Once again, the Arab collective order is in disarray, even on fundamental Arab issues, Dina Ezzat reports The extraordinary Arab foreign ministers meeting that was scheduled for yesterday evening at the headquarters of the Arab League did not appear set to achieve its objective of agreeing an Arab plan of action for Palestinian reconciliation and underlining Arab support for the Palestinian team negotiating with Israel the basis of a peace settlement. Even less, the meeting appeared incapable of reaching a consensual stand in solidarity with Palestinians starving in darkness in Gaza as Israel continues to impose a punitive siege on the Strip. Prior to their arrival to the meeting, Arab delegations had already been arguing via the pan-Arab organisation, leaving its secretary-general overwhelmed with the task of reconciling the conflicting views of disagreeing Arab capitals, especially influential ones -- Cairo and Riyadh, on the one hand, and Damascus and Doha on the other. A crucial point of disagreement is how to handle the humanitarian disaster in Gaza. Egypt, that failed to convene a Palestinian reconciliation meeting 10 November due to what it qualifies as Hamas's cold feet, wants the Arab League and Arab capitals to exercise pressure on Hamas to prompt its participation in reconciliation dialogue. For this to happen, Cairo particularly wants Damascus and Doha to "use their influence" with Hamas, whose key leaders are hosted by Syria and financed by Qatar, so it would agree to a reconciliation format it thus far rejects. Hamas sees Egypt as biased towards rival President Mahmoud Abbas, who insists that Hamas should agree to an indefinite end to all military resistance to the Israeli occupation. Saudi Arabia, among others, supports Cairo and Abbas, Arab diplomats argue. This stand, however, is the opposite of Syria's. Syrian diplomats who spoke to Al-Ahram Weekly in Damascus argued that their state is not going to pressure Hamas to give up on its legitimate right of resistance to occupation, especially at a time when Abbas, as he publicly admits, is far from making any progress on the negotiations path. Syria, its diplomats say, believes that sustainable Palestinian reconciliation should be based on the accommodation of all Palestinian views. For its part, Qatar argues -- tactfully -- that clear Egyptian sympathy with the point of view of Abbas makes it hard for Cairo to be the sole mediator of Palestinian reconciliation. Doha, which is proud of its intervention that ended two years of internal Lebanese strife, argues that it too has a role to play, alongside Syria and next to Egypt and Saudi Arabia. It is indirectly suggesting that should Egyptian mediation run into an impasse, an Arab committee should take over, promptly. In essence, the disagreement seems one that has been facing the Arab world since the landslide victory of Hamas in the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006: how to approach Hamas? Those who argued for, and adopted, marginalisation as a means to deal with Hamas are sticking to their stance, just as are those who advocate "engaging" Hamas. The disagreement between the two camps is not just playing into the hands of the two Palestinian adversaries, but it is also blocking Arab agreement on how to address the overwhelming humanitarian disaster in Gaza. Advocates of the first camp argue that Hamas has to stop firing rockets into Israel in order to deny Israel the pretext it uses to impose its siege on the Strip. The other camp argues that the calculations of Hamas, whether right or wrong, should not be an excuse for the Arab world to turn a blind eye to the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. They add that the strategy of starving Gaza has failed, for over a year, to oust Hamas by force of angry and hungry residents of the Strip and is unlikely to succeed in the future. With such disagreement extant on crucial and pressing issues, it becomes unrealistic to expect a unified position on Palestinian-Israeli negotiations that Abbas, with overwhelming international support, especially from the Quartet, insists should go on even as Israel fails to live up to the basic requirements of peacemaking, especially the suspension of illegal settlement building in the occupied Palestinian territories. By time of going to press it appeared that the Arab foreign ministers meeting would not produce more than a resolution condemning Israeli violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza, calling on Palestinians to pursue reconciliation (with Egyptian mediation still in the foreground), and appealing to the new US administration and the Quartet to act promptly to promote constructive final status peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis. But given that the resolution will inevitably aim to accommodate all conflicting views, Palestinians on the edge in Gaza would be forgiven for indifference when yet again the Arab world fails to assist them even as it continues to claim that the Palestinian cause is key on the collective Arab agenda.
