Posted on 03/28/2004 10:35:09 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) - Egypt offered Sunday to host a summit of Arab leaders, trying to resurrect a meeting that collapsed because of deep divisions over how to bring more democracy to the Middle East and tackle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Arab League leaders had planned to use the summit, which was slated to start Monday, to submit proposals for political reforms in response to U.S. calls for greater freedoms in the region. Many of the most powerful countries in the Middle East are led by absolute rulers or royal families. But Israel's March 22 assassination of Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin provoked widespread outrage in the Arab world, making it politically risky for some states to pursue a peace initiative or take a stand on a reform plan championed by the Americans. At the summit, the Arab leaders had also intended to relaunch a 2-year-old Saudi-crafted peace initiative toward Israel. Syria blamed host Tunisia for the collapse. "This decision is entirely inexplicable. It is inappropriate," Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa said Sunday. Several governments called for an urgent meeting of Arab foreign ministers to overcome differences so the summit of the 22-member Arab League could be held. In Washington, Secretary of State Colin Powell said he hoped the summit would be held and said he would contact Arab foreign ministers in coming days to get their assessment. Tunisian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hatem bin Salem said that if the meeting gone ahead, "the summit would have come out with formalities, and regretfully, would have been the subject of ridicule by Arab and world public opinion." "Certainly this is not one of our best moments," Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said. "The Arab system is not in a good shape." "It's important to have a summit, and the effort is continuing. I hope the summit will be held soon," Moussa said in Tunis as delegations began heading for home. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak offered to host a new summit "at the earliest time that can be agreed on." Mubarak is leaning toward April 16, four days after he meets President Bush in Texas, said Yemeni Foreign Ministry officials who spoke after a telephone conversation between Mubarak and the Yemeni president. Egypt hosts the Arab League headquarters. Under League rules, the meeting can be shifted to headquarters in Egypt, if the host country - in this case, Tunisia - failed to host it. Tunisia said talk of a new venue was simply an attempt to divert attention from Arab divisions. Getting Arab states to agree to summits has been tough. The Tunis meeting, scheduled a year ago, had been in doubt for weeks and Tunisia reluctantly agreed to hold it, fearing embarrassment if the session failed. Even before the cancellation, seven Arab leaders had bowed out - some for legitimate health reasons. Ordinary Arabs reacted with shock and blamed their leaders for the scuttling of the meeting. "Arab leaders are serving their own interests and their only motive is a hunger for power," said unemployed Yemeni Saleh Shawash as he gazed at newspaper headlines in the capital Sana'a. "We keep going from bad to worse," said Iman Darwish, a 42-year-old Lebanese homemaker. Arbi Jandouri, a 60-year-old Tunisian driver said he couldn't bear to look at the news in the newspaper. "No matter what were the differences, this is not good," he said. "We should have discussed issues and given our opinions ... We're just kids." A consultant to the Saudi government, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Egypt, Syria and Lebanon argued that talk of peace and reform was politically unwise in wake of Yassin's assassination. Jordan and Qatar argued that the Arabs should press ahead despite the killing, he said. The reform plans were supposed to have been unveiled in response to the U.S. "Greater Middle East Initiative" to promote more freedom in a region where change could threaten the very existence of many regimes. --
This for those that believe the Bush actions are having no effect.
"We have hopes for a turnaround sometime in the next thousand years," Moussa continued. "But it's pretty clear that we haven't amounted to $#!t since the fall of Al-Andalus in 1492, and things have only gone downhill since then."
Moussa then closed the interview by noting that "Of course, it's all the fault of the Jews, those sons of pigs and monkeys."
-ccm
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