Netanyahu Victory Becomes Catalyst For Arabs’ Summit Moderate Course Likely On Peace Process

Esmat Abdel-Meguid, secretary general of the Arab League, gestured to a map showing the vast sweep of the world’s oldest multinational organization: from Morocco on the west coast of Africa to Oman at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula, a 4,000-mile stretch of territory inhabited by 200 million Arabs.

As he described it, they are one nation speaking one language, linked by history, culture and geography.

But as sheiks, kings, princes, presidents and prime ministers from 21 of the 22 Arab League member states arrived in Cairo for the first panArab summit in six years today and Sunday, Abdel-Meguid’s vision of Arab unity contained more hope than reality.

Arab diplomats admit privately that it took the surprise election of conservative Benjamin Netanyahu as Israeli prime minister to get their countries - all except Iraq, that is - to set aside their differences long enough to sit down together.

And before the summit started, it was unclear whether host Egypt would succeed in keeping the participants focused on the two official agenda items - the Middle East peace process and Arab cooperation - or whether side disputes such as the current squabbles between Syria and Jordan, Syria and Turkey, and Bahrain and Iran would end up dominating the meeting.

In either case, that the summit is taking place at all proves how much Netanyahu’s slim victory May 29 upset Arab assumptions. Attempts for the past two years to bring together an Arab summit had foundered; this one was organized in just two weeks. Before the Israeli vote, most of the Arab world was banking on incumbent Labor Party leader Shimon Peres being re-elected Israel’s prime minister, and believed that by the end of the final phase of Arab-Israeli talks Israel would come to accept the key Arab demands.

Instead, Arabs say they now face an Israeli leader who seems unequivocal in his “No’s” to what they had hoped to obtain: “No” to a Palestinian state, “No” to returning the Golan Heights to Syria, and “No” to sharing or dividing Jerusalem.

The dilemma facing Arab leaders is finding the right balance between acting concerned and acting tough.

For weeks, Arab newspapers have been filled with angry commentaries calling for a strong response to show that the Arab world is not going to roll over before the new Israeli government. At the same time, the United States, the main sponsor of the peace process, has been urging moderation, warning Arabs not to do anything that would “close the door” on peace.

A draft communique approved at a pre-summit meeting by Arab foreign ministers Friday attempted to strike a middle course. It proposed that the summit conclude with a firm challenge to Israel’s new leadership to “save the peace process” by clearly accepting the “land-for-peace” principle that has been the foundation of the Arab-Israeli negotiations since 1991. In other words, summit organizers said, the Arabs will portray themselves as the defenders of the peace process, and cast the Israelis as backsliders.