Despite recent ups and downs, Egyptian-Israeli relations remain lukewarm as usual, writes Dina Ezzat Egypt has "not yet" responded to a complaint made by Israel over a cartoon printed in Al-Ahram Weekly that depicted Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as a liar and over TV drama shows broadcast last month that Israel perceived as unfavourable in its portrayal of Israelis and Jews. Yossi Gal, director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, conveyed the complaint to Egyptian Ambassador in Tel Aviv Yasser Reda two weeks ago. Reda passed on the message to Cairo and communication has followed between the Egyptian Foreign Ministry and those responsible at Al-Ahram and the television channels concerned. However, no official reply was offered until Tuesday, either to the Israeli embassy in Cairo or to the Israeli Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. Indeed, the Egyptian government has not made up its mind as to whether or not it would directly reply, especially given that the complaint was sent officially to Ambassador Reda, without him being summoned by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the Weekly learned. On 22 September, the Israeli press reported that Reda "was reprimanded" by Gal for the cartoon in the Weekly. Egyptian officials say that Gal told Reda that he found the cartoon "humiliating to Netanyahu". They insist, however, that Reda was neither summoned nor reprimanded. The official Egyptian account, even if different from Israel's, acknowledged that Israel was "disturbed by what Gal qualified as anti-Israeli declarations" which "do not help the interest of promoting Egyptian-Israeli relations". Nonetheless, "Ambassador Reda basically said that he would look into the matter but insisted that the Egyptian government does not interfere in material printed by the press or broadcast by TV or other media," one informed source told the Weekly on condition of anonymity. The Egyptian government, according to the assessment of informed sources, "is not going to make a big issue of this matter" since it is "routine for Israel to make such protests when it finds something that it qualifies as particularly negative". By the account of one concerned official, hardly a year passes by without such a complaint levelled by Israel. Officials say that they made no particularly pressing request of either Al-Ahram or television channels to reconsider material that might be found offensive by Israel, but "suggested the need to avoid material that might be qualified as anti-Semitic". The Weekly 's managing editor, Galal Nassar, said the paper did not have and was not projecting an anti-Semitic position. "Israel's prime minister is promising to negotiate for peace, but he is building illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territories. He is lying about peace and the cartoon in question was depicting exactly that: Israeli officials' broken promises on peace." Nassar added that all material published by the Weekly on the Arab-Israeli struggle is scrutinised through two lenses: "the first is one of journalistic objectivity, and the second is one of our commitment to speak up against Israeli occupation of Arab territories and the atrocities that Israel commits against Palestinians under occupation." Nassar underlined that the Weekly would always "honour this commitment". Meanwhile, a source at the state-run television said that directors of the news and drama channels were asked to be "more careful". However, the same source insisted that relevant censors had cleared the soap operas in question and that nobody is being reprimanded for the material already broadcast. The Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty that was signed in March 1979 committed Egypt, among other things, to refrain from allowing unfavourable cultural projection of Israelis. The Egyptian government had already prohibited the showing or performance of some films and songs that were produced during the 1950s and 1960s, at the peak of the Israeli-Egyptian wars. Arabic and history curricula have also been revised in line with the same commitment. The Israeli complaint comes against the backdrop of the recent "fuss" that followed a meeting conducted in Al-Ahram offices between a senior editor of the institution and Israel's ambassador to Egypt. It also coincided with an Egyptian press attack on Israel's role -- and for that matter that of "Jewish lobbies in Europe" -- in blocking the path of Farouk Hosni, minister of culture, to head UNESCO. "We complain about one thing here, and they complain about another there, but one should not necessarily link one thing to the other, and certainly one should not read too much into these incidents," a senior official commented. The focus of Egyptian- Israeli communication now is reviving Palestinian-Israeli peace talks and expanding the scope of the Qualified Industrial Zones that allow Egyptian products easy access to the US market on condition of industrial and trade cooperation with Israel. Meanwhile, the same officials say that the Egyptian mediation is still underway to secure the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in return for several hundred Palestinian prisoners, to host elementary peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, and to monitor and shut down smuggling tunnels built between Egypt and the Gaza Strip under Israeli siege. As far as Egypt is concerned, it's business as usual. illustration: Fathi
