CAIRO — On March 22, Sayed Farag, an Egyptian member of parliament representing Cairo's Hadayek el-Qubba district, announced an initiative to form a parliamentary delegation that would visit the Israeli Knesset to discuss pending issues between the two countries. Farag was inspired by former President Anwar Sadat, who spoke in the Israeli Knesset on Nov. 19, 1977, and discussed the problems facing both countries at the time.

As soon as the media published the news, many members of parliament objected and considered the initiative a form of “normalization” with Israel that should not be accepted under any circumstances.

Speaking to Al-Monitor, Farag described his opponents as “ignorant,” given that there is a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. He said that Egypt has a permanent ambassador to Israel and the same goes for Israel, and the two countries have legal diplomatic channels as well.

Farag called on people to be reasonable and seek to achieve the country’s national interest, even if that has to be done by sitting together, negotiating and proposing solutions to reach consensual settlements. He said that whether we like it or not, there are pending issues between the two countries, and we cannot ignore one another: "Why don’t we use all possible solutions that might achieve national interest through public diplomatic channels?"