COMMON SENSE After the Arab Summit: Have The Arab Leaders Lived Up to the Challenge? [Archives:2000/44/Focus]

By: Hassan Al-Haifi
It is really inconceivable that the Arab leaders who were so slow in getting together just to talk about the recent Middle East Crisis, when Israel once again showed that it did not give a damn about the Arabs, their leadership or the peace process, even if the latter was engineered by the United States, had really any inkling of what was being displayed by the Israelis over the last month or so of bloodshed mainly suffered by a helpless population, who have known nothing but suffering for close to four generations now.
As for our monumental Arab leaders, who have time and again shown that in the end they really are powerless midgets that fail to harmonize their thinking with that of their constituencies, although their propaganda machines magnify them to the state of mythical beings, at the expense of the public treasury of course.
As was expected, the Arab leaders meeting in Cairo last week failed in coming out with the concrete resolutions that reflect their appreciation of their constituent much stronger attachment to the greater national issues that confront their nation, or the sympathy they have for the undue suffering of their brethren in the cities of the West Bank and Gaza the remaining 10% of their national home.  Moreover, the overriding view in the Arab street is that the Arab Summit was ineffective in curbing the bloody assault on their unarmed brothers in Palestine or in even shaking the Israelis one bit. For all intents and purposes, the Arab Summit was viewed as just a gathering of former friends and new friends for some coffee or tea a social event so that new leaders may have a chance to meet some of the very long-standing leaders, who still have yet to make their marks on the real issues at hand, whether domestically, regionally or internationally.
Ironically, the two weeks of media support and speeches by all these leaders prior to the Summit, seemed nothing more than rhetoric geared to absorb the anger felt by most Arabs at the sight of cold blooded murder being unleashed and broadcast live to the whole world every day at the hands of the Israeli Defense Forces with their Rambo outfits ready to show how tough and resolute they are in living up to their national causes.
However, when it was their turn to show what they are going to do to answer their constituents demand for concrete action to show that 300 million people are simply not going to stomach these atrocities, the Arab leaders once again showed that they are operating on different wavelengths from the Arab masses as usual.
Mind you, no one expected the Arab leaders to take off their various outfits and put on their battle gear they have reserved that for facing up to any potential protest or uprising from their own people. However, one was expecting to at least see some reflection of the severe pain at heart one feels upon seeing such pitiful scenes as the cold blooded murder of Mohammed Al-Durra, repeated almost on a daily basis.  However, apparently these leaders have lost all heart and emotions for the suffering of anyone at home at their hands – let alone suffering outside their domains.  It is not a mystery anymore, then, that the Arab leaders seem to act on the whims of other power centers beyond their own borders, feeling somewhat ill at ease at having to survive in a single superpower world, which limits their maneuverability politically.  After all, most of them are the product of a bipolar world, where they were able to vie for support of any of the Big powers in order to maintain their hold on their peoples necks.
Nevertheless, it makes no difference to them that the superpower happens to be the mentor and sponsor of the menace that lies in their midst, a menace that stops at nothing to realize its goals and aspirations, and hardly gives any care to world public opinion, which it can always claim to be no more than an anti-Semitic (note they have even stolen our ethnic description and claim it solely for themselves) streak or a biased streak, which does not express the objective opinion of its speakers.  All that matters is that they should not come out with anything that disturbs the foreign policy makers of Washington D.C., most of whom now happen to be members of the Jewish faith all of whom undoubtedly can never opt for a foreign policy that will stand in the way of the Zionist dream or work against the interests of Israel, no matter how much they will claim to be only working for Americas interests.  There should be no illusions about such matters and it would be very difficult to believe that as far as Israel is concerned, these policy makers have no second thoughts about where they the US should stand.
For sure, no one is certain why these leaders decided to meet at all, since the desired objectives, as far as the millions that went out on the street from Mauritania to the Persian Gulf saw them, were the last thing on these leaders minds. 
It was a conference of wide ranging speeches, of which the speech by Hafez Al-Assads son, Dr. Bashar, seemed to outdo all the others, in terms of projecting a clear set of strategic alternatives that should be pursued by a nation confronted with a wily enemy that fully believes that it was power that set it up and it is power that will keep it sustained, and fully understands that power and force is the only thing that can tame it, since Washington D.C. has declined to do so.  Even the Israelis had to admit that Dr. Bashars speech was the only one that worried them of all the 22 or so leaders who spoke, including those who supposedly projected extreme tendencies.
So what is the situation we have now after the Extraordinary Summit?  We have a Fund to which peanuts will be put in, when compared to the formidable sums Israel gets and spends from the United States and World Jewry.  It is not apparent to this observer if such a Fund is sufficient enough to clear the conscience of those who opted for it and supported it in the Summit, and for sure it will hardly do anything to enhance the capability of the Palestinians to counter the might of the Israeli Defense Forces with all their battle gear pointed point-blank at them, nor even to alleviate the hardships their brave fight is bound to create no jobs, no food, no medicine and no hope.  It is really distressing that for a nation that sits atop the worlds biggest oil reserves, it should be content with a fund of US 1 Billion to counter the annihilation of an important element of its people, who are putting a brave fight to keep the head of the entire nation so high, and to defend the sacred holy sites, revered by their constituencies.
A few critics went on to chide the Arab leaders by saying that the Israeli leaders Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon – are actually loyal to their national causes, and had our Arab leaders been just half as loyal to their national causes, the Arab states would be in a far different position and Israel would think twice about creating any situation that would move these leaders to far more concrete resolutions, using all the weapons at their disposal, as the situation would dictate. 
Noting the series of blows that Hizbullah, under the leadership of Sheik Hassan Nasrullah (translated the victory of Allah), have dealt the apparently feeble Israelis, some critics went on to suggest all the Arab leaders had to do was to pass a resolution to hand over all the Arab military forces and weaponry to be under the command of the Hizbullah leader, and pretty soon you will have a state of Palestine in its natural borders, or at least a just peaceful settlement of the Middle East Crisis, in no time at all.
It seems that the Arab population will have to find some other means of convincing their leaders that they and their constituencies must see eye to eye on all the issues that are confronting the Arab nation, whether at the domestic, local or regional level.  The Arab people are tired of seeing their blood wasted in vain for causes that never float above the surface of the water.  The Arab pis tired of seeing its resources wasted on the glorification of leaders, who have in essence, failed in fulfilling any of their constituents aspirations, domestically and regionally.  The Arab people are tired of hearing endless rhetoric, without any practical reflections that give such rhetoric substance.  The Arab people are tired of the vast waste of resources, which work only to enhance the wealth of their leaders and their cronies and fail to give back the people anything in return. 
For sure, as the Inifadha continues in Palestine, the Arab people might be inclined to consider many more Intifadhas throughout the Arab world unless their leaders deliver and deliver fast.

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