A summit of Arab leaders, the first in three years, opened in Algeria on Tuesday against a backdrop of divisions over the conflicts in the region, particularly Syria and Libya, and the rapprochement of certain states with Israel.

This is the first meeting at this level of the Arab League, which brings together 22 countries, since the one held in March 2019 in Tunis, before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune stressed when opening the summit that it “is being held in a regional and international context marked by rising tensions and crises, particularly in the Arab world which has not known in its modern history a such a difficult time”.

Since the Tunis summit, several members of the Arab League, 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, where the legislative elections of Tuesday could bring Benjamin Netanyahu back to power at the head of a coalition with the far right.

The United Arab Emirates normalized relations with Israel in 2020 under a series of so-called Abraham Accords brokered by Washington. Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan have followed suit.

Arab peace plan

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.

Without explicitly mentioning this rapprochement, Mr. Tebboune affirmed that the “Arab peace plan” of 2002 conditioning any normalization with Israel on a withdrawal from the Arab territories occupied since 1967, was the only way to “achieve a just and comprehensive peace”. .

Denouncing Israeli “crimes” against the Palestinian people, he called for joint Arab diplomatic action to organize “an extraordinary meeting of the UN General Assembly in order to admit Palestine as a full member” within the international organization.

Algeria has been deploying increasingly offensive diplomacy since President Tebboune came to power at the end of 2019, after years of immobility under his predecessor Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

Interference

If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the situation in Syria, Libya and Yemen are indeed on the agenda, the participants will have to engage in veritable diplomatic acrobatics in the formulation of the final declaration — adopted at the unanimity — to avoid offending this or that heavyweight in the organization.

In particular, the leaders must find compromise formulas on how to evoke the “interference” of Turkey and Iran in Arab affairs. Some members demand that Ankara and Tehran be mentioned by name while others oppose it.

Algeria has placed this 31st summit of the Arab League under the sign of “gathering” but several countries, in particular from the Gulf, are not represented there by their heads of state.

Thus the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, de facto ruler of the kingdom, did not go to Algiers, officially due to a health problem. The leaders of Morocco, the Emirates and Bahrain are also absent.

The Emir of Qatar Tamim ben Hamad Al-Thani, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Tunisian counterparts Kais Saied and Egyptian Abdel Fattah al-Sissi are attending the summit.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres also made the trip as guest of honor at the summit.

While several countries in the region are suffering economically from the war led by Russia in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has sent a letter to the Arab summit.

He asserts in his message that Russia is “determined to develop its cooperation with the Arab League (…) with the aim of increasing security at the regional and global levels”.