/new/Article.aspx
?ArtID=96953&SecID=0
2. http://www.hurryh.com/Party_Program.aspx
3.
http://www.hurryh.com/Provinces/Our_news_D
etails.aspx?News_ID=1933&ID=23
4.
http://www.hurryh.com/Provinces/Our_news_D
etails.aspx?News_ID=2000
5.
http://www.hurryh.com/Party_Article_Details.a
spx?News_ID=1872
6.
http://www.hurryh.com/Our_news_Details.aspx
?News_ID=1850
7.
http://www.hurryh.com/ar_print.aspx?print_ID=
4579
8.
http://www.hurryh.com/Our_news_Details.aspx
?News_ID=1954
9. The QIZ Agreement (QIZ-Qualified
Industrial Zones) was signed in 2005 between
the governments of the United States, Israel and
Egypt. The agreement defined industrial zones
whose factories would receive a customs
exemption on their exports to the United States
if a certain percentage of the raw materials
originated in Israel.
10.
http://www.ikhwanonline.com/new/Article.aspx
?ArtID=83759&SecID=0
11.
http://www.ikhwanonline.com/new/Article.aspx
?SecID=213&ArtID=92523
12.
http://www.ikhwanonline.com/new/Article.aspx
?SecID=213&ArtID=92523
13.
http://www.ikhwanonline.com/new/Article.aspx
?ArtID=85754&SecID=0
14.
http://www.tayyar.org/Tayyar/News/PoliticalNe
ws/ar-LB/salafi-egypte-pb-5363323219.htm
15.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tCfUs6upx
Q&feature=youtu.be
16.
http://www.facebook.com/AlnourParty/posts/21
1082628974957
* * *