Gaza is giving Cairo a headache, Dina Ezzat reports Tomorrow, Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit and his Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni are scheduled to meet in London. The encounter will be the first for Abul-Gheit and Livni since the latter expressed dismay over her working relationship with the top Egyptian diplomat. Beyond mending fences, Abul-Gheit and Livni must address two vital issues. The first is Israel's laxity in moving forward in negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (PA). The second is the stifling blockade that Israel is imposing on Gaza. Egypt is very concerned about the negative consequences of the months-long continued siege coupled with failure to make any serious progress in talks aimed to set an outline for a final status agreement on Palestinian-Israeli peace. The obvious immediate consequence of this situation is a continued deterioration of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza -- Egypt's immediate backyard -- and a further decline in the status of PA President Mahmoud Abbas. Both consequences could only serve to increase the popularity of Hamas, which has been explicitly criticised by Cairo for its "misguided handling" of the Palestinian-Israeli struggle. Moreover, Egypt is worried that a scenario that blends Palestinian humanitarian suffering with blocked peace prospects would undermine already fragile chances of securing a stable truce, even for six months, between Israel and Hamas. Failure to secure a truce may pull the humanitarian situation beyond Gaza, into Egypt. In London, sources say, Egypt's top diplomat will push his Israeli counterpart for a change in attitude. Divisions within Israel, sources add, over how to manage the situation in the Palestinian territories ought not to stand in the way of progress. "We need a position that we can work with. And we have a message that we need to deliver to all the camps," commented one Egyptian official. According to this official, Egypt's message of "concern and frustration" over Israel's handling of talks with the PA and the situation in Gaza is being conveyed repeatedly. A clear-worded message was recently sent from Abul-Gheit to Livni. However, the same official added, "now it is becoming more pressing." "Egypt's efforts to secure a truce between Israel and Hamas, along with other Palestinian factions, especially Islamic Jihad, is almost meaningless if not coupled with a change in the situation on the ground in Gaza and some political progress," said the Egyptian official. Absent these conditions, any truce, "if secured in the first place," could collapse within weeks. Egypt has still considerable work yet to do on a truce between Israel and Hamas along with other Palestinian factions. "The truce is coming round the corner. It has been for a while. But we are not there yet," commented a source close to the Egyptian-Palestinian and Egyptian-Israeli talks. Hamas has compromised on its demand for the truce to include the West Bank, now the seat of its political rival, Fatah. However, as leading Hamas figure Mahmoud Al-Zahar declared in Cairo following talks with Egyptian General Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman over the weekend, "within and not after six months" both Gaza and the West Bank should be included. Israel is reluctant. Egyptian officials say that Suleiman is still planning his on-hold trip to Israel to directly discuss the matter with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Before embarking to Tel Aviv, Suleiman would need to secure the support of all Palestinian factions for a halt in all Qassam rocket fire on Israeli settlements -- the Palestinian side of the bargain. The stumbling block, sources close to Egyptian-Palestinian negotiations say, is Fatah. "It is a very perplexing situation for the leaders of Fatah, including Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas," commented one Egyptian diplomat. On the one hand, the PA could make use of a truce during the remaining months of the presidency of George W Bush to focus on advancing talks with Israel. On the other hand, it is politically inconvenient for Abbas, who has for long conditioned dialogue with Hamas on its ceding control over Gaza taken by force last June. Egypt, sources explain, wants the US to first encourage Israel to embrace serious progress in peace talks with Abbas so it would not look like it is making deals with Hamas while simultaneously shrugging off Abbas. Second, Egypt wants Bush, when in the region mid-May to join celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the establishment of Israel, to issue a clear-worded statement on US's vision of Palestinian statehood. "President Bush gave Sharon a letter of guarantees in 2002. Today, we think that it is time for him to make an equal gesture towards the Palestinians," one diplomatic source stressed. During the past few days, consultations conducted by President Hosni Mubarak with Abbas and Jordanian King Abdullah revealed little hope that the Bush administration, or Bush himself, is willing to move in this direction. The Egyptian Embassy in Washington is trying to convince the White House and State Department that Bush needs to arrive in the Middle East with a positive statement on Palestinian and Arab rights in general. "Otherwise it would be a major diplomatic affront. He comes to celebrate 60 years of Israeli statehood and completely overlooks six decades of Palestinian misery and dispossession," commented a senior Egyptian official. "This would be a blow not just to the efforts that he had committed himself to in order to secure peace between Israelis and Palestinians this year, but also to the image of the US as a peace mediator in general," he added. According to positions privately shared by Egyptian and other Arab officials, the least that the US could do at this point is to offer the Palestinian and Israeli negotiating teams a blueprint for a declaration of principles they can work on. Such a blueprint, the argument goes, could compensate for the failure of the negotiating teams to make progress alone. "But so far the Americans do not seem inclined to walk this path," said one Palestinian source. It seems unlikely that Egypt's proposal to host a Palestinian-Israeli-US peace summit in Sharm El-Sheikh during Bush's coming Middle tour will be accepted. In addition to a scheduled meeting with Mubarak, Bush is also scheduled to meet with Abbas and King Abdullah, and the Saudi monarch. A joint meeting of Mubarak, Abdullah, Abbas and Bush is under consideration. "This might be the last meeting between Bush and these leaders. It is a last chance to extract something out of him before he officially moves into the 'lame-duck' phase in a few months," the same Palestinian source said. Meanwhile, by securing a truce, or moving in that direction, Egypt hopes to be soon in a position to operate the Rafah crossing -- Gaza's only exit to the outside world. Egypt affirms that it is not going to unilaterally open the crossing. There has to be a deal. But a deal on the crossing is impossible absent a truce. And the sustainability of the truce is essential to keep the crossing open. "We now have a clear understanding with Hamas, especially during the recent round of talks that was held over the weekend in Egypt," stated on informed source. He added, however, that there are no guarantees that this understanding could hold up in the face of aggravated political and/or humanitarian conditions. On Tuesday, Hesham Youssef, chief of cabinet of the Arab League secretary-general, firmly criticised the Israeli siege on Gaza that has forced a stop to the work of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. "This is affecting over a million innocent Palestinians. This is taking the Gaza Strip to a human disaster," he told reporters. He added, "and in view of Israeli military aggression on the Strip, we might be talking of an unprecedented humanitarian crisis." Arab League officials charge the international Quartet with pressuring Israel to honour its obligations as an occupying power under international humanitarian law. Palestinian politicians, however, argue that in the absence of an honourable international position, Egypt should come to the rescue of Palestinians. "Egypt is in a position to maximise its support to the population of Gaza. This it could do irrespective of political considerations related to the political tug-of-war between Hamas and Fatah," said Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative. Speaking to the Weekly from Ramallah, Barghouti argued that Egypt's prime focus should be on protecting the civilian population in Gaza and promoting inter-Palestinian dialogue. "It is not just Hamas that is suffering in Gaza. Every Palestinian in Gaza is suffering tremendously. Palestinian national interests should not be hijacked by the desire to punish Hamas," he said. Barghouti also demanded that any truce Egypt could secure include both Gaza and the West Bank. "Again this is not about Hamas. Forget about Hamas. Just think that the separation of Gaza and the West Bank in terms of a truce is impossible," he argued. "If Israel attacks the West Bank then Gaza might retaliate and the other way round," he added. According to Barghouti, "without a state of national Palestinian reconciliation there will be no sustainable truce and no progress on the negotiations front. It is as simple as that." Egypt ought not to see Palestinian reconciliation as a gift for Hamas. It is rather, Barghouti argued, in the interest of all Palestinian people and Egypt, regardless of Cairo's negative view of Hamas.
