Normalization: What is the use of the survival of the Arab...

• Attia Nabil
• BBC Cairo

The Arab League is facing an unprecedented position represented in the apology of six countries for assuming the rotating presidency of the League Council at the level of foreign ministers, after Palestine apologized for completing the current session, which ends in next March, at a time when the gap of differences in several major files, foremost of which is the Arab conflict, is increasing. – The Israeli.

Ambassador Hussam Zaki, Assistant Secretary-General of the Arab League, said in statements to the BBC that all the countries that follow Palestine in the alphabetical order and which were offered the presidency of the current session refused to assume the presidency of “incomplete” for a short period of time.

Ambassador Zaki explained that Palestine began its presidency of the current session of the University Council for a period of six months with an opening statement that represents the Palestinian action plan and vision for managing work within the university during its presidency, but it has apologized for completing the task midway, and it is assumed that the next country will succeed it in alphabetical order.

The assistant secretary-general of the university says that the matter was presented to Qatar, Comoros, Kuwait, Lebanon and Libya to complete the leadership of the current session of the League Council until next March, but they all apologized for taking over the task.

Zaki believes that the rotating presidency of the League Council represents a very important thing for any member state of the League, and that these countries are arranging for this matter with an opening and final statement and a clear-cut action plan that requires time to prepare, which is not available with the sudden Palestinian apology for completing this session.

Palestine had apologized about two weeks ago for completing the presidency of the current session of the League Council, against the backdrop of what Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki described as the position of the League’s General Secretariat in support of the UAE and Bahrain in normalizing relations with Israel, in violation of the Arab Peace Initiative.

The State of Qatar also decided not to accept the rotating presidency of the League Council after the Palestinian apology, while preserving its right to preside over the next session next March.

The case was repeated with Kuwait, Comoros, and Lebanon. And recently, Libya apologized for the presidency of the League Council, indicating that the circumstances are not suitable for this matter.

Libyan Foreign Ministry spokesman Muhammad al-Qiblawi said in a tweet on Twitter that his country is looking forward to exercising its right to chair the Arab League Council “under better conditions than the current one.”

Al-Qiblawi added that Libya adheres to its right to hold the rotating presidency of the University Council in accordance with the internal regulations and the order in effect.

Observers believe that these apologies reflect a decline in the role of the League at the regional and global levels, in light of the widening differences between the Arab countries on major issues, most notably the Arab-Israeli conflict, the crises in Syria, Yemen, and Libya, as well as relations with Turkey and Iran.

Khattar Abu Diab, a Paris-based political analyst, says that the Arab League is governed by consensus among its member states, and there is no real democratic voting pattern to take a decision.

Abu Diab added during his interview with the BBC that the Arab countries remain captive to their own interests and their regional and international alliances, and therefore the decision – according to Abu Diab Khattar – is not purely independent and does not always reflect Arab consensus, as he said.

Abu Diab points out that the solution lies in turning this institution into a platform for economic, cultural and social cooperation, rather than limiting its interests to political matters that are always the subject of disputes and disagreements.

Abdullah Al-Ashaal, a former assistant foreign minister and a former presidential candidate in Egypt, says that the role of the Arab League has completely ended with the outbreak of the “Arab Spring revolutions,” and that it no longer meets the aspirations of the Arab street for unity and the adoption of the main issues, foremost of which is the Arab-Israeli conflict or the Syrian crisis, Interventions from outside the Arab region became the main influence in most of these crises.

Al-Ashaal says that if the pace of the Arab countries ’decisions in support of normalization with Israel continues, the role of the Arab League will be completely ended in a short period, given that this issue represented the minimum level of consensus between the Arab countries, despite the international external pressures they were facing, such as those practiced by the states. United States of America

Al-Ashaal clarifies that the Arab League will end as a regional organization within the next two years at the latest, and will be replaced by the “New Middle East Organization” led by Israel with the support of the international community and the United States of America, noting that there is no political will among Arab leaders to reform the Arab League or Change the pattern of decision-making in it.

Atef Saadawi, a researcher at the Arab Center for Research and Studies, disagrees with this vision and says during an interview with the BBC that there is no alternative to the Arab League as a locomotive for managing joint Arab action, as it represents the minimum level for consensus and to sit at the dialogue table on issues of concern to its member states.

Saadawi explains that the past period witnessed attempts to reform the Arab League by adopting initiatives to amend the Arab League’s charter, modify the decision-making method in it, and support its institutions financially and politically, but these initiatives “lacked a minimum of dealing with the regional and international variables that plague the region.” Among them are the war on terror or changing international views on managing the region’s thorny files such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, the crises in Syria, Libya, and Yemen, as well as the relations between the countries of the region and Turkey and Iran.

The researcher believes that real reform comes through reform initiatives that take into account that there are Arab-Arab differences over core issues, and that there is a divergence of interests and concerns. Reform, in his view, is “not a structural legal reform but political reform.”

As for Nabil Abdel Fattah, a professor of political science at Cairo University, he believes that the Arab League “was never a locomotive for joint Arab action.” And that its existence was “temporary” in order to create a platform for the countries that were under colonialism in the 1940’s until the 1960s.

Abdel Fattah says that the Arab League has gone through stages of rise and major challenges since its establishment in 1945 as the oldest regional organization in the world, but it suffered a major setback after the defeat of 1967 and the death of former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had a nationalist vision calling for the unification of Arab decision in the face of international challenges. And major crises.

The political science professor says that the Arab League at the current stage remains captive to a conflict between two main camps, the first being the Gulf countries that put their money on the political decision of the League, and the other is the founding countries of the League, including Egypt, Algeria and others, which seek independence for the Arab decision and amend the League’s charter. For more political and structural reforms, he said.

The charter of the Arab League indicates that it seeks to strengthen ties between Arab countries, maintain their independence, and preserve the security and integrity of the Arab region in various fields, but the actual reality on the ground finds that it has become an arena for conflict and the expression of divergent political wills and the settlement of Arab-Arab differences, pending the existence of What some describe as a political will for reform that takes it out of the circle of narrow interests to prospects for cooperation in various fields.