One of the many consequences of the Israeli attack on Gaza, many ended up believing, was that the war had divided the Arab states. Judging from the way the Arab League and the many Arab states reacted, it can hardly be possible to ignore basic Arab disagreement on how to handle the Israeli onslaught. Yet this did not add much to already existing divisions. The Arab states have for long been deeply divided on many issues, and contrary to the common belief that the Palestinian problem had always been a unifying factor, Arab states had, right from the early beginning, radically disagreed on this particular issue as well.
The Gaza attack has, in fact, exposed this reality.
Since the last days of the Ottoman Empire, "Arab nationalists" gathered around aspirations such as the unity of the Arab people and Arab lands, following liberation. They brought to the fore strong arguments in favour: the Arabs speak one language, they have a common history, they share common aspirations, their land is contiguous and connected, they belong to one rich civilisation which contributed largely to humanity in many fields and their unity was the guarantee of glory and strength.
Islam, though the religion of the majority, was not emphasised amongst the unifying factors, in order to guarantee the inclusion of the Christian Arabs in the Arab nationalist thought. Therefore, there was a distinct difference between those who promoted the Arab nation and saw its reemergence as an historical inevitability and the promoters of the Islamic nation.
Already a century has passed since the early Arab awakening manifestations at the very end of the 19th century, yet there is no evident promise of Arab unity, or an Arab united political programme on major issues, in the least.
The Arabs, as a nation and as inhabitants of a land, were more united within the framework of the Ottoman Empire than after its dismemberment after World War I. The colonial powers that inherited the territory rushed to divide the spoils and to draw permanent borders that continue to separate and divide the Arab states until now.
The Arab League, which was created at about the same time as the United Nations, has never managed to bring the Arab states closer to any form of unity either, despite worthy achievements, when possible, in coordinating and managing joint Arab action in other fields.
Until the Arab Peace Initiative was approved at an Arab summit in Beirut in 2002, the Arab states did not agree on a common strategy towards the Arab-Israeli conflict, or the way it should be resolved; that is, assuming the initiative represented genuine agreement, which in fact it did not.
At their summits, as well as at their other meetings, Arab participants often let decisions pass without much concern, either because they knew well that implementation never necessarily followed decision or when they did not intend to commit themselves either way.
Arab decisions have rarely been obligatory. The Arab Peace Initiative was hailed for being a unanimous approval of a peace plan with Israel, even by countries often opposed, such as Iraq and Libya. It is likely, though that such countries acceptance was more of a conciliatory signal to the United States and the West than a genuine move towards an Arab-Israeli settlement.
Security Council Resolution 242 of 1967, which has since been key to any settlement of the Middle East conflict, was accepted only by three Arab states: Egypt, Jordan and Syria. The rest either considered themselves uninvolved or opted for no commitment to a great shift towards Israel at the time. The resolution, which required Israel to evacuate the Arab lands occupied in the war of June 1967 and to end the state of belligerency, was forcefully opposed by the PLO at the time as a sellout of the Palestinian rights.
The PLO wanted to liberate all of Palestine, ending the existence of the state of Israel altogether. That lasted well until the end of the 1980s. The resolution did in fact imply recognition of the existence of Israel on 78 per cent of historic Palestine, up to the June 4, 1967, lines and for that reason many Arab states, in addition to the Palestinians, thought it was neither right nor just.
At the Khartoum summit (September 1967), the Arab states adopted their three nos stance: no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel and no peace with Israel, but again, efforts continued to implement Resolution 242 in the hope that some kind of settlement on that basis with the countries immediately involved would be achieved.
When the Arab states went to the Madrid peace conference, in 1991, under a seeming international umbrella, they did that against defined terms of reference and agreed-upon goals: comprehensive, just and lasting peace on the basis of exchanging occupied land for peace. Because the Arabs did not negotiate as one team for one comprehensive settlement, succumbing instead to Israeli demand that there should be separate tracks, and because any coordination amongst the Arab negotiating delegations was far from adequate, the process produced fragmented results: the Oslo accords with the Palestinians, reached by secret negotiations outside the Madrid process, the peace treaty with Jordan, and no progress with either Lebanon or Syria.
Both Oslo and the Jordanian treaty were opposed by other Arab states; the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty (Camp David) had been strongly rejected by the Arab League two decades earlier.
On other issues there were Arab divisions too; the first and the second Iraq wars had split the Arabs widely.
These are few examples from the past. The present has not been much different.
Under the Bush administration, the Arab states were divided into moderate and extremist. For that administration, the moderates were those who approved, or at least did not oppose, US-Israeli plans for the region, endlessly pursuing a peace settlement based on two states. The extremists, on the other hand, are simply those who, for any reason, step out of this acquiescent line.
It was not the Israeli attack on Gaza that caused further Arab divisions; rather, the attack was encouraged by the existence of such divisions. The "moderates" were, and still are opposed to the Hamas-led government in Gaza despite its having been elected democratically, in favour of the Abbas regime in Ramallah. The Gaza blockade was mainly imposed by Israel, but it was never challenged - except for offering humanitarian aid - by the Arab states that mostly complied.
Significant parts of the truth may have yet to emerge, but enough of it has already been known to justify the notion that some Arab governments were not opposed to toppling Hamas, probably without the tragedies the attack had so terribly inflicted. Now that the attack has failed to put an end to Hamas and to pave the way for an Abbas takeover in Gaza, efforts continue to prevent Hamas from consolidating a big victory or to acquire legitimacy.
The Arab handling of the war as a result was disastrous; they even failed to meet and discuss, escaping in the direction of New York to the Security Council instead. When that also failed and they had finally to meet in Kuwait, they failed to agree even on a statement.
The split continues to plague Arab relations and to weaken Arab positions, with serious implications for the Palestinian scene.
The choice is not between an "extremist" side sponsored by a regional intruder, Iran, opposing peace in favour of terror and violence, and consequently destabilising the region, and a "moderate" programme close to achieving a just and a comprehensive peace settlement. It is, in fact, between submission to Israeli colonisation and continued occupation or challenging it by redefining the terms of reference and returning to international law.
Many blame the deterioration on the internal Palestinian conflicts, without recognising that the Palestinian divisions are just reflections of Arab divisions. Israel, in the meantime, has been exploiting the chaos and the splits to press ahead with its fundamentally destructive plan of colonisation and creating facts on the ground, eliminating any possibility of a settlement in the future.
By Hasan Abu Nimah
© Jordan Times 2009
