By David Harris
Since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled his policies on peace with the Palestinians a week ago, Netanyahu and his right-hand men have taken his message with them around the world.
Netanyahu is in Italy and France this week with trips planned to Britain and Germany. His Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has already held talks with some European counterparts and met colleagues in the United States and Canada.
On Sunday, it was the turn of Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak to bear the torch, as he held talks in Cairo with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Barak's agenda was somewhat broader than a discussion of possible renewed peace talks with the Palestinians, although that figured high on the list of topics.
He also wants to resume indirect negotiations with Hamas for the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who has been held by the Islamic resistance movement in the Gaza Strip for three years.
Cairo brokered previous attempts to free Shalit, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians currently held in Israeli jails.
Egypt is also currently trying to forge some form of agreement between Hamas and Fatah, the West Bank-based organization that controls the Palestinian National Authority. While Israel is not a party to that discussion, its outcome is extremely important to the Jewish state.
Where Mubarak and Barak do see eye to eye is on the subject of Iran. Both Egypt and Israel view Tehran's nuclear program with considerable concern.
The Mubarak-Barak parley was very much a working meeting, with Barak updating his host on all these issues.
"There's a very important common interest between Egypt and Israel, and that's the need for quiet on their border," said former Israeli ambassador to Egypt Zvi Mazal.
With the volatile Gaza Strip sandwiched between Israel and Egypt, both would like to see calm return to the coastal enclave, but Mazal is skeptical that will happen anytime soon.
Speaking to reporters after his meetings with Mubarak, Egypt's Defense Minister Hussein Tantawi and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, Barak re-emphasized Israel's positions, particularly on the Palestinian track, describing Netanyahu's peace overture as a "unique opportunity."
Prior to Barak's Cairo visit, Mubarak decried Netanyahu's June 14 address, saying it complicated the peace process. He rejected Netanyahu's insistence that Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish homeland, saying Arabs could not accept Netanyahu's demand that the outstanding issue of Palestinian refugees be resolved outside Israel's borders.
Although their relationship is often painted as a cold peace, Egypt and Israel do have things in common, said Yaacov Bar Siman Tov, director of the Swiss Center for Conflict Research, Management and Resolution at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
"Iran and radicalization are common fears. Look at Hamas and the Hezbollah network that was seized in Cairo. Iran has a special bond with these two radical Muslim organizations, and that threatens Egyptian peace and security," said Bar Siman Tov.
Bar Siman Tov raised another reason for Cairo's close involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian arena. Egypt was traditionally the leading force in the Arab world, but today that role is under some question. Now Cairo is seeking to strengthen its role once again and it sees the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a good opportunity.
That view is shared by Mazal, who was Israel's man in Cairo from 1996 to 2001. However, he does not believe that the crisis Egypt is attempting to solve is necessarily in Israel's best interest.
While there are clear advantages for Cairo to end the Hamas-Fatah stand-off, Mazal argues early resolution could be bad news for Israel.
"At this stage it appears as though Hamas is not ready to renounce its extremist views, including the destruction of Israel, and any compromise with Fatah will be a Palestinian compromise andnot good for Israel," Mazal said.
Mubarak and his senior ministers will now analyze these views, as expressed by Barak. It is likely Mubarak will hold talks, publicly or privately, with other Arab leaders in the next few weeks to determine whether there is room for the Arab world as a whole to keep pushing its peace initiative.
In the weeks before Netanyahu's speech, and that of US President Barack Obama on June 4, Arab leaders met one another and traveled to Washington in a bid to reboot their peace plan.
The peace plan calls for a full Israeli withdrawal from all territories it won in the 1967 War, including eastern Jerusalem, and a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem. In return, all Arab states would normalize their ties with Israel.
Netanyahu has expressed interest in talking with Arab leaders about their initiative and Obama is also keen to advance the idea. It is likely that Mubarak's Egypt would want to spearhead the push for regional peace, alongside Saudi Arabia, which initially launched the proposal in 2002.
Similarly, Netanyahu, Barak and Lieberman will now have to sit down, analyze the demands from Cairo, Ramallah and Washington and decide just how far Israel is prepared to go down the negotiations' route, which they know will result in what the country's previous two prime ministers dubbed "painful compromises".
(Xinhua News Agency June 23, 2009)
