Sirte - Leaders of the 22 countries that make up the Arab League have no shortage of crises in the region to discuss, yet many of them may not attend Saturday's summit in Libya. Arab summits are meant as shows of Arab unity, a message yearly overshadowed by absences and disputes among the members. Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif is expected to attend the summit on the behalf of President Hosni Mubarak, who is recovering from surgery in Germany. Egypt last year sent a minister of state to the summit in Qatar, a slight many ascribed to Egyptian objections to Qatari news network al-Jazeera's coverage of events in Egypt. But that move was overshadowed by Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi's storming out from the summit following a dispute with the Saudi king. Gaddafi is unlikely to storm out of his own summit, but many in the region will first be watching to see who does turn up as an indication as to whether personal rivalries will overshadow declarations of unity. Egypt on Thursday proposed that the meeting be called 'The Jerusalem Summit,' in light of the tensions in the region over continued Israeli construction in East Jerusalem. The Palestinians and other Arab League members hope to make East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed after the 1967 Middle East war, the capital of a future Palestinian state. 'Jerusalem is not a settlement. It is our capital,' Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday told the leading pro- Israel lobby group in the United States. Arab League spokesman Hisham Youssef confirmed to the German Press Agency dpa that East Jerusalem would dominate the meeting. 'The negative signs from Israel in the recent period have confirmed the Arab conviction that Israel is not serious in its movement towards peace,' he said. Many will be watching to see whether Arab states withdraw their recent backing of US-brokered, indirect, 'proximity' talks between Israelis and Palestinians in light of subsequent Israeli decisions to continue building in East Jerusalem. The leaders will also discuss Iran's nuclear programme, viewed with alarm by many of its Arab neighbours, continued conflict in Sudan, and the political and armed conflict in Iraq. Iraq on Thursday became the latest country to announce it would send only a low-level delegation to the meeting in the coastal Libyan town of Sirte. The announcement followed Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari's dramatic departure on Thursday. Zebari stormed out of a ministerial meeting ahead of the summit to protest Gaddafi's meeting earlier in the week with former senior members of Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath Party. Lebanon's President Michel Suleiman likewise will not attend, but will send a lower-level delegate in his stead. Lebanon had earlier returned Libya's invitation because the invitation arrived at the Lebanese Embassy in Syria. The embassy cited 'administrative reasons,' saying it was not authorised to receive or respond to the invitation, but this diplomatic language obscured a longstanding dispute between Lebanon and Libya. Relations between the two countries have not recovered since a high-ranking Shi'ite Lebanese cleric went missing in Tripoli in 1978. Libya has denied involvement, and closed its embassy in Beirut to protest the Lebanese accusations. Beirut in 2008 issued an arrest warrant for Gaddafi. And so it is perhaps little wonder that Gaddafi, by sending the invitation to the Lebanese Embassy in Damascus, might wish to snub Lebanon by refusing to recognize the government in Beirut. The list of further absentees is said to include Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, who has not yet confirmed his attendance, as well as Oman's Sultan Qabous Ibn Said, and Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Salih. Jordan's King Abdullah II announced Thursday that he would lead Jordan's delegation, calling the summit 'an important milestone.'
