11 - 17 April 2002
Issue No.581
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 11 - 17 April 2002 Issue No.581 |
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Strong assertions, little action
An Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo last week failed to send a strong message to Israel, report Dina Ezzat and Soha Abdelaty
As Israel's reoccupation of the West Bank was expanding in scope and increasing in brutality, Arab foreign ministers were arguing with each other over how to respond. The venue for their squabbles was an extraordinary session of the Council of Arab Foreign Ministers on Saturday. By the end, the ministers had decided on a diplomatic plan of action which sought to intensify international pressure on Israel.
Moussa in an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers this week
The meeting, which took place at the Cairo headquarters of the Arab League, came more than a week after the Palestinians had originally requested it. The foreign ministers of Syria and Lebanon were not present: they felt it was unnecessary given that the Beirut summit, which wrapped up a week earlier, had adopted several resolutions concerning the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Also absent from the meeting was Iraq's foreign minister, who said he was disappointed in fellow Arab governments for failing to respond to an Iraqi call for an oil embargo. The embargo was intended to put economic pressure on the US to end the Israeli aggression.
The meeting took place a few days after the European Union held an extraordinary session of its own foreign ministers to discuss the deteriorating situation in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Arab ministers were meeting against a backdrop of overwhelming Arab anger against the low-key Arab official reactions to the Israeli assault on the Palestinian people.
The meeting ended by issuing a communiqué, couched in stronger language than that adopted by previous Arab meetings held at various levels since the beginning of the Intifada. But little else came out of the meeting.
"I don't really understand what the outcome is. What are they going to do to save the Palestinian people from what Sharon has been doing to them? How are they going to tell the Americans that they cannot keep on supporting Israel when it is killing all these Palestinians?" asked one Egyptian university student.
"I do not think that they listened to what students across Egypt and in all of the Arab world have been saying," he added.
This very same questions were being asked by reporters in a press conference that Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa held after the meeting ended. Moussa was the Arab official left to defend the meeting and its outcome -- which most people consider insufficient, to say the least. Other than the Palestinian contingent, participating ministers left Cairo quickly without saying much.
According to Moussa, the Arab ministers had listened closely to what the Arab public had to say on the current situation in the occupied Palestinian territories. "We are all very angry. We share the anger of every Arab citizen," said Moussa who, according to some sources, tried to mediate between Arab ministers during the sessions.
"I actually informed the ministers about the many messages that the secretariat of the Arab League has been receiving from different Arab syndicates and non-governmental organisations in relation to the issue," said Moussa.
The final communiqué, issued only a few hours after US President George W Bush called on Arab governments to end their backing of the Palestinian resistance, did exactly the opposite and affirmed Arab support for the Intifada. Moreover, the communiqué rejected "attempts to confuse terrorism with the legitimate resistance of the Israeli military occupation," be it carried out by the Palestinian, Syrian or Lebanese people.
Coming a few days ahead of a scheduled Middle East tour by US Secretary of State Colin Powell, the communiqué criticised the US bias towards Israel, saying it has led it to "act as a state above international law and UN resolutions" and persist in its aggressive and coercive practices against the Palestinian people.
But the Arab foreign ministers did not respond to a request by Palestinian Minister of International Cooperation Nabil Shaath, head of his country's delegation. Shaath had asked all concerned Arab capitals to refuse to receive Powell if the American official ignored Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, who has been kept under a tight siege by the Israeli occupation army.
In a press conference in Washington on Friday, Powell said only that he "might or might not" meet with Arafat. The Palestinian president, by contrast, had spelled out his sincere will to work closely with the Americans to find a way out of the current crisis.
Powell's remarks followed several statements by Bush questioning Arafat's political credibility.
Washington's scorn was apparently not a good enough reason for the Arab foreign ministers to agree to Shaath's request, however.
"Shaath should not have made this request in the first place. Even if he only meant to demonstrate Palestinian anger following the US's negative involvement during the past few weeks he still knows better than to expect any Arab capital to refuse to receive the US secretary of state," commented one Arab diplomat whose capital is a very close ally of the US.
In his press conference, secretary-general Moussa was on the defensive about the Palestinian request. "What was aired during the meeting is exactly the opposite; Arab foreign ministers were, in fact, saying that they are in favour of intensifying ties with Washington to exercise diplomatic pressure on the US administration," Moussa said.
The Arab foreign ministers made it clear in their communiqué that they still support President Arafat as the "legitimate and elected chairman of the Palestinian Authority and the president of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, which is the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people."
Arafat, the communiqué said, is the only leader with a mandate to "negotiate on behalf of the Palestinian people."
Other than words of support and criticism, the communiqué and its annexed resolutions included a plan of diplomatic action. Arab countries will seek a resolution from the UN Security Council, in accordance with chapter seven of the UN Charter, to force Israel to comply with UN resolutions calling for an end of its murderous assault against the Palestinian people and the Palestinian leader.
"There was a clear consensus on the need to the Security Council immediately, and doubt about going for mediation which could well fail -- although the door is being left open for all efforts," Moussa commented.
Moreover, Arab countries are planning closer cooperation with the UN Human Rights Committee to spell out Israeli human rights violations against Palestinians. There is also a strategy in place to call on all countries party to the Fourth Geneva Convention, which is related to civilians under occupation.
Other than that the council of Arab foreign ministers did not promise much to an Arab public which -- according to demonstrators who gathered outside the Arab League building on Saturday -- was not expecting their leaders to achieve much anyway.
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