Arab leaders are meeting in Algeria for the first time in three years for a summit on Tuesday, amid continuing divisions over the conflicts in the region, including Syria and Libya, and the rapprochement between some states with Israel.
The Arab League, which brings together 22 countries, last met at the summit in March 2019 in Tunis, before the pandemic. Since then, several members of this bloc, which has historically placed support for the Palestinian cause and condemnation of Israel at the top of its agenda, have made a spectacular rapprochement with the Jewish state.
The United Arab Emirates thus normalized its relations with Israel in 2020 within the framework of a series of agreements, known as of Abraham, negotiated by Washington. Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan have followed suit.
This rapprochement is all the more significant in the context of the summit as its Algerian host is a fierce supporter of the Palestinians. Algiers sponsored a reconciliation agreement between rival Palestinian factions in mid-October, although the chances of seeing it materialize on the ground seem slim.
The security cooperation established by the Moroccan neighbor with Israel after the normalization of their relations has exacerbated the tensions between the two Maghreb enemy brothers, already high due to deep disagreements on Western Sahara, which led to the breakdown of their diplomatic relations in August 2021, at the initiative of Algiers.
If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the situation in Syria, Libya and Yemen are indeed on the agenda of the summit, the Arab leaders and their collaborators will have to engage in veritable diplomatic acrobatics in the formulation of the final resolutions — adopted unanimously — to avoid offending this or that heavyweight of the organization.
“High risk”
“The summit should send a message of support to the Palestinians, guaranteeing them that they will not be the sacrifices of the Abraham Accords,” said Hasni Abidi, director of the Center for Studies and Research on the Arab and Mediterranean World ( Cermam) in Geneva.
Algeria has placed this summit, the 31st of the pan-Arab organization, under the sign of “gathering” but several countries, in particular from the Gulf, will not be represented there by their heads of state.
Thus the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed ben Salmane, de facto leader of the kingdom, will not go to Algiers, officially because of a hearing problem. According to the Arab press, the leaders of the Emirates and Bahrain will also be absent.
“Arab states that have normalized with Israel are not keen on a concert condemning their attitude. The will of the (Algerian) President Abdelmadjid Tebboune to place the Palestinian question at the center of the discussions in Algiers and his previous declarations do not reassure them”, underlined Mr. Abidi.
Regarding the Syrian conflict, Algeria sought behind the scenes to reintegrate Damascus into the Arab League, from which the country was expelled at the end of 2011 at the start of the revolt against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, but finally gave up. officially at the request of the Syrian regime itself.
“Inviting Syria to the Algiers summit in the current situation involves a high risk. Algeria has realized the consequences of such a presence on the holding of its summit. Together with Damascus, it has given up on carrying out its initiative”, deciphered Mr. Abidi.
«Where to Shock»
According to Pierre Boussel, associate researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS) in France, the return of Syria to the Arab League was nevertheless a wish of Russia, an ally of Damascus but also of Algiers.
“Damascus had to come to terms with the evidence. With the civil war continuing, a victorious return of President Assad to the League was illusory. Moscow had nevertheless bet on this scenario. Again, pragmatism prevailed. Russia is renouncing a forced passage which would have affected its relations with Arab countries already very scalded by the economic impact of the Ukrainian conflict, ”he said.
The Secretary General of the Arab League, Ahmed Aboul Gheit also called on Friday for the development, during the summit, of an “integrated Arab vision” to meet the challenges of food security in the region.
“The shock wave of the war in Europe will spread to Algiers: scarcity of cereals, galloping inflation and worries about new energy routes. The League will have to show that it is capable of cohesion and inter-state solidarity, which it has lacked since the start of the crisis, ”noted Mr. Boussel.
