ANTHONY O’MAHONY Crisis in the Middle East – 3


Sons of Abraham T


he current political crisis in Egypt and the wider Middle East will, in due course, give a new perspective to Israeli-Egyptian relations. These


have been shaped by the peace treaty at the Camp David summit of September 1978, which followed in the wake of late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s “pilgrimage” to Jerusalem in September 1977 – key moments for relations between the Arab world and the state of Israel. The peaceful resolution to the conflict


between Israel and Egypt, which has lasted more than 30 years, has been an important landmark in the political and diplomatic archi- tecture of the Middle East and has been remarkably robust during various conflicts over Iraq and the ongoing stand-off between the Palestinians and Israelis. In both Jerusalem and Washington, they will be watching closely and assessing what political and diplomatic arrangement will emerge in the post-Mubarak scenario. Given Egypt’s military and political standing in the Arab world, its future direction has wide impli-


cations for all Arab relations with Israel. It is a significant place in the development of Islamic thought and ideas, with Al-Azhar, the oldest Islamic seat of learning, religio-political movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood and a significant line of lay Muslims thinkers, such as Hasan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb and Muhammad Sa’id al-Asmawi. Egypt has also produced major contribu- tions to understanding Islam’s relations with Judaism, from Qu’ranic exegesis to political and religious thought. Muhammad Sa’id al- Asmawi, a leading Egyptian jurist, created a minor religious earthquake with his treatise on political Islam (al-Islam al-Siyasi) which suggested that the modern Islamist movement might have lineage to Jewish traces in the Islamic tradition, thus making a political cri- tique by connecting political and activist currents of one with the religious “other”. It was the great Egyptian Dominican


scholar, George Anawati, who brought this significant text to a wider audience when he published it in French. It has become gradually clearer that, from within Islamic culture, the


RomeroTrustTrust The Archbishop Th T e op Archbishop Romero Lecture 20 to be given by


Central American Jesuit Theologian and Social Scientist entitled


ocialGospell the challenge for us today


Ro Tu We Romer


omero and he Social Gospe


ro and the Tuesday March 22nd at 7.00pm


ThursdayMarch 24t St Mary’s Cathedral, Newcastle


WednesdayMarch23rd Thursday March 24th at 7.00pm


St Peter & Paul Church, Pendleton, Salford 4th at 7.00pm


ednesday March 23rd at 7.30pm Saturday March 26th at 11.00am rd at 7.30 pm


Lauriston Centre, Sacred Heart Chur ch, Edinburgh SaturdayMarch 26th at 11.00am


as part of an ecumenical service to mark the 31st anniversary of Archbishop Romero’ s martyr dom


St Martin-in-the- Fields, Trafalgar Squar e, London Further information from romerotrust@btinternet.com


Registered charity no.1110069 www.romerotrust.org.uk


Archbishop Romero Lecture 2011 Fr Juan Hernández Pico


Relations between Israel and its Arab neighbours have been tense since the country was founded in 1948. But Jewish connections to Islam have a much longer history – connections that, in the wake of change in Egypt, could be used to restart the search for peace in the region


reworking of traditional religious thought to address modern issues also carries the seeds of a modern Islamic thinking concerning Judaism in a Zionist and post-colonial era. Israel has a wide range of relations with


the Muslim world, although these are subject to the changing political climate, such as the long-standing relations between Israel and Turkey. These have come under intense strain over the Israeli military actions towards Gaza and the commando mission against a Turkish vessel seeking to disturb the Israeli blockade. Reflecting upon this modern relationship


between Israel and its neighbours, the Egyptian-Jewish writer, Jacqueline Kahanoff (1917-1979), stated boldly that the drama of Jewish existence was not taking place in the context of the Western Christian world, a “post-Christian Judaism”, but in the context of the Middle-Eastern Muslim world, “post- Islamic Judaism”, as she called it. In her opinion, many Jews failed to recognise that the rebirth of Israel had shaken the Islamic world to its foundations, and so new means had to be created to challenge that world, and create a connection with it through an open debate on its tradition. The dispute between Israelis/Jews and their neighbours had generally been conducted in terms of Western national and ideological concepts that were unsuited to the mentality of dialogue with the Arab world and Muslims. Arab-Jews’ encounter with a powerful Zionist Hebrew culture had been a profound shock. Kahanoff suggested that a solution might be found if the Israelis brought the discussion back to the conceptual framework of the region. For her, this Mediterranean option offered a more wide-ranging Israeli identity, one with cultural mobility, a connection with tradition, multiple voices and sustained intel- lectual and linguistic exchange. Relations between the Arab world and the


Jews have a long history. Prior to the estab- lishment of the state of Israel, some 900,000 Jews lived across the Middle East, but a near exodus took place after establishment of the new nation. Today, sizeable Jewish commu- nities are to be found in Iran, Morocco and Turkey, at the geographical margins of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In Egypt itself, the Jewish community, which numbered some 75,000- 80,000 in 1948 at the time of the Suez/Sinai War and had dropped to 55,000 by 1956, is now numbered just in the hundreds.


8 | THE TABLET | 19 February 2011


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