In Lebanon and Beyond: Could the Arab League be on the Verge of Resurgence?

June 4, 2008 – 3:35 pm

Arab League-bashing is a favorite past time of the Arab masses. There is, at best, a sense of resignation that the Arab League is an institution that has failed miserably in resolving the conflicts engulfing our region.

The last annual summit of Arab Heads of states in Damascus, in March this year, was met with a chorus of apathy on the streets of Amman, Cairo, Casablanca, Gaza and every other corner of the Arab world. The only thing that seems to get people to turn on their TV sets is the perennial (and always entertaining) Gaddafi speech, with the average Arab viewer wondering just how far the Colonel will go in his latest oration.

It is difficult to blame the Arabs for deriding their league. The seeming impotence of the Arab League in the face of adversity is quite legendary. As the situation in Palestine, especially Gaza, deteriorates, as the cruel civil war wages in Iraq (not to mention the illegal invasion that sparked it), as the Darfur situation worsens, the Arab league stands totally powerless. And this is just a snapshot of the current crop of crises in Arabia. The history of the last six decades since the founding of the League in 1945 is deluged with examples of the Arab League’s inefficiency and incapacity to resolve any of the major issues facing the region.

But then, in the midst of all this inaction, we woke up one morning last week to the sight of a truly extraordinary and improbable achievement: a real Arab League success. The Arab League’s success in brokering an agreement between the endlessly feuding Lebanese factions is a major triumph of unprecedented caliber. Of course, particular credit is due to the Qatari Government and the few Arab Foreign Ministers who devoted their time and energy towards the attainment of this goal in the period leading up to the agreement. But it was the institution of the Arab League that made this entire effort possible and, despite all our instincts to disbelieve, we should all recognize that.

The success is particularly laudable in light of the initial inability of the Arab League to put a meeting together quickly enough to respond to the surge of violence in Lebanon that started earlier this month. When the decisions of the Lebanese government to dismantle the telecommunications network of Hezbollah and to remove the security chief of Beirut airport unleashed an unprecedented reaction by Hezbollah on the streets of Beirut, it took the Arab League almost a week to get the Foreign Ministers of its members to meet.

When the Foreign Ministers finally managed to congregate, most Arabs didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Read More »

By Nasser Ali Khasawneh | Posted in current affairs, lebanon, politics | Comments (1)

Towards a New Arab Movement

April 27, 2003 – 11:51 am

As the dust begins to settle on the American/British victory in Baghdad, it falls upon all Arabs now to reflect seriously on the future. I cannot provide accurate percentages, but it would be fair to say that an overwhelming majority of Arabs were against this war, to say the least. A sense of outrage was palpable across Arab society. And I am not talking only of the underprivileged or the disenfranchised. The outrage, despair and humiliation, as hundreds of thousands of bombs pounded Iraq, were equally felt by palace and ghetto dwellers. Read More »

By Nasser Ali Khasawneh | Posted in current affairs, iraq | Comments (2)

The Death of the Arabs

March 5, 2002 – 11:47 am

I am no historian, but those who are ought to be excited these days. They are witnessing a new phenomenon unparalleled in history. They will be the first to chronicle the absolute paralysis of 200 million otherwise hot-blooded people.

This is unlike the fall of Baghdad to the Moguls. This is no lamentable loss of Al Andalus. The peculiar situation of the Arabs today is that a whole nation has died en masse while it is still breathing – and having a jolly good time, for that matter.

Have we been there before? I don’t think so. The Arab Israeli wars usually lasted for a few hours or days. The siege of Beirut only lasted three months. But this is the longest and fiercest war of extermination to which the Palestinians have been subjected so far. Read More »

By Zaid Nabulsi | Posted in current affairs | Comments (0)

The Arab Free Trade Zone – The Arab World’s Best Kept Secret!

January 1, 2000 – 4:40 am

Call me old fashioned, but I believe in Arab unity. Yes, I know all the counter-arguments that are the norm these days in every dinner party in every corner of the Arab world. Arab unity, many “pragmatist” Arabs love to proclaim, is just a dream that was shattered by the failure of the Pan-Arab project in the 1950’s and 1960’s, culminating in the defeat of 1967, and, more recently, by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. here are a multitude of responses that can be made to such claims. I can point out that Arab unity is not some fancy idea that blows in the direction of every passing political event; it is an issue of identity rooted in language and history, two of the most important constituents of nationhood. But, more importantly, the pitch for Arab Unity in the 21st century must be economic. Read More »

By Nasser Ali Khasawneh | Posted in business world | Comments (0)