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Osama al-Baz's Attack on Arab Anti-Semitism: Pro-Israel Sentiments or Egyptian National Interests?
(Maariv) - Jackie Hogi In a series of three articles in the official Egyptian daily, al-Ahram, Dr. Osama al-Baz, foreign policy advisor to President Mubarak, attacks the rising anti-Semitism in the Arab world. On the positive side, al-Baz attacks: * Those who use the Koran to argue that Jews are the "sons of monkeys and pigs." * Those who believe that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the 1840 Damascus blood libel have any factual basis. * Implicitly, those who deny the Holocaust. Yet, al-Baz undermines the forthcoming nature of his initial presentation with strong anti-Israeli statements: * Calling on Israel to no longer be a Jewish state. * Defining an anti-peace camp in Israel in which he puts together "Baruch Goldstein, Yigal Amir [Rabin's murderer], Shaul Mofaz [Israel's Minister of Defense], Avigdor Lieberman, Ovadia Yosef, Natan Sharansky [Israel's Minister of Housing and former prisoner of Zion]." Al-Baz adopted this position out of Egyptian national interests, seeking to improve Egypt's sagging image in Washington.