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December 8, 2004

Egypt TV airs interview with Israeli embassy official

Ha'aretz (Israel) is reporting on this story this morning. I 've had a late start today and after my early morning reads of news and research journals I was just about to post on one of the hot blogger topics of the day (we do sometimes suffer from following the herd too often-but those trackbacks are good for traffic) when in my last little check around the international block I spotted this article. Now I know that you are asking yourself just why does this fool think this topic is special! Well, it's not, the story itself isn't that interesting, it's what the story means that is interesting. For those of you that have traveled the Middle East you know what I am talking about.

I know I'm dating myself here but back in the early 80's, when I first started traveling in and out of Israel and then to other Arab States, you couldn't go from Israel to Egypt, you had to go from Tel Aviv to Athens, then to Cairo. Trying to get any cooperation between Israeli scientists and Egyptian scientists was difficult. Trying  to arrange for an Israeli scientist to actually open his mouth and speak at a university, other than an occasional project collaboration, was absolutely not going to happen. I'm not Jewish, so the Egyptians had no problem with me nor I with them. I enjoyed their hospitality and actually remember meeting Ms. Sadat at the Nile Hilton one pleasant evening before having a fried chicken dinner on a damned nice yacht (I don't recall whose it was) with numerous families with family members that had cancer, and several teenagers that were listening and dancing to American popular music. I apologize for the short drift here, memories just make you want to talk!

But back to the article, in this Ha'aretz story we actually have an Israeli speaking on Egyption television. Wow, that is major! That boys and girls is a signal. Think about the juxtaposition of this event with two other events that are on the same page in Ha'aretz with this one:

Israel, U.S. also downplay Egyptian report of agreement on basics of peace deal; MENA: Bilateral truce among points under discussion.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is visiting Kuwait trying to widen the circle of participants in a peace process with Israel, and appears to be coordinating his efforts with the Palestinians.

Now I am no expert pundit, I am way out of the loop these days, and my wife will tell you that I have no common sense, but I'm going to stick my neck way out on this one - there are some very good things going on in the Middle East. I know there's a lot of bad too, but let's not be blind to good news when we see it. Some things you have to see and smell, just listening alone doesn't do it, it's like that smell of victory in the morning Robert Duvall spoke of in "Apocolypse Now.

Sure, things can still fall apart. But Arafat is dead, you've got motion in Palestinian politics, and at least one Arab State is making cozy with Israel (sort of). These are hopefull signs that there may be changes in the wind that show promise for better things to come.

Damned, almost forgot about the article that perked my interest to start with. It's here..., go read it.

Posted by Hyscience at December 8, 2004 9:10 AM

• Egypt TV airs interview with Israeli embassy official - Dec 08, 2004