ACRI Responds to Landmark French Statement Endorsing Its Goals

We, members of the Arab Council for Regional Integration’s delegation to the French National Assembly, would like to express our gratitude to the 85 signatories to the landmark statement in Le Point endorsing our vision and goals. We have long maintained that the case for growing and safeguarding civil engagement among all peoples of the Middle East and North Africa should be a matter of international moral consensus. The French statement, signed by leading figures from across the political spectrum in that storied Republic, was a deeply heartening validation of our view.

There is no way forward to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in the spirit of the Arab Peace Initiative, without overcoming the culture of boycotts and initiating a direct dialogue among all the region’s civil societies. This animating principle underpins the range of partnerships we call for and pursue — from a new regional alliance for the empowerment of women, to the first-ever PhD program for tolerance and reconciliation studies, to enhanced Arab-Israeli cooperation in medicine, science, arts, media, and other civil sectors. The need for such initiatives transcends the public good that each of them does in its own right; their cumulative impact is to warm the climate for peace. It is a matter of human nature that exclusion and isolation breed extremism and rage, whereas inclusion and engagement enable conciliation and compromise. The signatories to the French statement, in expressing their desire to safeguard such ventures, have already helped to make them more feasible.

The French statement correctly observed that militancy emanating from our region has long since spread beyond the Middle East and North Africa — and that as a result, Europe now faces “the instrumentalization of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” on its own territory, including a new “explosion of anti-Semitic acts.” Indeed, it pains and dishonors us that Arab societies are understood by so much of the world to be incubators and exporters of radicalism. But this problem only strengthens our determination to counter hate with hope, and to counter exclusion with engagement. We believe that by fostering a culture of partnership, we not only increase the resilience of our own region; we also model and thereby export the same good practices to our diaspora communities, in Europe and beyond. We aspire to hasten the day when, as in centuries past, Arab societies provide a beacon of light to the world.

In this respect it is also noteworthy that among the statement’s signatories -- including a substantial and influential contingent of French legislators, former Prime Ministers, and former Foreign and Defense Ministers -- are numerous political and cultural figures with deep ties to the broader continent of Europe. They include, for that matter, Sandro Gozi, an Italian member of the European Parliament; and Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a French-German icon of the struggle for civil rights in Europe. We pray that this remarkable French initiative catalyzes French and other European legislation to counter the criminalization of peacemaking, and to protect Arab civil peacemakers and supporters of dialogue from all forms of retribution. Such an outcome — in keeping with the values of liberty, egalitarianism, fraternity, and the rule of law — will benefit all the region’s peoples, and the world around them.

Mohammed Anwar El-Sadat
Egyptian MP; head of Reform and Development Party, Heliopolis

Sami Al-Nesef
Former Kuwaiti information minister, Kuwait City

Mohammed Dajani Daoudi
Palestinian scholar and civic activist, Jerusalem

Mariam Al-Ahmadi
Emirati civic activist, Abu Dhabi

Sana Wajid Ali
Iraqi scholar and civic activist, Berlin-Karbala

Ismail Muhammad Ali Sayyid Ahmad
Sudanese journalist and civic activist, Khartoum

Mostafa El-Dessouki
Egyptian editor and journalist, London

Sami Baziz
Algerian journalist and civic activist, Algiers

Eglal Gheita
Egyptian-British lawyer, London

Oussema Selmi
Tunisian science researcher and entrepreneur, Tunis

Noamanne Chaari
Tunisian vocalist and composer, Tunis

Ahmed Salem
Egyptian TV editor and producer, Cairo