As Cairo works towards inspiring a cease-fire in Palestine, the biggest obstacle may be Israel's trigger-happy government, writes Soha Abdelaty Despite the twin bombings in Tel Aviv on Sunday, Cairo will continue to encourage Palestinian factions to agree to a cease-fire. In return, Egyptian officials are urging the international community to restrain Israel. In both cases, the message is the same: only via a period of calm can negotiations resume. For the past two months, Cairo has hosted talks between key Palestinian factions such as Hamas, Jihad, Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and the People's Party to forge a unified position on issues such as armed operations against Israel. Egyptian officials say that they are only "encouraging" these factions to seek a cease-fire, in an attempt to unify their positions. They would also like to see these factions "restructure" rather than "end" their resistance, as a way to establish a period of calm during which negotiations can resume. In essence, this means that Cairo is asking these groups to agree to a cease-fire for a certain period of time, during which civilians will not be targeted and violent resistance can be minimised. "We are helping the Palestinians channel their resistance" in the right way, said Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher on Monday. Egypt's efforts to convince the Palestinians that a cease-fire would be beneficial were applauded by the Israeli peace camp, which remains in close contact with the Egyptian government. On Sunday, head of the Israeli Meretz Party Yossi Sarid and Meretz Knesset candidate and former Justice Minister Yossi Beilin met with Maher, President Hosni Mubarak's chief political adviser Osama El- Baz and chief of intelligence Omar Suleiman in Cairo. The talks, which focused on the meetings with the Palestinian factions and the means to relaunch peace talks, were described as "very constructive," by Uri Zaki, the Israeli delegation's spokesman. According to Beilin, Egypt's work with the Palestinian factions "is making a very important contribution to peace." During the talks, Sarid and Beilin expressed their concern that operations such as the Tel Aviv bombings, which occurred at the same time the meeting was taking place, make it even harder for peace advocates to call for "alternative" policies to those carried out by the incumbent hard-line Likud government. At the same time, Israeli and Egyptian officials alike stressed that their meetings were not connected to Israel's electoral campaigns ahead of the 28 January elections there. Sarid described the Cairo visit as routine, and Maher noted that Egypt keeps channels open with all Israeli parties, including the Israeli government. In fact, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sent his National Security Adviser Ephraim Halevy to Cairo for talks with Maher yesterday. The former head of the Mossad intelligence agency's visit was announced shortly after Sunday's twin bombings, which Maher said were the result of Israel's "abuses" against the Palestinians. In fact, Beilin empathised with the Palestinian "despair" which caused the double bombings. He said they "could have been prevented by returning to the negotiation table, by excluding extremists on both sides". The Meretz candidate also described the bombings as a "message of despair from people who have no other way to express themselves". Cairo wants the Palestinian factions to agree to a 'test period' during which attacks on civilians will stop. "Targeting civilians is being used against the Palestinian cause," noted Maher, and this 'test period' will be an opportunity for international players, as well as the Israeli peace camp, to consolidate their efforts and put an end to the Israeli government's aggressions. "The Palestinians are in a state of despair," Maher said during a lecture at the Egyptian Organisation for International Law on Monday evening. "Asking them to stop expressing this despair through violent means is unjust." Cairo believes that the test period should be a quid pro quo. "We are not only asking [the Palestinian factions] to deal with the situation in a more appropriate manner, but in return we are [trying to apply] international pressure on Israel [to stop] killing Palestinians, destroying houses and evicting households," Maher said. Despite Sunday's twin attacks, Cairo will continue to pursue these goals because it believes the bombings do not reflect badly on the Cairo talks, but are in fact a result of "Israeli provocations and actions", as Maher put it. "There are efforts exerted by the Palestinian factions to reach a resolution, [but] these efforts have not prevented Israel from continuing its aggressive policies," he said on Sunday. The real concern is that Israeli retaliation for Palestinian attacks could sabotage the viability of the Cairo talks. In fact, shortly after the Tel Aviv bombings, Israel announced that it will ban Palestinian officials from traveling abroad -- which prevents them from attending next week's London conference on Palestinian reform. The 13-14 January conference is sponsored by Britain, and brings together the Palestinians (but not President Yasser Arafat) with representatives from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, as well as the diplomatic Quartet (the US, the European Union, Russia and the UN). Despite Cairo's reservations about the conference's limited agenda, it said it will attend and expand on other issues once the conference is held. "The whole situation will be up for discussion even if the agenda has been narrowed down to just Palestinian reform, because Israeli actions impede these reforms," Maher said on Monday.
