His Excellency Nabil Fahmy
Egypt’s Ambassador to the United States
"The Middle East in the 21^st Century: Challenges of Peace and Globalization"
April 18, 2000

His Excellency Nabil Fahmy: If you took an average Egyptian of my age, plus or minus one year, he will have lived through four wars, a war every 12 1/2 years at least. Now, this is an astonishing and a very traumatic experience for any generation.

When I first started thinking about this, it was 10 years. Now with peace between Egypt and Israel, with peace hopefully expanding with other Arab countries, the average is increasing a bit. But you have to take in mind that a war every 12 1/2 years has been what a generation of Arabs and Israelis have lived through. Those are the people who now have to deal with the peace process, who now have to decide what’s right and what’s wrong, whether the compromises are worth it or not.

And I would add that if you put that in mind, there’s no question at all for me that we are extremely late in pursuing and concluding the peace process. There’s no moral, ethical or legal or political justification for the delay. The basis for solving the Arab/Israeli conflict as it is today was established all the way back to the ’60s after the ’67 war. The basis for solving that is the principle of land for peace, which was the principle embodied in Security Council resolution 242. That’s the basis upon which the Egyptian/Israeli agreement was achieved. That’s the basis upon which the Jordanian/Israeli agreement was achieved and the basis for the Oslo agreements between the Palestinians and the Israelis, which are still being built upon.

That basic premise, if translated into tangible terms, means the return of the Arab territories occupied at that point in exchange for security for Israel. Security for Israel includes, of course, the issue of ignition and all that — I’m not talking about security only in the traditional sense. But the basis for the resolution was land for peace.

Since then, as part the Madrid peace process, we added different dimensions to that, and as part of our experiences as negotiators. The issue of normalization, the concept of normalization between Arabs and Israelis — which was not a traditional concept when we started negotiating — of trying to understand what the meaning of peace meant in the future as part of the package is an add-on. It’s an add-on which was novel in the Egyptian/Israeli agreement, but it is, I think, a permanent fixture of what we will have, what we have with the Jordanians and Israelis and of what we have in any other agreement between Arabs and Israelis.

Another element which is not literally or explicitly written out in resolution 242 but which is a function of the international rights of all peoples is the issue of self-determination of Palestinians. [Resolution] 242 essentially dealt with the conflict between states, but because we all realize that to solve the conflict between states, you have to resolve the core issue, the core conflict between Palestinians and Israelis about a finite or a limited piece of land and the desire of different peoples to express their right to self-determination as part of the Madrid peace process.

And even before that, as part of the Geneva process after the October wars, you saw more and more elaboration of this concept of self-determination for the Palestinians. So, to cut a long story short really, the elements today which govern the peace process in the Middle East are based on the same fundamental principles that on the one hand are adopted in the U.N. charter since its inception, and on the other hand, which were are focused in the late ’60s, after the ’67 war for this particular conflict. And I would like to underline another point here. It’s important to try to find a just solution, and we are trying to do that. But ultimately, the choice was: How do you define just in the minds of people who have ideologically contradictory points of view and frankly have different opinions about where history started and where it ended and who was where at which point?

The compromise we had to take was the on one hand to remain consistent with international law — on the other hand — take the ’67 conflict as a point of departure and, if you want, the point of return.

That is easily applicable to the conflicts between Israel, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. It’s not enough with respect to the core issue, which is the Palestinian issue, which goes before that and where you have to focus a little more on international law and the rights of peoples.

The Egyptian/Israeli agreement was possible because Egypt and Israel were so different, and we negotiated with a completely different mentality. We had arguments and we spent a very long time in negotiations because our mindset in the negotiations was completely different. Egypt is an agricultural country of an extremely long history. No real sense of — frankly, we have no sense of insecurity whatsoever in terms of existence or presence or continuation. That’s probably even to a fault, where we always believe something will come around and things will get better. Consequently, we tend to accept or give benefit of the doubt, and accept a certain degree of ambiguity while being very cognizant of the fundamentals, of what’s important.

Israelis, on the other hand, have a tendency to always look at the worst-case scenario, always want to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s before reaching an agreement. Because we had negotiated from a different mindset, these two positions were not really contradictory. Because we had no sense of insecurity, I believe each of us was ready at different stages to take the initiative and move even further.

Many people remember President Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem as the start of the peace process. I think President Sadat should be given credit for having started the peace process way before that. People tend to forget that he actually offered in 1972 before going to war. He announced — and this was an announcement that was not well-received in Egypt or in the Arab world. He proposed that if Israel would withdraw partially from the Suez Canal, partially back into Sinai, he would open the Suez Canal — open it for navigation again and consequently provide a confidence-building measure that there would be no war, and the conflict between Egyptians and Israelis would be resolved by negotiations.

This was not listened to. It was not even heard. It was not really accepted by Israelis at the time. Because they weren’t listening, because they had a different mindset. They had a mindset of people who were, for their own history — I’m not challenging the history at all — looked at things in a different perspective. They didn’t believe that this man was ready to do that and then negotiate. His proposal was not accepted. He went to war for the sake of peace and then he pursued different peace initiatives, including his visit to Jerusalem.

The Egyptian/Israeli peace has been criticized or characterized as being a cold peace. People tend to forget, however, that it’s been a peace throughout and that’s what we agreed upon — with the help of the U.S. at Camp David was a peace between Egypt and Israel — a peace which was end of wars in the Middle East in the traditional sense — Arab/Israeli wars, comprehensive Arab/Israeli wars — and a peace which has been sustainable in spite of tremendous difficulties in the region and in the world throughout. Now, the reason it was sustainable is that not only was it based on land for peace, Egypt got back all of its land. That was the condition that Sadat was negotiating from: He was not going to accept anything less than all of its land.

But it also worked because it was a peace based on collective or on respective interest, on a balance of interest. It was not a peace based on the balance of power. Balances of power change, political situations change, but it has never been in the interest of Egypt or of Israel to move away from the peace treaty that we had signed together. Even when relations were bad, even when there were other circumstances in the region, it was never in the interest of Egypt or Israel to move away from that peace agreement.

Let me just tell you one story before I move to the other tracks. President Weizman of Israel on one of my many trips to Israel told me about negotiating with President Sadat. And this conveys to you what I meant when I said we succeeded because we were so different in the way we negotiated. At a certain point — and I know Professor Quandt has written about the history of this — in our negotiations with the Israe, we were arguing, as has been the case, about different phases of the Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai. How long do they take to move from area A to area B to area C? Each one has a different deneutralized status. And I don’t remember the exact details, but Egyptians were asking the Israelis to withdraw, for example, in two months. The Israelis wanted to move in six months.

And they had been negotiating this for five months. So President Weizman went to President Sadat, walked in — at the time, I think [Weizman] was minister of defense — and he walked in and said, "Your chief of staff is driving me crazy. We’ve been negotiating this. Can we strike a deal?"

And President Sadat, puffing on his pipe, said "You asked for six months. They want two months. I’ll give you seven months." Now again, the numbers may be different — I don’t remember the exact numbers — but he gave him one month longer than he had asked for.

Now this was a story that President Weizman was telling me in Israel. And he said, "I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to go back out there and tell the Israelis that he had given me more than I asked for. I didn’t know why he gave me more than I asked for because there had to a catch to it. So I asked, ‘Why are you giving me more than I’ve asked for?’

"And he said, ‘Because you’ve been negotiating for longer than the difference between on how long it’s going to take you from withdraw from this stage.’"

But President Sadat also said that, "No matter how long it takes, my position to begin in, which is that you will have to withdraw from every inch of Egyptian territory, is going to be placed at the end. That’s not a negotiating position."

And that’s something which I think the Israelis did not understand: that for him, he wanted all of his land. Whether it took two months, six months, whether there are two tanks now and 10 in two years, or 10 tanks now or 20 in two years, is not something that’s particularly important for a country of 700,000 years of history. It’s not something that’s particularly important to a country that has witnessed so many foreign occupations. And they’ve all come and gone, and we’ve always remained. It’s not something that important to a people that have tended to live in a very limited area of their own land — about 4 percent — around the banks of the Nile for many, many years. So because we had different mindsets, that we were actually not always hitting our heads against each other but nevertheless it took us a long time to negotiate a deal.

The same principles applied to the Jordanian/Israeli agreement, and the same principles apply to the Syrian/Israeli negotiations. And I have to tell you, I am flabbergasted and I am really extremely frustrated to see that the Syrian/Israeli negotiations have not concluded truly successfully up to this point. These negotiations are traditional conflict resolution negotiations. There’s not one single element in those negotiations that has not been implemented in one form or the other in the Egyptian/Israeli negotiations.

The difference is topography, so we’re talking about different demilitarized zones, different kinds of monitoring stations. But the elements are the same. We’re talking about security, about withdrawal, about natural resources — in this case, water. There’s nothing new. There’s nothing that needs all of this time. The Syrians will not accept anything less than full withdrawal from the Golan. Full withdrawal from the Golan is up until where the Syrian forces were on June 4, 1967.

Now, we can debate whether they should go back to the international border or not, to the 1923 border, this border or not. But don’t forget here the package we agreed to is around the point of departure, which is June 4, 1967. Even where there is some ambiguity, it still is around June, 4, 1967. We’re not opening the history books. We agreed to a package where the rights of all peoples of the region would be responded to on the basis of the reality that existed in June 4, with respect to the nation-states at the time. The only addition here is the expression of Palestinian rights.

Now, Israel will expect, can expect, and there’s not going to be any solution without Israel getting normalization because that’s what it got also from the Egyptian track. In other words, being able to understand what peace means with Syria and the symbols of normalization will have to be responded to. There will not be a peace without security arrangements, giving Israel a sense — sense of security is an understatement. But giving them the ability to have early warning of any threatening circumstances. That also exists in the Egyptian/Israeli agreement.

On the water issue, issues of natural resources, the water issues are extremely important issues. And I fully recognize that Israel’s water needs will have to be responded to, not at the expense of the status quo 1967. And it’s important to take into account here that Syria had actually very little use of the water from Lake Tiberias in 1967. They used the water before it got to Lake Tiberias, water coming down off of the Gonan. So I don’t really see the water issue as being an issue which would lead to the continuing conflict between Israel and Syria.

The problem today is that both sides tend to negotiate the same way. Both of the parties want to see the future, cross the t’s, dot the i’s. Both are extremely suspicious regarding the other. And that is one of the reasons — not the fundamental reason — one of the reasons why it has taken so long to solve a situation which is, for me at least, crystal clear. I would add, however, the main reason in my mind for the lack of progress is Israel has not yet agreed to withdraw to the June 4, 1967 borders. If that is agreed upon, I am extremely confident that we would resolve the other issues — normalization, all of the military issues, water issues — without undue delay.

Let me focus for a few minutes on the Palestinian track. And then I’ll move to the Lebanese for a minute, having separated it from the Syrian track, and then quickly on the issues of globalization. The Palestinian track is the most difficult, most complicated and the most crucial of all the tracks that exist between Israel and the Arab countries. Any of the other tracks, once there was peace between Israel and Egypt, a traditional Arab/Israeli war in a comprehensive manner frankly was a factor of history rather than of the future. Lebanon: a little bit, but it’s special really.

But the track that has the most volatility on it — the most potential for violence — not in an all-out war, but the most potential for violence — and the track without which you will not have peace in the region is the Palestinian track. This is especially complicated because there are people living on a very limited peace of land. They meet every day face to face — the frustrations, the emotions, the passions are all out there. And the longer you postpone the resolution of this track, the more you allow for the generation of societal violence between Palestinians and Israelis.

And it’s not one-sided. Don’t fall into misperceptions here. It’s not Arab violence against Israel. It’s not only Israeli violence against Arabs. Nobody should forget here, it’s a societal problem between peoples. Nobody should forget the person who killed Yitzhak Rabin was an Israeli. The person who killed Mr. al-Sadat was an Egyptian. So it’s not something that is one-sided. The Palestinians have an equal right to live like Egyptians, to live like Israelis, like Syrians. Why shouldn’t they have their expression of self-determination? Why shouldn’t they have their state?

The Oslo process, ambiguous as it is — it’s a very vaguely drafted text. It’s a very, frankly, imprecise text. The genius behind is that it actually treats us both as equal partners in this process. We were aware of the Oslo process from day two. The day after they decided to go to Oslo, we were informed first by the Palestinians and then a very limited time afterward by the Israelis. And we were looking at the text day by day. And I can tell now at the beginning, frankly, I couldn’t believe that these texts were being presented. Ultimately, for the second stage, it was more academics giving their own thoughts. This cannot be the reflection of political reality.

Because In the morning, I was reading what was happening in Oslo; in the evening, I was reading what was happening in Washington. You had the parallel Washington talks between the official delegations from Palestine, Israel, Jordan, and so on and so forth, and they were fundamentally different. What was being represented here was about empowerment of peoples — no territorial dimension. What was being discussed in Oslo involved territory. It involved a staged process of changing of rights of territories, but it involved all the elements of a solution.

And that’s the point that we kept making to our American friends: The difference is empowerment as envisioned by the negotiators, including our own, traditional negotiators — as envisioned by the process that occurred in Washington, which involved traditional negotiators like our own — we were not there ourselves— was about empowerment. It was not going to work if it did not involved giving the Palestinians territory which they would govern themselves. We were giving them responsibilities, empowering them to be responsible for themselves.

In many ways, it’s like giving — I shouldn’t say this because it will appear a bit cute but… — giving you car keys and then telling you, well, you’re not an adult. Telling you, you can go to a university, but you’re not responsible for yourselves. I have to be able to trust in you, and I have to be able to accept you as adults. And I think also the problem with the Washington talks was people were treating the Palestinians as half-adults, people who had half rights. Anyway, Oslo, ultimately, whatever the imprecisions in the agreement, was I think a very positive development because it dealt with the people as equals. And let me say openly, for peace to occur between the Palestinians and Israelis, it will have to involve a Palestinian state. With full rights. The fact that there may be some demilitarized zones, some limitations in armaments, that’s, I don’t think, a major issue as long as it’s done in a legitimate manner.

A quick word on Lebanon. Egypt fully supports Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon presumed in resolution 405, no caveats added. That is what we have asked Israel to do since 1978, and that’s what we’re saying today. There’s no caveats in our position on that particular point. The fact that the situation in Lebanon is and will continue to be volatile in the absence of a Syrian agreement and progress in the Palestinian track is a reality, and we have to deal with that by trying to move those two tracks at a much more rapid pace. That’s no a condition or a reason to not have Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.

The Lebanese problem is resolved on the basis of two things: the unconditional withdrawal from southern Lebanon, which is resolution 425, and then Lebanon’s role in the peace process and the Madrid peace process, which again is the function of same principle of land for peace.

I’ve gone way beyond my time on the peace process, but I want to just mention a few points on globalization from the Middle Eastern perspective. By the year 2020, according to World Bank statistics, there will be 191 million Middle Easterns in the age group 15-39. That, if I’m not mistaken, is going to be equal to the same number of Americans, French, Germans, British, and one other industrialized country combined in the same age group. If everything else stands still — and that’s not going to happen— what you will have is a very young generation — a very young population, excuse me — in the Middle East.

In other words, the Middle East will change. Land will possibly remain the same, but the mindset, the baggage that I carry, that my parents carry is not what, hopefully, my children will carry or their children. The environment where to go to a foreign country, you have to travel is not what my son sees by going to a foreign country by opening a computer every morning. He’s affected by that. He is, as Egyptian as I am, but much more worldly than I was at his age.

Because of that, political leaders in the Middle East have to face the reality that they will have to deliver on their promises at a much quicker pace because their constituencies will see what’s out there in the world and will expect them to be accountable at a quicker pace. I don’t mean this in a negative sense. But there’s always a tendency to see what’s good in other countries and not what’s bad. And then you come back to your home leaders and say, "I want this deliverable." That may be right or that may be wrong, but it’s a reality that our leaders will have to face. So there will be tremendous pressures — if you want, peer pressure. Peer pressure which you face at the university, but at a global level between societies.

And the people responsible for delivering in this case will be the political leaders. So the pressures on political leaders will be much greater in the future than they are today.