Region | Palestinian Territories
Internal divisions thwart Arab initiative
Ministers return with UN resolution suggesting Palestine National authority role but dissent persists.
- By Roula Khalaf, Financial Times
- Published: 23:35 January 10, 2009
- Image Credit: EPA
- Iranian Speaker Ali Larijani (right) meets Hamas leader Khalid Mesha’al at the Iranian embassy in Damascus.
London: When Arab foreign ministers set off for New York on January 4 in search of a United Nations ceasefire resolution to the Gaza war, few in the region took serious notice.
Many Arabs suspected some ministers of secretly rooting for Israel to crush Hamas, so that they might re-install Mahmoud Abbas, the leader whose Palestinian National Authority was ousted from Gaza in 2007.
For once, though, the so-called "moderate" Arabs did not take the US "no" for an answer.
The foreign ministers camped out in New York all week. They persisted and pushed.
No inclination
And although they did not win a US vote for a Security Council ceasefire resolution, at least they avoided a US veto.
Not that their efforts, for now, can be perceived as a significant diplomatic victory.
It took five days and hundreds more deaths in Gaza before the resolution was passed.
Neither Hamas nor Israel showed any inclination to accept it.
Not to mention the fact that UN resolutions in Arab-Israeli conflicts often die as soon as they are passed.
But the pressure the Arab ministers were under should not be underestimated.
Israel's offensive has been nothing short of a "catastrophe", inflicting a heavy toll on civilians instead of crushing Hamas.
The images of dying children - Palestinian figures that a third of deaths are children are deemed credible by the UN - have played day and night on television stations in the region, giving succour to those who claim Israel is determined to wage war and must be violently confronted.
While the foreign ministers were in New York, Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, was working on a second French-backed initiative that was also praised by the world community but has yet to show any traction.
Enraged public
Iranian leaders have been taking shots at the "moderate" Arabs for standing by while Palestinians die. But preventing a US veto at the Security Council could yet pale in comparison with the region's internal divisions.
True, the leaders can face their enraged public and say they have tried to end the bloodshed.
But as long as the offensive continues, so will public pressure.
The foreign ministers may be returning from New York armed with a UN decision that indirectly calls for a renewed Palestinian National Authority role in Gaza, which is something they have long favoured.
They may have paraded Abbas at the UN and got him to praise the resolution, thereby underlining his international credibility. But it is still Hamas, not Abbas, that rules Gaza.
Can the "moderate" Arabs persuade Syria, a Hamas supporter, to back the UN resolution? And can they engineer some kind of accommodation between Hamas and Abbas's Fatah?
These are questions they tried to avoid when they sought an international solution that would be imposed on Israel and Hamas.
But, for all their diplomatic efforts in New York, they still have to confront the divisions in their midst.
The resolution agreed on Thursday night calls for:
- An immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire in Gaza
- Unimpeded provision and distribution of humanitarian assistance
- Additional support for the work of the United Nations to alleviate the economic situation in Gaza
- Efforts to provide arrangements and guarantees in Gaza to prevent illicit arms trafficking and bring about the reopening of border crossings.
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