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October 27, 2000/28 Tammuz 5760, Vol. 53, No.5
Arab moderates get their way for now
GIL SEDAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - As far as Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat is concerned, Arab leaders failed to deliver the goods.
At the end of their two-day meeting last weekend in Cairo, the leaders issued a resolution blaming Israel for the ongoing violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But they did not call on Arab states to sever their ties with the Jewish state.
Neither did the prolonged violence prompt them to call for a renewal of the Arab boycott on Israel. Nor were there any threats of a unified military stance against Israel.
Even Yemen's hard-line president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who described Israel as "a cancerous growth in the Arab nation," failed to offer any military commitments to the Palestinians.
Professor Yosef Ginat of Haifa University said the summit embodied a paradox.
"The Palestinians were the issue" that brought the Arab leaders together, "but Arafat played only a secondary role at the summit."
The "Al-Aksa intifada" that began late last month provided the reason for the summit. But it soon developed into a contest over who holds sway over the Arab world: the moderates or the extremists, those who have nothing to lose or those who have everything to lose.
Predominant among the moderates are Egypt and Jordan, the only two Arab states that have signed peace treaties with Israel.
The leaders of both nations have been concerned about what might happen if the intifada spills over into their territory.
As millions have taken to the streets in anti-Israel demonstrations throughout the Arab world, Egyptian officials have worried that the rage orchestrated by Muslim fundamentalists could be diverted against them.
And in Jordan, King Abdullah is well aware of the threat posed to his regime by his Palestinian subjects, who make up more than two-thirds of the population of the Hashemite Kingdom.
"The scope of unrest in the Arab world is so terrible that no Arab leader can actually ignore it," said Arye Gus, Arab affairs correspondent for Israel Radio.
The relatively moderate resolution issued at the summit was passed thanks mostly to the efforts of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
But his efforts were not the result of any particular love for Israel.
It was heavy American pressure, with hints of possible difficulties in passing U.S. aid to Egypt, that motivated the Egyptian leader.
Egypt receives an $2 billion in aid each year from the United States - aid that some members of Congress have questioned, depending on how constructive Egypt has been in the peace process.
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