Parliament speaker Fathi Sorour refuses to join Israeli efforts to isolate the Iranian president, reports Gamal Essam El-Din On 21 April speaker of the People's Assembly, Fathi Sorour, received a surprise letter from Reuven Rivilin, his counterpart at the Israeli Knesset. The letter, the first of its kind since Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in 1979, urged Sorour to join forces with Israel and "other democratic nations all over the world" in isolating Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and condemning his anti-Israeli public speeches, the most recent of which was before the UN's second conference on racism. Convened in Geneva, the conference opened on 20 April with more than 140 states present. Nine countries, including the United States and Israel, boycotted the event. As expected, Ahmadinejad used the conference to accuse Israel of making "an entire nation homeless under the pretext of Jewish suffering" and of being "the most repressive racist regime". The delegations of 20 states walked out in protest against Ahmadinejad's speech. In his letter to Sorour Rivilin condemned Ahmadinejad's speech, arguing that it demanded a united stand. Rivilin also described Ahmadinejad as a second Adolf Hitler, insisting that Iran constituted a major threat to world peace. "Let us join forces, learn from the lessons of the past and make sure that the year of 1939 is not be repeated in 2009," Rivilin said. Sorour's response was to call on Rivilin to condemn all forms of racial discrimination and crimes against peoples, including the Palestinians. In his response Sorour said that he had written: "I read your letter very carefully on the anniversary day of the Holocaust in which six million Jews were killed and I feel sorry for the painful memories of this Nazi tragedy which was a disgrace to humanity in the 20th century." He then went on to remind Rivilin that "the Holocaust crimes were mainly committed by Europeans and not by Arab or Islamic peoples." In brief, Sorour said, he wanted to make it clear that "Arabs and Muslims had no hand in this shameful crime". In turn Sorour urged Rivilin to learn the lessons of the Holocaust and stand against all forms of racism, including ethnic cleansing. Sorour accused Israel of killing thousands of Palestinians and slaughtering Arabs in a series of massacres in Egypt, Palestine and Lebanon. "The massacres the Israeli army perpetrated in Gaza in December 2008 are still fresh in our minds," he said. In his capacity as speaker of the Egyptian parliament, Sorour said that he rejected all forms of discrimination against religions, including Islam, which advocates tolerance, justice and equality. Sorour advised Rivilin that "instead of isolating Ahmadinejad Israel should learn that living peacefully side by side with the Palestinians is the best way to retain a good image in the eyes of the world." "Yet in Gaza, beginning from 27 December, Israel killed more than 4,000 citizens, 40 per cent of them women and children. It was happy to shower the people of this densely inhabited area with white phosphorous." Opening a debate on the issue on Monday, deputies belonging to the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) rallied behind Sorour. Mustafa El-Feki, chairman of the People's Assembly Foreign Relations Committee, said "the Arabs have no interest in denying or admitting the Holocaust... they were not a party to the crime." Some opposition MPs, however, slammed Sorour's response, claiming it constituted a form of normalisation. "It would have been better to ignore Rivilin rather than exchange letters with him," Nasserist MP Mustafa Bakri told Sorour. Bakri criticised Sorour for not describing the Palestinian victims of the war in Gaza as "martyrs". Sorour responded by saying it was childish to think that ignoring the Israelis did any good. "This is not a form of normalisation. The fact is that it has proved very bad for us in the past to refrain from responding to the Israelis in international forums." Saad Abboud, another Nasserist firebrand, blamed Sorour for recognising the Holocaust. "In your letter you told Rivilin you felt sorry for the Holocaust. But the fact is it is not only Ahmadinejad who denies it happened. A large number of Europeans also have strong doubts about it," said Abboud. Sorour responded that the state of Germany had itself admitted the Holocaust. Hussein Ibrahim, a Muslim Brotherhood MP, said it was a good sign that most NDP members were keen to condemn Israel's crimes. He urged the ruling party's MPs to go further, suggesting they table a draft law barring Israel's foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, from visiting Egypt. Sayed Askar, another Brotherhood MP, pointed out that Sorour followed in the footsteps of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iran's President Ahmadinejad in condemning Israel in public. "Your rejection of Rivilin's call should be a lesson to the Israelis," he said. Askar went on to praise Ahmadinejad's speech in Geneva, saying it was a commendable effort to mobilise free nations against the Zionist state and expose its lies about the Holocaust. "Instead of joining Rivilin and his Zionist cohorts we should close ranks with Ahmadinejad and stand firmly against the Israelis," Askar said.
