Democratic Palestine : 10 (ص 20)
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- Democratic Palestine : 10 (ص 20)
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The Arab Summit
Arab Reaction Meets
in Casablanca
Despite the boycott by Democratic
Yemen, Algeria, Libya, Syria and Leba-
non, representatives of 16 Arab states
convened for a summit in Casablanca,
Morocco, on August 7th. This is the first
time an Arab summit has been carried
out despite an organized boycott of
member states. As such, it marks a
dangerous turning point:The reaction-
ary regimes have signalled that they are
prepared to unilaterally pursue their
efforts to resolve the Arab-Zionist con-
flict via US solutions. In this sense,
Casablanca was Reagan's summit,
marking an advance for imperialism’s
designs to further divide the Arab world,
in order to impose its own hegemony.
Most disturbing, the Palestinian
right-wing led by Yaser Arafat not only
participated in the Casablanca summit,
but was a moving force in its being con-
vened and in its deliberations.
Still the proceedings and results of
the Casablanca summit revealed that
Arab reaction does not yet have com-
plete confidence in its own ability to pur-
sue its chosen course without obstacles.
While the reactionaries are dead set on
involvement in US solutions, they hesi-
tate to be exposed as traitors to the
Palestinian and Arab cause, which they
normally use to contrive legitimacy for
their corrupt rule. In short, they want to
avoid the fate of Sadat - his isolation and
his assassination. After all, the final end
of these regimes is to create reactionary
stability in the area to insure that they
can maintain their own power. They are
thus concerned to find ways to preempt
the opposition that can be expected from
the nationalist regimes, the Palestinian
revolution and the Arab masses in gen-
eral. Syria in particular has been recog-
nized by all as a major power in the re-
gion, and there are many signs that the
reactionaries want to absorb the opposi-
tion of the anti-Camp David forces. The
fact that King Fahd did not himself repre-
sent the Saudis at Casablanca is one
sign that the Saudis want to keep open
lines to Syria. They hope to emerge as
the mediators of anew Arab consensus.
20
For the same reasons, the Casa-
blanca summit did not take a definitive
stand on the February 11th agreement
concluded between Arafat and King
Hussein of Jordan, or its concrete
implementation in the joint Palestinian-
Jordanian delegation for «peace» talks
with the US and ‘Israel’. The final state-
ment said: «The summit heard detailed
explanations from King Hussein and
Yaser Arafat about the February 11th
agreement signed in Amman. The sum-
mit highly values the explanations of
Yaser Arafat and King Hussein about
the adherence of this agreement to the
Fez plan. The summit considers the
February 11th agreement as an
implementation of the Arab peace prog-
ram for a comprehensive, just, peaceful
settlement which guarantees the with-
drawal of Israeli occupation forces from
all occupied Arab territories, first and
foremost Jerusalem...»
This seemingly non-committal
wording represents a compromise bet-
ween the summiteers who had tactical
differences about how to present their
intents. While King Hussein argued
insistently for the summit to express
open approval of the February 11th
agreement, Arafat and the majority of
participants opposed this, because they
do not want to worsen existing Arab dif-
ferences.
In fact, the Casablanca summit did
not announce any ground-breaking
decisions, though it did back the Iraqi
position in the Gulf war more strongly
than before. The main decisions were on
the establishment of committees. One
committee, chaired by Saudi Arabia and
Tunisia, is charged with reconciling Jor-
dan and Syria, and Iraq with Syria.
Another, chaired by Morocco, the United
Arab Emirates and Mauritania, should
reconcile Iraq with Libya, and the PLO
with Libya. Notably, no committee was
formed to reconcile Arafat with Syria.
From this one can see that the Arab
reactionary regimes prefer, if possible,
to recreate a semblance of official Arab
«solidarity» before convening the next
and the rea/ summit which they
scheduled for October in Riyadh. In this
perspective the Casablanca summit
was a threat to the nationalist regimes: If
they do not compromise on their posi-
tions, the Casablanca summiteers will
go it alone and enforce their policy as the
official majority.
Thus, the summit in Casablanca
has a double message: On the one
hand, Arab reaction, joined by the Pales-
tinian right-wing, is more than ever
determined to enter into the US solution
for the Middle East conflict. On the other
hand, the nationalist regimes still have
the power to hinder and expose these
efforts. This potential can be realized by
the nationalist regimes seriously imple-
menting their declared positions, and
increasing their alliance and support to
the nationalist and revolutionary forces
in the common struggle against Camp
David and its new variations. e
The summit host King Hassan of Morocco, is one of America's favorite Arabs. - هو جزء من
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