The Arab League: No Voice for Those Who Will Not Be Obeyed

2-8-2018

In 1945, on the twenty-second of March, the Arab League was born.... its founding member states share in common institutions... its Charter was drafted with its twenty articles, such that the national sovereignty of the member states is respected... and the prevailing systems of governance in them, and the pledge that no member state shall undertake any action that aims to change the system of governance therein. The texts of the Charter’s articles were not amended over the past years to conform with global developments and events... political, economic and scientific... because the voting system requires unanimity... however, some provisions have been added to some of its articles... and not a single article of this Charter has been replaced..

Arab summits were held throughout the period between the founding and the present time... and decisions were taken... the positive aspects of these decisions were not implemented... The first Arab summit conference was held in 1964, in Cairo at the invitation of President Gamal Abdel Nasser and King Hussein bin Talal, because Israel had diverted the waters of the Jordan River... and what emerged from that summit was the formation of the "Jordan River Utilization Board," whose task was the planning, coordination and monitoring of projects related to the utilization of the Jordan River waters... and these waters of the Jordan River.... in which we do not see waters of a river but rather.... only a water channel.. "when the foreigners came in and sucked away the bricks"..... and all these expectations pinned on the Board went up in smoke.... and no final communiqué was issued analogous to the final communiqués of the present time, which are prepared in advance before the meeting begins.....

The Arab nation suffered painful events after the founding: Israel was established, the Nakba of Palestine occurred in 1948, the Setback occurred in 1967, the October War of 1973, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the Gulf wars... and the occupation of Iraq by the United States of America..... and some Arab states entered into an alliance with the United States of America as an international coalition against Iraq.... which was criticized for having occupied Kuwait.... in 1990, and ... and so on of events.....

The Arab League was deficient in confronting decisive events, as we have pointed out; it could neither resolve disputes between member states nor repel aggression against member states.... It was pulled between, in the period between the founding and the beginning of 1990, two blocs: a rebellious bloc of some Arab states... and a wealthy bloc of some other member states, where the rebellious states had the louder voice.... while the wealthy bloc became the center of action... its voice louder... and its action... more decisive than that... rebellious bloc... where the wealthy bloc—or what was called the Gulf bloc—became the decision-maker of Arab policies, and the West began to appear........ as a "petroleum customer" and not a colonial enemy... and it was natural that the friend of this customer..... namely Israel... was not an enemy....... And this is what appears to us now in the Deal of the Century!!
Conspiracies and intrigues... and mutual suspicions among the member states from the day of its founding until now... and then came—or the Arab Spring came..... the common institutions among the Arab states rapidly fell apart... and there was an increase in division and pain; two agreements were concluded that were an additional blow to the bleeding of kinsmen, from which came the exclusivity in these agreements: the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel in 1977, and the Oslo Accords between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel in 1993... whereby the Arabs were removed from the unifying cause—Palestine—... and Egypt exited the Arab ranks... which, unfortunately, were governed by customs and tribal habits.... instead of constitutional texts and legal frameworks and social institutionalization..

Decision-making in Arab League meetings used to take place within the framework of courtesies and appeasements... or by coercion... and petrodollars became determinative... political wills vanished... and narrow, self-interested national wills rose. The Arab League became a party alongside one Arab axis confronting another within it... The Arab League did not live to represent peoples but rather represented.... governments and regimes.... the peoples were absent... and Arab-on-Arab conflicts prevailed... in the region... the League became a university of Bedouin hatreds... controlled by warring tribes... their pockets full of money and their hearts full of deep-seated hatred toward kinsmen... winds of bribes.... shaped the positions... until the League became without an Arab conscience...

The Arab League was privatized, and from it a regional offspring was born — the "Gulf Cooperation Council"... on 25-5-1981... then another offspring, the "Arab Cooperation Council," on 16-2-1989... and after it.... another offspring, the "Arab Maghreb Union," on 17-2-1989... after the Arab-Islamic cooperation gave birth to an Islamic offspring called the "Organization of Islamic Cooperation" after it had been named at inception the "Organization of the Islamic Conference"... on 21-8-1969.... and the formation of a new grouping called the "Organization of African Unity" on 25-5-1963... another offspring..... then the name changed to the "African Union"..... on 9-7-2002, emulating the European Union... all these groupings were joined by Arabs, each in his region...

The parallel Arab groupings born alongside the Arab League were toothless.... except the "Gulf Cooperation Council," which was born with sharp teeth.... whose energy is from petroleum derivatives....!!!!.... and the Arab League.... continued to worry, pledge and recommend..... and no one listened.... so do not ask it for an opinion.. or assistance.. until the causes of its illness are treated.. and it is nationalized... and returned to its owners... the Arabs whom their kings and officials used to raise hopes across from the ocean to the Gulf...... with prayers in Al-Aqsa Mosque.. and that Jerusalem is... the first of the two qiblas... not to be relinquished... no reconciliation and no recognition and no negotiations with its occupiers...... a nation that still has hope despite all this retreat... and decline.... and God is the one whose help is sought...