Israel and Egypt’s enduring ‘cold peace’

CAIRO: 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.”
While many Egyptians welcome the absence of war, they remain hostile to Israel.
“Egypt’s acceptance of full diplomatic and political normalization” has not translated into “a cultural or popular normalization,” 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 toward Israel down to their neighbor’s policies toward the Palestinians.
“The normalization 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 normalization — 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.
Enmity toward Israel often crystallizes over sporting events.
Egyptian and Liverpool football maestro Mohamed Salah has been criticized 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 neighboring Egypt.