Arab League meeting on Lebanon falls short, say critics

An emergency summit convened by the Arab League (AL) was described by Cairo-based analysts and human rights activists as “ineffective” in terms of dealing with the current situation in Lebanon.

“League statements reflected an overt attempt to ignore the question of Lebanon, which was one of the chief reasons why the meeting was called,” said Bahieddin Hassan, director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies.

After convening on 15 July, the Council of Arab Foreign Ministers failed to draft a single joint declaration. Instead, it issued three separate declarations on Lebanon, Gaza and the Middle East peace process. According to Arab League officials speaking on condition of anonymity, the failure was due to disputes among ministers regarding the recent kidnapping of Israeli soldiers by militant groups Hamas and Hizbullah.

“The recurrence of such disputes among member states renders the league ineffective,” said Wahid Abdel Magid, an analyst at the government-run Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. “The situation has developed far beyond Hizbullah’s act. Ministers should have discussed practical solutions for the current situation in Lebanon.”

Lebanon has been under attack from Israel since 12 July following the abduction of two Israeli soldiers by Hizbullah in Lebanon.

Speaking to reporters, AL Secretary-General Amr Moussa voiced a need to redraw the parameters of regional power relations from scratch. “We’re facing the prospect of a total security collapse in the region,” he warned.

Some observers, however, say Moussa’s statements indicate an unwillingness by league member states to take responsibility for current developments in Lebanon. “The AL has effectively shunned its responsibility towards trying to solve the immediate crisis in Lebanon, choosing instead to protect its own image as a unified and cogent body,” said Hassan.

While most representatives welcomed Moussa’s announcement that the Middle East “peace process” was “dead”, Hassan said the statement came too late. “The peace process has been dead for years, and the timing of the announcement was wrong,” he said.

In Cairo for meetings with Arab foreign ministers, senior UN officials told reporters that implementation of relevant UN Security Council resolutions was essential to achieving regional stability. “We’re trying as hard as we can to defuse the humanitarian problem,” said Terje Roed Larsen, a member of the UN delegation, citing the implementation of relevant resolutions and the return of Israeli abductees as prerequisites for de-escalation.

In a related development, the independent daily Al-Masry al-Youm newspaper reported that thousands of Egyptians took part in a 14 July protest held in solidarity with Lebanese and Palestinian victims of Israeli aggression. Another protest was scheduled to be held today at the Egyptian Doctors Syndicate.

SA/AR/AM