Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May-June 2007, pages 14-15

Special Report

Saudi Arabian King Abdullah Challenges Arab League to Solve Mideast Conflicts

By Delinda C. Hanley

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah (c) with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (l) and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on March 27, the day before the Arab League summit convened in Riyadh (AFP photo Awad Awad).

THE ARAB LEAGUE summit on March 28 and 29 was the main topic of conversation in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia during our March visit to the region. Every hotel room in the city was full as 21 Arab leaders, their staffs, and press from around the globe gathered in the Saudi capital to try to make some headway in the problems besieging the Middle East.

Saudis and others who care deeply about peace in the region had high expectations. After all, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz had just used razzle-dazzle diplomacy in Mecca the previous month to help the rival Palestinian groups Fatah and Hamas forge a unity government. Now there was no longer an excuse for the U.S. and EU to continue economic sanctions that have caused a humanitarian crisis in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Another breakthrough had occurred prior to the summit, when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran visited King Abdullah in Riyadh on March 3 and 4. Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to try to curb tensions between Shi’i and Sunni Muslims in Iraq and end the political standoff in Lebanon between Hezbollah, backed by Iran, and the government of Fouad Siniora, supported by the United States.

Minister of Culture and Information Iyad Madani (Staff photo D. Hanley).

Every Saudi we spoke with was deeply concerned by the looming crisis with Iran. Gulf Arabs have grown increasingly uneasy with Washington’s aggressive stance toward Iran, believing it could provoke an unwanted war. In separate interviews we conducted in Riyadh with Minister of Culture and Information Iyad Madani, Minister of State Abdullah Ali Reza, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Dr. Nizar Obaid Madani, and Prince Turki Al Faisal, each man agreed that a war-torn Iran, added to the already fractured Iraqi state, can only benefit Israel. In addition, they warned, war could very well spill across every border in the region.

The Saudi ministers agreed that Iran will respond to dialogue, whereas military means will fail. “Why do something by force if you can solve problems by talking?” Minister of Social Affairs Abdulmuhsin Al-Akkas asked us. “If Americans or Israelis bomb today, the Iranian people will suffer and their infrastructure could be ruined. It will cause an economic crisis. Dialogue is not a sign of weakness.”

Tensions increased just before the Arab League summit convened when Iran detained 15 British sailors and marines who allegedly strayed into Iranian waters on March 23. The following day, the U.N. Security Council expanded sanctions against Iran for its continuing failure to halt uranium enrichment.

In the midst of all this, two strike groups of U.S. Navy warships—comprising 15 ships, more than 100 aircraft, and 10,000 U.S. personnel—held simulated war games starting on March 27, the day before the summit. This was the largest demonstration of U.S. force in the crowded Gulf shipping lanes along the Iranian coast since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

With crises looming in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Lebanon, all eyes turned toward Saudi Arabia, which hosted the 19th Arab League summit at the new King Abdul Aziz International Conference Center in Riyadh. In a conference hall as big as a football field, beneath a breathtaking ceiling, the Saudi monarch welcomed 21 Arab heads of state, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

The cornerstone of King Abdullah”˜s keynote address—“the landmark of the summit,” according to Abdul Rahman Al-Sadhan, secretary-general of Saudi Arabia’s Council of Ministers—was the Palestinian issue.

	Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Dr. Nizar Obaid Madani (c) visits with Washington Report executive editor Richard H. Curtiss (l) and publisher Andrew I. Killgore (Staff Photo D. Hanley).

“In injured Palestine, the people are still resolute, while suffering occupation and repression, and are deprived of their rights to independence and a sovereign state,” King Abdullah noted. He called for an end to the international sanctions imposed on the Palestinian people and urged Israel to put an end to the Middle East conflict and accept the peace plan Arabs first offered in 2002.

Five years ago, at an Arab League meeting in Beirut, all 22 Arab countries agreed to the Arab Peace Initiative, proposed by then-Crown Prince Abdullah. At this year’s Riyadh summit the Saudi king re-launched the Arab plan, which offers Israel full diplomatic relations in exchange for the return of Arab land captured in 1967. The plan also calls for the creation of a Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem and the right of return for Palestinian refugees. In exchange, Arab states offer Israel recognition and permanent peace. (For the entire text of both the Riyadh and the Beirut declarations unanimously adopted by the Arab League, visit <www.electronicintifada.net/bytopic/historicaldocuments.shtml>.)

Turning to the turmoil in other Arab lands, King Abdullah called for Arabs to put aside their differences and solve their own problems. “In the beloved Iraq,” he said, “blood is spilled between brothers under an illegitimate foreign occupation and despicable sectarianism that threatens civil war. Lebanon, which was a good example for coexistence and prosperity, is now crippled and unable to move ahead.” In Sudan, King Abdullah continued, “Arab laxity led to foreign intervention in its affairs,” while Somalia is moving “from one civil war to another” and the Arab world is “unable to extend help to our brothers.”

Challenging the Arab League to fulfill its original goals formulated over 60 years ago—“to become a nucleus for a genuine Arab unity”—King Abdullah promised that if the Arab League’s credibility is restored, “the winds of hope will blow.”

The Saudi monarch concluded his remarks on an inspirational note, saying, “I call upon you, starting with myself, to have a new beginning aimed at uniting our hearts and closing our ranks. I call upon all of you to embark on a continuous march until our nations’ goals of unity, dignity, and prosperity are achieved.”

In his speech on the first day of the summit, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon agreed that “the creation of an independent and viable Palestinian state alongside a secure and fully-recognized state of Israel” was a basis for peace in the Middle East. Calling the Arab League’s plan “one of the pillars of the peace process,” Ban encouraged both sides to demonstrate their true commitments to a negotiated two-state solution. He also called on Israel to curb “settlement activity and barrier construction in the West Bank and engage in serious dialogue with President [Mahmoud] Abbas for a final settlement.”

Abbas addressed the summit the following day, saying, “I reiterate the sincerity of the Palestinian will in extending the hand of peace to the Israeli people.” He urged Israelis not to “waste more chances.”

Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa lamented “the absence of honest mediation” in the Arab-Israeli conflict, a jab at pro-Israel U.S. peace brokers.

Israel, which for the past five years has ignored the Arab League initiative, has responded to the proposal in recent months. It has called on the Arab League to revise the document by changing the language on the right of return of refugees, as well as the requirement that Israel withdraw to pre-1967 borders, and the inclusion of East Jerusalem in a future Palestinian state. Arab leaders insisted there was no backing down from their demands, however, and refused to amend the wording.

Speaking to reporters after the summit, Secretary-General Moussa said the Arab world will no longer accept Israeli procrastination, and told Saudi television that the peace plan would not change. “The only part of the plan that Israel likes is the normalization of ties,” the Egyptian diplomat noted. “But if Israel wants something, it needs to give something. There will be no normalization without talking about refugees and withdrawal from Arab lands. We will not change any aspects of the plan. Nothing is for free.”

“Whenever Arabs come up with clear, frank and transparent decisions toward peace, [Israel] rejects them,” Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al Faisal told reporters following the summit. “This [approach] does not show a country that wants peace.”

One achievement of the summit was an agreement by Sudanese leader Omar Hassan al-Bashir to allow a joint United Nations-African Union force in Darfur.

Leaders were disappointed, however, that despite talks between the Saudis and President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, they were not able to help settle Lebanon’s five-month political crisis that has brought much of the country to a halt. The Lebanese delegation to the summit was led by pro-Syrian President Émile Lahoud. Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, a friend and ally of slain ex-leader Rafiq Hariri and considered anti-Syrian and pro-U.S., also attended as the guest of King Abdullah.

The final Arab League declaration warns against sectarianism, terrorism and extremism, and calls for a Middle East free of all weapons of mass destruction. It also calls for a new “culture of moderation, tolerance, dialogue and openness”—a challenge that Americans, too, might take to heart.

Delinda C. Hanley is news editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.