Diplomacy, to the letter

Diplomacy, to the letter


Boaz Bismuth




The president's office in Jerusalem was quick to present to the world a letter addressed to President Shimon Peres written by Egypt's new President, Mohammed Morsi. The content of the letter was certainly warm, especially considering the fact that Morsi is a representative of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has never held relations with Israel as a top priority, to say the least.


Morsi announced in his letter that he planned to take steps to renew the peace process in the Middle East. This was the first official message relayed from the new Cairo to Israel. He thanked Peres, of course, for the good wishes his Israeli counterpart had offered ahead of the holy month of Ramadan, and even added, without having to, that he intended to "exert our best efforts to get the Middle East peace process back to its right track to achieve security and stability for all peoples of the region, including the Israeli people."


One of my colleagues, who is very well versed in the goings on in Egypt, told me with much excitement that evening that this was an amazing and unprecedented occurrence. He said the content of the letter boded well for the future of Israel's relations with Egypt. We, the skeptics, looked at copies of the letter and, I must admit, felt like we were dreaming. But within hours, a sweeping denial came out of Cairo, and it was claimed the letter had been forged.


This very strange story took me back to the days when I served as an ambassador in an Arab state, Mauritania. But let's start from the end, just to prevent any confusion: The letter was, most likely, not forged. It was not supposed to be viewed by the public; it was supposed to remain confidential. This was not the kind of letter that requires security clearance mechanisms, but Egypt expected that Jerusalem would know what to do with it. It appears that the new Cairo doesn't know us very well.


It is no secret that there is a wide gap between Israel's wishes and those of the Arab world, including those Arab states with which we maintain diplomatic relations. We want more than a peace agreement — we want true normalization. The Arab world sees any Israeli aspiration to cement or tighten relations as an attempt to impose our will on it, unless there is a very clear and specific common goal.


Morsi's letter was sent to Jerusalem, but it was mainly intended for Washington. It is very possible that it was Washington which formulated the letter in the first place. Israeli officials decided to release the letter to the press, and there can be two reasons for that: either because we like to kiss and tell, so to speak, or because we want to force Morsi to come out of the closet, also so to speak, and present his stance on Egypt's peace treaty with Israel in the clearest fashion.


The letter itself was first handed to the president's military secretary by Egyptian diplomats in the Egyptian Embassy in Tel Aviv. The letter bore an embassy stamp, it did not go through the mail system, it did not arrive by FedEx, and it certainly wasn't brought by a carrier pigeon symbolizing peace. As a former ambassador I can assure you that the embassy received very specific directions as to how to handle the transfer of the letter.


I could not help but recall those years when I would be summoned to the presidential palace in the afternoon, before the bureaucrats arrived, or when I would receive discrete messages because "it would be a shame to awaken the enemies of the relations" — as if they ever sleep.


This story took me back to the days when I was expected not to be the wife, but the mistress.


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