Inside Egypt - III: Palestine embedded in the Egyptian mind

By Kesava Menon

KARNAK (UPPER EGYPT), MARCH 28. The Egyptian President, Mr. Hosni Mubarak's frequent forays into peace-keeping between Israel and the Palestinians can often bring knowing smiles to the faces of the West Asian cognoscenti.

Although Mr. Mubarak has become a valuable intermediary between the Israelis, Palestinians and Americans, his peace-keeping efforts give the impression that he is mainly seeking a role for Egypt that is beyond its potential. From this great centre of ancient imperial Egypt, it is, however, possible to get a different perspective on the significance of Palestine/Israel in the Egyptian consciousness.

Even in its ruined splendour the magnificent temple at Karnak resonates with the power of ancient Egypt, especially that of the 18th and 19th Pharaonic dynasties that took this civilisation to its greatest glory. It is also ironically appropriate that this glory was achieved as Egypt rebounded from the crushing defeat it had suffered at the hands of a Semitic people, the Hyskos, who originated from the same lands that today contain Israel and Palestine. Around about 1700 BC, the Hyskos, deploying the arts of chariot warfare against Egyptians who had neither horses nor chariots, drove the then ruling dynasty of Pharaohs and their court out of the Nile Valley proper.

After gathering their strength beyond the first cataract of the Nile (where the Aswan dam stands today) the Pharaohs - Khamose, Ahmose and Ahmose II - fought their way back using the tactics of chariot warfare that they had mastered by then. The last of the three above-named formed the 18th dynasty of which the first couple of rulers continued the task of re- establishing Pharaonic power in all of Egypt. Then, after a period of relative peace under the woman Pharaoh Hatshepsut, Egypt threw up the greatest general in its history.

Till about 1450 BC when his reign came to an end, the Pharaoh Thutmosis III stormed forth 17 times and expanded the borders of Egypt up to the northern borders of present day Syria. This dynasty declined even as Egypt was caught up in religious strife during the reigns of Akhenaten and Tutankhamen (whose claim to historic greatness lies solely in the fact that his tomb was discovered intact).

Egypt was not able to assert its authority over the Syrian territories in the same manner during the nearly one-and-a-half millennia after Tuthmosis III though the great Pharaohs of the 19th dynasty Seti and Ramses II did inflict numerous defeats on the Hittites who vied for control of these territories. It was only during the 12th century AD that Salahuddin Ayubi, a general of the Fatimid Sultans who went on to form the Ayyubid dynasty, reasserted Egyptian power over these territories. The last time that Egypt fought off a challenger for control of these territories was when the Mameluke Sultan Baibars stopped the march of the Mongols. From this historic perspective it is understandable that the Egyptians should look on the Palestine/Israel territory with a sense of entitlement. This was a part of their ancient imperium. Although control was lost to the Ottomans and the British in more recent centuries modern Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip till 1967. In the Egyptian historical perspective, the Hebrew tribes that established a kingdom in those territories in ancient times were either slaves or wage labour who escaped from bondage in Pharaonic building sites in the eastern Nile Delta.

The Arabs of the present day believe that people from all over the world had no business coming into their territory and setting up the state of Israel with a justification culled from their Hebraic tradition. From the Egyptian perspective this Hebraic tradition, even if accepted as factual, is still illegitimate because its origins are subsequent to their own historical claim.

Today, of course, Egypt does not drum up its Pharaonic traditions or three-millennia old claims to deny Israel legitimacy. Nowadays, it is all about the right of their Arab Palestinian brethren to establish a state of their own. But from the sculptures cut into the walls of the great temples at Karnak and other places, depicting Tuthmosis and Ramses slaughtering their enemies and gaining vast territories, it is at least possible to understand why Egypt thinks it must have a great voice in Israeli-Palestinian affairs.

(Concluded)

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