Rival Arab leaders converged on Kuwait and Doha in the hope that pan-Arab kick-start plans ease the Palestinian pain, write Gamal Nkrumah and Mohamed El-Sayed Mavericks are occasionally right. And at this particular historical moment, the tiny oil-rich emirate of Qatar is widely considered by a majority of independent Egyptian commentators as something of a non-conformist iconoclast. Pundits are divided over Egypt's official stance vis-à-vis the Palestinian conundrum. Some are sympathetic and others are highly critical of the Egyptian position. Qatar's call for a pan-Arab summit fell on deaf ears, at least as far as the heavyweights of Arab politics -- Egypt and Saudi Arabia -- are concerned. Reading the Egyptian headlines the world would be forgiven for thinking that the Qatar authorities had buckled under international pressure for the assiduous Gulf state to step up efforts to act as mediator in all sorts of conflicts in the Arab region including the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. And against such a contentious backdrop Egyptian readers were offered a sneak preview of Qatari machinations. Editor-in-Chief Abdullah Kamal of the official daily Rose El-Youssef lambasted Qatar in an article entitled "Castigating the little prince", on the Arab Cold War, branding Qatar as the main culprit in instigating dissent among Arab states. Al-Jazeera, the Qatari-based pan-Arab satellite television channel, too, came under intense fire. The consensus was that Qatar, the small oil-rich Gulf emirate, has grown too big for its boots. "It is the right of the host nation of any Arab summit to invite whoever it wishes even if the invitee is Iran or Israel," Kamal pontificated. "The larger Arab countries must exercise a veto against rashness and teenage antics of the smaller states," he added. The states that attended the Qatar summit in order to discuss the situation in Gaza were not singled out for retribution, however. Neither was Iran castigated. However, the presence of non-Arab Iran at the summit caused quite a stir in several Arab capitals. "Twelve states, five presidents, and Iran meet in Doha," Kamal noted disapprovingly. What is so terrible about the Qatar summit was that it attempted in vain to upstage the Egyptian initiative that led to the cessation of hostilities in Gaza. Pundits reviewed the consequences of the savage Israeli aggression against the hapless Palestinians of Gaza. Writing in the daily independent Al-Masry Al-Yom, Hassan Nafaa argued that, "the Israeli attacks against Gaza have failed on the military and ethical levels. The ethics of the Israeli state and society as a whole have hit rock bottom." He added that, "the Israelis have on purpose directed their attacks against the Palestinian civilians, including fire-fighting personnel, ambulance, media people, and employees of international organisations." The writer continued in a most sceptical tone. "The Israelis destroyed houses, mosques, churches, schools, press and television bureaus, graveyards and even hospitals. The Israelis were ready to go on with their dirty war even if it led to genocide. The evidence: they attacked the stores of UNRWA that is responsible for feeding 750,000 citizens in the Gaza Strip." The front-page headline of Al-Ahram highlighted "Mubarak warns the Arab world of divisions and capitalising on the suffering of the Palestinian people". The paper also spotlighted Mubarak's speech at the Kuwait summit. "We will not rest unless Israel withdraws completely from Gaza". Al-Ahram Editor-in-Chief Osama Saraya emphasised that, "the Sharm El-Sheikh summit brought to the fore the vital importance of resolving the Palestinian question. It is the most pertinent question of 2009." Egypt, Saraya insisted, spearheaded international calls for a diplomatic solution to the Gaza crisis. Ironically, some Egyptian commentators were most critical of the Egyptian policy towards the crisis in Gaza. Nafaa was no exception. "There is no shadow of a doubt that the Israeli army did not fail ethically alone; it was also the entire Israeli civil society," he argued. Nafaa harshly criticised the Egyptian regime for allegedly failing to live up to the people's expectations. "There is no word that can best describe the Egyptian regime's behaviour towards the crisis other than 'conspiracy'," he concluded. "The Egyptian diplomatic and media approaches to the crisis were in the best interests of Israel," he added. He resolved that "the Egyptian regime has ethically failed in the Gaza test," taking into consideration that Egypt assumed the responsibility over Gaza from 1948 to 1967 and caused the Strip to be occupied twice by the Israelis. Nafaa was not alone in his harsh criticism of the Egyptian policy. Prominent Islamic thinker Mohamed Selim El-Awwa called upon the Arabs to "boycott the Israelis, demonstrate against their actions, show solidarity with each other, and teach their children to hate Israel," as he was quoted as saying in the weekly Al-Osbou. Nevertheless, several distinguished commentators defended the Egyptian position. Writing in Al-Masry Al-Yom, Abdel-Moneim Said argued that it would be counter-productive that Egypt severs diplomatic ties with Israel. Why should Egypt bear the brunt of the Israeli and American wrath? "It is unreasonable to ask Egypt to cut its diplomatic ties with Israel and at the same time call upon Cairo to work for a ceasefire [between the Israelis and the Palestinians]," Abdel-Moneim observed. "It would be impossible for Egypt to have any influence at this crucial moment if it cut its diplomatic ties with Israel." He added, "Egypt cannot be required to alleviate the sufferings of the Palestinians in Gaza by entering humanitarian aid to the Strip at a time when it has no channel of communication with the other party to the conflict. Egypt wouldn't have been able to safely bring Hamas officials out of Gaza through the Rafah Crossing with the prior consent of the Israeli forces for negotiations [in Cairo] if it weren't for the channels of communication between Egypt and Israel." The international economic meltdown was also the subject of much discussion in the press. The fact that the Arab economic summit took place in Kuwait at this historical juncture made it a relative success, the official papers concluded. Writing in the daily official Al-Ahram, Makram Mohamed Ahmed reflected on the Arab economic summit in Kuwait. "It was a good sign that the summit was held amid all the chaos that reigns supreme in the Arab world because of the controversy over holding an emergency Arab summit to tackle the war on Gaza. Despite the political disagreements, Arab leaders journeyed to Kuwait in the hope that the economy would bring them together after politics had left them divided." If politics divide Arab ranks, economics may well unite them.
