Olive branch
September 11, 2011
Israeli officials on Sunday said they wanted diplomatic ties to 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 said in a radio interview.
In a television address on Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed the need to maintain a strategic relationship with Egypt after a mob broke into the Israeli embassy on Friday. Egypt and Israel signed a peace deal in 1979.
"We will continue to keep the peace with Egypt as it is an interest of both countries," Netanyahu said. "We are working together with the Egyptian government to quickly return our ambassador to Cairo."
Egypt's military rulers did nothing to stop the hundreds of protesters from gathering outside the building housing the embassy nor to prevent the destruction of the next 13 hours.
Common interest in peace
The mob broke through a security wall, threw documents into the street and burned the Israeli flag. Six guards were trapped inside a steel-doored safe for hours until Egyptian forces finally extricated them.
"The Egyptian commandos resolved the problem, perhaps in a somewhat belated fashion, but what they did prevented a bloodbath," Minister for Home Front Defense Matan Vilnai told Israeli army radio on Sunday.
"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," he said.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle has condemned the embassy attack and called on Egyptian authorities to honor their international obligations to embassy protection.
Egypt's ruling military council and civilian government said in a statement read on state TV that they were committed to international conventions and the protection of diplomatic missions. They also promised to crack down on any future protests at the embassy.
The trouble began last month after the deaths of five Egyptian security forces in Sinai, killed by Israeli forces chasing Palestinian militants who carried out an attack in Israel that left eight Israelis dead. Protests broke out in Cairo, demanding the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador and an end to the historic 1979 peace treaty with Israel.
Meanwhile, to the north, Israel's relations with Turkey have also been struggling lately after Israel refused to apologize for its deadly raid on an aid flotilla last year that killed eight Turks and a Turkish-American. Turkey deported senior Israeli diplomats, froze military cooperation with Israel and increased naval activity in the eastern Mediterranean in response.
In Cairo, when the dust cleared on Saturday, three people were dead, 30 had been arrested and more than 1,000 people had been injured.
Author: Stuart Tiffen (AFP, AP)
Editor: Sean Sinico