Ambassador Mahmoud Bassiouny surprised the audience of the dialogue forum at Bibliothca Alexandria with several shocking surprises yesterday that deserved to be post in the first pages in newspapers , at least the indepedent newspapers published them for their contreversy.
He spoke about several points including the nature of his work as the Ambassador of Egypt in Israel ,
Ambassador Mohamed El-Bassiony
according to his confession he went there as an intelligence officer after long career and heading the Israel sector in military intelligence.
He spoke about Ashraf Marwan ,adding more fuel to the fire , complicating the enigmatic case already , he said indirectly or even directly that Marwan was not our man but rather was working for the Israelis at the same time the public media is glorifying the late businessman and engima man as a national hero.
The report which was translated by Shady El-Kashaf from Gaza traces back the most POWs Swap since the 1948 war,I will summarize it below till year 1967 because already I am having my doubts regarding some numbers concerning the Egyptian POWs , the report claims that the number of the Egyptian POWs were more than the Israeli POWs ,which is untrue according to my humble knowledge in 1973,also it did not mention the number of the Egyptian POWs that actually returned in 1967.
I made a quick interview with Ambassador Ibrahim Youssery on my Egyptian Chronicles blog and I did not forget to ask about the POWs case.
Ambassador Ibrahim Youssery took this stand this year to sue the Egyptian government in the court for exporting the Egyptian Natural gas to Israel despite the huge public refusal. Ambassador Youssery is a retired Ambassador since 1995 and currently work as international law lawyer. Already I should mentioned that he headed for three years as Head of the Egyptian Government committee for the revision of bilateral and multilateral treaties and the Deputy chief of the Egyptian delegation in the negotiation concerning the execution of the Taba award.
I asked him in the interview about several issues current causing buzz in Egypt whether from the exportation of the natural gas to Israel or the Salam 98 Ferry or the Um Rashrash case or the POWs Case. I asked him about the Egyptian POWs Case because I know from his long international legal expertise we can benefit.
Freedom to our Egyptian POWs in the Zionist prisons
Till now there is no official confirmation or denial regarding what Samir Kuntar had said about the Egyptian POW in the Israeli prison.
As an Egyptian citizen I demand that the Egyptian Government to be honest with us.
It is unfair that Egypt mediates between Israel and Hamas working too hard to swap one single Israeli POW with hundreds of Palestinian POWs without any consideration to its POW in Israel Eyad Abu El-Hassan
At last I found some info about Eyad Abu El-Hassan thanks to Nawra Nagam who did a real scoop as Egyptian blogger and had some sort of an interview with Samr Kuntar in Lebanon last week.
Al-kuntar shared with Nawara what he knows about Eyad Abu El-Hassan.
Eyad is from Egyptian Rafah.He was arrested by the IDF in 1989 when he entered Gaza with Ayman Yunis. Both were young men whose ages were 20 years old. They were planning to do some sort of an operation against Israel. They were actng on their own. No one sent them or they knew someone there.
In the jail both young men had to choose which team they will belong to , Fatah or Hamas. Ayman Chose Fatah where as Eyad chose Hamas.
Al-Kuntar believes Ayman was released because he chose Fatah where as till now Eyad is in jail because he chose Hamas.
The free Lebanese POW Samir Kuntar said in an interview for Hezbollah’s TV Channel Al-Manar that there was an Egyptian POW in the Israeli prison called Eyad Mathour “Sorry If I wrote it wrong” and that that POW was in the prison for the last 22 years !!
Shocking is not it !!?? I thought that Sheikh Mahmoud El-Sawurka was our last POWs beside our prisoners for
Samir Al Kuntar
criminal charges in the Israeli prisons.Correction our last POWs were the two students captured by the IDF on the borders during the second intifida and they were exchanged with the high price which was the infamous spy Azzam Azzam.
There are difference between the Egyptians who are in the Israeli prisons for criminal charges and the POWs jailed for political reasons during the Israeli occupation to Sinai. This does not mean that we should abandon our prisoners in the Israeli prisons but we need to know if we have any more POWs there.
Al Jazeera International aired a special documentary “A Nation in Waiting” for the occasion of President Mubarak’s 80th birthday, this documentary is about his life and a quick critical look to Egypt under his rule for the last 27 years. It is one hour documentary, in You Tube it is divided in to four parts , in the first part which deals with the early life of Mubarak and also a quick to Egypt under Nasser’s rule there is a part concerning the six days war “which is a turning point in Mubarak’s military career”; this part includes a footage for Egyptian POWs
Here is the Clip , it is in the middle
I just want to add something , if you want to comment on this documentary based on its main content which is the life of President Mubarak , well be my guest in my main blog
On the 5th of March 2008 the Administrative court in Cairo issued a historical Verdict; according to it the Egyptian Foreign has to investigate the allegations that the IDF had killed Egyptian POWs in the wars of 1956 and 1967The court ordered the ministry to prepare a list with the names and numbers of the POWs killed by the IDF.The importance of that rule is that it is an official obligation on the Foreign ministry ,it should do it. They should open an immediate inquiry about this important file.This court order comes as the end of the long , very long Suit case filed against the State filed by Ex-Pows , eye witnesses and POWs families . The representative lawyer who filed the Suit is Wahid El-Oksori , the head of Egyptian Arab socialist Party and a veteran officer.This is very important court order , it does not recognize the crimes but it orders the Foreign ministry to investigate the allegations ,it opens the door officially ,still I doubt that the Foreign ministry will obey the court’s order and it will not be the first time , or the first ministry or governmental authority that will ignore a court’s order. By the way about the list with names and numbers of the POWs , they can be easily done with the records of the reported missing officers and Soldiers from 1956 and 1967 from the Egyptian army archives. I just want to add something , I am sorry for the lack of updates lately.
The Controversy about the mass grave in found in Eilat is not finished yet despite there is no more news about it in the media. The Controversy now is not about whether the remains in the mass grave were for Egyptian or Jordanian Battalion in 1949 , the nationality is not our issue here this time , the historians in debate agree that these remains were for Egyptian battalion yet they disagree to by whom or when that Egyptian Battalion was killed . Yes the general idea or assumption based on the fact there is not serious investigation in the site itself that that Egyptian battalion was killed in year 1949 by the Israeli forces still there is another probability that this Egyptian Battalion was killed in 1906 by the Turkish Othman forces.
On the other hand there is a great historical debate about the mass grave and its location , also it is expected thing , Um Rashrash is already a center of debate of whether it is an Egyptian land or not .
