It has taken Egypt years of relentless effort to earn for itself a prominent place on the world map of conference tourism. Today, Egypt may be rightly termed among the sought-after conference tourist destinations. At any given moment, some international scientific, cultural, political, or professional conference, some festival, sports contest, or art exhibition is in all likelihood taking place somewhere in Egypt. According to the State Information Service, the last six years have seen some 656 international events at the Cairo International Conference Centre alone. Cairo, Alexandria, Sharm al-Sheikh, Hurghada, Luxor, Aswan and many other cities and towns in Egypt boast top-class facilities to host guests and conferences. The Davos Economic Forum was held in Sharm al-Sheikh in 2008.
International conventions, however, do not take kindly to harsh or inadequate conditions imposed by the host country. And Egypt appears to have placed a condition to refrain from hosting Israeli participants in international events.
Series of events
Among the latest such events was a breast cancer awareness conference which was held in Egypt last month. Israeli doctors planning to attend the conference, sponsored by the breast cancer advocacy group Susan G. Komen for the Cure, were told at the last minute that they were no longer invited to the conference by order of Egypt’s health minister.
The Israeli doctors had already received security clearance from Egypt to attend the conference which included meetings with cancer researchers from the United States and ten Middle East countries, and even had a meeting scheduled with Mrs Suzanne Mubarak who was sponsoring the event.
The Anti-Defamation League national director, Abraham Foxman, said in a letter to Hala Moddelmog, president and CEO of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, that the exclusion was “shocking and contrary to the stated purpose of these programmes.”
Also last month, an Israeli researcher was excluded from a conference on digital publishing that was held in Alexandria, and an Israeli delegation that was supposed to participate in a conference organised by the European Union was denied visas to Egypt. The denial came with no explanation, the head of the Union of Israeli Contractors Yossi Gordon saying he could not fathom the reason for the denial; he had been allowed to visit Egypt several times before.
On a contrary note, high ranking Israeli officials had been allowed to visit Egypt last September to participate in a regional meeting held under the auspices of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament.
Mixed signals
Emad Gad, head of the Israeli Studies Programme at the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies told Watani that for the regime, Israeli participation is a card to be used whenever needed. Thus Israelis may at times be invited and welcomed to take part in events held in Egypt, and be denied entry into the country at other times.
Does Egypt, however, stand to lose by depriving itself of Israeli knowledge or research in various fields, when it rejects their participation? Watani asked. “Well, there are priorities,” Dr Gad said. “Apart from Israeli expertise, Egypt cares more for its regional role. A Mediterranean Union ministerial meeting scheduled to have taken place on 27 November was put off in the wake of Egypt’s—and other Arab countries’—objection to the participation of Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.”
“The purpose of denying Israelis access to international events held in Egypt,” Economics professor at the American University in Cairo Samer Soliman said, “is to apply pressure on Israel to revoke its colonial policy in the region. The same pressure was applied by the whole world against South Africa in the 1980s because of its apartheid policy, until the racist regime there fell in 1994.” As to losing on knowledge or research, Dr Soliman does not believe Egypt loses much—if at all—on this head.