Angered by a month-long savage Israeli bombing of Lebanon, an Egyptian delegation headed to Beirut Tuesday to express solidarity, Gamal Essam El-Din reports Egyptian solidarity with Lebanon reached a peak this week. Inflamed by Israel's savage massacres of civilians in Qana and other southern villages in Lebanon, Egypt decided to launch a strong campaign of solidarity with the Lebanese government and people. On Tuesday, a 70-member Egyptian delegation led by Gamal Mubarak, the 42-year-old son of President Mubarak, visited Beirut to express strong solidarity with Lebanon. The delegation included three cabinet ministers: Minister of Trade and Industry Rashid Mohamed Rashid, Minister of Information Anas El-Feki, and Health Minister Hatem El-Gabally. On leaving for Lebanon, Gamal Mubarak told press reporters, "The visit is a message of strong solidarity from the Egyptian people to the government and people of Lebanon." The Egyptian delegation included deputies in the People's Assembly and Shura Council, representatives of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), leaders of some opposition parties, trade unions and professional syndicates, industrialists and the Egyptian Red Crescent. It also included some editors of national, opposition, and independent newspapers, writers and movie stars. The delegation met with Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, Prime Minister Fouad Al-Siniora and speaker of the Lebanese House of Representatives Nabih Berri. Two military cargo planes carrying more than 60 tonnes of foodstuffs and medicine accompanied the delegation's visit. During the visit, the delegation's members toured a military hospital Egypt had set up in Beirut one week ago to treat Lebanese citizens injured by Israeli bombing. The Egyptian delegation's visit to Lebanon came after many Lebanese officials said they had been dismayed by the official Egyptian response to the Israeli aggression against their country. Some Lebanese politicians attacked Egypt and Saudi Arabia's criticism of the Lebanese resistance group, Hizbullah, "for implicating Lebanon in an uncalculated adventure". Egypt and Saudi Arabia were also singled out for attacks for "not doing enough to call for an emergency Arab summit, or to put pressure on the United States to ask for a ceasefire". In Beirut, Gamal Mubarak did his best to respond to the attacks, asserting that since the beginning of the war, official and popular Egypt was united in showing deep solidarity with Lebanon. Gamal Mubarak himself has been under attack in recent days. Opposition press reports said that during a meeting Mubarak held two weeks ago to respond to online questions raised by a number of NDP members, he failed to mention a word about the war in Lebanon. The criticism was so sharp that Gamal Mubarak and other NDP leading officials were quickly mobilised to hold an urgent meeting to show solidarity with Lebanon. Gamal Mubarak's visit to Lebanon, however, came under fire from some opposition figures. Abdallah El-Senawi, editor of the Arab-Nasserist Al-Arabi, told Al-Ahram Weekly that Gamal Mubarak's visit was not so much about showing solidarity with Lebanon as promoting his personal image as a politician slated to inherit power from his father. "It was a good chance for Gamal to hit two birds with one stone: show solidarity with Lebanon and score goals in his battle towards inheriting power at the same time," El-Senawi said. El-Senawi said Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif was the one who ought to have gone to Lebanon, not Gamal Mubarak. "But we all know that it is Gamal Mubarak who is the real prime minister and not Nazif," said El-Senawi. Egyptian solidarity with Lebanon continued on more than one front. Egyptian parliamentarians were among the first who did their utmost to show solidarity with Lebanon. A group of leftist and Muslim Brotherhood MPs organised last week a protest march from the doors of the People's Assembly to the Arab League headquarters in Tahrir Square. During their march, the parliamentarians called on President Mubarak to summon the Egyptian ambassador to Tel Aviv back to Cairo in protest to the Israeli aggression on Lebanon. They also urged the Egyptian government to stop selling Egyptian natural gas and oil to Israel and to disrupt the QIZ (Qualified Industrial Zones) agreement with Israel and the United States. They espoused the same positions last Tuesday when they organised another march to the Abdin Palace presidential palace in downtown Cairo. Reportedly, they filed a petition calling upon President Mubarak to expel the Israeli ambassador from Cairo. It was also said that they plan to organise a sit-in in front of the Israeli Embassy in Giza in a bid to force Israeli Ambassador Moshe Cohen to leave Cairo. The same parliamentary group, led by Mostafa Bakri, a journalist and a pan- Arabist firebrand MP -- who also accompanied Gamal Mubarak on his solidarity trip to Beirut last Tuesday -- visited the Embassy of Venezuela on Monday to heap praise on President Hugo Chavez's decision to summon his country's ambassador from Israel. The number of this group of parliamentarians, however, does not exceed 10. They include Bakri, Mohamed Abdel-Alim Dawoud, a journalist and Wafdist MP, Gamal Zahran and Saad Abboud, two MPs representing Al-Karama ("dignity" -- a Nasserist-oriented) Party and around seven MPs affiliated to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.
