UK -Politics & World Current Affairs

This is the full version as space restrictions in the Middle East Magazine rquired a much shorter one. 

The 21st League of Arab Nations summit in Doha, was supposed to be a two day summit of conciliation and dealing with issues ranging from Iranian threats to world financial crisis as wells as the customary Israeli Palestinian settlement, and Palestinian/Palestinian conciliation; but it was cut into one day, most of  the agenda ignored.

Seasoned hacks who preferred the informality the  press centre to being locked in the meeting press gallery, were fighting yawns as President Bashar’s Assad speech – likely to have been dusted off from his late father’s filing cabinet, - dragged on. The first session was nearly half way through with hardly a hack turning to the big screens since no dog had been bitten by a man yet. Thanks to Libyan Leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi boredom was shattered as his apparent effort to patch up differences with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah fell apart as what came out of his mouth – a subject of conflicting interpretations later- sounded like denouncing the Saudi leader’s ties with the West, especially when he stormed out of the meeting after delivering one of his incoherent short lectures.  Interrupt the host, Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the Libyan leader turned on the king , saying: “It has been six years you have been avoiding a confrontation with me. You are propelled by fibs towards the grave and you were made by Britain and protected by the Americans .'’  He was referring to the 2003 Sharmel-Elshiekh summit when he accused Saudi Arabia of “bringing the Americans to occupy Iraq”. This was later ‘ corrected’ by the Qataris explaining that the eccentric colonel was repeating what he said in Sharm el- Sheikh to the Saudi Monarch in order to make up. The 2003 outburst lead to frozen relations between the two nations.

The Qataris had to clarify the situation, a diplomatic source told the TME, because the official Libyan News Agency JANA, distributed, within minutes of Cl Gaddafi’s intervention out, what it claimed to be ‘ the correct and accurate version of the leader’s [Gaddafi’s] words’ which was more harsh and included a typical Gaddaffite statement heard by millions watching the live broadcast : ‘’ I am a leader of international status, ‘’ Said cl Gaddafi, ‘’ a doyen of Arab leaders, the king of kings of Africa and the  Imam of all Muslims and will not lower my standards'’,  before stalking out of the meeting room to go  to visit museum of Islamic Arts.

Earlier in the day he had refused to pose with the other leaders for the customary family photograph. The Emir of Qatar later hosted the King and the colonel at a “reconciliation” meeting, which a Libyan spokesman said had ended the “misunderstanding” between the two nations.

However it was reported that he ‘ tried it on,’ with the host, Sheikh Hamad, prompting the latter to deploy sense humour to brush aside another Gaddafi’s tantrum saying ‘’ I just reconciled you with the Saudis, is it now my turn? [ to be criticised by you]’’ according to witnesses in the closed session.  

The Doha summit, was supposed to be forging united stance over Iran and Israel, and promoting reconciliation between feuding Palestinian factions. Its prospects had already been dimmed at the start by a last-minute decision by President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt not to attend, sending instead a third rank politician, which meant a defacto freeze of the Israeli-Palestinian settlement item on the agenda until a possible thawing in the next meeting, as seasoned observers know. Not only Egypt is one of two LAN members with full normal diplomatic relations with Israel, it is the only power banging Palestinian factions’ heads together in order to form a functional united Palestinian government. The Egyptian leader, who attended a meeting in Riyadh two weeks earlier with leaders of  Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Syria, was disappointed by the latter’s President Assad refusal to mute his links with Teheran.

The final communiqué complicated matters as it put a deadline for Israel to accept the King Abdullah’s ‘ Arab Peace Plan’ endorsed by the Beirut summit six years ago, which is unlikely to be accepted by Israel without ‘positive, practical and meaningful steps by the Arabs’ according to Israeli diplomats. When he was Israel’s foreign minister, Shimon Peres, told TME, ‘ our postal and email addresses as well as our fax numbers are known to Arab leaders and to [LAN Secretary General] Dr Amr Mousa, but we are still waiting to receive a draft [of a peace treaty] on which we can begin to work.’  The danger with a deadlines, a western diplomat said, it could run out with the Israelis mocking you what are you going to do then?’

It seemed not only that the summit was going nowhere as the second important issue, Iran, was ignored, it also seemed that the summiteers were going backwards. President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen withdrew before the start of the concluding sessions sulking over dropping Yemen’s, back to the future, ‘initiative’ for setting up an Arab Union. An outdated 1960’s idea which seems laughable by today’s measures.

 The only issue on which there appears to be overwhelming agreement, alienated the conference from the rest of the world, namely the support for President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, who attended the summit despite the outstanding warrant for his arrest issued by the International Criminal Court.

General Bashir ignored the summit agenda using speech instead to urge his audience to reject the “fabricated” ICC indictment, accusing the United

Nations Security Council, which commissioned the ICC investigation, of corruption, genocide and war crimes in Darfur. Gen Bashir accused Israel, with a straight face, of arming rebels in Darfur. Earlier, Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, had asked Mr Bashir to readmit international aid groups into Sudan. But Sudanese officials say they only threw out 18 out of over 100 organisations!

Secretary General Mousa was hinting at a possible solution to Gen Bashir’s Crisis by avoiding the word’ rejecting’ and suggesting instead working thwart the implementation of ICC ruling’. But the final communiqué, on Gen Bashir’s insistence, put the Arabs on a collision course with the world community, especially if UN Security Council upheld the ICC ruling under Chapter seven of its charter. A likely outcome before the 22^nd Arab summit, hosted by non but Colonel Gaddafi himself…Watch this space.