24 - 30 May 2001
Issue No.535
|
Al-Ahram Weekly Online 24 - 30 May 2001 Issue No.535 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Empowering the Arab League
Amr Moussa has replaced Esmat Abdel-Meguid at the head of the Arab League at a time the pan-Arab organisation is facing critical challenges. Mohamed Sid-Ahmed discusses what is at stake
The strength of the Arab League cannot be measured in terms of the sum total of the strength of the Arab states. It is either more or less: more, if the whole proves to be more than the parts; less, if certain parts are in conflict with others, so that they neutralise each other. If the latter scenario is allowed to prevail, things could deteriorate to the point where the independent action of any given state could appear to be more beneficial than collective action under the umbrella of the Arab League.
Thus, whether we like it or not, the Arab League occupies a niche that is higher than that of the independent Arab state, whatever the latter's sovereign prerogatives. Of course, this umbrella authority, as it were, is a potential that need not be exercised, but even so it cannot be overlooked, especially in a world where globalisation has given regional groupings and corporate authority the upper hand.
The Arab League is not condemned to be a passive body. The blame for its defects should not be attributed only to the shortcomings of the states that constitute it. Much depends upon the Arab League's own performance. Admittedly, the League acts as a grouping of states with sovereign prerogatives, but this does not mean that its leadership is deprived of an independent will that can make the League more -- or less -- than the sum of its parts.
Two recent developments are bound to affect it in future. One is of an objective nature, namely, the decision of the Arab summit held in the wake of the Palestinian Intifada to make the summit meetings regular and annual. The second is of a subjective nature, namely, the appointment of Egypt's former foreign minister, Amr Moussa, as secretary-general of the League. His qualities and experience could do much to upgrade the organisation's performance at this critical moment.
The decision to hold annual summit meetings consecrates the League's reemerging status as an organisation reflecting a common Arab will that can, under certain circumstances, transcend the independent sovereign decisions of its respective member states. Before, the implementation of resolutions taken at League meetings, whether at the level of the top decision-makers or at the ministerial level, was subject to the free will of each ruler. But now the regularity of summit meetings has imposed a constraint on Arab rulers by making them accountable to their peers as well as to public opinion.
At the same summit meeting at which they agreed to meet on an annual basis, Arab leaders also agreed to allocate a generous sum to support the Intifada, then in its infancy. Not only did this commitment never materialise but, at their subsequent meeting in Amman, site of the first of the regular summits held in implementation of the Cairo summit resolution, the leaders pledged a far smaller sum to the Intifada. Had it not been for the system committing Arab states to annual summit meetings, this fact would not have become known.
The convocation of regular summits is important less when it comes to disciplined Arab states that are usually willing to go along with collective Arab decisions than to maverick states with a tendency to flout these decisions and act independently. Actually, there would be no justification for the existence of the Arab League without a minimal Arab consensus on a number of key issues that betray an Arab specificity and distinguish Arab states from others, particularly, perhaps, from Israel. Consensus among the members of the Arab League is fundamental when it comes to the issue of war and peace in the region, the future of the "peace process" and relations between Arab states and Israel.
The enactment of the United Nations Charter in the wake of World War II, and the adoption of international law as a universal frame of reference -- albeit one that is still selectively applied -- has introduced a new notion in the area of international relations. No longer are wars seen as a make-or-break option from which the protagonists emerge as either losers or winners. For crisis-management experts, wars can, if properly managed, resolve a conflict in the interests of all concerned, in a win/win game of which the final outcome, peace, is beneficial to all the protagonists. At the end of the day, however, a conflict must end up with a winner and a loser, a party that has successfully turned to advantage a balance of power tilted in its favour and a party that has failed to use the cards available to it in an effective manner capable of redressing the balance.
How can the distinction between winners and losers be made in real terms? Perhaps the easiest way to make the distinction is to imagine the Middle East as an arena marked by contradictions with different degrees of intensity. There is the contradiction between Israel and the Arabs, contradictions among the Arabs and contradictions inside Israel. When there was a state of war between Israel and the Arab states, the most intense contradiction was obviously between Israel and the Arab states taken as a whole. The peace process did not eliminate the contradictions; it merely reshuffled them so that inter-Arab contradictions became sharper than those between Israel and one -- or more than one -- Arab party. This state of affairs has been described as establishing peace in the region. In reality, however, Israel has emerged a clear winner from the displacement of the main contradictions into Arab ranks, which has titled the balance of power to its advantage. Not too long ago, the Arabs succeeded in displacing contradictions into Israeli ranks. When the Egyptian army crossed the Canal and broke through the supposedly invincible Bar-Lev line in the early days of the October war, the intense internal disarray this provoked in Israeli ranks went far towards redressing the balance of power between the protagonists.
Thus the state of cooperation or diversion inside the Arab League cannot be dissociated from the state of war or peace with Israel. Moreover, the Arab states will be unable to go beyond the state of war with Israel and reach an acceptable settlement of the Middle East conflict in the absence of a clear consensus in the Arab League. Inter-Arab relations are not only determined by Arab factors, but also by the relations (hostile or otherwise) of Arab parties with Israel. Thus overcoming the impasse we now face will not be possible if we disregard -- as some advocate -- what is now happening in Palestine, which stands at the heart of the Middle East conflict.
Actually, ending war with Israel will not eliminate the Arab contradiction with Israel, only ensure that it will be managed by other than military means. It will force us to deal with the contradiction through peaceful, civilised means and ensure that a dialogue of civilisations replaces a clash of civilisations. The contradiction itself will not disappear because Israel believes that the condition for its survival in the region is to be militarily, technologically and economically superior to all the Arab countries combined. On the other hand, the Arab countries believe that to accept Israeli preeminence is to relinquish part of their very identity and cultural heritage, that it would, in fact, be a concession of defeat in a confrontation between civilisations.
All these considerations make it imperative to revitalise the Arab League and guarantee that it acquires a dimension far beyond its present one. This is Amr Moussa's responsibility now that he has become secretary-general of the League. Indeed, the League is facing its greatest challenge ever, one that is closely related to the changes now underway in the region as a whole.
We have witnessed the beginnings of a change in given fields. An electricity network now extends to a number of Arab countries. More pipelines are now ensuring the exportation of Arab oil more effectively. There is much concern with an Arab Common Market. For these steps to become an infrastructure for pan-Arab activity, they must be generalised to the Arab world as a whole.
There are new challenges that will have to become top priorities in the near future, especially the growing scarcity of potable water. The crisis is global, but it will be particularly acute in the widespread Arab deserts. Israel is preparing itself for this challenge and, with the cooperation and billions of dollars in financial aid from the US, the EU and possibly also Japan, is developing new technologies that will drastically reduce the cost of desalinating sea water. Nothing similar is being undertaken by the Arab states. Can they afford to be at Israel's mercy when, a few years down the road, the water crisis reaches critical proportions?
The European Union has found a formula for a collective sovereignty that does not impinge on the sovereignty of each separate European state. With the agreement of the parties, some of their prerogatives become part of a pan-European sovereignty while others are not relinquished and remain part and parcel of national sovereignty. The Arab states should find their own path towards a similar development which will guarantee some form of pan-Arab sovereignty -- a sovereignty that will guarantee a qualitatively different balance of power with Israel and establish the basis for a mutually beneficial dialogue of civilisations throughout the region.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
Recommend this page