Excerpts: Arab League Summit failure 24 March 2005

JORDAN TIMES 24 Mar.'05: "Arab Leaders avoid controversy, renew peace offer" Heading:"Mulki
expresses regret over Israel's 'negative' reaction" QUOTES FROM TEXT:

"Israel 'does not deserve that we extend to it our hand in peace' " "The meeting was marked
by ... failure to tackle some of the most controversal issues facing their troubled region,
including Syria's pullout from Lebanon."

"Sharon's office told AFP(Agence France Presse) the Arabs were trying 'to give the illusion
of unity on the surface by adopting resolutions that contradict with all of the advances made'"

"There was no condemnation of the foreign occupation of Iraq" [IMRA:Contradicted in other
reports.]

"called for emegency humanitarian aid for Sudan" "much touted pledge they made last year to
reform their countries was buried under rhetoric"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EXCERPTS: ALGIERS (AFP) - Arab leaders steered clear of the region's most contentious
issues, wrapping up a summit here Wednesday with a rehashed Middle East peace plan that
Israel and Palestinian militant groups swiftly rejected. Algerian President Abdulaziz
Bouteflika said in a closing statement that the summit, marred by the absence of several
key players, "consolidated the bases of a durable Arab reconciliation."

But even as he praised them for showing peaceful intentions towards Israel, Arab League chief
Amr Musa warned the Jewish state that peace will not be achieved without anything in return.

[IMRA: Musa wants everything.] Israel "does not deserve that we extend to it our hand" in
peace, Musa told a post-summit news conference . .. .. ... Qadhafi upstaged the final session
... describing Israel and the Palestinians as "idiots." leaving his audience in fits of
laughter. The meeting was marked by the leaders' failure to tackle some of the most
controversial issues facing their troubled region, including Syria's pullout from Lebanon.

Only 13 heads of states from the 22-member Arab League showed up. ... King Abdullah, Lebanese
President Emile Lahoud and Saudi de facto ruler Crown Prince Abdullah Aziz were among those
absent.

The summit's final declaration echoed ... last year's Tunis conference, pledging Arab support
for Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinians to recover land occupied by Israel.

[ IMRA: According to the UN Lebanon already has all its land that was occupied by Israel.]
It called on the international community to help back the Arab peace initiative - a Jordanian
proposal based on a Saudi plan submitted and endorsed by the 2002 Beirut summit but spurned by
Israel. Israel was quick to reject this year's offer, which makes peace conditional on an
Israeli pullout from occupied Arab land, the creation of a Palestinian state and the return of
refugees.

. . . A senior official from ...Sharon's office told AFP the Arabs were trying "to give this
illusion of unity on the surface by adopting resolutions that contradict with all of the
advances made."

. . . Jordanian Foreign Minister Hani Mulki told AFP that Israel's "quick and negative"
reaction looks as if "they are not interested in peace ... ." ...Hamas' spokesman Sami Abu
Zuhri characterised as "the worst thing" the relaunching of an initiative to "reconcile with
the enemy" and slammed the summit for failing to "take steps to support our people and put an
end to the aggression they suffer."

Islamic Jihad leader Nafez Azzam echoed him saying: "Our expectations have been disappointed by
the results of the summit ...." Arab delegates and political analysts alike agreed that the
summit deliberately avoided controversy by adopting tamely-worded resolutions to show they are
united.

Thus the leaders opted for prudence in dealing with hot-spots like Iraq, the civil war in the
western Sudanese region of Darfur or even the nascent Lebanese crisis and UN demands that Syria
pullout ... .

There was no condemnation of the foreign occupation of Iraq ... [IMRA: Contradicted in other
reports.]

 

but classic words of support for Iraqi unity and independence ... .. The summit called for
emergency humanitarian aid for Sudan but failed to make any specific commitment nor did it
announce any measures against League members who have failed to pay their dues to the cash-
strapped organisation. They decided, however, to set up a pan-Arab summit and agreed to meet
next year in Khartoum.

Even the much-touted pledge they made last year to reform their countries was buried under
rhetoric and vague promises.

ARAB NEWS (Saudi) 224 Mar.'05:"Editorial: Algiers Summit" QUOTES FROM TEXT:

"This latest top level meeting of the league has been criticized in some quarters with
suggestions even that the organization was now moribund and powerless."

"this constant bleat from Israel is wearing thin" "Zionists fear the concessions they must
make and fear even more the economic and political future of an Israel that can no longer
claim to be sxurrounded by enemies"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EXCERPTS:

THE two day Arab League summit which ended yesterday in Algiers, concluded with a restatement
of the plan originally propounded by Saudi Arabia, in which peace with Israel will be made once
an independent Palestinian state has been created and refugees have been permitted to return.

This latest top-level meeting of the league had been criticized in some quarters with
suggestions even that the organization was now moribund and powerless. The harsh truth however
is that the league has always been confronted by the seemingly intractable problem of
Palestine. The endless frustration of this great injustice has been reflected in the
powerlessness, not just of the league but the whole international community to find a
resolution.

... It was...no surprise that the summit's final declaration on Palestine was immediately
rejected by the Israelis. For good measure Sharon's government also let it be known that it
intended to expand some settlements in the occupied territories. ... undoubtedly a calculated
affront to the league. However, the response from delegates as they prepared to leave the
Algerian capital was notably muted. They know that a wind of change is blowing and Israel can
no longer sustain its aggressive posture in the eyes of the international community.

...The hope of diehard Zionists could be that they may yet provoke a new intifada and then be
able to turn with crocodile tears to the world at large, protesting that they had tried to make
peace with the Palestinians and look at the reward they had received.

The evidence is however that this constant bleat from Israel is wearing thin. Many more people
outside the region are now asking themselves how they would react if their homeland was
occupied and the occupiers were trying to dictate a peace to them down the barrel of a gun. The
activities of Palestinian suicide bombers attacking civilian targets rightly cause revulsion
but there is now a wide appreciation that in their current state of misery and humiliation, the
Palestinians have had until now only stones and their own bodies with which to fight back
against Israeli tyranny. The time for violence over the fate of the Palestinians is passed and
only negotiation and compromise should lie ahead. Zionists fear the concessions they must make
and fear even more the economic and political future of an Israel that can no longer claim to
be surrounded by enemies

[IMRA: So why don't the Arabs deprive Israel of the shield by simply normalizing relations
with Israel?] and in danger of its very existence. Nevertheless the Arab leaders were right
yesterday to once again offer Israeli leaders an olive branch and their statesmanship could
well be a significant contribution to the peace process.

THE NEW YORK TMES 24 Mar.'05:"Arab leaders' summit ends as it began: Marked by apathy" By
Hassan M. Fattah QUOTES FROM TEXT: "two-day meeting here ... with little to show"

" 'As the gravity of the crises continues to rise, so does the irrelevance of the Arab
League response - or the lack of it' "

"support was given to Syria against 'foreign intervention", meaning pressure from America
and France""

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EXCERPTS: ALGIERS: Arab leaders, facing intense international pressure
on issues ranging from war to pro-democracy opposition movements, ended a two-day summit
meeting here ... with little to show.

. . . "As the gravity of the crises continues to rise, so does the irrelevance of the Arab
League response - or the lack of it," said Rami Khouri, editor at large of The Daily Star
newspaper in Beirut. "All it represents now is the irrelevance of the incumbent Arab regimes."

For two days, Arab leaders ... unfurled plans for an Arab common market by 2015, an Arab
parliament modeled on that of the European Union, and initiatives to improve relations between
the Arab world and the West.

Arab political reform and divisions were mentioned only in passing, while reform of the League
itself took the spotlight as did a failed Arab-Israeli peace initiative from 2002.

Lebanon's crisis was not mentioned in an official sense, but support was given to Syria against
"foreign intervention," meaning pressure from America and France.

Members chose Egypt as a representative to the UN Security Council if the council is enlarged,
but they also dismissed the Security Council's Resolution 1559, which calls for Syria to pull
out of Lebanon and for the disarming of the militant Shiite group Hezbollah.

... Al Jazeera dismissed the meeting as "yet another summit."

"They have to think and devise different instruments to deal with the outside world. Otherwise
this is a dead-end street," said Mustafa Hamarneh, director of the Center for Strategic Studies
in Amman. He did not bother to watch live coverage of the summit.

The league was formed in 1945 by seven leading Arab countries, including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and
Saudi Arabia. Its main role was to push an Arab political agenda by building an Arab quorum.

[IMRA:With British encouragement.]. . .

"It's an institution of the 1960s and hasn't changed, even though the world and the region has,
" Khouri said.

Low turnout severely hampered this year's meeting. Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia,
widely seen as the primary economic and political power in the region, was absent. He is
reported to have skipped the summit meeting at the last minute to avoid Qaddafi, who stands
accused by American and Saudi officials of having set up a plot to assassinate him. Also
missing were King Abdullah II of Jordan, whose proposal for an Arab peace with Israel was
rejected on Sunday, and President Émile Lahoud of Lebanon, who bowed out after a car bombing
raised tensions ... .

. . . ... King Mohammed VI of Morocco sought to address the issue of political reform with a
warning: "Self-reform is an internal process. Just as we refrain from giving lessons to others,
we will not tolerate being told what to do. No one, from the Arab world or anywhere else, shall
impose their views on us."

Imad Hmoud, editor of the Jordanian newspaper Al Ghad, said: "You really have to ask, what's
the difference this year from last? Everybody knows the final result before they even sit down
to talk."

HAARETZ 24 Mar.'05 "Arab League appoints committee to monitor peace initiative"By Yoav Stern
and Agencies QUOTES FROM TEXT: "put the blame on 'oppression, injustice, arrogance, insults,
contempt and the humiliation of this [Arab] nation' "

"The summit also called for an end to foreign occupation in Iraq - but said nothing about
Iraq's calls for its Arab neighbours to do more to stop combatants from crossing their borders
to join the fighting in that cxountry."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EXCERPTS: Tunisia, Algeria and Sudan were appointed by the Arab League at its Algerian summit
on Wednesday to a committee to monitor the Arab peace initiative during the coming year. ...The
initiative calls for the full normalization of ties with Israel in exchange for an Israeli
withdrawal to the 1967 borders, the establishment of a Palestinian state and a resolution of
the Palestinian refugee issue, including the "right of return."

. . . Syrian President Bashar Assad suggested that Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian
Authority be on the committee. "After all, it is our land," he said. But ... Mubarak said that
would not be logical. "They will be stronger defending Arab interests without Syria and
Lebanon," he said.

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika laid the matter to rest, accepting the summit host
criteria as the determining factor for membership on the committee.

...Gadhafi turned to the Palestinian delegation and said, "Don't be angry brother Abu Mazen,
but I think the Palestinians and Israelis are stupid." He said that Israel were wrong to try to
hold on to the West Bank in the face of Palestinian attacks and Palestinians were wrong not to
have set up their own state after 1948, and reiterated his call for a single state solution,...

He said that .... Sharon must be working for the Palestinians, "because he does things that get
dozens and hundreds of Israelis killed" by Palestinians. Gadhafi shocked the Arab leaders by
saying, "Terror is identified with Islam." He dismissed the argument that poverty is at the
root of violence by Islamists, and put the blame on "oppression, injustice, arrogance, insults,
contempt and the humiliation of this [Arab] nation."

. . . A Foreign Ministry spokesman in Jerusalem said the reference to peace as a strategic
option was positive but that Israel regretted that the summit had not proposed dialogue. "From
our first reading ... it would appear that not much is new. We are disappointed that nothing
was done to put substance behind that statement [on strategic option]," said spokesman Mark
Regev.

"We don't see any reason for a rush [to normal relations]," said Moussa. ...

Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud said, "We are not thinking of normalization, neither
now nor in the future. ...

The summit was hardly a decisive moment in modern Arab history. It was essentially silent or
rehashed old statements on some of the region's most burning issues.

. . . ... "When we look at what will be achieved during this summit versus the ambitions on
the Arab street, we find that we are still very much at the beginning of the road," said
Sudan's foreign minister, ... .

The summit also called for an end to foreign occupation in Iraq - but said nothing about Iraq's
calls for its Arab neighbors to do more to stop combatants from crossing their borders to join
the fighting in that country.

Analysts said Arab leaders fear that if they shine the spotlight on others, their own problems
may be exposed next. "We heard the words Palestine, Iraq, Sudan and even Lebanon. ... We heard
the words reform, confronting extremism and combatting terrorism," wrote columnist Sahar
Baasiri in the Lebanese daily An-Nahar. "But the words were more a description of the status
quo and a list of [Arab] woes, old positions and aspirations."

Dr. Joseph Lerner, Co-Director IMRA http://www.imra.org.il