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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Friday, August 27, 1982

In Wake of War Egypt Peace Has Held

By ROBERT MAYER
EVANS

(Editor's note: Robert
Mayer Evans is a former
correspondent for CBS
News and the CBS
bureau chief in Moscow.
He also has covered the
Middle East.)
One of the remarkable
things about the Israeli
military operation in Leba-
non is a story little reported
and commented on. The Is-
raeli peace with Egypt has
held.
This peace treaty is a cor-
stone of American Mid-
,— East policy. It is the first
peace between Israel and a
former Arab enemy. The Is-
raeli entry into Lebanon
subjected it to the severest
of tests. Would Egypt react
to Lebanon by breaking its
peace with Israel? Cairo
took the position of denun-
ciation without renuncia-
tion; i.e., denounce the in-
vasion but not renounce the
peace treaty.
In Cairo, foreign ministry
officials express anger at Is-
rael. Egypt joins France in
UN resolutions critical of
Israel. But Egyptian offi-
cials say that the country
will not abandon the peace
process.
In Cairo, Western offi-
cials report no apparent
erosion yet in President
Hosni Mubarak's sup-
port. But they also com-
ment that Mubarak must
do three things to sur-
vive:
• He must master
Egypt's economic morass
enough to show improve-
ment in living conditions.
Under Sadat, Egyptians
own
their
criticized
economy as benefiting
primarily Egypt's upper
and wealthy class.
• He must maintain
internal security enough to
control the country without
resorting to what one offi-
cial described as the brutal-
ity under both Sadat and
Nasser.
• He must preserve the
peace with Israel without
eroding Egypt's sense of
dignity. Egypt's leaders
must not see the peace
agreement as making them
a mere tool of Israel, nor
must they seem to be a
dinghy bobbing in Wash-
ington's wake.
One strong inducement
for Egypt to continue the
peace process is Ameri-
can foreign aid. U.S. aid
to Egypt this year will be
around $1 billion.
In the years immediately
following Camp David, U.S.
foreign aid to Egypt greatly
expanded. Early foreign aid
policy had obvious direc-
: Do it visibly, and do it
,diy. The Egyptian
people were to have an im-
mediate sense of benefit in
daily life from cooperation
with Uncle Sam.

4-

More recently, foreign aid
policy has altered to reflect
an Egyptian choice of eco-
nomic goals:
Decisions on projects are
delegated to the village
level, with decision making
on improvement of life done
by local populations directly

affected.
New sources of electric
power production will
soon be generating as
much power as the
Aswan Dam. The dam,
built by the USSR under
Nasser in the 1960s, has
had a succession of prob-
lems.
Port facilities and docks
in Alexandria are being im-
proved and expanded. This
increases export and trade
potential with Western
Europe and the U.S.
Cement plants are being
built. This is vital in a des-
ert land that grows few
trees for wood for its con-
struction industry.
The telephone system is
improving. A half-decade
ago Cairo telephoning was
difficult in good weather;
impossible in the rain. Wes-
terners report that with
more phones and more
lines, the telephone system
is improving.
There is a large pro-
gram of military assis-
tance as well. American
arms and equipment
have several goals: Mod-
ernize the Egyptian
army, satisfy the generals
who support Mubarak
and replace aging and
obsolete Soviet military
equipment from the
1960s.
There are also plans to
build an American military
base at Ras Banas on the
Egyptian Red Sea coast
near the Sudanese border.
Egypt will not allow per-
menant American forces to
be stationed there, but
facilities will be available to
the new American Rapid
Deployment Force for mili-
tary response in the Persian
Gulf, if needed.
All of this military and
economic effort in Egypt has
resulted in a large expan-
sion of the American Em-
bassy. Incredibly enough,
the U.S. Embassy in Cairo
is the second largest Ameri-
can • diplomatic mission
anywhere in the world.
Only the embassy in Lon-
don is larger.
It raised interesting but
disturbing parallels with
Iran and the fall of the
Shah. Are we building a
massive American presence
in Cairo just as in the late
1970s we had similarly
built in Tehran?
There is evidence in
Cairo of bitterness
toward both Israel and
the U.S. over the invasion
of Lebanon. Egyptian of-
ficials say they believe
the U.S. gave Israel the
green light to invade
Lebanon. But Egyptian
anger focuses more di-
rectly upon Israel. They
assert their would-be
peace partner puts them
in impossible situations
with its actions against
other Arab states.
One of Egypt's foreign
policy goals today is re-
acceptance by Arab states
and re-admission to the
Arab League in the wake of
the peace treaty with Israel.
But Egyptian officials have
said that they feel "had" and
"used" by Israel as a result
of the Camp David accords

in the wake of the invasion
into Lebanon. Egypt has
"frozen" the normalization
process with Israel.
President Mubarak
criticizes Israel publicly in
speeches. He repeats the
critique in meetings with
Westerners. He has sent
half a dozen messages to
President Reagan since the
Israeli military action
began June 6. He has sent
his foreign minister, Kamal
Hassan Ali, to Washington
twice.
One unexpected result of
the Lebanese fighting has
been a sharp improvement
in Egypt's relations with
the PLO. Intriguingly;
Palestinian officials in both
Beirut and Cairo assert that
Egypt and Saudia - Arabia
have been the helpful Arab
allies, particularly in deal-
ing with Washington. The
basic Egyptian position has
not changed over recent
years. Long before Sadat's
assassination, Egypt was
urging the U.S. and Israel to
recognize the PLO and
negotiate with it.
from talk about
Lebancn, there appears
to be a wide perception in
Egypt that peace with Is-
rael has been good, even
very good for the coun-
try. Ministry officials
admit its positive bene-
fits. Shop keepers report
better business from

more tourism.
But the plain facts of
Egypt's circumstances
today are staggering.
When Anwar Sadat be-
came president in the early
1970s there were 30 million
Egyptians. When Hosni
Mubarak became president
in the early 1980s, there
were 44 million Egyptians.
This year will add 1,500,000
more Egyptians — each one
to be fed, clothed, housed,
educated, employed, etc.
Three-quarters of the
Egyptian GNP will be spent
on defense and food.
For Hosni Mubarak and
some Egyptian leaders, an
economy in such straits can
only be a recipe for revolu-
tion — either Communist or
Islamic. More conflict with
Israel by denouncing a
peace treaty over Lebanon
is not the way for Egypt to
correct it.

Rye

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