Egyptian Ambassador Speaks at Institute

Egypt's new ambassador to Washington, Nabil Fahmy, addressed the United States Institute of Peace on October 25, 1999. The talk, which came ten days after the ambassador's arrival, was his first public presentation since assuming his new post. 

Ambassador Nabil Fahmy at USIP

Fahmy's speech, "The Middle East in the Twenty-First Century," concentrated on changes that are certain to occur in the region in the coming decades. Driven by the twin engines of demographic change and the information revolution, he said that he expected "the twenty-first century in the region to be overwhelmed by a strong social component." Fahmy said that the highest rate of population growth in the Middle East will occur among those 15-39 years old.

In twenty years, 191 million individuals in the MENA (Middle East-North Africa) region will fall into that age cohort -- a cohort as large as that of the United States, Japan, Germany, the UK, and France combined.

This group of young people will be growing up in a world far different from that of their parents. On the one hand, information and knowledge will become the strategic resources of the future. On the other, "governments will lose their monopoly on the flow of information across their borders."

The ambassador predicted that the new generation "will become more proactive, more empowered, and in turn demand more of their governments." At the same time, businesses and governments will have to engender more transparency in their operations in response to global imperatives.

With these fundamental changes ahead, Fahmy suggested that the time to solve the smoldering Arab-Israeli conflict is now. He added that "the political establishments, opinion-makers, and the mainstream of the Arab and Israeli communities, understand and accept the political requirements for resolving the conflict once and for all."

To this end, he urged that the parties seek "a peace based on the balance of interests and not the balance of power. They must take positions that reflect the force of reason and not the arrogance of force."

Fahmy added that "it is imperative that the United States continue its active involvement in the negotiations…The region will not move towards peace in the absence of the political will, and intensive involvement of the United States in the process. It is only U.S. involvement that can change the calculus of risk for the negotiating parties."

Much of the question-and-answer period centered on issues surrounding political liberalization. Ambassador Fahmy held firm that change was afoot, but he argued that political participation in the Arab world may not take exactly the same forms as political participation in the West, and may proceed too slowly for some in the West.

He also stressed the urgency of concluding the Arab-Israeli peace process. "What is worrisome is that we don't put this thing completely together and get it over with. That's the problem today, not that we haven't done a lot. We've done a lot, but we've wasted time. We could have finished this much earlier, and we have to finish it now. There have been major and significant changes in the region. The problem is, it is immoral to continue to do this without finishing it. Everything now is there, everything is clear, people have to take their decisions."

Fahmy added that the problem of the peace process is no longer a problem of ideas, but a problem of political will. He said, "Nobody that I know has a suggestion I haven't read ten years ago. There are no new proposals on the table today which anybody here who has followed the peace process does not find in one of his old files. It is not an issue of players anymore. It is an issue of the parties themselves deciding that peace is much more valuable, much more in their interests than an advantage in a negotiating process."

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