>>Good morning an welcome to Global Perspectives.

From our studio in Orlando, I'm David Dumke.

And joining us fro Cairo is Abderahman Salaheldin, who is the former Egyptian ambassador to Turkey and the Czech Republic and has served a variety of diplomatic posts in the United States.

He served on multiple occasions and diplomatic positions in the United States as well.

He's also a old friend.

So welcome to the show, Abderahman.

>>Welcome, David.

I, I think it is more than 30 years, my friend since we have known each other.

So, I really look forward to a very engaging and fruitful discussion.

>>Excellent.

Well, ambassador, is.

It seems like every time we talk, there's a different challenge in the region.

And Egypt's always played a central role in regional affairs.

The situation of the war be - between in Gaza right now obviously has risks of spiraling out of control.

We're seeing bombings in Lebanon now.

Tension is is increased.

Give us your perspective on what's going on and where things are headed right now.

>>Well, I think, in general, both crises, are the result of, repeating the same mistake by the present Israeli government.

They did the same thing in 2006, in southern Lebanon, when they bombe the whole of southern Lebanon.

In 2005, they pulled the out of Gaza, to empower the radicals.

The Hamas, movement.

And they were paid back simply by the growth of Hezbollah into what is going on.

Right now, and also the growth of Hamas with the cash that the Netanyahu government allowed in Gaza.

And, and the October 7th happened simply because Israel continued to occupy Palestinian land.

It's the the occupation continues, my friend, but resistance would continue, even if they could eliminate the military power of Hamas completely which is, I think, impossible.

But even if they are able to do so, there will be new Hamas, maybe under a different name, maybe under the same name.

There will be a resistance.

And that's what history teaches us.

Unfortunately, ethnic cleansing is not going to deal with the problem.

The Palestinians are not going to leave Gaza.

And even if they left, they would still have their eyes on hearts on Gaz and on returning to their homes.

The same with the southern Lebanon.

Let me here pick on one of the concerns that my own Israeli friends shared with me.

It's about security.

And they say, well, our security was compromised on October 7th.

Well, our security, the Israeli security was compromised by each, Hezbollah missiles.

That is hitting some Israeli town.

Fine.

This, actually, the only solution for the security problem is the Egyptian solution, which is to conclude peace wit the rest of the Arab countries.

And that only would bring peace to both sides.

Look to the Egyptian Israeli case.

You remember and I remember when those Israeli radicals were insisting that they should continue to occupy Sinai in order to keep their security secure or safe.

They did it.

An October, war in 1973 proved them wrong, but only when they concluded peace and a peace treaty was signed in 1979.

Since then, there was no wars between Egypt and Israel.

That is the way to build security.

That's the way to build confidence in your neighbors.

And I think without an agreement that would secure a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, including East Jerusalem.

I'm afraid we would continue to suffer from this vicious cycle of violence for a long time to come.

>>Ho frustrated is Egypt right now?

Egypt, of course, since October 7th, has been stressing the need for a cease fire and then to move towards some kind of a final settlement of this outstanding problem.

But even getting a cease fire is obviously proven very difficult.

And in fact, the individual from Hamas that Egypt and Qatar, were negotiating with and coordinating wit the US was assassinated himself.

How is Egypt still, persisting in trying to mediate in this, or is there a frustration that this isn't going to work until the parties are more exhausted?

>>Well, both we are very frustrated, by the results.

And by the way the Israeli prime minister is using this for his own political purposes, domestic purposes and to also, to extend his government's political life and his freedom probably beyond certain limits.

And as you know, if a leader is fighting, of course, most of the people, most of his people would be supporting him.

I'm not saying he's fighting an enemy.

And we we are frustrated by this use of this fight.

For domestic political reasons.

Because we have more victims every day.

Yesterday only we lost about 500 Lebanese.

Hundreds of Israelis are being killed, an many of them are not announced.

Even their families are not notified.

And we, the Hamas, still ha more than 100 Israeli, captive.

So no one is winning here.

But, those who, who have political domestic interest to continue the fight.

So we are frustrated.

Yes.

But in the meantime, we cannot really, sit idle.

We cannot, this is this is a historic responsibility, but it is also impacting us directly.

Look at what the Houthi's i Yemen did with their missiles.

First of all, they have been reaching Israel proper.

Israel within the Green Line.

So the claim that any buffer zone would secure Israel is, I'm afraid, is very false and a fiasco, actually.

It is a very primitive movement in the in, in Yemen.

Thousands of kilometers away from Israel.

And they are able to reach Israel proper with their missiles.

So this is one.

But they were also able to hit some civilian cargos, that were destined to go into the Suez Canal.

So overnight, we lost half of our revenues from the Suez Canal.

And overnight, the, the, the Red sea turned into an unsecured, pathway or maritime movement that quadrupled the insurance value on any cargo that is crossing this.

And now we have an arms race going on in eastern Africa in the Horn of Africa.

For those who would like to make use of this war to control ports in the Horn of Africa, including Ethiopia, funnily enough.

So it's a everyone is losing.

No one, really no country in the in the region, is winning.

So we cannot really, sit idle and not to do anything.

And especially we have very good relations with all the parties.

The Israelis trust us, the Palestinians trust us, the United States trust us.

So, I think we are in a unique position, and we we need to, to really make use of this position, to reach a deal.

And this deal my friend, is going to open up a lot of potentials, even for Israel itself.

Because if we have in the deal something that would launch or relaunch the negotiation process for a two state solution, you can see that this will open the way for regional normalization.

It would benefit Israel and the rest of the countries in the region economically tremendously.

So it is not only that that these and quietness would bring prosperity but also it opens up potentials for, everyone, including, of course, the United States.

And I have here to say something about this Israeli operation of exploding the pagers, that were used, by Hezbollah.

I'm afraid I am seeing around me in the Middle East, many friends and many, people that I correspond with are seeing in this serious development a dangerous blow to their reputation of all Western manufacturers.

And it's a great win.

An asse for the Chinese manufacturers, because penetrating the western supply chain from Taiwan, Hungary or you name it, I don't know what other countries are involved.

They were all Western sources for the Israelis to penetrate them and plant bombs or whatever they did inside those products, those basically civilian products, and then blow them up to kill hundreds of people and injured thousands.

It's a blow to the credibility of the Western supply chain and a great win for the Chinese supply chain.

And you ca you can see that clearly here.

So we are actually damaging U.S. interests, and we are damaging Western interests and those who are doing business with that.

>>Well, that that's a very interesting point.

Thank you for sharing that.

I was going to ask you, anyway, you know, President Sadat at the time, he kind of reoriented Egypt awa from Soviet Union, said, well, Americans have 99 of 100 cards, some something like that.

And that's been the case.

The top three recipients of U.S. foreign assistance are Israel, Egypt and Jordan.

This is very much the Middle East.

The U.S. kind of created under its shield.

So given things going on as they are today, one can only conclude that obviously, there needs to be a reorientation of U.S. policy.

So I want to ask you a little about does America express its own interests to Egypt and to its allies clearly, or is there a vagueness right now because it seems kind of lost what the U.S. is trying to achieve right now?

>>Well, we don't have any bilateral problem, as Egypt with the United States.

So, as far as bilateral relations are concerned, we see eye to eye and, and we are promoting this relationship.

We have a strategic dialog that is going on.

And, and, we held another session of that strategic dialog last week.

So there is nothing to complain about there.

Our problem is really about this U.S. role that Sadat described as the role that controls 99% of the cards of the game.

And Sadat said that not to compliment the U.S., but to state a fac about the special relationship that binds the United States and Israel.

So when we look around in the world, it is only the United States that can influence the Israeli position.

I would dare to say, ca leverage the Israeli position.

I understand of course, having served in that and the US for a long time.

I understand that the Israeli government can also leverage the US position for a with domestic influence.

Yes, I understand that.

But we still believe that it is only the United States that can influence the Israeli position to get it to accept first, a ceasefire.

Second, a resupply of Gaza with humanitarian assistance and a third, of course, the exchange of prisoners.

And the fourth is the link to a comprehensive peace, that's based on a two state solution.

>>You yourself wrote the outlines of what a peace plan would look like.

Explain that a little as you as you continue.

>>Yes.

I, I hope, you can, somehow, or the channel can share, with the people that, my article that was titled A New Balfour Declaration, and I called it at the time a Biden declaration.

And I hope, tha it would be a Harris declaration or Trump declaration if, whoever wins.

And, but I a I am appealing to Vice President Harris to really sponsor something similar to the Balfour Declaration that would outline and help her also in the upcoming elections with the Arab, voters, because it will only need to restate and reassure everyone that the United States is still for a two state solution.

One for secured borders, for of the Israel of 1967 borders, and for a secure independent and also a livable, Palestinian state, within the borders of 1967, of course, there will be some minor changes negotiated and agreed upon.

I think what we will need to see happening is that the American administration pronouncing itself, whether before the election or after the election, on the next steps that they asked, because this and only this can quiet things on all fronts, including the Lebanese front.

This is one one thing.

But I also believe that a heavier hand need to be exercised by the US.

I would say administration and even Congress.

We are not asking them to pressure Israel to do something against its own interests.

Actually, we all know that this is for the interest of Israelis, as it is in the interest of everyone in the region.

Is reaching a ceasefire or an end of the war and a end to the process.

I believe that from now until November 5th, we have the chance to achieve this.

And I think the Israelis understand that.

But they would like to use the time to, to probably, achieve some of what they think, security, of as security gains or it is not going to help the even if they are able to ethnic cleanse Gaza or ethnic cleanse southern Lebanon, it will not help their security problem.

We can see that young Americans and and my own kids are some of that are really changing attitudes when it comes to Israel.

And if they think that Israel should change course, and I think the US administration should recognize first and then use this change of public opinion especially among young American, and those young Americans are going to make the differenc in the outcome of the election.

Whether they decide to go t vote in the first place or not.

And I can see that many are encouraged, by the candidature of, vice Vice-President Harris, and they are tempted to vote.

I hope they will not be discouraged by a lack of action on the part of the, US administration when it comes to, a ceasefire and, ending the war.

>>So I want to turn in the remaining time we have to talk a littl about the Egyptian relationship with Turkey.

You were the ambassador to Turkey at a really interesting time.

In fact, you were the last ambassador for some time, from Cairo to Ankara.

And you've since written a book on that time?

Of course.

President Sisi and President Erdogan recently have met, but they had did not hav relations for a number of years.

Tell us a little about this relationship and what people may not realize, who are living outside the region.

>>With the resumption of the, political, relations, I think the door is open for the two countries to also cooperate in trying to resolve regional issues, such as the Libyan crisis.

So and with all what is going on, in Ukraine, I think there is more need today for Libyan stability, for Libyan oil and for Libyan gas.

And I think the two, Egyptian and Turkish government are in agreement and that they should help the Libyans themselves to form, this government.

You know, the polarization between the east and west of Libya and the, the two, government, the Turkish and the Egyptian have their special relations with different factions.

I have to add here, that we are greatly helped by the defeat of political Islam.

That defeat actually made that Turkish turnaround, historic turnaround.

I would say, possible-- >>You're talking about the defeat in, in Egypt, in the Arab world, as well as in, in Turkey in the last election.

>>Exactly.

And and even closer to Turkey in Syria, after 11 or 12 years or 13 years of civil war, political Islam, not victorious, they were only able to produce for us this ISIS terrorism.

And they terrified everyone, but they they didn't accomplish anything.

And even for the countries that they were even able to reach power through the ballot box, like in Egypt, like Tunisia, they failed, which made people revolt against them the same way they revolted against Mubarak and against Ben Ali, etc., etc..

So this failure meant pressure put pressure on the Turkish government to make this historic turnaround.

I wrote extensively, as you know about it, and I'm still writing, about it, but my book is now available also.

It is it has a funny title.

It, it it's, calle I was ambassador to the Sultan, and of course, the, the front cover explains of course, a lot about that, but I made it available free of charge on, internet, under, our archive.org.

Everyone can read it, both, in Arabic and English.

And it's also available on the same site in Turkish.

I see a great potential for thi Egyptian Turkish reconciliation to have an impac on many conflicts in the region.

For example, I mentioned Libya, but also for Syria.

We are lacking a positive Arab role to resolve the Syrian civil war.

And this is very dangerous because, you know, I mean there are American troops there, and there are American troops in Iraq.

And if the Israelis would drag Iran into the present war, I am really worrie about those American soldiers.

They could be hit, even unintentionally.

And we can find hundreds of coffins being shipped, to the United States of American, young people.

We w we value the life of everyone.

So I can see here Turkish, Egyptian.

A possible reconciliation role to do some household with this.

Syrian problem that's also impacting Turkey.

First of all, Turkey has mor than 3 million Syrian refugees.

And I visited Turkey recently, and people started to hate Arabs in general because of the presence of, those refugees.

And of course, there, there burden on the Turkish economy.

>>So one one final question, ambassador.

We're running out of time.

But that is, you know, there's a saying it's darkest before dawn.

Do you get a sense of that right now?

And are you so optimistic tha there are as bad as it is now, there are some really unique opportunities on the horizon.

>>Well, my friend, when I was studying political science at college about 45 years ago, they told us that a prediction by any party, is not really very objective because the prediction itself would impact the results.

And I would answer you that it depends.

The answer depends to a great extent on how much effort the US, Egypt would put.

And other parties, of course, were talking about Israel or talking about Qatar.

We are talking about Turkey.

We're talking about, Jordan.

There are many players who can, with varying degrees, of course, of reliability.

How much effort are we going to put into producing a peace settlement?

And there are other partie who are waiting on the sideline that, like the Saudis, they they would like to see a settlement so they can normalize with Israel, so they can have even the bigger agreement with the US.

So it depends to a great extent, I would say maybe I don't g as far as Sadat, that the 99%, let us say 80%, is dependent on what, the US would do in the next month and the in the next three months leading to the new administrations taking over.

>>Ambassador Salaheldin thank you so much for joining us.

It's always great to talk to you.

>>Thank you.

Thank you David.

All the best.

>>And thank you for joining us.

We'll see you again next week on another episode of Global Perspectives.