'New' Egypt and the Camp David accords

'New' Egypt and the Camp David accords

Posted by Helena Cobban
July 22, 2012 - http://justworldnews.org/archives/004282.html

 

Despite many setbacks and roadblocks along the way in Egypt, the political situation there is still one of the most hopeful-- and certainly, the most momentous-- phenomena in the region. Egypt, remember, really does carry the strategic ballast of the whole Arab world. How things turn out there is central to the politics of the whole Middle East.
The formation of the new government in Cairo still awaits, apparently, the conclusion of the current intense round of negotiations between the Freedom and Justice Party (with its strong current basis of electoral legitimacy, as well as its strong nationwide grassroots organizing capacity) and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (with its weapons, its backing from Washington, and its strong nationwide military/security organizing capacity.)
Meantime, there has been some speculation about whether the new government will respect the 1978 Camp David Accords and the Egypt-Israel peace treaty that flowed from them in 1979. Most of the rationally based evaluations (e.g. here
) of the FJP's behavior conclude that an FJP-led government will not seek to exit the peace treaty (or at least, not any time soon.) However, I think much of this analysis does not go far enough in exploring two other aspects of the subject:

1. Even though an FJP-led government may continue to abide strictly by the terms of the treaty and the accords, are there some other kinds of pro-Israeli activity that the previous Egyptian government engaged in that an FJP-led government would not, thereby constraining the freedom of action that Israel has felt that it enjoyed for most of the past 34 years?2. Are there steps that an FJP-led government might take, fully within the existing context of the Camp David Accords and based on them, that could actually improve the position of Egypt and other parties vis-a-vis Israel?

In both cases, I think the answer is a clear yes. In other words, the real question is not whether the new Egyptian government will keep or break the treaty, but rather what other steps might it take, without breaking the treaty, to improve the ability of Egypt and other Arabs (primarily, the Palestinians) to protect themselves from Israel's continued encroachments on Arab lands, dignity, and freedom of decision?