‘For I have known them all already, known them all/ Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons/ I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” Ennui as perhaps only TS Eliot can paint it; disappointment as perhaps only Palestinians can feel it. If anyone had hoped that the Arab League summit in Doha might have started to bridge the distance between the various sides in the Arab community over the Palestinian conflict, it didn’t.
Hamas remains entrenched in Gaza, supported by Syria, and also Iran. On the West Bank sits a weakened Fatah, with which many Arab nations are sympathetic and with whom Israel would be most comfortable negotiating – if it were in a negotiating mood; such sympathies are now much attenuated with Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government.
But even the slightest momentum forward still requires Arab unity. No, the Israel-Palestine stalemate will not be solved purely among actors in the Middle East. The divisions are too many. But closing one of them – between the Arab nations – is the very least needed before the United States and the EU can have a chance of pulling disparate sides towards the centre.
Palestine, what should have been the main focus at any gathering of Arab leaders, was tripped by sideshows. The presence of Omar al Bashir, the Sudanese president with an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) over him, compelled the Arab League to close ranks over a matter that should principally concern Sudan and the ICC. Then, Muammar Qadafi’s impromptu outburst against the Saudi monarch, King Abdullah, whom Mr Qadafi denounced as a US ally and a product of British rule, further distracted the efforts of Arab leaders. Theatrics being what they are, Mr Qadafi omitted mention of Libya’s improved relations with the United States and Britain. Then again, perhaps the meeting was never able to get down to the business of coming up with a united strategy in support of Palestine because of the absence of a key figure, Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president.
So what mostly engaged the participants of this year’s summit were the controversies swirling round the holding of this year’s meeting itself. By any reckoning, that’s a missed opportunity. TS Eliot also wrote about time “for a hundred indecisions/ and for a hundred visions and revisions”. Palestinians surely understand this, but that makes it no less frustrating.
Front Page Features