Egypt is not set to shift its policies with regard to the Palestinian-Is raeli file, Dina Ezzat reports When representatives of the Palestinian factions and Israel arrive in Egypt today for separate talks with Egyptian officials they will pick up where they left off about a week ago -- on the eve of the unilateral Israeli ceasefire. Leaders of the Palestinian factions will be asked to "comply" with political and security demands that entail sharing responsibility for security in Gaza between Hamas and political foe Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Israel will be asked to change its demands for security surveillance of the border between Egypt and Gaza, and over the mode of operation of the Rafah crossing linking Egypt and Gaza, to a formula that Cairo finds unencroaching on its sovereign rights and that Hamas accepts. What Egypt is trying to secure, according to one informed official, is a "deal" or an "understanding" between Hamas and the rest of the resistant Palestinian factions and Israel, if not a truce in the full sense of the word. For Egypt, the prime objective remains unchanged: stabilising the ceasefire and working towards a durable truce that could allow for the reconstruction of Gaza, the reconciliation of Palestinian factions -- especially Hamas and Fatah -- and eventually the relaunching of negotiations that could lead to a final settlement between Palestinians and Israelis. In pursuing these objectives, Egyptian officials argue, Egypt will "take note" of the growing sensitivity that Hamas has towards Cairo in view of what the resistance movement claims to be a clear Egyptian bias against it -- "not just in favour of Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas", as one Hamas source said, "but even in favour of the enemy". Obviously, Egyptian officials deny such bias outright. However, they add that Cairo is willing to "accommodate to a certain extent" Hamas's concerns while refraining from invitations to prove its "unbiased stance". In short, Hamas might encounter more in the way of Egyptian "understanding". Areas of compromise might include, according to some sources, the length of the truce that Hamas and Israel would commit to. Hamas may not be pressured to agree to an automatically renewable truce of some years, and might get Egypt's support for an agreement pending the renewal of the truce on the satisfaction of both parties along with an agreed upon advance formula for the assessment of a third observing party, especially in relation to the smooth operation of crossings linking Israel to Gaza allowing for a free flow of fuel and food to the Strip. There are, however, areas where Hamas envoys might confront Egyptian reticence. An obvious issue on which Egypt is willing to offer no compromise is its condition to operate its side of the Rafah crossing only in the presence of representatives of the PA along with a third party (possibly observers from the European Union, Turkey, or other countries) on the Palestinian side. "Egypt is not making any compromises there. None whatsoever. We are not going to get stuck with Gaza. We defied that during the aggression and we will continue to defy it after the aggression. This is a red line," commented an Egyptian diplomat on condition of anonymity. According to this diplomat, General Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman, who is administering Egyptian management of the Palestinian-Israeli file, and who is personally set to attend the separate talks that Egypt is planning to host, has made it crystal clear to Khaled Mashaal, the Damascus-based Hamas leader, that short of this condition being fulfilled Egypt will not allow the crossing to be regularly open. "If no agreement is reached, we will continue to do what we have been doing since Hamas took control of Gaza in June 2007: operate the crossing for clear humanitarian purposes only, and that is it," the diplomat said. Meanwhile, Egypt is not planning to budge on its refusal to have any foreign observers on its side of the Egypt-Gaza border to monitor its commitment to rooting out cross-border tunnels that Israel alleges are used to smuggle armaments to Hamas fighters. In each of his speeches made since the outbreak of the Israeli war on Gaza, President Hosni Mubarak was sure to underline this position clearly. "Only technical assistance as offered by the US and Germany is accepted by Egypt," Mubarak said in a speech addressed to the opening of a summit he co-chaired with French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy Sunday in Sharm El-Sheikh that the leaders of Jordan, Turkey, the Czech Republic (current chair of the European Union), the UK, Germany, Italy and Spain, as well as the secretary-generals of the UN and the Arab League and Abbas attended. "Of course we are going to be coming under serious pressure from the US and from Israel to comply with surveillance demands. And of course we expect political harassment, especially in view of the agreement signed recently between Israel and the US that declared that fighting tunnels between Egypt and Gaza was part of the war on terror," said the diplomat. He hastened to add that Egypt will not give in: "For us, this is a serious sovereignty issue. We cannot concede. The president would not." The maximum that Israel will get from Egypt on this issue, according to Egyptian officials, is extensive cooperation with "technical teams" that the US and some other European states are offering to send to detect the location of suspected tunnels. Egypt, officials add, would insist that only its authorities would decide how to close such tunnels if the job was to be done from the Egyptian side. "We cannot accept anything that would constitute a direct violation of our sovereignty on our territories. This is a very serious issue for us, and it's a very sensitive matter for the public," the same diplomat stressed. Meanwhile, as declared by President Mubarak during his participation in the Kuwait development summit Monday, Egypt will continue its efforts to promote Palestinian reconciliation. On this front too, the basics remain untouched: Hamas will have to succumb to the clout of the PA. "For us, there could be no parallel authorities -- one for Hamas in Gaza, and one for the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. There is one authority, even if this authority has to acknowledge the political weight Hamas has. But Hamas cannot override this authority and start miscalculated military choices that could open the door for another war on Gaza," the diplomat said. What Egypt is seeking via Palestinian reconciliation remains a coalition government (maybe political and not strictly technocratic), an acknowledgement of the continued mandate of Abbas as the chair of the Palestinian Authority pending the organisation of legislative and presidential elections this year (tentatively, in April and May), a place for Hamas in the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) on the basis of its acceptance of the PLO's commitment to a negotiated settlement with Israel, and eventually the release of all Hamas elements from detention in Egypt and in the West Bank under the control of the PA. Egyptian officials say that the prospect of Hamas leaders sitting in a conference hall alongside Abbas -- as Qatar had planned during the Doha summit that it hosted for Arab states last Friday, and that Egypt refused to attend -- is simply "out of the question". "Hamas leaders could be received in Cairo as they have been, but we are not letting them attend any Arab League meetings or consultative summits. This area remains strictly reserved for the legitimate Palestinian Authority. This is not just our position, but also that of the secretariat of the Arab League," the diplomat argued. Egypt seems set to cooperate with Saudi Arabia on promoting Palestinian reconciliation. However, it is still not willing to work with either Syria or Qatar, Hamas's direct and indirect allies, on this front. "If the Saudis want to do it they can, but we are not," commented one official who asked for his name to be withheld. For Egypt, this position is not just a reaction to what Cairo qualifies as "an aggressive war that Syria and Qatar led against Egypt through the satellite TV channel Al-Jazeera" during the war on Gaza. It is rather more strategic: "Syria and Qatar are working in tandem with the Iranian regional scheme that aims to fortify the Islamic political movement, and for Egypt this is simply a red line," the official said. According to sources present at the Kuwait development summit, it was only out of courtesy to his host that President Mubarak sat at a lunch table with the leaders of Syria and Qatar, to which Saudi Arabia was also invited, in order to end tensions among the four countries. "It does not seem that the time has come for Cairo to turn a new page with Qatar and Syria -- especially Syria," one source said. What seems in the works, however, is Saudi-Syrian reconciliation. Saudi monarch King Abdullah invited Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, the current chair of the Arab summit, to visit Riyadh. The latter agreed and a visit is being considered sometime within the next eight weeks. This Saudi-Syrian rapprochement could open the door for an end to the rift between Egypt and Syria, but it is not for granted, according to Egyptian and Syrian diplomatic sources. What counts for Egypt is for Syria to encourage Hamas to agree to a truce with Israel and to work seriously for reconciliation with Abbas.
