Quotes of the Day

Last week, I attended a reception at Herzelia Pituah, 15 km north of Tel Aviv, on the occasion of the Peruvian National Day. There, I met the new Charge d'Affairs of the Egyptian Embassy in Tel Aviv, Tarek el-Kouny. He recently arrived in Israel to replace Dr. Ehab el-Sherif, who leaves soon. El-Kouny arrives at a time when there's massive American pressure on Egypt and Jordan to send back their ambassadors to Tel Aviv – they were withdrawn some months after the beginning of the recent Palestinian Intifada.

Most of the diplomats who attended the Peruvian reception had the same question for El-Kouny: When will Egypt appoint a full-time ambassador to Israel? An experienced diplomat, he had a similar answer to that given a day earlier by his Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ahmad Maher, who connected the return of an Egyptian ambassador to progress in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

The consensus among the diplomats I spoke with was that when Egyptian and Jordanian ambassadors do return to Tel Aviv, it would be "a positive signal," an indication that the peace process was advancing properly. That view was echoed by some Palestinian officials I met recently.

Egypt and Jordan know this is exactly why Israel is so keen for them to send their ambassadors — it would allow Sharon to show the world that progress is being made in the peace process. So Cairo and Amman are likely to use their ambassadors as a bargaining chip to press the Israeli government to offer more concessions to the Palestinians within the coming several weeks.

Responding to American pressure, both countries announced last Sunday — after a summit of their leaders in the Jordanian port of Aqaba — that they will send their ambassadors to Tel Aviv, but they were careful not to mention a specific date. This was both a concession to Washington and a carrot for Israel.

The Palestinian officials went even further, suggesting that if Israel makes substantial progress in the peace process, it will not only get back the Egyptian and Jordanian ambassadors, it might even get ambassadors and delegations from other Arab states.

There is a precedent for this. After the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritania, Oman and Qatar all sent representatives to Israel. A new Israeli-Palestinian treaty would, I believe, lead to similar gestures from other Arab states. After all, in the aftermath of the war in Iraq, I believe there is greater Arab readiness to accept Israel as a bona-fide part of the Middle East.

It is now the turn of Israel and the United States to offer the Palestinians some concrete and acceptable benefits, especially in the light of the current hudna [ceasefire] by all Palestinian factions. This, I believe, will yield positive diplomatic signals, not only from Cairo and Amman, but probably also from Beirut and Damascus.

• WADIE ABUNASSAR
• Arabs dangle diplomatic carrots before Israel