Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer met today in Sharm a-Sheikh, in southern Sinai, with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Ben-Eliezer was accompanied by Deputy Def. Min. Dalia Rabin-Pilosoph and MKs David Magen (Center), Zevulun Orlev (NRP), Labor\'s Effie Oshaya and Ophir Pines. On the Egyptian side were Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher, Defense Minister Muhmad Hussein Tantawi, and other government ministers.
Ben-Eliezer said afterwards, \"I found a president who will try everything he can to guarantee peace between the Palestinians and Israel… I came here to tell him what we are facing day-to-day, and also to tell him that he can help us by pressuring Arafat in order to bring him back to the negotiating table.\" He then slightly contradicted himself by saying, \"I told [him] that it\'s impossible to expect any nation to bury its sons in the afternoon and then begin negotiations in the evening. That doesn\'t work anywhere.\"
Members of the delegation said before the trip that the pressure that Ben-Eliezer would ask Mubarak to exert would be to get Arafat \"to stop the terrorism\" - and that the two would even discuss possible replacements for Arafat.
There are conflicting evaluations about what motivated the Egyptians to call the meeting - the first visit of an Israeli Defense Minister to Egypt since Prime Minister Sharon took office. Some experts predicted beforehand that it would not go smoothly, and that Mubarak only agreed to it in order to placate the Americans. Others feel, however, that Mubarak has made a strategic choice to join the American-Israeli-Jordanian-Turkish alliance against Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, and the Palestinian Authority. The meeting was preceded by a flurry of phone calls between Arafat and King Abdullah of Jordan, who then left for a visit to the U.S.; Arafat and Mubarak; King Abdullah and Prime Minister Sharon; and President Bush and Mubarak.
Arutz-7 asked MK Orlev today why he was included in the delegation. His response:
\"You\'ll have to ask Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer why he invited me yesterday to join, but I assume it\'s because the trip is to be a bipartisan, official visit. I am to represent the right-wing, the religious, and the opposition… I have two important things to tell Mubarak. Diplomatically-politically, I will tell him that I am sorry that Arafat automatically receives backing from the Arab countries, including Egypt, no matter what he does, and that this leads to an increase in terrorism. In my capacity as Chairman of the Knesset Education Committee, I will also bring up the matter of textbooks, which are a window into a society. I will tell Mubarak that just as the PA textbooks are full of hatred for Israel and negation of Zionism, the Holocaust, and Judaism, the Egyptian textbooks too are not clean of this influence, and I will demand that he check this matter.\"
Ben-Eliezer said afterwards, \"I found a president who will try everything he can to guarantee peace between the Palestinians and Israel… I came here to tell him what we are facing day-to-day, and also to tell him that he can help us by pressuring Arafat in order to bring him back to the negotiating table.\" He then slightly contradicted himself by saying, \"I told [him] that it\'s impossible to expect any nation to bury its sons in the afternoon and then begin negotiations in the evening. That doesn\'t work anywhere.\"
Members of the delegation said before the trip that the pressure that Ben-Eliezer would ask Mubarak to exert would be to get Arafat \"to stop the terrorism\" - and that the two would even discuss possible replacements for Arafat.
There are conflicting evaluations about what motivated the Egyptians to call the meeting - the first visit of an Israeli Defense Minister to Egypt since Prime Minister Sharon took office. Some experts predicted beforehand that it would not go smoothly, and that Mubarak only agreed to it in order to placate the Americans. Others feel, however, that Mubarak has made a strategic choice to join the American-Israeli-Jordanian-Turkish alliance against Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, and the Palestinian Authority. The meeting was preceded by a flurry of phone calls between Arafat and King Abdullah of Jordan, who then left for a visit to the U.S.; Arafat and Mubarak; King Abdullah and Prime Minister Sharon; and President Bush and Mubarak.
Arutz-7 asked MK Orlev today why he was included in the delegation. His response:
\"You\'ll have to ask Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer why he invited me yesterday to join, but I assume it\'s because the trip is to be a bipartisan, official visit. I am to represent the right-wing, the religious, and the opposition… I have two important things to tell Mubarak. Diplomatically-politically, I will tell him that I am sorry that Arafat automatically receives backing from the Arab countries, including Egypt, no matter what he does, and that this leads to an increase in terrorism. In my capacity as Chairman of the Knesset Education Committee, I will also bring up the matter of textbooks, which are a window into a society. I will tell Mubarak that just as the PA textbooks are full of hatred for Israel and negation of Zionism, the Holocaust, and Judaism, the Egyptian textbooks too are not clean of this influence, and I will demand that he check this matter.\"