Israel: Netyanahu "I'm Staying Away from US Nuke Summit"

Looks like the head of at least one nuclear power will not be attending President Obama's high-profile summit in Washington pursuing nuclear security. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has cancelled his trip to the US, reportedly because Egypt and Turkey were going to raise the issue of Israel's nuclear stockpile.

West Jerusalem has never officially admitted that it has atomic weaponry, but former US President Jimmy Carter reveals that the Israelis had 150 devices.

Middle East Inside Line: Palestine Money to Israel?, Obama’s Peace Plan, Netanyahu’s Confession, and More

An Israeli official said:

In the last 24 hours, the Israeli government has learned of various reports from various sources on the intention of several states attending the conference not only to deal with the issue at hand, but to take the opportunity to make a point of grand-standing against Israel and the issue of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The prime minister was dismayed at this, and decided to stick to the Israeli policy that Israel is usually represented at these types of conferences at the professional-ministerial level.

Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor will head the Israeli delegation attending the summit.

Middle East Inside Line: Jordan's Warning; Lieberman's Threat; Gaza's Unity; Turkey's Israel Tension

King Abdullah's Warning to Israel: In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Jordan’s King Abdullah warned on Tuesday that “Israel’s long-term future is in jeopardy unless there is permanent solution to the Middle East conflict”. He continued:

Over the Israeli-Lebanese border, if you spoke [to some Lebanese] today they feel there is going to be a war any second. [It] looks like there is an attempt by certain groups to promote a third intifada, which would be disastrous. Jerusalem as you are well aware is a tinderbox that could go off at any time, and then there is the overriding concern about military action between Israel and Iran.

So with all these things in the background, the status quo is not acceptable; what will happen is that we will continue to go around in circles until the conflict erupts, and there will be suffering by peoples because there will be a war.



The job of Jordan and the other countries in the international community is to keep common sense and keep hope alive until America can bring its full weight on the Israelis and the Palestinians to get their act together and move the process forward.

Lieberman's Threat over Ramallah's Plan: With no concrete steps towards the confidence-building measures demanded by the Netanyahu government, the Palestinian Authority’s chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told Voice of Palestine radio on Tuesday that Washington has reached a dead end in its attempts to revive Middle East peace talks. Erekat pointed to Israel’s failure to give guarantees, demanded by the US, that it not issue any more tenders to build on land where the Palestinians aim to establish a state, including East Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, referring to Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s statement that there would be a Palestinian state by 2011, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned the PA against plans to declare independence unilaterally, saying such a move could prompt Israel to annex parts of the West Bank and annul past peace agreements.

The Gaza Factions Meet: The four Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip --- Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular and Democratic Fronts for the Liberation of Palestine --- met on Sunday, as a senior Egyptian official said that Cairo is concerned that the recent escalation of tensions on the Gaza border could lead to another Israeli invasion. On the same day, all factions said that they will cease firing Qassam rockets at Israel.

Israel-Turkey War of Words Continues: At a ceremony to mark the opening of an Arab-language television and radio company,  Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey will come to the defense of Muslims around the world:

We cannot be indifferent to the problems of the Islamic world of Jerusalem.

Our task is the integration with the Western world but we did not turn our back to the East. Arabs and Turks are brothers and we share the same values.

We cannot watch the murder of children in Gaza with indifference. We worry about the Gaza children but our hearts are also for the children of Haiti and Chile.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry’s response was immediate.  A statement issued in West Jerusalem said:

Israel is not interested in confrontation with any country, including Turkey. The impression that is being created is that the Turkish prime minister is seeking to integrate with the Muslim world at Israel's expense.

We suggest he find a more creative way, and to try to integrate with both the Muslim and Western worlds without turning into an extremist leader in the style of Hugo Chavez.

The Israelis also advised Erdogan to “be equally concerned for the killing of innocent civilians in Pakistan and Iraq at the hands of terrorist groups.”

Ankara's Search for "Balance of Power": In an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro, Erdogan repeatedly called Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad his “dear friend”, as he sent two messages to two different fronts. On the one hand, Erdogan reminded his “dear friend” that there should be no arms race in the region. On the other hand, he criticized countries pushing for another round of sanctions in the United Nations Security Council:

We consider that this question should be resolved diplomatically. Sure, sanctions are an issue at the moment, but I don't think that the ones being discussed can bring results.

MENA House: Arab League Weakness; Egypt Cultural Corner; Fun Football Facts

Christina Baghdady is in the MENA House:

Arab League Extraordinaire: Yet again, the Arab leaders have failed to agree. The question on this occasion is, "What have they failed to agree on?"

Well, it's whether the Palestinians should resume their peace talks with Israel. The hot-blooded Arab League has once again lived up to its reputation of talking too much, flexing their muscles against superpowers, but not achieving very much.

MENA House: Changing of the President in Egypt?

The 22nd Arab summit was held in the Libyan city of Sirte on 27-28 March. Moussa Kossa, Secretary to Libya’s People’s Committee of Foreign Liaison and International Coorporation, urged Arab states in his opening statement to "take action to lift the siege imposed on the Palestinian people and to salvage Jerusalem”, in a reference to ongoing efforts by Israel to "Judaize" the city.



Some analysts, however, downplayed the Arab threat to end support of negotiations with Israel. “The Arab leaders might introduce rhetorical changes in their resolutions, but the substance will remain the same,” said Tarek Fahmy, an expert in regional affairs at the Cairo-based Middle East Research Institute. He added that the Arab "moderate" camp --- which includes Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority --- does not want to jeopardize what it sees as a readiness on the part of US President Barack Obama to exert pressure on the Cabinet of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

It will be interesting to see how this may play out regarding the expansion of Israeli settlements and any further pressure on Israel.

On that note, today Egypt and Israel commemorated the 31st anniversary of the signing of the 1979 Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty, which came on the heels of the 1978 Camp David Accords. In 1994, Jordan became the second Arab country to sign a peace deal with Israel.

Cultural Moment: This week is the anniversary of the death of the cultural icon of the Middle East and North Africa; Abdel Halim Hafez, otherwise known as Al-Andaleeb. If you ever consider a holiday to Egypt and you reach for local tips and advice, there will always be information in the music section on Al Andaleeb. He was born on 21 June 1929 and completed 15 movies and more than 206 songs before he died in 1977. His first musical hit came in 1951 when he stepped in for singer Kareem Mahmoud on Egyptian National Radio. To this day his music and films live on.

Andaleeb’s music has gone beyond borders. The background music for the Chemical Brothers, "Galvanize" is originally from Abdel Halim’s song "Zay il Hawa" (Like the Air) and Jay-Z’s song "Big Pimpin’" draws from "Khosara".

Did You Know? King Farouk I (the father of the last King of Egypt, King Farouk II) had his own football team. Founded in 1911 as "Kasr il Nil" (The Palace of the Nile), the team was renamed in 1940 to, "Farouk Al-Awal" after Farouk I. Following the Revolution in 1952, the name was changed to "Zamalek" after the area where the club is located.

MENA House: Changing of the President in Egypt?

EA is pleased to announce a new feature, "MENA (Middle East-North Africa) House". Complementing Ali Yenidunya's "Middle East Inside Line", MENA House will give you the latest on politics and society from Cairo through Tripoli to Casablanca.



In the first entry, Christina Baghdady takes a look at political developments that raise the prospect of change in the Egyptian system:

Middle East Inside Line: Gaza Tension; Palestinian State by 2011?; Israel's Hebron Show

According to state media reports, President Hosni Mubarak has returned to Egypt after surgery at Heidelberg Hospital in Germany three weeks ago. On Saturday, dozens of senior officials, including the newly-appointed top Sunni cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, Coptic Orthodox Pope Shenouda III, and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman welcomed the President and his wife Suzanne in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh.


State reports claim that Mubarak was undergoing an operation to remove his gall bladder and remove a "benign" tumour of his duodenum. However, commentators are debating whether it is something more serious, giving the length of time that Mubarak spent in hospital.

While Mubarak was away from the motherland, there was an air of anxiety, "What will happen if Mubarak does not return?" Abdel Aziz Husseini, spokesman for the protest movement Kefaya, told Reuters, "Egypt is witnessing a period of instability and the president's absence, especially for health reasons and surgery, has heightened people's worries."

Now that Mubarak is back on home turf, the question is "What will happen next?" The President has neither confirmed nor denied whether he will be running for a sixth term, and little light has been shed on other potnential candidates. Whilst critics of the Mubarak regime claim that his son, Gamal,is being groomed to be the future President of Egypt, Gamal has repeatedly and vehemently denied such claims.

Now an underdog candidate has entered the limelight: Mohammed El Baradei, founder of the pro-reform coalition, the National Association for Change (NAC), Nobel Peace Prize winner, and former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency. He received a hero’s welcome at the airport on his return to Egypt and appeared to have galvanised a stale opposition movement. However, he has said he would only run for the top job if there were changes in the Constitution with the amendment of election regulations.

El Baradei is showing signs of flexing his political muscles with a sustainable and legitimate opposition party. According to Hamdi Qandil, the media spokesman for the pro-constitutional reform movement, El Baradei is currently looking for an office in downtown Cairo to host meetings with politicians and activists. The aim of this: to unite all opposition, including the Muslim Brotherhood.

On 31 March, Ikhwan Web (the official Muslim Brotherhood website) stated that El Baradei and Saad el Katatni, the head of the Muslim Brotherhood’s parliamentarian bloc, met and came to an agreement that political change was needed to enact widespread reforms. In a recent interview Muslim Brotherhood leader Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh claimed that it is "haram" (forbidden) to vote for the National Democratic Party (NDP), the President’s political party. He said that the Brotherhood is a popular and political force in a corrupt and tyrannical atmosphere and a political society that deals with everyone through security forces.