Ask me anything about Egyptian Politics
By amrbassiouny
@amrbassiouny (14)
Egypt
November 6, 2006 1:01pm CST
I work in politics in Egypt, so I'll give you a good answer. Go for it.
1 response
@flowerchilde (12529)
• United States
6 Nov 06
HI! I'm very curious what your, or what the views are on the issue of Israel and Palestine. Do you think there can be peace? And co-existence? Sorry, if you are only referring to inside Egypt politics.
@amrbassiouny (14)
• Egypt
6 Nov 06
Well this relates to foreign policy, so I guess it's in the equation :).
It's a very complicated question to be honest with a lot of unknowns and not sures. Can there be? That depends on which Palestinians you are talking about.
There are two groups at this point of time, those who are living in the occupied territories, and those who were kicked out of their land (which they formerly owned and was taken by Israel mostly by force). The former group now will most probably settle for what they have now and scratch their way back up to living a decent life. They are sick of it and just want to scrap whatever they have now and get a normal life. Now the latter group wants their land/life back! They won't settle for what Israel will offer today (the occupied terroritories as long as Israel doesn't have to be bothered by the refugees anymore and giving them their land back), and they have a pretty good point.
Can there be peace? Yes. If Israel wants peace, there will be peace. If they stop terrorizing the Palestinians in the territories, they will settle down and stop feeling that they have to constantly defend themselves and fight off more occupation and stolen land, and will have hope that they can live a normal life. Once they have this distant light of hope, they will accept peace and will probably accept Israel.
Giving people hope is the way to peace, as long as they are hopeless, there will always be conflict and people will always go to extremes.