Two weeks on and Gamal Mubarak's visit to Lebanon continues to provoke controversy, reports Gamal Essam El-Din After receiving an urgent phone call from Lebanon's Prime Minister Fouad Al-Siniora last Sunday, President Hosni Mubarak ordered the Egyptian Ministry of Electricity to prepare itself to help in the rebuilding of Lebanon's national grid. Electricity Minister Hassan Younis said that in February 2002, when President Mubarak was in Lebanon, he had issued similar orders that Egypt rebuild two Lebanese electricity generators near Beirut after they had been destroyed by Israeli air raids. Since the Israeli-Lebanese war erupted on 12 July, hundreds of tonnes of Egyptian food and medical supplies have been sent to Lebanon. But the most remarkable show of support, say many, came on 8 August when Gamal Mubarak, the president's 43-year- old son and chairman of the influential ruling National Democratic Party's Policies Committee, joined a 70- strong delegation to Beirut to show solidarity with the Lebanese people and government. Yet instead of being seen as a reflection of the Egyptian people's desire to show their support of Lebanon the visit sparked intense debate in political circles, much of it centred on the political ambitions of the president's son. According to Abdallah El-Sinnawi, editor of Al-Arabi, the mouthpiece of the Nasserist Party, the Egyptian delegation heading to Beirut on 8 August was taken aback when at the last minute it was joined by Gamal Mubarak. "This sudden joining," El-Sinnawi told Al-Ahram Weekly, "embarrassed many of the delegation's members since they are vociferous critics of President Mubarak and his son and did relish the fact that Egyptians and Arabs would see them as members of a delegation led by Gamal Mubarak." While El-Sinnawi believes "Gamal Mubarak has the right to show solidarity with Lebanon, his critics in the delegation have an equal right not to be exploited in a way that might promote his inheritance of power". El-Sinnawi said he was disturbed upon seeing Gamal Mubarak's photos with the Egyptian delegation and Lebanese officials spread across the front pages of national dailies which "gave the misleading impression to the public that delegation members had approved that Gamal be their head and speak to the Lebanese on their behalf". El-Sinnawi believes the decision to send Gamal Mubarak to Beirut was made abruptly. "It was taken at the last minute in a bid to improve the image of President Mubarak, especially after he joined the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Jordan in condemning Hizbullah's capture of two Israeli soldiers," he told the Weekly. Opposition journalists Gamal Fahmi and Magdi Mehanna, who were not members of the delegation, argued that it was shameful for Gamal Mubarak to be on board a plane which had to request Israeli permission to land. Adel Hammouda, editor of the independent Al-Fagr and a member of the delegation, took issue with the criticisms, saying that Gamal Mubarak told him immediately after the breakout of the conflict that he wanted to go to Lebanon in a gesture of solidarity. "Later," Hammouda said, "he found out that the best way to do this was to join a high-profile delegation including representatives of all political stripes and national forces." Had he abstained from going to Lebanon, argued Hammouda, his critics would have asked why President Mubarak had refused to send his son. "By sending Gamal, President Mubarak wanted to convey to Lebanese leaders the sincerity of his support for their country." According to Hammouda, during the 12-hour visit Gamal Mubarak was keen not to act as if he were the head of the delegation. "He listened more than he talked and it was the leaders of Lebanon who called on him to sit and stand beside them." The impression he gave, believes Hammouda, was that "he is neither arrogant nor out of touch with the people." And "the visit gave Gamal Mubarak a unique chance to move outside the close circle around him and mix with political figures of all stripes". Hammouda said the flight from Cairo to Beirut took an hour and a half rather than the usual hour. "The plane went to Cyprus first and then took a safe route to Beirut without asking for Israeli permission," he said. Mustafa Bakri, another delegation member and editor of the leftist Al-Osbou, described as empty all suggestions that Gamal Mubarak's participation in the delegation was intended to promote his inheritance of power. "This visit included a broad spectrum of national figures and was wholeheartedly welcomed by the Lebanese," said Bakri, who pointed out that Al-Siniora described the Egyptian delegation's visit to Beirut as more important to the Lebanese than the meeting of Arab foreign ministers held a day earlier. Mohamed El-Sayed Said, an independent analyst with Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, told Reuters that since the conflict erupted Gamal Mubarak had failed to take a strong position. "On recent visits to the provinces Gamal faced criticism for failing to take a strong position on the Lebanese conflict," Said said. "Now he is responding to this criticism but his main motive is to take advantage of the passion Lebanon has aroused, to score popularity and to show himself as a courageous person willing to take risks." Gamal Mubarak's visit attracted comment from the Israeli press, with Haaretz drawing attention to the debate it had provoked in Egypt over the possible succession. Most observers appear to agree that Gamal Mubarak's reaction to the war in Lebanon has come too late. Between 12 July and 2 August Mubarak visited three Upper Egypt governorates and held question- and-answer sessions with NDP member without once mentioning the conflict. It was only after he was criticised by opposition and independent newspapers that the NDP convened a meeting, on 2 August -- nearly three weeks after the conflict -- to discuss the position and at which Mubarak issued his first condemnation of Israeli actions, describing them as "deluded". He slammed Washington's vision of a "New Middle East" as a failed project that revealed its inability to appreciate the region's problems. "The entire Lebanese people has Egypt's full support, irrespective of creed," he continued, adding that "the Lebanese resistance is a popular resistance." He also called for an international enquiry into the bombing of an apartment building in the southern Lebanese village of Qana in which 60 civilians died, 37 of them children.
