Dina Ezzat examines the messages President Mubarak is sending to friends and adversaries, home and abroad On Monday in Sharm El-Sheikh, President Hosni Mubarak is planning to receive Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for a summit, the first to bring together the head of state with a non-Arab leader since his meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel during the first week of March. The meeting comes at an early phase of the resumption of Mubarak's foreign meetings which have so far been confined to receiving Arab leaders who expressed their congratulations that the president had recovered following the gall bladder surgery he underwent in Germany on 6 March. "It was imperative for the president to accept the interest expressed by Netanyahu to visit and talk," commented an Egyptian official. According to the official, there are some pressing issues to discuss with the Israeli prime minister. Calling on Israel to avoid inciting the lower stream countries of the Nile Basin against Egypt's "historic rights and share" of the Nile water is a crucial message that Mubarak is expected to put across to his Israeli guest, according to the same official. Pressing the need for Netanyahu to refrain from unilateral measures on the ground that could spoil the mood for planned indirect talks between Israelis and the Palestinian Authority, which should start in mid- May, was another message the president was expected to convey to the visiting prime minister, according to the same official. Moreover, the official added, Mubarak will stress to Netanyahu Egypt's keenness on its relations and cooperation with Israel. "To serve the purpose of peace we expect Israel to refrain from antagonising Arab neighbours, much less attack them," he said in reference to recent Israeli threats against Syria and Lebanon. During a meeting with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri on Monday in Sharm El-Sheikh, President Mubarak, according to statements by the Lebanese guest, made it clear that Egypt supports Lebanon in the face of any aggression. Mubarak's meeting with Al-Hariri came less than 48 hours after a visit by Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul- Gheit to Lebanon during which he expressed explicit support for Lebanon and Syria if it came under attack. According to political commentator Emad Gad, Mubarak is in a position to convey a clear message to Netanyahu on Egypt's impatience with any attempt to tamper with national strategic interests "and the Nile water is certainly one", as is regional stability, fragile as it may be. Mubarak's message on the requirements for peace between Egypt and Israel, as in the Middle East in general, was stressed earlier during a traditional statement he made last Saturday 24 April to commemorate Sinai Liberation Day. "We are still committed to peace for as long as Israel is equally committed," Mubarak said. He added that in support of this peace, Egypt was hard at work promoting an overall Arab-Israeli peace, especially a Palestinian-Israeli settlement that could allow for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. Mubarak's Sinai Day speech carried other messages for friends and adversaries at home and abroad. A direct but not so detailed message was sent to "the forces of extremism" which went unnamed but were still a threat that the Egyptian regime will not stop confronting. The more elaborate message, however, went to the home front. Mubarak, who addressed the nation for the first time since he underwent surgery, used the occasion to stress his commitment to political reform that he initiated in 2005 "in line with [his] responsibilities as president of the republic." The president said that the road ahead would be guided by this initiative which he described as favouring the principles of equal citizenship, separating religion and politics and meeting the requirements of political participation and social equity. In his speech, Mubarak chose to credit "the current vibrant interaction of social forces" to his 2005 political initiative which allowed for the first ever contested presidential elections, but one which also removed direct juridical supervision over elections and introduced a set of regulations that critics qualify as too constricting to allow participation of independents in the presidential elections. "We will go ahead," Mubarak said. Independent MP Gamal Zahran said "the message of continued political reform is in principal very positive." However, Zahran added, "in the absence of any serious guarantees as to how political reform will be pursued, there will always be serious worries that all elections, whether legislative or presidential, could be rigged." Egypt is readying for three elections in the next year and half. Apart from the mid-term elections of the Shura Council, due in June, legislative elections in October this year and the presidential elections in October next year are on the calendar. Mubarak, who has been serving as head of state since October 1981 in the wake of the assassination of President Anwar El-Sadat, did not say whether he will run for the presidential elections next year. The Egyptian constitution puts no limit on the number of terms a head of state is entitled to. Mubarak's Sinai Day speech came against a backdrop of many calls in opposition quarters for major constitutional reforms that would allow for the introduction of a limit to the number of presidential terms, the suspension of emergency law in effect since Mubarak took over, the re-institution of judiciary supervision over elections, and the removal of the restrictive limitations on the participation of independents in the presidential elections. There was, however, no direct message by the president in his speech to these specific demands. For the president, it was enough to say that "the current active interaction should not turn into a confrontation or a feud over power." He insisted that a nation's future cannot be decided by mere "rhetoric" that could be vastly miscalculated and which would bring about negative consequences for the interest of the nation. Prominent political scientist and reform activist Hassan Nafaa says the message is clear, even if not spelled out. Mubarak, he maintained, does not seem ready to accommodate calls for reform, especially when it comes with introducing necessary constitutional amendments that allow for "brave and capable independents such as Mohamed El-Baradei [who is currently calling for constitutional amendments] and Amr Moussa [who alluded a while ago to an interest in running for the presidency] to contest the presidential seat." Meanwhile, Nafaa added, Mubarak did not indicate any intention to appoint a vice-president or whether he was leaning to other political and administrative measures that could facilitate the transfer of power when need be. "In other words, it is about maintaining the status quo," Nafaa concluded. This, he said, "is very serious because it fails to address, much less answer, the most crucial question in the minds of the people, one which has to do with the future of the presidency after Mubarak leaves office."
