The Arab summit in Algiers is blasted. Rasha Saad surveys the damage There was one message to the 60th Arab summit in Algiers: no one expects it to bear fruit. With headlines such as "A summit with no head or legs", "A summit with no title", and "A summit of the impotent" commentators gave various reasons for their conclusion. "Why are all Arab summits doomed to failure and why do we still need political and cultural rehabilitation?" the Saudi newspaper Al-Riyadh asked in an editorial. Attempting to answer what it described as "a persistent and confusing question", the editorial said Arabs are dependent, not masters of their fate, and lack consensus. "Every country has its own path; we [Arabs] are lost." The Arabs, the editorial continued, are unable to decide on what is best for them. "Arab problems have become impossible to resolve except with the help of foreign intervention." Al-Riyadh points out that the Algiers summit is being held amid huge complications, Darfur, the Western Sahara, Lebanon and Iraq, that can explode at any time. "Those who wish the summit to be a success do not have a prescription to cure this fatal disease because divisive elements lie among Arab politicians and accordingly there is an impossibility in the occurrence of a unified Arab entity." The editorial also argues that every country claims that it alone understands reality and that its methods are the only ones that should be relied on as a ready-made medication, despite the fact that all Arabs have shortcomings and are all the target of criticism from world powers. In a pessimistic tone the editorial concluded that despite the fact that all nations have suffered from their struggle against "the other", they have been able to look inside themselves and win over their shortcomings by opening all windows. The Arabs though are still living in their deaf and closed world. "This is one of the many reasons that makes the Algiers summit one without a head or legs." Adel Al-Sanhouri from Al-Bayan of the UAE says the summit will never succeed simply because "it is too late and the challenges [facing the Arabs] warned about during previous summits have already become a painful status quo." Al-Sanhouri argues that there is already no voice louder than that of America's (greater Middle East) project in the region. "Reform, American- style is no doubt coming after Washington has become the only player in the Arab arena without a challenger. The Arab political system is shaking in front of the American tsunami." Al-Sanhouri also sees that the outside is not the only one pressuring the Arab political system. From within as well there are voices getting louder, leaving no way for them to escape. "The ghost of pessimism is hanging over the Algiers summit. We all wish the summit does not rush to reconciliation with the enemy." A few days before the summit began, the Jordanian newspaper Ad-Dostour promoted what later became a controversial Jordanian initiative which calls for the revival of the Arab peace initiative adopted in the 2002 Arab summit in Beirut. This time, however, there is no reference to legitimate Palestinian rights to regain East Jerusalem and the right of return. "The Arab peace initiative adopted by the Beirut summit in 2002 is outdated and does not attract any of those parties concerned with the peace process or settling the Arab-Israeli conflict," an Ad-Dostour editorial wrote on Saturday. The editorial said Israel had shown that establishing normal relations with the Arabs as the price for a total withdrawal from Arab and Palestinian territories is not tempting at this stage. The Arab initiative also does not address the security issue which is the major concern of the Israelis. Sensing the possibility of Arab opposition to the initiative (which was in fact later rejected during the summit's preparatory ministerial meetings), Ad-Dostour took an early offensive. "We are preparing for the Algiers summit at a time when some still seek to take us back to outdated language which led to the damage of our regional national security." "Arab League resolutions are not applied because the rhetoric is exaggerated. Deeds are drowned in a deep sea of loss, disunity and despair," the editorial warned. In an editorial entitled "The painful heritage", Al-Ittihad of the UAE criticised both the Arab collective performance and the Arab League. "The Algiers summit puts us before a painful truth: the collective Arab agenda needs to be reviewed and the Arab League has aged and does not have but traces of an Arab dream that it failed to achieve." The history of all summits and Arab league resolutions, the editorial laments, is one of failure, resolutions that are not applied and promises that have not materialised. Ahmed Al-Rubie in the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat commented on the address by Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League, in which he highlighted the hopes being placed on proposals for sweeping reforms of the League. Al- Rubie wrote that Moussa's problem is that he is trying to be a good lawyer for a losing cause. "Arab League reform is impossible in view of the current Arab status." The League, according to Al- Rubie, must above all be committed to the genuine collective work of its members, which, Al-Rubie believes, is lacking. Declaring that the League is approaching death, he says, it "needs to revive its already adopted resolutions and agreements rather than adopt new ones." Mocking the decision of participants to revive the Arab peace initiative, outspoken editor-in- chief of the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper Abdel-Bari Atwan wrote that the decision "is funny by all means. These Arab leaders act as if they are really significant and as if the world is anxiously awaiting their decisions and initiatives. They fail to realise that a small meeting of OPEC's board is far more important than their summit."
