Some were addressed to the international community, others to the Arabs themselves, but perhaps the most important was addressed to US President Donald Trump. It said that the path to peace in the Middle East does not lie in normalisation with Israel but through a just solution to the Palestinian cause. Even if Israel normalised relations with all Arab states, he said, lasting peace can only be achieved through the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the pre-June 1967 borders with its capital in East Jerusalem.
With this, President Al-Sisi emphasised the difference between a comprehensive peace plan, such as the one brokered between Egypt and Israel by the US under Jimmy Carter, and the approach favoured in Washington today, which is to pressure Arab states into signing so-called “Abraham Accords” requiring them to normalise relations with Israel without broaching the main source of dispute between the Arabs and Israel, namely the Palestinian cause. Worse yet, Washington is continuing its push for normalisation agreements while rejecting an end to the war in Gaza as a condition for signing. Meanwhile, the genocide Israel is carrying out against Palestinians has reached new levels of ferocity. As President Al-Sisi pointed out, Israel has not left a wall standing in Gaza; Israel’s targeting spares no one, not a single elderly man, woman or child. He appealed to the US president to end the brutality by sponsoring a genuine peace process aimed at reaching a just and lasting solution and breaking the cycle of violence in the region.
Sisi laid bare the flaws and fragilities of normalisation without a comprehensive peace plan. No superficial peace can survive under the weight of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the cumulative crimes and injustices perpetrated against the Palestinian people for more than a century.
This is a crucial message. It is backed by reality on the ground and by the international community, which has been calling for the two-state solution for decades, as opposed to the so-called Abrahamic deals that are not remotely connected to any concept of comprehensive justice.
Will the message reach the US president?
* A version of this article appears in print in the 29 May, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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