"Quarant'anni dalla 'guerra dei sei giorni': un passato che non passa"

Partly inspired by a historical novel by Radwa Ashur - one of today’s most famous Egyptian writers- this article aims at describing the Arab world, and especially Egypt and Palestine, focusing on old fundamental problems that still need to be solved. Forty years have passed since the Six Days War and the consequences of that second watershed in Arab contemporary history continue to substantially define the situation in the area. Nevertheless, on June 5th 2007 Egyptian state-run media hardly attempted to mark the anniversary of that event, also demonstating a general trend in the local press to focus on domestic politics at the expense of regional developments. The link between present and past, as well as between particular e general concerns, does however appear almost daily in the news on Egypt. The need for more political freedom was one of the urgent problems that emerged on the local level in the aftermath of the 1967 defeat. Since then the country tried with difficulty to pass from dictatorship to a Western style democratic system, but a series of constitutional amendments approved in March 2007 represent a real regression in that field. On the other hand, Egyptian affairs are still strongly linked to the Palestinian issue. Last June Cairo intensified its mediating role not only in the framework of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but also in the context of violent rivalry between Fatah and Hamas. Formally united under the governmental sphere of the Palestinian National Authority, Palestine is now de facto divided into two entities: Gaza and the West Bank. The population is suffering both due to recently removed international economical sanctions and because of contrasts among local factions.