I had intended to write about the many positive results from the visit of the Saudi king. However, the maritime border agreement between Egypt and Saudi Arabia has triggered such controversy as to overshadow everything else. I recall, as I watched the signing ceremonies for the various agreements between the two countries, asking myself what that maritime border agreement was about. After learning the substance, a book I had studied decades ago immediately sprang to mind. It was by Mohamed Hafez Ghanem, who mentioned in it that, in 1950, Saudi Arabia had asked Egypt to protect the two islands. The first item on my to-do list the following morning was to go to the college library to consult that book. It states the following: “Also, the Egyptian armed forces, on the basis of an agreement with Saudi Arabia, occupied the Tiran and Sanafir islands at the entrance to the Gulf [of Aqaba] so as to secure control over it.” When I entered the lecture room, the students very politely asked me to speak about that subject. I enthusiastically agreed. They gave me their rapt attention as I spoke, after which I fielded a succession of eager questions. I took this as an early sign of the intense interest this delicate issue has sparked in public opinion in general. I continued to research the subject for the next two days, after which I came to the conclusion that there are three points of view on the matter. The first holds that the two islands belong to Saudi Arabia on the basis of the abovementioned event, although there is some difference over whether the request to protect the islands was made by King Abdul-Aziz or by King Farouq. The historian Esam Al-Desouqi adds a noteworthy historic dimension. He wrote that the two islands had belonged to the Hashemite Kingdom of the Hijaz before King Abdul-Aziz annexed them to his nascent Saudi kingdom in 1926. All are familiar with subsequent developments after 1950 which led to the Israeli occupation of Tiran and Sanafir in 1956, and then its withdrawal in 1957 after international forces were bought in to guarantee freedom of navigation in the Gulf of Aqaba, which Egypt had attempted to close to Israeli ships. A decade later, Israel demanded that President Gamal Abdel-Nasser withdraw Egyptian forces from the straits of Tiran and then used this as a pretext to launch the 1967 war, leading to a renewed Israeli occupation of the islands along with the whole of Sinai. This occupation lasted until the peace treaty was signed in 1979, after which the two islands were encompassed in Area C, in which no Egyptian forces were allowed. In this regard, those who defend the Saudi title to these islands note that in the geographical annex of the treaty, the islands were shaded in the same colour as Saudi territory. After Egyptian-Saudi relations resumed, the Saudi foreign minister asked his Egyptian counterpart to return the two islands. According to some accounts, the Saudi foreign minister wrote to the prime minister about the matter and the prime minister responded — citing the 1950 agreement — that the two islands did belong to Saudi Arabia. Advocates of this point of view add that, in 1990, the Egyptian president issued a decree to identify the basic coordinates for calculating Egyptian territorial waters and that the committee that was formed to designate the maritime boundaries between Egypt and Saudi Arabia used this decree as a basis for its work, which lasted six years and produced the results on which the recently signed agreement is based. The second point of view, which maintains that the two islands belong to Egypt, cites a 1906 agreement between Egypt and the Ottoman sultan designating Egyptian borders. Frankly, understanding the substance of this agreement would be difficult for a non-specialist in historical geography such as myself, and therefore I urge Egyptian specialists in this discipline to offer their opinion. The masterful legal expert Heidi Farouq has furnished considerable evidence that the two islands had belonged to Egypt for centuries. On this point, I believe that international law experts should respond to the following crucial question: to what extend can historical rights be used to substantiate present-day ownership? I must confess that I am not sufficiently familiar with the historical circumstances that gave rise to situation described in Al-Desouqi's book, namely that the two islands had belonged to the Hashemite kingdom of the Hijaz before being annexed into the Saudi kingdom in 1926. However, I would like to point out, here, that Saddam used the principle of historical rights to justify his invasion of Kuwait. As for the third point of view, it was only mentioned by one source: the first Egyptian ambassador to Saudi Arabia after relations were resumed following the rupture that occurred after President Anwar Sadat signed the peace accord with Israel. This view holds that Sanafir belongs to Saudi Arabia and that Tiran belongs to Egypt. The ambassador relates that he personally delivered a letter from Esmat Abdel-Maguid to Saud Al-Faisal containing Egypt's recognition that Sanafir belonged to Saudi Arabia. Tiran, however, is Egyptian, he said, adding that Saudi Arabia never asked for it. As can be seen, there is nothing straightforward about this issue. Yet it has ignited public opinion and, as usual, the enemies of the regime and of Egypt rushed in to exploit it for their own purposes. In my opinion, Egyptian governments committed a grave mistake by covering up this matter from 1988 to the recent agreement. Hopefully, this will be the last time that public opinion is ignored during the decision-making processes on crucial matters. Meanwhile, what is important to discuss now is how to manage the coming phase that involves ratification of the agreement. First, I am personally in favour of Justice Tahani Al-Gebali's recommendation to seek the opinion of the Supreme Constitutional Court as to whether the approval of the House of Representatives is sufficient, or whether the matter should be brought to a plebiscite in accordance with the constitution. Second, the government should make all the documents it has to support its case available to the public and the House of Representatives. Then, if the Supreme Constitutional Court determines that the House has the right to ratify the agreement, the members of the House should treat this issue with the utmost seriousness and solicit the input of Egyptian experts in history, geography and law, so as to reach a decision with the highest degree of credibility. Let us bear in mind that the intense interest that the Egyptian public has taken in this issue is to Egypt's credit and strengthens the hand of the Egyptian negotiator. As a final note, I bow to the many Egyptians who sacrificed their lives to defend these two islands and I salute the Egyptian people for their well-known patriotic ardour. The writer is a professor of political science at Cairo University.
