The summit begins

Mubarak advises Arafat to stay away from the Arab Summit, and decides not to attend himself. 

By Tarek Atia

(cairolive.com, March 27, 2002) 

It had been hinted at in the lead up to today's Arab Summit in Beirut. Al-Wafd had featured a front page item on Sunday headlined "Mubarak might not attend the Arab summit."

Al-Jazeera, the controversial Qatari satellite channel, had been broadcasting the same news on Sunday and Monday -- to the extent that Al-Akhbar's editor, Galal Dweidar, skewered the channel in his Tuesday front page column, claiming Al-Jazeera had no basis for the report, sarcastically saying that they were getting their information from sweet potato sellers.

But then on Tuesday, in Beirut, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher announced that Mubarak would not be coming to Beirut because of pressing domestic concerns at home. Al-Wafd, of course, made sure to headline its Wednesday edition with the boast that they had been the first to predict the news.

But Mubarak was certainly not the only Arab leader not attending the important Beirut meeting. A tiny item on Al-Akhbar's front page indicates that a total of 12 Arab leaders decided not to attend -- Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Emirates, Oman, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Mauritania, Qatar, Comoros and Palestine. All are sending lower level representation to the conference, which is set to discuss a Saudi peace proposal making big headlines around the world.

In Egypt's case, Prime Minister Atef Ebeid is attending instead of Mubarak. The Egyptian president, however, was still there in spirit, giving two interviews on Tuesday to Lebanese media establishments, one to Al-Nahar newspaper and the other to LBC, a Lebanese satellite channel. Amongst the issues discussed by Mubarak during the interviews was whether or not Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat should attend. Arguing that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon might take advantage of Arafat's departure to hit Palestinian infrastructure hard, and then prevent the Palestinian leader from returning home, Mubarak advised Arafat against going to Beirut, and Arafat seems to have taken the advice to heart. Will he instead address the gathering via video feed from Ramallah, as Mubarak suggested?

Mubarak also said the Saudi peace proposal -- which was expected to be ratified by the summit and thus turned into an overall Arab peace offering, was a final chance for Israel to make peace with the Arabs. The Egyptian leader, however, was not optimistic that Sharon's government would take the steps necessary for peace.

Meanwhile, Wednesday's Al-Wafd also features an item on its front page quoting a top US military intelligence official as saying that the intense pressure on the region generated by both the US's war on terror and the deteriorating situation in Palestine meant that there was a serious possibility of the region breaking out into all out war -- and that this would be especially tough on those countries who were allied with the United States.   

 

Related stories:
A summit like no other?
Al-Jazeera selling sweet potatoes?
Setting the Beirut agenda
Deciding what to do
Friedman's peace plan
Moussa's message to Sharon

 

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