The Arab summit held in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, together with the US-led air strikes against Syria were the two biggest issues that engaged the press this week. Makram Mohamed Ahmed noted that the Arab countries may be in a better situation ahead of the Dammam summit, but still face challenges that are no less dangerous than in the past. Israel, Mohamed Ahmed explained, is still escalating its aggression against the Palestinians at a time when Syria is facing an American strike against various military and civilian targets in response to the alleged use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad against the opposition. However, Mohamed Ahmed added in Al-Ahram that although some Arab countries believe that Al-Assad deserved to be punished, others sympathise with the Syrians. So, the strike is not likely to cause any division among Arab states in the summit. “Given that the Dammam summit is the first after the US president's decision to acknowledge Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, it should unite the Arab countries and make them more adamant that the chief condition for peace in the region is the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital,” Mohamed Ahmed said. Emadeddin Adeeb wrote that President Al-Sisi's statements before the summit were direct and accurate. More importantly, Adeeb added, it derived its credibility from the experiences that proved that his vision regarding Arab national security was right. It has become clear to our brothers in the Gulf, Adeeb wrote, that the Yemeni file could have been used by some regional countries to deplete the resources of the oil-rich countries and take them into a dark tunnel. It has also become clear to the region and the world, he elaborated, that the military involvement in Syria and transforming it into an arena to settle accounts between superpowers is an absurd war that would only benefit the manufacturers of weapons. “It has become clear that Egypt's policy to achieve rapprochement between the Palestinian factions is the basis for finding a united partner that is acceptable in the negotiations to recapture what remains of the occupied Palestinian territories,” Adeeb wrote in the daily Al-Watan. Akram Al-Kassass wrote in the daily Al-Youm Al-Sabei that whatever the pretexts for the US, Britain and France attacking Syria, they fall within their conflict with Russia and have nothing to do with Syrian interests or its political future. “Experience from Iraq, Syria and Libya has proven that occupiers do not establish democracy and that the fall of a state does not open the door to its freedom. The questionable stand remains the Syrian opposition that hails the Western strikes against their country although they are not fighters. Instead, they voluntarily handed their weapons to Da'esh and Al-Qaeda. Then they allowed themselves to talk in the name of the Syrian people and rejoice at the strikes against them,” Al-Kassass wrote. By Amr Fahmi, Al-Akhbar The first picture of the Security Council after Syria was attacked without the consent of international legitimacy
