‘Indicative of rivalries in Arab world’

The failure of the Arab summit in Kuwait last week is indicative of the deep-seated rivalries tearing the Arab world apart.

Algeria, Lebanon and Iraq formed an axis that aborted efforts to give the official Syrian seat of representation in the Arab League to the opposition groups aligned with Ahmad Al Jarba’s Syrian National Coalition, fighting to remove the Assad regime.

Moreover, it imposed a hardline tone to the main resolution regarding the Palestinian peace talks.

One of the Arab summit’s resolutions is to reject the concept of recognising Israel as a Jewish state, while Iran is recognised as the Islamic Republic of Iran and Pakistan has its official title as Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

Other Arab countries had, during the last two decades, tagged the name of Islam to their official titles.

Another resolution of the summit asserted that there will be no settlements whatsoever in the occupied territories when a peace treaty is signed, while the Palestinian negotiating team had agreed to keep five main heavily populated settlements around Jerusalem, including Maaleh Adumim with its 40,000 inhabitants, in exchange for Arab territories and villages beyond the Green Line.

The Kuwait Arab summit denied Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas the possibility to be flexible in any future negotiating rounds, which made United States Secretary of State John Kerry interrupt his Rome meetings and fly to Amman, along with special envoy to the Middle East Martin Indyk, to persuade Abbas not to walk out of the next round of negotiations with the Israelis, since Kerry is committed to submit, within four weeks, his final detailed framework for a peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians, to end 60 years of enmity during which six brutal wars devoured 54,000 Israelis and 97,000 Arabs.

The Kuwait summit failed as well to reconcile Qatar and other Gulf emirates. The Saudi determination to have Sheikh Tamim of Qatar renounce his provocative policy against Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates came very close to an ultimatum to use all means if he does not stop Al Jazeera TV satellite channel and put an end to what is claimed to be “military training camps” for saboteurs targeting other Gulf countries.

The ultimatum mentioned openly a military land and air blockade of Qatar if the demands are not complied with.

The summit failed to ease the isolation felt by Egypt’s interim President Adli Mansour, who felt alienated by many Arab states, which had earlier identified with the former regime.

Just one day before the summit, Egyptian courts sentenced 529 citizens to death penalty, which triggered the indignation of Arab and world public opinion.

In sum, the Kuwait summit failed to fulfil the aspirations many Arabs pinned on it to address the Iranian nuclear threat in their region or the encroaching jihadist peril.