Two weeks ago, in the last days of March, the 25th Arab Summit ended. The first surprise from the summit was that there was a Kuwaiti declaration! Instead of the usual resolutions, which was the norm for the last 24 or so regular summits, the difference was very obvious — the Arabs have been politely divided over a number of crucial issues, and they cannot agree on how to chart a road map ahead.
Arab states started holding summits almost 67 years ago; the first one was held in Egypt in May 1946. Unfortunately, the summits became a theatre for a show of differences between Arabs for most of those years. They started what they call regular summits and irregular ones. The latter became the norm from 1982 to 2001. There were 12 irregular summits, some of them attended by few heads of state.
Sometimes some delegations did not even speak to each other, the last one in Kuwait witnessed this non-communication between some delegations.
The two decade have witnessed a lot distress and mistrust - the Iraq-Iran war which lasted for eight years tore Arabs in two camps between 1982-2001. Before that the Camp David accord between Egypt and Israel angered some Arabs to the extent that they moved the headquarters of the Arab League from Egypt to Tunisia to stay there for as long as 12 years. Every time the region faces a crisis, there is a call for a summit meeting, which is then convened where some discuss the need for resolutions, and leave out undesired issues. One common file is the Palestinian issue, which they have given lip service to in almost every summit.
Since 2001 it was decided that Arab summits should be held on a regular basis in March every year and that is what has happened so far. But whatever commitments are taken up in these summits, very few are implemented. In the Doha summit of 2013, it was agreed to allocate $2 billion (Dh7.34 billion) for occupied Jerusalem to prevent the Judaisation of the town taking place, but not one dollar has come along, as Qatar’s Emir Shaikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani complained in his speech in Kuwait.
Further more, although the 24th Arab summit in Doha had allocated the Syrian seat to a representative of the opposition, this time it was kept empty but with the Syrian regime’s flag! One Arab commentary referred to the Syrian opposition delegation as the orphan of the Summit. To some it was a setback.
More than that, some of the delegations attending the Kuwait summit came with two heads. While the Syrian opposition representative was delivering his speech, some among the Lebanese delegation left the meeting in protest, while others from the same delegation, including the Lebanese President Michel Sulaiman, stayed on. This was another sign of not just differences between states but within a state. The Tunisian president ignored a handshake from the Egyptian president, a move that was perceived as undiplomatic. At the end, the summit stressed the urgent need for the Security Council to find a political solution to the widening conflict in Syria, to end the cycle of deaths of thousands and to put an end to the misery of the millions of refugees besides stopping the demolition of villages and cities — it shifted the issue back to the international bodies.
Most summits for a long time stated in the final communique, the urgent need to reform the poor and dated structure of the Arab League, and give officials and personnel more room to act independently of their states in certain urgent matters, but so far nothing has materialised. The strange thing is that all stressed that - it seems that they repeat the same slogans but at the end send their most unwanted officials to work there, as part of getting rid of them!
The difference of opinion between Arabs this time was not only on Syria, Lebanon or Egypt, but also on the definition of ‘terrorism’ — some view certain groups like Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group while others do not agree with that — the latter, in fact, think that branding the group as terrorists will lead to the growth of terrorism. The international situation is very elastic, the US and the West are either preoccupied with their domestic economic crises or problems of political instability in their backyards, like what is happing in Crimea. Besides, nobody wants to touch inflammatory issues raging in the Arab neighbourhood.
They are both complex and dangerous, breeding sectarian conflicts and terrorism.
The West needs collective Arab efforts to tackle this burning issue, but collectivity is unlikely to be reached as most Arab countries are facing uneasiness at the home front in one way or other. This is not new, what is that there is no help in sight by any traditional allies, and the only alternative is to have new Arab alliances. It was thought that the Gulf Cooperation Council can provide a venue for reconciliation, but the division there as well prevents the move.
The predicament of the Arab countries is not just about divisions, there is widespread shortsightedness, thinking that what is around will be for good, but history tells us a different story. We will wait to see what happens in the 27th summit, scheduled to be held in Cairo, but most probably things will be the same even then.
Mohammed Alrumaihi is a professor of political sociology at Kuwait University. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/@rumaihi42
