NEWSFLASH: Three killed in suicide bomber blast near Israeli Army checkpoint.

"In the Palestinian view of the Arab summit [for Palestinian read Arafat], money is all that matters."

Lot of rhetoric, more than expected in fact. But mostly a smookescreen for never-ending impotence and inexcuseable weakness. So much for the Arab Summit in Amman. Until those Arab "leaders" who have squandered the wealth and heritage of their countries, and indeed of their once powerful civilization, are replaced; until the "client regimes" of the Arab world are no more; this tragic spectacle known as Arab "summits" will continue to be a deep embarrassment and a historic tragedy.

The following articles help explain the happening in Amman.

[The Times, UK, 27 March] PRESIDENT ASSAD of Syria called Israelis "Nazis" yesterday and offered to "forgive and forget" the decision of Yassir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, to negotiate with the late Yitzhak Rabin.

Speaking at the start of the first Arab League summit in a decade, Mr Assad overshadowed Mr Arafat's efforts to win support for the Palestinian uprising. His speech, which often assumed the tone of a lecture to the league's 22 heads of state and their representatives, was delivered as a suspected suicide bomber blew up a bus in Jerusalem, killing himself and wounding a dozen others.

Mr Assad said that the Arab world had been "too emotional" and had failed to analyse properly the election of Ariel Sharon to head a national unity government in Israel. He said that successive Israeli elections had proved that Israelis in general "gave us nothing and took everything.

"It is the Israeli public and not just the leaders who are like the Nazis themselves," he said in an improvised speech that could have been delivered by his father, Hafez, 20 years ago. The speech shocked foreign diplomats, many of them sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, who had gathered in Amman, the Jordanian capital, for the summit.

"This does not do those who want to help the Palestinians any good," a senior Western diplomat said. "It's the sort of speech which proves to the Israelis that the Arab world does not accept their existence and that the Arabs really want to destroy Israel."

Mr Assad's rhetoric took many people by surprise given his efforts to portray his country as becoming more democratic and moving away from its days as a Soviet satellite.

After medical training in London, Mr Assad has been working to open Syria to foreign investment and get the country wired into the Internet. Despite the need to impress fellow Arab leaders, Mr Assad's tough message appeared to exceed what was necessary to signal to the Sharon government that he is a man to be reckoned with.

Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, had hoped to persuade Arab leaders to see the problems faced by both sides in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

He criticised Mr Sharon's policy of besieging Palestinian towns and of "excessive use of force" in quelling riots. He said, however, that it should be recognised that Israel feels threatened and that it had a "legitimate right to live in safety within its own borders".

After Mr Assad's speech, Mr Arafat repeated his allegations that the Israelis have used "illegal weapons" against the Palestinians, but he also said that he wanted to return to the agreements reached with the Israelis in October last year, at Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt, which included a ceasefire.

The Arab leaders, who are also discussing Iraq, seem unlikely to reach an agreement about how to persuade President Saddam Hussein to give up his claim to Kuwait or how to seek the easing of sanctions against his country.

AMMAN, March 27 (AFP) - Iraqi President Saddam Husssein called Tuesday on Arab states to mobilise their armed forces to liberate the Palestinian territories, rejecting any deals with Israel.

In a speech read to the Arab summit in Amman by Iraq's number two Ezzat Ibrahim, Saddam told Arab leaders to build "an army of men as concerned to sacrifice themselves as the Zionists are concerned for their lives."

"We do not agree to any deals on Palestine, all of Palestine from the Jordan (river) to the Mediterranean, including Jerusalem, its crown."

The speech did not mention Kuwait, which Arab leaders are working to reconcile with Iraq, a decade after Saddam sent his troops into the oil-rich emirate and sparked the Gulf war.

Saddam has rallied Iraqis to the Palestinian cause, offering millions of dollars and fighting forces since the intifada or uprising against Israeli occupation erupted last September.

[Ha'aretz 27 March 2001]: What do Arafat and fellow Palestinian Authority officials want from the Arab summit, which opens today in Amman, Jordan? Palestinians are almost unanimous in their answer: they want money.

The Intifada uprising has bankrupted the PA. The Palestinian economy has, to a large extent, been brought to a crashing halt. Citizens pay next to nothing in taxes, and are in arrears in payments for basic services such as electricity, water and telephone. Israel refuses to transfer to the PA tax money that it has collected from residents in the territories; and several western countries have suspended payments to the PA.

These financial woes, however, are overshadowed by Palestinian expectations of Arab states. The main problem is that Arab states have yet to confer the handsome, one billion dollar sum that they promised the Palestinians at their last summit, five months ago in Cairo. In recent weeks, nary a day has gone by without articles and caricatures in the Palestinian media castigating Arab leaders for failing to pay up, and for their miserly disregard of Palestinian suffering.

With resentment boiling, reports and rumors percolated about how Arafat had threatened to boycott the summit if funds promised to the PA weren't delivered. Top PLO diplomat Farouk Kaddoumi, who took part last week at a pre-summit preparatory meeting in Amman with Arab foreign ministers, denied these reports. "It's inconceivable that a Palestinian leader wouldn't take part in an Arab summit," Kaddoumi said. "Arafat participates in summits of African states, events in which we only have 'observer' status."

Why haven't the Arab states been forthcoming, and transfered the money? Replying in recent months to this question, Arab leaders and diplomats have claimed that bureaucratic red tape is responsible for snags and delays. Arab spokesmen have hinted about fears that the funds might not reach their rightful recipients. In other words, Arab leaders are acquainted with (and some have disseminated) reports about Palestinian corruption, and they are wary that top PA officials will simply scamper off with the money.

Iraq's President Saddam Hussein, who recently sent funds to the Palestinian-controlled territories, ordered his men (most of them members of the small Arab Liberation Front organization) to disburse the money straight into the hands of families whose relations have been killed or injured in clashes with Israel. Saddam's men carried out this order. In some instances, the Iraqi money was handed out in official ceremonies, and the recipients published newspaper messages of gratitude to Saddam Hussein.

Naturally, the Iraqi money disbursement arrangements and lightly veiled hints about PA corruption have angered Palestinian leaders. Holding a meeting last week in Gaza with ambassadors from Arab countries stationed in the PA, Dr. Zakarye Alara stated that the PA would agree to the appointment of observers to monitor the disbursement of funds. Alara, a Fatah leader and PLO Executive member, warned, "Without your money, it's doubtful that we'll be able to continue the Intifada."

Palestinians who represent an array of political streams took part in this meeting with Arab ambassadors. Without exception, they reiterated this demand for money. Popular Front delegate Jamil Majdalouwi told the ambassadors that claims about PA corruption were nothing more than a pretext used to avoid delivering money. Abdallah Hourani, a nonaligned member of the PLO Executive, declared incredulously, "You'd think that we invented corruption." He added, "In fact, everyone knows that corruption is part of the reality which prevails in the whole Arab world."

Other participants at the meeting accused Israel and some Western states of circulating rumors about PA corruption so as to obstruct the disbursement of funds in the territories, spur the collapse of Arafat's regime, and bring an end to the Intifada. Seething with anger and bitterness about allegations of PA corruption, some Palestinian spokesmen have in recent days hurled brazen, defiant challenges at Arab states. Who needs your money, they've asked.

Insofar as it has been possible to follow reasons given by Arab spokesmen for the non-disbursement of funds to the PA, the corruption issue hasn't been raised in official pronouncements. The prevailing explanation is that due to large debts owed by the PA to many banks, funds transferred to the PA's accounts won't reach suffering residents in the territories. Instead, they'll simply be used to cover the debts.

The money issue dominates PA discussion of the Arab summit partly because Palestinians don't have many expectations on the diplomatic front. Resolutions denouncing Israel, and demands (raised by Jordan and Egypt) to cut off relations, will be proposed and formulated in one way or another. But they won't amount to anything other than rhetorical gestures. For half a year, the Palestinians have demanded that Arab states support their struggle against Israel. But, as months go by, the Intifada has become a routine matter, one which no longer galvanizes public opinion in Arab countries as it has in the past.

The Iraqi issue is the one diplomatic issue which, to some extent, worries the Palestinians. PA officials are concerned that some Arab leaders will try to put the Iraq issue at the top of the summit's agenda. Though most Arab countries support a full repeal of anti-Iraqi sanctions (or siege, in the familiar Arab usage)Kuwait has argued that the time isn't right for such a change. Speaking in elliptical, evasive tones, some Saudi leaders have backed Kuwait's position (the Iraqi problem is responsible for the Saudi decision to dispatch Defense Minister Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz as the country's delegate to the summit).

Some Arab leaders have proposed that the summit's prime focus should be an attempt to forge a reconciliation between Kuwait and Iraq. Such discussion has raised the question of whether the event is to be the "Iraq-Kuwait summit" or the "Al-Quds summit."

Jordanian and Egyptian officials have indicated that they want summit participants to tackle economic issues, particularly annulling the customs duties that Arab countries mutually impose one another, and encouraging of foreign investment. Yet it appears that Arafat and his men are confident that even if summit participants devote a lot of time to these non-Palestinian issues, the Arab states won't pose a diplomatic problem to the PA.

In other words, Arafat expects the Arab leaders to articulate unequivocal support for the Palestinian Intifada. Such pronouncements, he knows, will reflect mass, pro-Intifada sentiment in the Arab world. For Arafat and his fellow Palestinians, then, money remains the one loose end. Will Arab support for their struggle continue to come in the form of rubber checks, as Palestinian cartoonists depict it; or will the money finally be delivered? In the Palestinian view of the Arab summit, money is all that matters.

Mid-East Realities

www.middleeast.org

Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/3/118.htm