Arab summit is step in the right direction

Arab foreign minister members of the follow-up committee designated during the Arab summit in Beirut last March met last Saturday.

The committee included representatives from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Bahrain and the Palestinian Authority. The Arab diplomats failed to reach a final decision regarding the participation of Arab countries in a Middle East peace conference planned this summer. Yet, they have decided to make further contacts with the U.S. and the European Union and Russia to promote the Arab peace initiative.

The following is a review of the Arab press analysis of the Beirut meeting and the Middle East peace conference.

* The decision of the Arab follow-up committee in its meeting in Beirut to submit the terms of the Arab peace plan to the UN Security Council should be highly evaluated.

Indeed, it represents a step towards the coordination and the legitimisation of the Arab stances so as to obtain international support to counter the American domination over the peace process, writes Al Bayan (UAE) in its editorial comment.

This move shows the harmony between the Arab official position and the aspirations of the Arab people, revealing the disillusion of the Arabs with regard to a real change in the biased American stand towards Israel, adds Al Bayan.

It is an attempt to enlarge the circle of the parties involved in the peace process, since the U.S. minimised the importance of the Arab peace plan, giving the priority to the application of Israeli conditions. That is why the Arab countries should resolve their internal discord in order to reach a unified stand to commonly face the Israeli aggression and its occupation of Arab land.

To reach such a consensus, all Arab countries should put an end to the contradiction between the two options of peace and resistance so that both options complement each other, says Al Bayan.

The Arabs should not compromise with the Israelis by disarming the Palestinian resistance and dismantling its infrastructure. Indeed, they should move towards peace preserving in the meantime the option of resistance, concludes Al Bayan.

* The follow-up committee did not decide whether to attend the Middle East peace conference. This hesitation reflects either a certain controversy with regard to the conference itself, or the need for a longer reflection upon its real objectives, or until the end of the Israeli aggression, writes Al Khaleej (UAE) in its editorial comment.

The Arab countries have their own peace initiative, which represents the limit not to exceed in any Arab- Israeli negotiations. Even the proposed conference should not constitute a deviation of its initial objectives.

Indeed, this plan is the greatest compromise the Arabs can offer to reach a fair and durable peace. Any partition or change in their proposal will mean more concessions to the Israelis, adds Al Khaleej.

The starting point of the new peace conference should be the agreements reached at the Madrid peace conference and the other peace negotiations. Indeed, it should not start from scratch as Israel insinuates, to waste time and accumulate years of fruitless negotiations. Moreover, the fundaments of negotiation should be similar to those adopted in Madrid according to the 'land for peace' principle and to international resolutions.

Finally, the UN and the European Union countries should be invited to attend the conference to confer an international legitimacy and credibility and to counterbalance the American partiality, says Al Khaleej.

Arab countries should think about the attitude to adopt with regard to the planned peace conference, so as not to committee another mistake by accepting to attend a conference that does not respond to their aspirations. In fact, the resolutions have been already adopted, they only need application and not another round of negotiations, concludes Al Khaleej.

The meeting of the follow-up committee should have been planned a long time before. For an unknown reason, the meeting did not occur before, perhaps because the Lebanese government did not organise the meeting sooner, or because the members of the committee were embarrassed by their powerlessness towards the continuous Israeli aggression in the West Bank, writes Rajeh Khouri in Akhbar Al-Arab.

The rumours about the Middle East conference attest to the fact that countries directly involved in the Arab- Israeli conflict such as Syria and Lebanon will not be invited to the conference, which will focus on ending the Palestinian issue.

Besides the exclusion of certain countries, the Israeli side intend to impose a settlement that transgresses the land for peace principle adopted in the Madrid conference. In fact, the Israeli theory does not consider the borders of 1967 as a base for the negotiations especially in Jerusalem, assuming that it is just a cease-fire line which should not be included under Resolution No. 242. All these factors predict the conference will be a failure, concludes Khouri.

* No one can say that the peace conference planned for this summer is the culmination of the Arab peace plan. Nor is the result of an American initiative likely to resolve the Palestinian issue.

In reality the conference emerges from Sharon's proposal to hold a regional conference, writes Mutaz Salama in Al Khaleej.

That is why it arouses many concerns, firstly because of the ambiguity of its final goals. As a matter of fact, the American administration has announced that it would be more like a forum to discuss the different views about peace, to set an agenda for negotiations, while the Israeli side perceives it not as a premise for coming negotiations.

The conference will then become a public relations gathering instead of a peace conference, adds Salama.

Furthermore, Israel will seize the occasion to correlate between the Palestinian resistance and terrorism. They will try to normalise ties first before getting into the restitution of land. This move will lead to the division of the Arab world into two blocks, one supporting the negotiations, the other supporting terrorism.

In essence, the Middle East peace conference constitutes a tribune to promote the Israeli ideas nothing more, concludes Salama.