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At the League of Arab States’ (LAS) 25th summit, leaders gathered in Kuwait to address perennial concerns, ranging from the lingering Palestinian-Israeli dispute, to the more recent Arab uprisings and the devastating civil war in Syria. Inasmuch as significant differences remained, the delegates had considered not issuing a final communiqu’, although cooler heads prevailed and one was duly read out in the end.
Many shook their heads at the gamut of issues addressed by participants and their advisers in the 17-page long ‘Kuwait Declaration,’ which covered dozens of issues that the delegates had discussed. The document once again supported the United Arab Emirates’ quest to regain full sovereignty over the Abu Musa and the two Tunb islands occupied by Iran since 1971. It also called on France to return Mayotte Island to the Comoros, and expressed approval of the April 2013 reconciliation in South Sudan, among other matters.
The Palestine Question
As in the past, the League’s heads stood by the hapless Palestinians and backed their refusal to recognise Israel as a Jewish state.
‘We express our total rejection of the call to consider Israel as a Jewish state,’ declared the final statement, which also echoed the 2002 Beirut Summit’s consensus. At that time, the League’s leaders agreed to recognise Israel in exchange for a full and complete withdrawal from the territories occupied in the 1967 war. However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later insisted that Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular acknowledge Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people.
It was interesting to note that Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas spoke eloquently on the subject, and reiterated that he would never recognise Israel as a Jewish state, which was probably the only subject that LAS delegates agreed upon in toto.
Syria’s Civil War
Sharp differences emerged over the League’s goal to usher in a political solution to the civil war in Syria. The Syrian National Coalition (SNC) chief Ahmed Jarba was barred from filling President Bashar al-Assad’s vacant seat. As Syria’s membership in the League was suspended in November 2011, Jarba’s calls for ‘sophisticated’ arms to tip the balance of power did not fall on deaf ears.
‘We call for a political solution to the crisis in Syria based on the Geneva I communiqu’ declared the statement. That said, Saudi heir apparent Salman bin Abdul Aziz, was highly critical of those who ‘betrayed’ opposition forces fighting for the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Despite being at odds over their views on the Muslim Brotherhood, both Riyadh and Doha were indirectly targeted by the joint UN-LAS peace envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, who appealed for an end to the flow of arms to combatants in the war. But the UN diplomat was coy, as he read Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s speech, which underscored how the ‘whole region [was] in danger’ of being dragged into the conflict, which led him to plead with LAS members to work ‘with the Russian Federation, the United States and the United Nations, to take clear steps to re-energise Geneva II’.
But Brahimi made no references to Russian arms delivered to Damascus. Nor did he call on Iran, or Lebanon’s Hezbollah, to withdraw their fighters from Syria.
Refugees in Lebanon
It is not sure whether Brahimi discussed with LAS leaders the appalling conditions that Syrian refugees were subjected to in neighbouring countries. Nevertheless, the Arab leaders took note of Lebanese President Michel Suleiman’s warnings that the presence of 1.5 million Syrians threatened the stability of the Levantine state. Suleiman also urged League members to encourage their allies to not involve Lebanon in Syria’s conflict.
LAS impasse
Although Arab consensus proved elusive when the LAS was created in 1945, many worked hard to narrow differences. From Gamal Abdul Nasser’s quest for unity in the 1950s to the Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait in 1990, and from failed associations with foreign powers ‘especially the Baghdad Pact’ to the establishment of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in 1981, Arab leaders struggled to define their roles within the League.
Regrettably, most of these initiatives failed; some due to foreign interference, others because of intra-Arab disputes. The only hopeful alliance was the GCC though even it came under duress in the aftermath of the post-2010 Arab Uprisings.
In fact, this year’s summit followed an unusual dispute within the GCC over alleged Qatari support for Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. To his credit, the summit host, Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, urged his guests to overcome rifts.
In general, both LAS members and GCC states disagreed sharply over the political role of Islamists in the region. In particular, Saudi Arabia was adamant in its total rejection of any interference in Arab affairs by Shia-dominated Iran.
For now, key Arab Gulf countries hedged their bets, as the UAE turned the LAS leadership for the coming year over to Egypt ‘a clear and unequivocal sign of support to Cairo’ as it confronted, in the words of Egyptian President Adly Mansour: ‘any attempt to stir problems between our people and countries’. The vote of confidence angered Doha and ‘clear divisions [emerged] over what Saudis and Qataris thought’ the next steps should be.
