Posted on 03/28/2004 9:53:18 AM PST by pending
Tunisia abruptly cancels Arab League summit
Leaders bicker on issues in Mideast, U.S., reforms
By Megan K. Stack Los Angeles Times Originally published March 28, 2004
TUNIS, Tunisia - The government abruptly called off a summit of the Arab League late last night even as leaders poured into this seaside city, a last-minute cancellation that threw in stark relief the acrimony roiling the region. The collapse of the summit, which had been scheduled to begin tomorrow, suggested that tenuous Arab unity has crumbled under the pressure of the Palestinian uprising, the U.S.-led war on Iraq and demands for sweeping reforms of repressive and corrupt Arab governments.
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
Rantisi also suggested the Arab world is letting down the Palestinians.
"I want to tell the Arab leaders, you will be asked by God... about the blood of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin," he said.
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/409540.html
The problem was simple. The US expected the Arab leaders to discuss wide ranging political reforms at the summit, a code phrase for ridding themselves of the worst aspects of Islamism and tyranny at the same time when the Palestinian delegation and their Islamist allies expected the Arab leaders on the occasion to roundly condemn the Israeli assassination of Yassin. The Middle Eastern heads of state had a choice between enduring the baleful stare of the 800 pound American gorilla or angering the militant factions back home, who had a penchant for writing out their disapproval in lead letters, as Anwar Sadat discovered. < SNIP >
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