Serious developments in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict were a cause for concern this week. The editorial of the official daily Al-Akhbar criticised Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman for his plan to separate Gaza from the rest of the Palestinian territories. The editorial regarded it as an attempt to abolish the Palestinian right to liberty, independence and the establishment of an independent state. While the edit stated that Egypt is completely against the idea, it called on the UN and the international community to press on Israel to end its occupation and settlement building and acknowledge the rights of the Palestinian people. It also called on Arab states to stick to their rejection of the Lieberman plan and refuse to start direct negotiations until the complete halt of settlement building, the recognition of a Palestinian state on pre- 1967 borders and the right of return of Palestinian refugees. In the independent daily Al-Shorouk Clovis Maksoud, former Arab League ambassador to the US and the UN, said the recent developments in the Palestinian issue including a change in US policy tilting towards Israel indicated an inclination in US policy to separate the indirect and direct Palestinian-Israeli negotiations from strategic US-Israeli relations. Thus, Maksoud argued that unless Arab states agree on a united strategy, they will be unable to deter Israel and the Zionist project. That strategy, Maksoud added, should be followed by an intensive information campaign to persuade the world that Arab states are seeking just peace, not just peace. However, he stated that in light of the change in US policy the world wonders whether Binyamin Netanyahu will extend the 10-month freeze on settlement building that never happened in the first place. But the more pressing question is when will the settlements be disbanded? The question will not have an answer as long as Arab states are not united and their discourse is not effective, Maksoud concluded. Reaching a power-sharing water pact among the Nile Basin countries is still far from resolved. Though he regarded it as late, Wagdi Zeineddin hailed the state's decision to withdraw the Nile Basin file from Minister of Water Resources Mohamed Nasreddin Allam. In the past decades, no minister of water resources showed any interest in the Nile water issue even though it was his prime responsibility, Zeineddin explained in the daily Al-Wafd, the mouthpiece of the opposition Wafd Party. As a result, the file was assigned to General Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman, Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmed Abul-Gheit and Minister of State for International Cooperation Faiza Abul-Naga. That, according to Zeineddin, confirmed the failure of the Egyptian ministers of irrigation in dealing with the Nile water issue during the last few years. In addition, the decision to assign the file to Suleiman means that the state is very serious in dealing with the crisis. However, it is a decision that should have been taken a long time ago before the crisis escalated and the upstream countries dared to declare reducing Egypt's share of the Nile's water. Suleiman's intervention in the crisis indicates a strong reaction to these countries and a deterrent to whoever tries to undermine Egypt. "Suleiman's mission is important because it affects every Egyptian citizen. The talks which he recently conducted in Ethiopia, Uganda and Sudan, and attended by Abul-Gheit and Abul-Naga, were primarily aimed at dotting the I's and crossing the T's regarding the Nile water and to stop whatever threatens Egypt's national security," he added. Although the incident in which fans of Ahli Club attacked police forces in a friendly match with Kafr Al-Sheikh last week was small, it is clearly an indication of the surge of violence in Egypt. Ibrahim Nafei wrote that Egyptian society is witnessing an unprecedented state of violence that has reached all walks of the Egyptians' life. After suffering from violence in the street, violence has become a frequent phenomenon in institutions and official bodies, and it has appeared in the behaviour of even some public figures which are respected by all Egyptians. Although it was a friendly football match, Ahli fans, known, like other extremist spectators, as Ultras, used fireworks during the match. When police intervened, they engaged in violent clashes with the Ultras. The scenes of policemen being attacked made one grieve over the state of Egyptian youth and what they have become, Nafei added. Violence committed by these young fans reveals a danger that poses a threat to our society. "Violence is almost everywhere around us: in the street, at traffic lights, in the waiting queues for services, and even in banks. It has become a tool to obtain what some may consider as their right and in other cases to pirate the rights of others," Nafei wrote in the official daily Al-Ahram. If we leave violence to go unchecked, without quick and decisive treatment, he added, we may lose what we consider the characteristics of the Egyptian people: kindness and tolerance, in addition to the characteristics of Egypt, namely security. The first step in dealing with the phenomenon is education, and then we need to recruit all the tools of upbringing together with a strict and rigorous application of the laws, Nafei concluded. Charle Fouad Al-Masri pointed to another related phenomenon that is quickly spreading among Egyptians: the noticeable deterioration in general manners in recent years. Al-Masri wrote in the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Yom that it has become a phenomenon which deserves more attention from the government to the extent that restoring good Egyptian manners should be considered a "national project". And that, he added, should replace the "state of bullying" which we live in on all levels, whether political, economic, social or informational. Such a state, which often appears in the absence of the law, and sometimes under its auspices, induces one to think what the future of this country is going to be like, especially after an official report confirmed that 10 million cases of bullying occur in Egypt per year, and that bullying has turned from a behaviour into a profession from which many individuals earn their living despite the law that fights it. The problem, the writer explained, is that Egyptians are divided into two: those who do not respect the law and take bullying as a way to obtain their rights or the rights of others, and those who use the law as a tool to bully. But "the biggest problem is that bullying itself has become a law which is applied by certain people to bring rights to their owners or to steal the rights of others," he wrote.
