A summit: where and why?
The venue of the Arab summit and the debate over reforms within. Dina Ezzat found that question marks abounded in the Arab press
One story continues to capture the most attention in the Arab press: the annual Arab summit.
The front and inside pages this week had these headlines awaiting readers: "Arab leaders consult over the agenda of their next summit"; "Arab leaders say summit is necessary"; "Arab League says next summit will be chaired by Tunisia"; "Tunisia still undecided about hosting the summit"; "Tunisian foreign minister on Arab tour to secure the outcome of the summit"; "Tunisia feels Arabs are undecided on the outcome of the summit"; "Will the summit take place at Arab League headquarters?"; "Egypt could be the venue of the next summit"; "Speculation over the date and venue of the summit".
The headlines were nothing new. For the past four years, since Arab leaders decided in 2000 to hold an annual summit in the last week of March, the Arab press has more or less used the same headlines and almost the same stories. Only the names have changed.
As several commentators noted this week, Arab public opinion must be sick and tired of this annual debate about the when and where of the summit and its agenda. And, as the commentators noted, the debate as such is a clear sign of weakness of overall Arab performance.
And as usual, the debate leading up to the Arab summit was coupled with analyses and suggestions offered to Arab leaders about what they need to do.
Much of the ideas shared on the opinion pages were dedicated to the Palestinian cause. There were the usual and predictable views about the need for tougher Arab stands against increasing Israeli intransigence and US partiality. But there was also some very pragmatic debates. "The Arab summit and the Geneva Accords" was the headline of an opinion peace run by the London-based daily Al-Hayat on Tuesday. In his article, the Jordanian-based, Palestinian commentator Mounir Shafiq warned Arab leaders against giving in to calls made in many Western and Arab quarters to offer their blessings to the Geneva Accords since that would by definition mean further Arab concessions, particularly in relation to the Palestinian right of return that the accords put aside, in return for no concrete Israeli or Western commitments, let alone concessions.
"At its core, the Geneva Accords are meant to get the Palestinians to give away their legitimate right of return for nothing," argued Shafiq. He said there was no reason for the Arab leaders to capitulate, especially now when the Israeli prime minister is up against increased national, regional and international pressure.
Shafiq argues that it is not only the Palestinians who will get nothing out of an Arab summit adopting the Geneva Accords. Other Arabs, too, will face the same fate. Arabs, Shafiq wrote, "do not need to persuade Israelis that the Arab world is a partner for dialogue and settlement. After all, the Arabs, in their Beirut summit [2002] offered a peace initiative to serve this particular purpose [of promoting Arab countries as peace partners]."
Iraq, too, was an issue that Arab commentators debated within the context of the upcoming summit. When Arab leaders convened last year on 1 March they swore that they would do everything possible to prevent the US invasion of Iraq. Less than three weeks later, when the fighting began, many of them were busy facilitating the Anglo-American war on Iraq.
Offering a helping hand to the Iraqi people was something that many Arab commentators deemed necessary to discuss in the upcoming Arab summit. An editorial in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Ra'i Al-Am on Saturday argued that Arab leaders should not turn a blind eye to the situation in Iraq "that may witness a serious power struggle and tribal conflict". At a time when the Americans are contemplating the wisdom of staying in Iraq, "Arabs have to seriously think of what they can do to help the Iraqis out of this current crisis," Al-Ra'i Al-Am wrote.
According to Al-Ra'i Al-Am and other Kuwaiti papers, whatever Arabs decide to do in relation to Iraq, they must make sure that a new Iraqi regime similar to that of the toppled President Saddam Hussein will not be installed.
It was, however, the reform of the Arab League that the Arab press felt would be given top billing in the summit. With news of Arab capitals consulting with the Arab League secretariat over a blueprint for the reform of the 60-year-old Pan-Arab organisation, Arab commentators had some thoughts to share with their leaders. Many of them argued that Arab countries have no alternative but to work hard on reforming their representative, namely the Arab League, despite its symbolic nature. For many commentators, to stall on reform is to declare the end of any form of collective Arab system.
"Reform the Arab League or have it buried if you wish", was the headline of an article on Thursday in the Tunisian paper Al-Shorouq. According to the daily, which maintains close contacts with the Tunisian government, "the current [depressing state] is a reflection of the overall shape of the Arab world... a systematic programme of reform needs to be applied... or else be declared dead."
On the same day, the controversial London-based daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi argued that it was unconvincing that Arab governments talk of reforming the Arab League without giving enough thought to reforming their own failed systems. Under the headline, "Fix your own house before you talk of the Arab League", the Al-Quds Al-Arabi editorial argued that it would be almost impossible to induce any serious reforms if Arab governments continue old and obsolete thinking. It also expressed scepticism over the real intention of Arab leaders. "Everybody knows that the advocate and champion of reform of the Arab League is its own secretary-general, Amr Moussa... but we remember only too well the [character assassination] campaign that Moussa was subjected to when he expressed keenness to prevent the war in Iraq which he viewed as detrimental to the well-being of the collective Arab order."
For Al-Quds Al-Arabi, the lip service being paid by Arab capitals to reform the Arab League is familiar to the categorical rejection -- at least up front -- projected by these very same capitals of the war in Iraq. "If Moussa is now being punished on the part of some Arab capitals by suspending the annual financial contributions to the budget of the Arab League," the editorial wrote, "it is very difficult to think of any serious reform in the pipeline."
But as the daily Jordanian Addoustour and the daily UAE Al-Bayan both warned in their editorial and opinion pieces on Sunday, if the next Arab summit fails to face the challenge of reform, then Arab countries will fail to survive the many political, security and economic challenges they increasingly face.
