Al-Ahram Weekly | Opinion | Strategic juxtapositions

Arab hawks may have got what they want: a right-wing government in Israel with which no negotiation will be possible. But on the ground, Israel is still entrenching its position, writes Abdel-Moneim Said*

As I write this, the Arab summit has not yet convened. Not only is it unclear what the summit will produce, it is not even certain who is going to attend. Still, the summit most likely will go ahead with whoever is present and there is a long list of resolutions that are periodically issued. Perhaps some censure or rebuke will be aimed at persons who came or left and undoubtedly there will be talk of the seriousness of the Arab reconciliation process combined with proclamations regarding the degree of deterioration in Arab relations or the extent of steadfastness in the defence of Arab causes. In all events, don't despair. A few days later, the whole affair will have been forgotten and governments will return to other agendas. The only people who will remember what actually went on in the forthcoming summit are the type to remember what went on in the last summit and the one before that.

The fact is that the heart of the Arab world does not beat to the rhythm of Arab summits. The forthcoming summit will get a few minutes in the international press and a few seconds on television. It could be that by the time I get around to next week's article, all attention will have turned away already. This is not meant to demean the Arab leadership in any way. Whatever one might think of them and their performance in government, they are responsible for some 350 million people -- or about the size of the population of the US and inhabiting about the same expanse of land. Rather, the problem resides in the way the Arab summit has been designed institutionally. Its very notional underpinnings are rather absurd, as it was established as a governing council for a hypothetical Arab state extending from the Atlantic to the Gulf. The council was meant to embody all the hopes and expectations of its member government and peoples, and writers and opinion pundits. The latter has come to include a relatively recent brigade: television commentators who spout fiery remarks and retire to bed at night with easy consciences not weighed upon by any sense of responsibility whatsoever. But even before the rise of television of this quality, the ruling council, as the repository of the Arab nation's hopes and aspirations, had to project an image of unity. Towards this end, it needed to create an illusory consensus, which entailed approving lists of resolutions. These were generally tailored to the whims of the most extreme members, otherwise there would be open rifts and invective in the press, so it was simply easier to say "Yes," and go home in peace, letting the radicals and extremists enjoy their smug pleasure of having added a new stock of resolutions to their store.

Of course, the strategic and economic realities of the region cannot be bent to such illusions and resolutions. They operate according to the particular logic of how things play out on the ground. But since Arab leaders are preoccupied with the resolutions and the victories of steadfastness and defiance during the summit, and with their endless contests of will in between the summits, they have no time to deal with what is happening on the ground. Hizbullah may have had a victory in 2006 because it withstood the Israeli assault, although we might need a definition of steadfastness that extends beyond Hassan Nasrallah's ability to survive. Hamas may have won a victory in the last war in Gaza because it kept firing missiles and its leaders in Damascus and Gaza are still alive. However, the real situation is that Arab Jerusalem, as we know it, is rapidly coming to an end while Israeli settlements in the West Bank are doubling. This is very confusing. If Israel has suffered two successive defeats, how do you explain those realities on the ground and the fact that Israel has not yet begged for peace?

To make matters worse, there is another war taking place in the Arab region that remains largely shrouded in mystery. Last week, Sudanese sources leaked news of a military operation in northwest Sudan in which aircraft bombarded 17 trucks carrying arms and ammunition from Port Sudan. All the trucks were destroyed and 39 people were killed. When I read the news as it was first reported in Cairo's Al-Shorouk newspaper, responsibility was attributed to the US. Several days later, a US television station announced that the entire operation had been carried out by Israel.

More curious yet, the operation took place in January. Moreover, it was of such a scale that the Sudanese government could not possibly have been unaware of what happened. Yet, Khartoum tacitly conspired with the Israeli government to maintain a veil of secrecy over a flagrant assault against Sudanese sovereignty, which President Omar Al-Bashir has been so zealously defending and which the Arab nation, as embodied in the Arab League, vowed to defend along with the Sudanese president. Apparently, when Sudanese sovereignty involves the people of Darfur it is one thing, and when it involves Israel it is another. There was no outcry, no announcement whatsoever, so there was no scandal and no loss of face. The honour of Khartoum and Al-Bashir was still intact. Bear in mind that this took place after Obama had come to power in the US, which means that this had nothing to do with the teeth that were bared against the Middle East in the final days of the Bush administration. Notice, too, that this is not the first incident of this sort. There was another case of collusion in silence when Israel bombarded what it claimed was a nuclear reactor under construction in Syria. Whether or not the building was really destined to become a nuclear reactor, the fact remains that a building on the territory of a sister Arab nation was levelled to the ground by foreign aerial assault.

Now, I have no way of knowing whether the Arab summit will turn its attention to the air raid against Sudan or to the depth of the US-Israeli agreement concerning arms smuggling into Gaza, or whether it will give higher priority to the ruling of the International Criminal Court because of its affront against the sovereignty of the Sudanese leadership, on the grounds that the sovereignty of Sudanese territory itself, and Sudan's right and duty to defend its territory, are matters that are best put off a bit until the problems of Darfur and the south are settled. But what I do know is that no country can live and grow without discussing its problems openly and realistically.

If President Anwar El-Sadat had listened to what many were saying in the wake of the 1973 War, Egyptian territory would still be under occupation, to the not inconsiderable delight of some Egyptian and Arab groups because that would mean that "the struggle" was still continuing. Sadat followed a very simple piece of wisdom: liberate the land first, thereby depriving Israel of further opportunity to settle upon it and, simultaneously, trim Israel's territorial ambitions. Then, once you gain the support of the entire world behind this change, you can turn the new strategic position to your advantage. This wisdom seemed to shine in advance of the scheduled summit, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Egyptian- Israeli Peace Treaty on 26 March.

However, the strategic situation today is totally different, not just because three decades have passed or because no one else heeded Sadat's wisdom, but also because Arab radicalism has attained its greatest wish. The peace process has reached its end. A purely Zionist, racist and belligerent government has come to power in Israel and there is no peace camp worthy of mention left in that country. Meanwhile, the US is too busy with its economic crisis and with withdrawing from Iraq and redeploying in Afghanistan to worry about us and about Israel. Arab radicals, whether in the Arab nationalist, Nasserist or Islamist mantles, could not have wished for a more lethal climate. It exceeds their greatest dreams. Now all they have to do is to stand up as models of steadfastness, defiance and resistance. But I have one request to ask of them: please don't replace open wars with secret raids and attacks over which you hope to conspire with Israel to keep under wraps. If Arab peace advocates had once been cautioned against Israeli deceptiveness, Arab war hawks should similarly be on guard because the Israelis are not known for the virtue of silence.

* The writer is director of Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.