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Hours Before The Summit, U.S. And Palestinian Demands Contradict
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| Saudi
Crown Prince Abdullah
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Report by Khaled Mamdouh, IOL Staff
BEIRUT, March 26 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – On the eve of Wednesday's Arab summit in Beirut, and in the absence of almost half the Arab leaders, Palestinian and American demands, from the summit, contradicted sharply.
Pessimism dominated Beirut, hours before the inaguaration of the Arab summit, over the absence of 11 heads of state, sending deputies to replace them. This large number of absentees is the first case ever in the history of Arab summits.
On top of those not attending comes the Egyptian President whose absence represented a heavy-weight surprise. Mubarak’s absence, over domestic reasons as declared by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, came one day after he (Mubarak) advised Arafat not to go to Lebanon.
The Egyptian leader justified his advice by warning Sharon “would use any pretext to destroy the little left of the Palestinian Authority’s infrastructure and ban Arafat himself from returning to Palestine”.
For his part, Sharon late Tuesday declared, on Israeli TV, that Arafat would not be allowed to attend the summit.
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| Palestinian
President Yasser Arafat |
An Egyptian Member of Parliament, Hamad Bin Sabbahy, commented on the absence of Arab leaders saying, “If they stay away to reject American pressures over them not to denounce Israeli and U.S. policies, I see it as a good move.”
Sabbahy, however, criticized some leaders for not attending. “When Mubarak stays away, it is understood, because he is a regional leader with a heavy ppolitical weight whose absence is viewed as message.
“But leaders of Sudan and Qatar not attending represents an unacceptable move, because they have no reasons not to go,” he added.
In a separate related development, Washington urged Arab leaders to remain focused on a Saudi initiative to bring peace to the Middle East even if Yasser Arafat was unable to attend.
Three Palestinian movements, on the other, including Arafat's Fatah, called on the Arab leaders to renew their support for the Intifada against Israeli occupation.
"The Arab summit in Beirut is urged to adopt a position ... in order to exert pressure for an end to Israeli aggression and occupation," said a Fatah statement received by Agenc France-Presse (AFP).
The largest Palestinian party, which was founded by the Palestinian leader in 1959, also said it would continue "the revolution and the resistance until the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital."
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Fatah which claimed the bulk of recent resistance anti-Israeli attacks, also called on the two-day summit to provide financial and military backing to the Intifada.
Meanwhile, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters Tuesday that "no matter what decisions are made about attendance, there still will be an Arab League Summit." Fleisher was expressing President George W. Bush's "high hopes" that the Arab meeting will be a "summit that focuses on peace,"
Aware of the difficulties in achieving a durable ceasefire on the ground, the White House cautiously hailed the Saudi initiative without endorsing every detail, with Fleischer on Tuesday calling it a "very constructive" way to reinvigorate the peace process.
"Without getting into exactly how one nation defines the word normalization ... (Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz's proposal), at its core, was a recognition of Israel as a state... which, in the Middle East, is progress," Fleischer said.
"That is progress that the President would like to see extended to other Arab nations."
Observers, in the Middle East, believe the Americans want to use the Saudi initiative as a card to “kill the Palestinian Intifada,” in light of Sharon’s failure to do so.
The Beirut summit is a "wonderful opportunity" for Arab nations to set out a path for peace in the Middle East, the spokesman claimed.
“The President (Bush) believes that ways have been found in the Arab world to step forward, and the President wants to make sure that people continue to take those steps forward”.
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