At Egypt's behest, the world's largest security organisation has decided to monitor escalating global discrimination against Islam. Magda El-Ghitany reports from Sharm El-Sheikh At a meeting that took place in Sharm El-Sheikh last week, Egypt managed to convince a European body concerned with security to expand its focus to include the monitoring of both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) had originally planned to appoint just one representative to monitor anti-Semitism. An intense diplomatic campaign involved lobbying OSCE member states as well as its current chairman, Bulgaria, to establish a committee, or appoint representatives, to observe all types of worldwide discrimination instead of just monitoring anti-Semitism. The campaign was crucial, Mohamed Shaaban, the adviser to Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul- Gheit told Al-Ahram Weekly, "so that one religion [would not be favoured] over the others". The diplomatic victory took place at the 10th OSCE Mediterranean Seminar that was held in Sharm El-Sheikh, on 18 and 19 November. The world's largest security organisation, OSCE includes 55 nations, mainly from Europe, but also includes the US and Canada, and, since the mid- 1990s, six Mediterranean partners -- Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia. Egypt has hosted three of the 10 seminars that have been held to discuss security concerns in the region. Last week's seminar sessions focussed on terrorism, intolerance and discrimination, and migration, with participants attempting to find solutions that serve their common interests in minimising these threats. Shaaban, who was the moderator of the seminar's first session, said that fighting anti-Semitism "tops the international agenda", while other forms of discrimination are not given the same attention. The problem, he said, is that by considering criticism of Israeli politics anti-Semitic, the international community is mixing up the cards. Egypt's concern -- as articulated in the seminar's opening speech (delivered on Abul-Gheit's behalf by Assistant Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri) -- was for "all forms of [discrimination] and intolerance" and "ensuring the protection and respect for all religions", as well as stepping up joint efforts to end "Islamophobia", which was rapidly becoming a global phenomenon. Fighting anti-Semitism is not a new idea for the OSCE. It dates back two years, when the organisation decided to consider "anti-Semitism" a "threat to the stability of societies that may give rise to violence". Although the organisation has also referred to discrimination against Muslims, it was only at this most recent meeting that the scope of its plan to monitor the phenomenon took shape. According to Peter Boden, Germany's permanent representative to the OSCE, this happened after "a long internal debate". The organisation is now planning to appoint three special representatives: one to monitor the escalating Islamophobia phenomenon; another for anti-Semitism; and a third for other types of discrimination, intolerance and xenophobia. Speaking on condition of anonymity, one of the seminar's organisers said that the OSCE's decision to appoint an envoy -- who will most likely be from Turkey -- to monitor Islamophobia was a solid victory for Egypt's efforts, considering that the phenomenon has noticeably increased in the West, especially in the aftermath of 9/11. In fact, the decision reflected a blunt international confession regarding escalating discrimination against Muslims around the world. Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passy, OSCE's chairman- in-office, told the Weekly that, "we [OSCE] cannot limit our fight against intolerance to one group. Fighting intolerance should extend [to help] all minorities and groups suffering from discrimination, including Muslims and Arabs." At the meeting, Egypt was also keen to rule out any premise that the Middle East was the root of terrorism. Shaaban said that, "the root cause of terrorism is non-compliance with international law and the unresolved territorial disputes" that lack collective, effective efforts to solve them. Abul- Gheit's speech ironed out the fact that terrorism was "a direct result of the injustice and double standards" that the international community applies in dealing with various issues. The solution, therefore, was to put forth "just solutions for major issues that have existed for decades". Egypt highlighted three such issues that threaten the region's security, and require much more international cooperation to resolve: the Palestinian- Israeli conflict and the upcoming Palestinian elections; the current situation in Iraq, and the possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by some states in the Mediterranean. The Egyptian foreign minister's opening speech said international cooperation was needed to: help attain a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip so that not a "single Israeli soldier" would be left there; conduct smooth, "fair Palestinian elections"; ensure a better situation in Iraq; and guarantee a Middle East that is "free of WMD". Otherwise, there would be much remaining that threatens "the security of Europe and the Mediterranean". The seminar eventually managed to come to common ground on some of these issues. During the concluding session, there was a consensus that the OSCE should send envoys to observe the upcoming 9 January Palestinian elections. M Haluk Ilicak, Turkey's minister plenipotentiary, told the Weekly that the OSCE was willing to send such observers because the organisation "supports any form of democratisation". At the same time, the Turkish official said, getting involved in the Iraqi matter was debatable. The WMD issue, meanwhile, seemed to remain unsolvable. While Abul-Gheit's speech called on the "whole" international community to stop lending a "blind eye" to the "persistence of some states in the Middle East to acquire WMD", since this would "weaken the impact of international treaties of non proliferation", Passy said that WMD was a "broad [issue] that cannot be solved by the OSCE alone. It [requires] very strong participation from the UN and the Quartet." Egyptian officials are banking on the premise that the seminar was a good, albeit slow, start for Mediterranean states to attain some of their goals. The future, they hoped, could begin similar interactions that, in the long term, could pave the way for solving other vital issues. "Knowing and accepting the other is the key" to all our goals, Shaaban said.
