Mutual accusations between Egypt and Israel concerning the monitoring of Egyptian-Israeli borders have become common. The Zionist Lobby in Washington continues to point the finger at Egypt in what seems to be a breach of the spirit of the Camp David Accords. One might have hoped that the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty would have ushered in a steady course of normalisation and improvement in relations. This continues to be wishful thinking. Disenchantment soon followed the treaty and relations quickly slipped into in a limbo somewhere between cold war and cold peace. Some argue that strains in Egyptian-Israeli relations are due to unusual circumstances -- the rise of Israeli hawks or the growing influence of nationalist and religious hardliners on the Arab street. This is an oversimplification which ignores a host of regional and international considerations as well as the long-term rivalries. Egypt, many in the Arab world would agree, is a natural regional leader, whether it is involved head-on in regional affairs or assumes the role of backseat driver. Most Zionists want to see Israel replace Egypt in this role. The disciples of both Herzl and Jabotinsky adhere to this view. Abba Eban, the former Israeli foreign minister and generally considered a dove, wrote at the time the Camp David Accords were being drafted that the Middle East is a mosaic that must be held together by Israel, not Egypt. Shimon Peres, another dove, once called on Arab businessmen in Rabat to stop listening to Egypt and take note of what Israel is saying. The source of tension in Egyptian-Israeli relations lies in such regional rivalry. But there is nothing new in that. When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 President Hosni Mubarak remarked that Saddam Hussein was trying to build an "Iraqi empire". His invasion of Kuwait was widely seen as a threat to Egyptian national security. Much of the Western Sahara conflict can be explained by Moroccan-Algerian rivalry. And let's not forget long running Arab-Iranian tensions. Every region has a hierarchy and needs a stabilising power, be it a state or a consortium of states. Yet, however common inter-Arab conflicts are, they remain the political equivalent of sibling rivalry. When Cairo snatched Baghdad's leadership role in the 1940s and 1950s it did so by aligning itself firmly with the idea of pan- Arabism. Outside the family of Arab states things are different. Countries that might hope to play a major role in the region include Turkey and Iran. History, geography and religious sympathies make that a possibility. But the chances of an Arab country leading the region remain far more plausible. In this region it helps if you are Arab as well as Muslim. Israel has no chance. Deep down the Israelis know this. Most are not from the region and have no desire to belong to it. To claim that Israel is big on the war on terror and therefore big in the region is just silly. Israel is the problem, not the solution. Yet the Israelis seem to want to reproduce the colonialist past. Israel has been telling the Bush administration that Egypt is not policing the borders with Israel adequately. Is this how the Israelis hope to assert their regional power? The Israelis can make such claims all they want. But let's be serious. Egypt's regional status is home-grown, not imported from abroad. Egypt's strength is in its Arab bonds, an integral part of Egyptian nationalism. There is much that pan-Arabism can still accomplish. We can, for example, revive the Egyptian-Saudi-Syrian axis, work hard to make the next Arab summit a success, turn the Arab free trade zone into a customs union, and push national reconciliation in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon. The more Cairo succeeds in such endeavours the more it will be able to "normalise" ties with Israel which -- to put things bluntly -- means keeping Israeli expansion at bay.
