The time seemed ripe for a project exploring the forces opposed to
the peace process in Egypt. Much controversy had ensued from the
famous "Copenhagen process" [1997], as the Egyptian intellectuals
who went to Denmark to meet with their peace-seeking Israeli
counterparts came under intense fire from the Egyptian media and
political circles. The research project we undertook within this
context - a summary of which is presented below - is limited to the
academic trends in Egypt. It not only provided an opportunity to
the Copenhagen group to articulate their views on the peace process
and Israel, but also allowed other journalists, politicians, party
leaders, activists, and public figures to express themselves on the
issue.
We began by briefly examining the media, an important tool in
shaping public opinion in Egypt, including the publications of
various political parties and factions. From there we proceeded to
compile a list of names of interviewees representing the various
schools of thought on the subject. Four main ones emerged as the
most outspoken: liberalism, Marxism, Nasserism, and Islamism. We
then proceeded to synthesize the results of the interviews.
Our interviews dealt both with general and specific issues and
outlooks. We asked each interviewee his/her vision of regional
peace, the peace process, and normalization with Israel. We also
asked about the perception of "the other," of Israeli society, and
whether interviewees differentiated between Jew, Zionist, and
Israeli, and, if so, how. This introduced a degree of
sophistication and complexity and it was here that many interesting
insights emerged, as personal reflections on what an "Israeli
really was" usually impacted, if not defined, the interviewee's
perception of the politics of the situation. We also were careful
to distinguish between the notions of "peace," "peace process," and
"normalization," as these concepts were and are very different
things.
As for the categories presented above, they are by no means
exhaustive, and cannot account for the idiosyncrasies of each
particular system of thought. Indeed, there are significant
differential factors within each trend and we should not fall into
the trap of a rigid preconception of the position of each
intellectual that falls within a given group. However, they are
useful in establishing general guidelines and frameworks that, we
noted, are very often utilized in articulating positions regarding
peace with Israel, and aid in broadly differentiating between the
plethora of views that exist regarding this issue.
The Islamists
First, it must be noted that the Islamist movement in the Arab
world, in general, and in Egypt, in particular, is quite diverse,
representing multiple ideological frameworks and paradigms. Thus,
it is crucial to bear in mind that the opinion of one or several
Islamists does not by any means account for the views of all
Islamists. These views do not necessarily even represent the
official stance of the group, which lacks such a unified platform
or agenda. Perhaps what unifies all these groups and individuals is
the transformation of the present Egyptian state into an Islamic
one ruled by the Shar'iah (Islamic law). That said, Islamists
differ in their vision of the politics of Islamization,
representing precisely a microcosm of the diversity and dynamics of
the movement as a whole.
When it comes to Israel, their views range from moderate criticism
that invokes more "secular" arguments against the actions, or
religious bases of the State of Israel, to more extreme views that
perceive and express a doctrinal or religious enmity with the
"Zionist entity." There is some basic criticism of Israel that all
parties in the Islamist camp share among themselves and with the
wider group of intellectuals we spoke to. First is the condemnation
of the nuclear superiority and exclusive position Israel enjoys in
the region, in addition to its ongoing projects of militarization
and aggression both in the occupied territories and in the region
as a whole. Second, Islamists, like many Nasserites, often link
Israel with a Western-led conspiracy that aims to corrupt or impede
the region's economic, political, or cultural development. This is
seen, for example, in the widely circulated story in the Egyptian
press, mostly by Islamists and nationalists, that Israel is out to
undermine Egypt's major production, cotton, via the highly suspect
bilateral agricultural cooperation and technological exchange
between Egypt and Israel.
Beyond the basic criticism of Israel most Islamists share, there is
a startling degree of variety among them in their respective
diagnoses and prognoses regarding the situation. The moderate
camp's critique is based on Israel's doctrinal and religious claims
to the land. "God has not promised anyone anything," one Islamist
told us. This is a striking remark, considering that many
Islamists' own claims to the land of Palestine are religiously
based. Many Islamists told us that in order to achieve peace,
Israel must relinquish its doctrinal claim to the land, abolish its
racist exclusivism, and eliminate discrimination based on ethnicity
or religion. Israel must become a democratic secular state that
grants equality to all its citizens, in which case the right to
rule may be given to any citizen, Jewish or Muslim. Again, this
seems to be a great concession made by what is often perceived as a
very dogmatic, intolerant political force. Other more extreme
points of view, however, assert that the struggle between the Arabs
and Israel is ideological or doctrinal, not just political. Peace
will be accomplished only when Arab- Muslim rule extends over the
land, because the land is Muslim territory they must retrieve at
any cost.
The Nasserites
The Nasserites tend to be more rigid and monolithic in their
opinions. The most salient aspect of their discourse is the belief
that the conflict is a zero-sum game. In other words they believe
that there are no half solutions and no concessions to be made to
the Israelis. A recurrent question that we found throughout the
interviews was: How can one negotiate on one's right to the land?
All of the land of Palestine belongs to the Palestinians and no
compromises should be made on this principle. As such, the struggle
for the Nasserites is not one of borders but of existence. This
naturally eliminates the two-state solution from their agenda and,
most importantly, it implies a rejection of the present
negotiations between the Arabs and the Israelis.
The so-called peace negotiations, for the Nasserites, are a mere
tactic that the Israelis are using to secure and legitimize their
economic and political superiority in the area. To this end, the
Israelis want to impose normalization on the Arabs. Most of the
Nasserites believe that the Israelis have no genuine intentions of
achieving peace without securing their own interests at the expense
of the Arabs. A further proof of that is the Israeli refusal to
make concessions on Jewish settlements in the Palestinian
territories and on the right of return or compensation of Palestine
refugees. This is not a deal that is done between equal partners
and will not achieve a just and comprehensive settlement. They
frequently allude to the Camp David Accords, and the little benefit
that Egyptians have reaped from it, except for the recuperation of
Sinai. Political conditions have changed indeed, but the Nasserites
maintain that the causes that have led to the present injustices
against the Arabs still prevail.
The Liberals
We found a variety of opinions among the liberal academics who, by
and large, believe that it is possible to arrive at a settlement
with Israel, but that it is much harder to achieve a just
resolution of the conflict. Most of them consider the negotiations
between the Palestinians and the Israelis humiliating to the Arabs,
who were forced to make unnecessary concessions to accommodate
Israel. However, the liberals emphasize that this is the only
solution for the time being and that the Arabs should take maximum
advantage of the present opportunities. In future arrangements, the
liberals contend that it would be very hard to integrate Israel
into the region politically and culturally. The reasons relate to a
"psychological barrier" that would be very hard to overcome. Here
again, the example of the Camp David Accords is used to demonstrate
the uselessness of signing an agreement between leaders without
psychological and political readiness on the popular level. All
conditions have to be ripe for the conclusion of a comprehensive
peace.
Like the Nasserites, the liberals believe that normalization for
the Israelis means imposing their dictates on the Arabs, while
refusing to pay a price for peace. Again, this is seen in Israel's
unwillingness to stop settlement building and to deal with the
sensitive issues such as the status of Jerusalem and refugees. They
also warn of the continued Israeli nuclear build-up, which
constitutes a threat to the whole region.
The liberals' predictions for the future are rather bleak. In the
best-case scenario, they expect Palestine to become a weak,
marginalized umbrella state for Israel. They do not necessarily
equate peace with economic prosperity, and perceive all promises of
economic development as a myth that has been propagated to entice
the Arabs into concluding peace agreements with Israel. We can
deduce from this that the liberals, in fact, believe there could be
a resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict provided that Israel
changes its policy and accepts to make concessions. This will
provide an atmosphere conducive to the conclusion of a just and
lasting peace.
The Marxists
As mentioned earlier, it is very difficult to convey a unified
Marxist conception of the peace process and normalization. There
are a few positions, however, that are common to all. First,
although most Marxists reject normalization in principle, this is
conditioned on Israel's attitude towards the Palestinians and the
Arabs. Normalization will naturally ensue, they say, once a real
peace is realized. Second, most Marxists believe in the principle
of establishing contacts with the progressive forces on the Israeli
side. Third, most maintain that normalization is one of the few
remaining bargaining tools that the Arabs hold for demanding
concessions from Israel. Fourth, most Marxists condemn Sadat's
unilateral peace initiative, which they consider as the first step
that led to the general deterioration of the Arab condition,
although they do recognize the exigencies of the changing political
realities on the regional and international scenes over time.
Finally, all Marxists view the resolution to the conflict as lying
in the establishment of either one, or two democratic secular
states existing side by side and not based on religious or racial
discrimination. It is interesting to note that, to them, Arab
dominance is not so much a crucial issue as is the question of a
secular democratic state that treats its citizens equally, whether
they are ruled by Jewish, Arab, Christian or Muslim forces. All
Marxists regard the struggle as essentially political that has,
over time, taken on other dimensions, such as religion, that were
initially extraneous to the conflict. Naturally, most Marxists
share the concept of Israel as a Western "capitalist agent." Most
importantly, however, is the unanimous demand for justice. In some
cases, the approach is pragmatic embodied in the withdrawal of
Israeli forces to the 1967 borders; in other cases, it is the
expectation of the dismantling of a racist state and the forging of
a democratic, secular one instead.
Conclusion
In our research, several main themes have emerged. The first is the
specificity of the position of Egyptian intellectuals regarding the
peace process and normalization. It is grounded in and explained by
Egypt's historic peace initiative launched in 1977 by president
Anwar Sadat. Perhaps what is not prevalently discussed in this
context is the extent to which president Sadat was isolated in his
endeavor, with backing neither from Egyptian intellectuals, nor
even from the masses. Most Egyptian intellectuals, at the time,
believed that what this peace represented was Egypt's "letting
down" of the Arabs, in general, and the Palestinians and their
cause, in particular, especially given the historical devotion
which Nasser had bequeathed to this sacred cause. The feeling of
having betrayed the Palestinians persist today among the many
intellectuals we spoke to, heightened by the realization that the
economic prosperity and domestic reforms that Sadat had promised as
fruits of peace did not, in fact, materialize. Thus, in some sense,
Egyptian intellectuals feel responsible for the Palestinian
predicament; they feel it is their own aborted cause which now they
must dutifully and vigorously defend, in an attempt to rectify the
mistakes and failures of the past.
Second, we noted the shifting of ideological paradigms among many
intellectuals after the 1967 and, in some cases, the 1973 wars. A
great number of them changed ideological orientation at a crucial
historical juncture, mostly following the 1967 war. Many
intellectuals who were Marxists, for example, turned Islamists, and
some who were Islamists turned liberals. This reflects the intense
shock and disillusionment that followed 1967, and the
self-criticism, re-examination and re-evaluation that many
Egyptians underwent. It seems as though a nation, or at least a
part of it, went through a process of historical redress and
purging of what after 1967 seemed to be shattered dreams,
illusions, futile promises and empty rhetoric. In many cases, the
intellectuals who had undergone a paradigm shift espoused their
newfound ideologies with even more zeal. Many
Marxists-turned-Islamists vehemently condemned and scorned the
empty idealism of Marxism, or its "blasphemous atheism." Of course
these changes cannot be simply explained by Egypt's own historical
circumstances and the trauma of 1967; they are more accurately
explained by the interplay of domestic, regional, and international
changes and developments.
The categories discussed above, besides serving as a broad
framework of academic and intellectual systematization, served to
outline a historical process of ideological constructions,
deconstructions, and reconstructions. These groups, which may have
held somewhat unified stances in the past, have evolved, with their
most prominent spokespeople now often operating outside the
framework of an official party or political organization.
What is interesting to note is that some members within a given
group are sometimes closer ideologically to a member of another
group than to one within their own. Another interesting phenomenon
is the growing similarity in rhetoric among the various political
groups, and factions, especially among the Nasserites and
Islamists. Both, for example, have espoused the famous slogan that
"the struggle [with Israel] is not one of borders, but of
existence." Islamists have recently had great success in getting
closer to the opposition in Egypt, and there are suggestions that
they have even succeeded in co-opting that opposition leading it to
amend its discourse to include, if not to uphold, the principles of
Islam in their political agenda.
The major differences we found between the various political groups
were grounded in domestic politics that are ideologically and even
personally motivated, based on the history of the groups'
inter-relationship that transcend differences in broader political
visions. Thus the variance in visions of peace should also be
considered as context-specific.
Even though there were extremists calling for the dismantling of
the "Zionist entity" in all schools of thought, these were the more
intellectually and politically marginalized among all those we
spoke to. As mentioned above, every school of thought displayed
diversity, exceptions, and surprises to those who came in with
preconceived notions. Among Islamists we interviewed, for example,
some advocated the establishment of a secular, democratic state in
Palestine that could be ruled by either Jews or Muslims. Among
Marxists, we found those who advocated a very pragmatic approach to
the whole conflict, and who accepted the conditions of the new
world market. Among liberals, we found those who rejected the peace
process in its present form altogether. The Nasserites were perhaps
the only group that had a somewhat unified stance regarding the
conflict, and, not surprisingly, they are regarded as one of the
most politically stagnant groups on the Egyptian scene today.
Another interesting point relates to the target sample itself. It
is usually assumed that the intelligentsia are at the forefront of
historical changes in their respective societies and countries, and
that their ideas have great impact on the forces of change within
society at large. However, in many countries, especially the less
democratic ones, this is not necessarily the case. First,
intellectuals are often isolated from decision-making and power
centers. Second, there may be a cleavage between the state,
intellectuals, and the masses, as was alluded to by several of our
interviewees. Frequently, intellectuals do not necessarily reflect
the views of their country's masses, nor are they always aware of
them. Recognizing the importance of intellectuals and academics in
moving history forward, but simultaneously aware of their
limitations in certain contexts, we suggest in the future that it
might be useful to examine the particular case of every country,
and to locate its real forces of change. Perhaps more grass-roots
initiatives should be sought as well. These suggestions were
seconded by the intellectuals with whom we spoke.
Finally, all groups agreed on certain basic principles: they
include the rejection of Israel's privileged status as a nuclear
power in the region. All of them strongly asserted the need for
even-handedness on the part of the US and the international
community in dealing with Israel on this issue. Second, all groups
insisted on a crucial point that sums up the perception by many
Arabs of the position of the State of Israel in the region.
Everyone we spoke to believes that Israel regards itself as a
superior force with a mission in the region, one of "enlightenment"
that will lead the backward, war-ravaged, despondent region to
progress. This attitude of superiority on the part of Israel
underpins the reasons why Israel is perceived by the Arabs as a
colonialist state or agent. All interviewees agreed that Israel
must relinquish this superiority complex vis-à-vis the Arabs;
it must cease to think of itself as "a light in a sea of darkness."
The Israeli mentality must be transformed to view Arabs as equal
citizens, equal partners that will together forge a common regional
future and fate. Finally, all insisted that Israel must redress the
grave historical injustice that has accompanied the establishment
of the State of Israel, and meet the basic requirements in
restoring to Arabs and Palestinians their forfeited rights and
dignity.
This article is a condensed summary of a longer research paper
completed in January 2000 and based on a research project
undertaken in the fall of 1999.
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