BICOM

Dr. Rashad Bayumi, A senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, said in an interview with the London-based Al Hayat newspaper this week that his movement would never recognise Israel, and would work to amend the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. The announcement comes just days before the last round in the first parliamentary elections in Egypt. The Islamist movement has emerged as the biggest winner in polls, capturing nearly half of the seats so far.

The statement is in contrast to other remarks made by leading figures in the Brotherhood, which won a decisive victory in the first round of parliamentary elections in Egypt last month. Senior representatives of the Freedom and Justice Party, the Muslim Brotherhood list in Egypt, said explicitly during the campaign that they would not move to cancel the treaty with Israel. However, Bayumi told al-Hayat that while ‘at this stage’ the Brotherhood respects all international agreements, it is ‘not committed’ to the treaty with Israel, and that ‘legal steps’ will be taken to ‘introduce changes’ to it. The Egyptian people themselves, he said, would decide the eventual fate of the treaty, hinting at a national referendum. Bayumi also rejected any ‘contact or normalisation’ between the Muslim Brotherhood and Israel.

The Egyptian Salafi movement’s Al-Nour party, which is currently placed second in the parliamentary elections, said recently that it intends to maintain the peace with Israel, but stressed that it will make efforts to amend the treaty’s ‘exploitative clauses’ using all legitimate means.