News
Noted Diplomat Daniel C. Kurtzer Gives Context to Situation in Egypt
February 21, 2011
Speaking to a full house at Whittier College on Saturday night, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and Egypt Daniel C. Kurtzer gave insights into the current situation in Egypt and the status of peace in the Middle East.
He began the discourse with suggesting that the United States will need to play a key role in the ongoing conflict.
"The United states does not determine alone what happens in this region. But we do have an oversized role, therefore an oversized responsibility. And what we do, or fail to do, carries tremendous consequences for our own national security and the wellbeing of people in the region."
His presentation was part of the 2011 Feinberg Lecture series that yearly brings prominent speakers to the College to discuss broad historic, religious, and political issues encompassed by Judaism and its role in a changing world.
Kurtzer's career in the United States Foreign Service spanned 29 years. He served as U.S. ambassador to Egypt from 1997 to 2001 before becoming the U.S. envoy to Israel. Moreover, Kurtzer has known former President Hosni Mubarak for over 30 years, and has deep experience with all facets of Egyptian society.
As such, Kurtzer gave an informed perspective on what occurred in the streets of Egypt and provided an analysis on the role that the Egyptian military and the Islamist group—Muslim Brotherhood—will likely play in the new post-Mubarak government.
"What we saw in Egypt was not a revolution, but a decapitation of the head of a regime," he said. "What hasn't changed in Egypt is the system of governance, the regime in which Mubarak acted as a leader."
Moreover he expanded on the relationship between Egypt and the U.S., calling it one of mutual collaboration and of great value to both countries. For its part the U.S. invested over the course of three decades $70 billion to improve the basic infrastructure of the country as well as its military. In turn Egypt has played a key role in the peace process.
"[It has been] imperative for the Obama Administration not only to follow the sentimental route of supporting democracy but also trying to measure that off against the strategic imperative of maintaining our relations with an Egypt that was going to be friends with the United States. I think until now that that the administration has done a reasonably good job. The question is going to be though, whether or not this can continue. And how much harder it will get as the impact of Egypt now spreads across the region."
The lecture was followed by a Q&A session that involved members of the greater Whittier community. The Feinberg Lecture Series is made possible through an endowment established by the late Sheldon Feinberg, a former trustee of Whittier College, and his wife, Betty.
Since leaving government service, Kurtzer has authored numerous articles on U.S. policy, and is the co-author of Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East. He served as an advisor to the Iraq Study Group, and currently serves on the Advisory Council of the American Bar Association's Middle East-North Africa Rule of Law Initiative; as a member of the Board of Trustees of the American University in Cairo; and as a member of the New Jersey-Israel Commission. And, he currently holds the S. Daniel Abraham Chair in Middle East Policy Studies at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
