Position unchanged

Options following the Riyadh summit are of concern, reads Doaa El-Bey

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Arab leaders have decided to stick to the peace option embodied in the 2002 initiative initiated by Saudi King Abdullah in 2002 and more recently in Riyadh. Some writers hailed the position while others said more action was needed to put the peace process back on track.

Ahmed Youssef Ahmed hailed the Riyadh summit's adherence to the Arab peace initiative. However, Ahmed said the stand was not enough to resolve the Palestinian issue because although Arab regimes have been supporting the initiative for the last five years it did not boost the peace process in any way. Moreover, Ahmed added, the Arab summit in Fez, Morocco, in 1982 produced another initiative that was stronger than that of 2002 but was not implemented. Thus, he concluded that the present balance of power would not help in implementing the 2002 peace plan.

In addition, any negotiations to be held on the basis of the Arab initiative would not be easy going since the initiative is not clear on a number of issues. For instance, it calls for a complete withdrawal from the Arab occupied territories but, unlike the Fez declaration, it did not point to the necessity of removing all Israeli settlements built after 1967. Furthermore, the Arab initiative called for a just resolution of the problem of Palestinian refugees, without specifying that they should be given the right either to return or receive compensation. That opens the door for more Israeli opposition and procrastination.

Given that the Arab initiative could face many obstacles, Ahmed suggested in the United Arab Emirates daily Al-Ittihad that the Arab states could use other trump cards like trying to open an informal or official dialogue with other international parties such as the Democrats who currently control the two houses of the US congress, and that the next president is likely to be from that party.

Ahmed Al-Bughdadi wrote that the strategy of war has proved a failure in confronting the Zionist enemy in the last 50 years. However, Al-Bughdadi believed that the Arabs are not ready for the peace option for many reasons, chief among them the unprecedented political and social hegemony of religious extremism supported by groups that completely reject any peaceful resolution with Israel, and the absence of a clear peace strategy in the Arab initiative -- in other words what kind of peace is the initiative trying to establish: negotiable or conditional; the absence of a popular will for peace with Israel; the growing Iranian influence in the region and the inability of the Arab regimes to stop it; and the presence of other Arab problems like the Iraqi crisis.

Al-Bughdadi concluded in Al-Ittihad that any prospects for peace now would give Israel an unprecedented chance to control the negotiations according to its own interests. "Any chance for peace would require that the Arab states enter into a phase of political and social anarchy in order for future Arab leaders to establish peace on the rubbles of the present."

Nicola Al-Saieg criticised the summit for failing to produce a stronger statement against Israel and its supporters and to reach an additional resolution to freeze all ties with Israel and stop all peace talks until Israel abides by international resolutions. He concluded that the Palestinians do not need financial support, and questioned why the Arabs do not stick seriously to UN resolutions.

"After all these summits, it is clear we need a brave Arab leader who is wise enough to reject any bargains, and fights to recover all the usurped rights of the Palestinians taken by Israel and its supporters who are trying to impose their conditions," Saieg wrote in the London-based daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi.

Nahla Al-Shami regarded the Riyadh summit resolution as a framework that all the social and political movements in the Middle East can follow.

One of the successes of the summit, according to Al-Shami, is that it managed to establish a unified Arab stand, thus sparing the Arab region from being divided into moderate and extremist axes which the US has been recently trying to create.

The greatest success of the summit is espousing the Arab initiative as a framework for the peaceful resolution of the Palestinian issue. "Now, we need to establish multi-level, non-conventional frameworks that could open the door to permanent negotiations that might transform the summit's resolutions into a political plan of action. This plan can anticipate the difficulties and obstacles before there is peace and try to resolve them," Al-Shami wrote in the London-based daily Al-Hayat.

Wahid Abdel-Meguid regarded the summit as the last chance for building the minimum form of solidarity among the Arabs at this particular stage in history.

The solidarity that the Arabs can attain during this present age of division, as Meguid explained, could stem from joint Arab action rather than a unified Arab stand.

Although the Arabs are in a state of division, he elaborated, they could agree to work together to resolve key issues like regaining all the lands occupied after 1967 including Jerusalem, and establishing an independent Palestinian state.

In addition, in their search for joint Arab action, it was not difficult to agree on adhering to the Arab initiative as a framework for peace. However, united Arab action regarding the Palestinian and other pressing issues depends to a great extent on resolving the Lebanese crisis. "The Arabs' success in the formation of an international tribunal and establishing a unity government in Lebanon could be a very good start to joint Arab action and could lead to other successes," Meguid concluded in Al-Hayat.