Israel and Egypt seek normal relations but the Brotherhood asks Cairo to revise ties

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood on Sunday demanded a “revision” of relations with Israel and denounced heightened security measures imposed after protesters stormed the Israeli embassy.

Israel “must have received the message and understood that Egypt has changed, the entire region will change, and there is no room left for its arrogance and aggression,” AFP reported the Islamist group as saying in a statement.

It also urged Egyptian authorities to “revise relations” between Egypt and Israel which have been bound by a peace treaty since 1979.

The Muslim Brotherhood was banned under the three-decade rule of president Hosni Mubarak but has since the revolution which ousted him in February formed “the Freedom and Justice Party.”

No call to scrap deal

The party did not, however, call for the scrapping of the peace treaty ̶ the first between Israel and an Arab country.

Egypt warned Saturday of harsh measures to quell civil unrest after protesters stormed Israel’s embassy in Cairo, forcing the ambassador to flee and prompting Washington to say it was “deeply concerned.”

The embassy attack ̶ which saw staff rescued by commandos and protesters grabbing documents from the mission ̶ was the worst since Israel established its mission in Egypt after the 1979 peace treaty.

Egyptian Information Minister Osama Heikal said Saturday that Cairo would apply “all articles” of an emergency law in force for 30 years that provided greater powers to the judiciary and police, to provide the peace.

He said the military council ruling Egypt since Mubarak’s ouster also decided that “security forces will have recourse to all necessary measures, including the right to legitimate self-defense, to preserve the security of the homeland.”

But the Islamists denounced the new security measures and warned the military rulers against using security as a pretext to delay parliamentary elections.

“The party rejects any bid to use and exploit these incidents to implement martial (law) measures, restrain freedoms or delay” elections, said the statement.

It also accused the military rulers of “unacceptable and unjustified delays” in transferring power to an elected, civilian government.

Egypt, Israel seek normality

Egypt and Israel said on Sunday they wanted a return to normal diplomatic activities after the Israeli ambassador flew home following the storming of the embassy in Cairo during violent protests.

Egypt’s army, which took over when Hosni Mubarak was ousted on February 11, has struggled to quell public fury against Israel since five Egyptian border guards were killed last month when Israel repelled cross-border raiders it said were Palestinian.

Israeli officials called on Sunday for relations with Egypt to return to normal despite Friday’s attack by a mob on the Israeli embassy in Cairo.

“We shall do everything in order that relations between the two countries will return to normal,” Environment Minister Gilad Erdan, considered close to Netanyahu, told public radio.

An Israeli government spokesman said on Saturday that Levanon would return to his post “as as soon as the security of the embassy is provided by Egypt.”

“It is in the interests of both the Israeli and Egyptian sides to restore relations between the two countries to normal, even if that is not simple,” home front defense minister Matan Vilnai told Israeli army radio on Sunday.

“The Egyptian commandos resolved the problem, perhaps in a somewhat belated fashion, but what they did prevented a bloodbath,” he said.

The United States called on Egypt to protect the mission. Washington has given billions of dollars in military and other aid since 1979 when Egypt became the first Arab state to sign a peace treaty with Israel.

We shall do everything in order that relations between the two countries will return to normal

Gilad Erdan, Israel\\\\\\\'s environment minister

Returning Levanon to Cairo

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that his government was consulting with Egypt on arrangements to return Israel’s ambassador to Cairo after a mob ransacked the mission there.

“We are in touch with the Egyptian government over the necessary arrangements for the return of the ambassador, so that he and his staff will be appropriately protected in order to maintain Israeli representation in Cairo,” a statement from his office quoted him as telling the weekly cabinet meeting.

He described the events of Friday night and the early hours of Saturday, in which six Israeli security guards were besieged in the embassy building for several hours, as “a hard and challenging weekend.”

"The rioters entered the embassy building, entered the embassy premises... came right to the door behind which our men were trapped," he said.

Meanwhile, defense Minister Ehud Barak said the incident was “complex and very dangerous, a hair’s breadth away from loss of life.”

Israel said it was in talks about returning Ambassador Yitzhak Levanon and his staff but wanted security assurances.

Levanon was among 80 embassy staff and their families flown home early Saturday morning. The six guards followed later.

We are in touch with the Egyptian government over the necessary arrangements for the return of the ambassador, so that he and his staff will be appropriately protected in order to maintain Israeli representation in Cairo

Statement from Israel\\\\\\\'s prime minister\\\\\\\'s office

Monitoring the scene

Traffic passed smoothly through a junction that a day before had been strewn with bits of concrete and debris. Charred police vehicles were in a side street near the embassy, located on the upper floors of a tower block next to the Nile.

The front pages of Israeli newspapers carried photographs of jubilant Egyptian flag-waving demonstrators on the balcony of the embassy. Other photos showed a tense Netanyahu, in a polo shirt, monitoring the scene on television.

Some Egyptian newspapers showed scenes of the protests. Al-Akhbar showed protesters breaking down the wall around the embassy with a metal pole and smoke coming from what it said was a document store room in the embassy.

Other newspapers carried photos of army vehicles deployed to secure the area.
In Iran, a fierce opponent of Israel which it refers to as the Zionist entity, one newspaper headline read: “Egyptian revolutionaries seized the den of Zionists.” Media compared it to the 1979 seizure by students of the U.S. embassy in Tehran.

“All Muslim governments should close down embassies of the Zionist regime in their countries, before their nations take an action similar to Egyptian revolutionaries,” Iranian MP Alaeddin Boroujerdi was quoted by Fars news agency as saying.

Egypt said it would try those behind the violence swiftly in emergency state security courts. Egypt has detained 111 people in connection with the incident, the official state news agency reported. Three people were killed and more than 1,000 injured.

All Muslim governments should close down embassies of the Zionist regime in their countries, before their nations take an action similar to Egyptian revolutionaries

Alaeddin Boroujerdi, Iranian MP

Many Egyptians sympathize with the sentiments of those demonstrating against Israel, but activists, politicians and ordinary citizens have also criticized the violence.

“I don’t want him (the ambassador) to come back because Israel doesn’t respect anyone, but if they are in our country, then we should be able to protect them,” said Mohamed Kamhawy, 28, an engineer working two blocks from the embassy site.

Ahmed Amr, 23, another engineer, said: “Tearing down the wall was right. They shouldn't have built it in the first place. But invading the embassy was wrong.”

Some Egyptians are frustrated that Egypt did not take sterner measures against Israel after the border shooting. At the time, Egypt said it would withdraw its ambassador but did not carry through with the threat.

In Israel, the Jewish state’s public radio’s morning news anchor Aryeh Golan summed up the feelings of many Israelis on Sunday when he said, “In Turkey, the government is against us, in Egypt the mob is against us and at the UN the majority is against us.”

The storming of the Israeli embassy came after thousands had massed Friday at Cairo’s emblematic Tahrir Square to press the military rulers to keep promises of reform after the January-February revolt ousted Mubarak.

Activists behind his fall have also called for a revision of the peace treaty with Israel.

I don’t want him (the ambassador) to come back because Israel doesn’t respect anyone, but if they are in our country, then we should be able to protect them

Mohamed Kamhawy, Egyptian