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"The most honest, the
most comprehensive
and most mobilizing
news
and analysis on the Middle East always comes from
MER.
It is
indispensable!" - Robert
Silverman - Salamanca,
Spain
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Arab
League To Nowhere
Arab Foreign Ministers Fail Completely and
Forward U.S. Neocon
"Greater Middle East Initiative" to Summit
"The (American) project aims at ignoring the Arabs’
culture, historical heritage, civilization and aspirations."
Mid-East Realities - MER -
www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 7 March 2004:
Like
Arab summits of
the past, they seem to be held more for socializing and proclaiming
this and that while accomplishing little. Shouldn't be that
way of course. And the public relations operatives try so hard to
make it appear
otherwise. But when the leaders of what are in nearly all cases
weak
and corrupt Arab police-states gather, states that collectively have
little
power or influence
in today's world despite the immense wealth and cultural history of the
'Arab world', little is expected any more from this group of quite
pathetic second and third-rate
kings and dictator/presidents. By past performance
the Arab
'leaders' have earned this kind of disrespect and loathing -- though of
course the regional media, owned and controlled by the same
despotic
bunch whose secret police do know how to instill fear, cannot directly
deal with these unspoken truths.
But this time the situation
is historically different. This time their world, the once proud
now quite
humbled 'Arab world', is in fact de
jure occupied by American-Anglo
military forces more like the days of Lawrence of Arabia than what was
supposed to be a new and modern era. And this de jure occupation is further
buttressed by a much more omni-present, secretive, de facto occupation -- one
coordinated
by the CIA and American special forces -- plus a growing
additional cultural occupation. Furthermore, the influence and
exploits of Israel are now everywhere, working in tandem with the
Americans not only to control the entire area once known as Palestine
but in fact the entire region.
Indeed, when it comes to Palestine, the Arab states
have
failed so miserably to assert any power or influence that one hardly
knows what to say any more about such a historical humiliation and
travesty. Arab history will have to hold The Arab League
responsible for this shame whose magnitude
and scope are now far beyond what was even imaginable just a short time
ago.
Now we could have titled this 'The Poor and Stupid
Arab Leaders'. We would not have been wrong to do so.
Even though they are actually all rich, indeed in many
cases super rich, the poverty and impotence they have visited on the
countries they rule is horrendous. And though they are for the
most part
well-educated and able to purchase the best in inside information and
advisers, they still remain quite stupid in how they handle so many
things...including meetings of the Arab League. Sad to say, but even
with all the money in their foreign bank accounts they do in fact
continue to act more like 'poor and stupid' than rich and powerful.
And all the trappings of glitter and all the trumpets of power
will not change that bleak and miserable reality when they gather again
in a few weeks.
You have to read carefully between the lines
of the following short articles that try to summarize what has happened
so far as preparations for the Arab League summit at the end of this
month go forward. Last time the Arab leaders gathered Tom
Friedman of the News York Times made quite a fool out of Saudi Crown
Prince Abdullah. This time the Americans sent a former
Israeli/Jewish lobby official, now empowered with a key State
Department position, to tell the Arabs to sign-off on what is in effect
a U.S.-Israeli plan for the region called the "Greater Middle East
Initiative". Oops...seems they forgot to even mention the
plight of the Palestinians or the Arab-Israeli conflict in their new
grand design for 'democracy and reform'. Yet as usual the 'Arab
leaders' are like paralized deer in the car headlights waiting to be
run down.
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Arab ministers fail to agree on U.S. plan
By Hassen Zenati
CAIRO
- Agence France Press - 5 March — The stakes involved in a U.S.
plan for Arab reform were so high that
Arab foreign ministers here yesterday sent it to their leaders to
debate at a summit in Tunis, Tunisia, later this month, the Arab League
chief said.
The ministers of the 22-member Arab League
ended days of
intense discussions on the U.S. initiative for political and economic
change in the Middle East without reaching a consensus,
Secretary-General Amr Mussa told reporters.
"Given the seriousness of the issue touching on
problems tied
to national sovereignty and the whole region's future, the ministers
decided to send it as it is, and documents related to it, to the heads
of state," he said.
Arab monarchs, presidents and other leaders are
to hold their summit in Tunis on March 29-30.
After Egypt and Jordan presented separate
plans, the ministers
had hoped during their meetings here to draft a joint initiative for
reform, which would amount to a counterproposal to Washington's
"Greater Middle East Initiative."
They described the U.S. initiative as
interference in their
affairs and criticized its failure to address the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict.
However, Qatar on Wednesday criticized Arab
states for rejecting the U.S. initiative before knowing its contents.
Washington, which has sought to reassure Arabs
that such a plan
can only work if reform comes from within, hopes to launch its
initiative during a summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations
in June.
The U.S. initiative aims to encourage
democratic reform and
economic opening in the Arab world and other Muslim countries in a bid
to abate the frustration and poverty on which international terror is
thought to thrive.
Nearly all the Arab countries are ruled by
authoritarian regimes.
The ministers nonetheless agreed that
political, economic and
social reforms sought by Washington must "come from within" and that it
was up to each government to set its own pace for change.
In a separate resolution, the ministers called
for the respect of human rights in Arab countries.
Previous short articles
from the Abab news service Albawaba headquartered in Jordan on 1 and 3
March
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Arab
foreign ministers
launch talks on political reform, Iraq, Israel-Palestine conflict
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Arab
foreign ministers began a new round of meetings to discuss the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, instability in Iraq and political reform
in Arab countries.
"The ministers will debate the situation in Iraq, the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and ideas for reform in the Middle East in
order to draft a joint Arab stand," Arab League deputy secretary
general Ahmed Ben Helli told reporters.
Meanwhile, sources close to the participants said senior Arab
diplomats were due to produce a joint draft for reform in the Middle
East, amounting to a counter-proposal to US plans for "political and
economic change" - also known as the "Greater Middle East Initiative."
Egypt submitted its own counter-initiative to the foreign ministers
in Cairo Monday and also stressed the need to settle the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict to improve the atmosphere for reform.
According to Jordan's Petra news agency, the Egyptian
initiative also affirmed the importance of providing justice and
overcoming despair on settling the Palestinian cause, ending
occupation, respecting people's sovereignty and maintaining the unity
and safety of its lands.
On Wednesday, Amman submitted its own project, which covers the
broad lines of the Egyptian plan, stressing that Arab countries pledge
to continue down the road to reform and insisting on a Palestinian
settlement.
On Tuesday, state-run Damascus Radio slammed the US "reform" program.
"The project aims at ignoring the Arabs’ culture,
historical heritage,
civilization and aspirations," the Syrian radio said.
In its daily political commentary, the Radio, cited by SANA,
said the project aims only at "protecting the American interests"
because it "neglects...basic issues in the region such as occupation,
mass displacing and acts of killing practiced by Israel against the
Arabs", especially against the Palestinians.
With regards to Iraq, Arab ministers were expected to condemn the
attacks in Baghdad and Karbala that left nearly 200 people dead and
stress the need to maintain its sovereignty, territorial integrity and
independence, Arab League sources said.
(Albawaba - 3 March)
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Arab FMs meet as Egypt calls to
cooperate conditionally with US reform plan
The
works of the non-ordinary session of the Arab League council started on
Monday at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo on the level of foreign
ministers.
The two-days session precedes the works of the 121 ordinary session
which will be held next Wednesday and Thursday.
Meanwhile, Egypt proposed to fellow Arab states that they cooperate
conditionally with "friendly countries" in order to reform their
political systems, ahead of an American mission to promote a plan
called the "Greater Middle East Initiative".
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher submitted the proposal to his
Arab counterparts at Monday's meeting, Egypt's state-run Middle East
News Agency (MENA) said.
The proposal urges Arab nations to proclaim "their determination to
pursue the process of reform and modernization," on condition that such
reforms respect the traditions and "specific characters" of the
individual states.
It states that Arab states are ready "to cooperate with friendly
countries which are prepared to deal with the Arab initiative on the
basis of complete equality and not to try to impose pre-conceived
models."
The draft stresses that "in order to create a climate favorable to
the success of the reform process..it is vital to...settle the
Palestinian question by ending the Israeli occupation and establishing
an independent Palestinian state."
The US administration says the initiative aims to encourage
democratic reform and economic opening in the Arab world and other
Muslim countries. (Albawaba - 1 March)
MER
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