Lawmakers from Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood traveled to Saudi Arabia on Thursday
in a bid to lower the flames of a simmering dispute that is the biggest rift in
decades between the two most powerful Arab states.
The speakers of
Egypt’s upper and lower houses of parliament, both senior members of the
Brotherhood, joined a delegation meeting Saudi King Abdullah over the crisis
triggered by Riyadh’s arrest of an Egyptian lawyer and a wave of protests that
it generated. This weekend the Saudis withdrew their ambassador from Egypt,
citing security concerns following the demonstrations over Ahmed el-Gizawi’s
detention on April 17.
The Saudi government has been the focus of public
anger triggered by the arrest, with Egyptians pouring criticism on what they say
is the poor treatment their compatriots often receive in the kingdom. Egyptian
activists said Gizawi had been detained for speaking out against such
ill-treatment.
The Saudi authorities said he had been smuggling the
anti-anxiety drug Xanax, which is banned in the kingdom. Gizawi has reportedly
been sentenced to 20 lashes and a year in jail for “defaming the Saudi
king.”
Prof. Joshua Teitelbaum, an expert on Saudi Arabia at Bar-Ilan
University and the BESA Center for Strategic Studies, said each side has
deep-seated grievances against the other.
“From the Egyptian side, there
have always been complaints about how Egyptian workers are treated in Saudi
Arabia. Egyptians resent Saudi wealth and the arrogant ways of Saudi
visitors to Egypt,” Teitelbaum said. The 1.5 million Egyptians living in the
kingdom form Egypt’s largest expatriate community anywhere in the
world.
“From the Saudi side, they distrust the Muslim Brotherhood. They
are disappointed at the treatment of Mubarak, and don’t know what to make of the
SCAF [the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces],” he said. “For the
Saudis, the SCAF should not have let those demonstrations take place in front of
the Saudi Embassy. They want to count on Egypt against Iran, but they
don’t know if they can.”
Riyadh frets that Egypt, its strongest Arab ally
and a major recipient of Saudi funding, is falling under the extremist influence
of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Egyptian state media quoted Ali Fath el- Bab,
who heads the Brotherhood’s majority bloc in the upper chamber of the
legislature, as saying the delegation would “focus on affirming the depth of the
historical and brotherly ties between the two countries... and the need to work
to remove any misunderstanding.”
Bab said delegates would discuss “the
conditions and problems of Egyptians in the kingdom in a framework that
preserves the dignity of Egyptians.”
Amateur footage uploaded to YouTube
this week showed protesters in Cairo shouting anti-Saudi slogans at the Saudi
Embassy. The clip, uploaded by the Middle East Media Research Institute, showed
protesters defacing the embassy with stars of David and the word “Israel.” In
the background dozens of protesters chanted, “Raise your head high, you’re
Egyptian,” and “freedom to Gizawi.”
“Oh Saudi ambassador, we will give
you 100 lashes for each one you deserve,” protesters chanted. “Oh servant of the
Americans, Egyptian will never be humiliated.”
Protesters also shouted
slogans against Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, head of the SCAF,
chanting, “The people want the execution of the field marshal.”
The
Cairo-Riyadh spat has also played out in the pages of Arabic media. Writing in
the Saudi-owned, London-based newspaper Asharq Alawsat, Abdul Rahman Al- Rashed,
placed blame for the crisis squarely on Egypt.
“The most popular word in
the Egyptian arena is ‘no,’” wrote Rashed, a former editor of the pan-Arab daily
who now heads Al- Arabiya television. “No to borrowing from the World Bank, no
to US aid, no to exporting gas to Israel, no to preventing civil society
organizations.
“Saudi-Egyptian relations have remained for nearly
three-quarters of a century, and they have withstood the most trying of
circumstances,” he wrote. “The late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat was enraged
when Saudi Arabia refused to support him in his agreement with Israel in 1979,
but relations were then restored, as happened previously with the late president
Gamal Abdul Nasser.
“The truth is that the new Egypt... will grow
increasingly interconnected with Saudi Arabia given the circumstances,” he
added. “Those who threw bricks at the Saudi Embassy in Cairo were actually
throwing them at the Egyptians in Saudi Arabia.”
But writing in the
Egyptian daily Al- Masry Al-Youm, columnist Sultan al-Qassemi said the crisis
was solely the Saudis’ fault.
“Gizawi’s case it not unique in Saudi
Arabia.
The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights published this month a
list of 35 political prisoners imprisoned in Saudi jails without trial among a
total of 1,401 Egyptians imprisoned in the kingdom,” he wrote.
“For Saudi
Arabia and the Arab Gulf states, the importance of Egypt cannot be
over-estimated. Saudi and the Gulf states realize that Egypt is the only Arab
state capable of balancing Iran’s threat to their nations,” he wrote. “The
sooner Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states realize that the ‘new Egypt’ is here to
stay and that the Mubarak days are long gone, and adjust their policies
accordingly, the sooner they will be able to rebuild their bonds – this time not
with the regime, but with the people.”
Reuters contributed to this
report.