In the summit sun
- 26 Jun 07, 11:30 AM
Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt
It鈥檚 summit season in Sharm el-Sheikh. The tourists on the beach, flown in on charter flights from Manchester, Moscow and Berlin, are oblivious to the political scrum taking place nearby. Inside the congress centre, President Mubarak of Egypt is hosting Israeli PM Ehud Olmert, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and King Abdullah of Jordan.
Outside journalists from across the region are sprawled on a small patch of grass. Hours and hours of airtime are devoted to a meeting lasting just under three. In the 45 degree heat, the media pour out sweat and speculation.
That summit clich茅 - the stakes are high 鈥 is true. The leaders are here to discuss how to bolster President Abbas and his Fatah party after the recent takeover of the Gaza Strip by their opponents Hamas. The rise of Hamas has put 鈥榤oderate鈥 Arab states like Egypt and Jordan on the back foot. They worry about Islamist parties, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, in their own countries and don鈥檛 like the idea of a successful role model next door.
At 8pm, as the region鈥檚 news bulletins start, the leaders emerge to make statements to the press. The journalists scurry. Israeli press officers efficiently offer translated and typed transcripts and start a round of interviews. Palestinian spokesman Saeb Erekat appears and is promptly smothered by about thirty cameramen.
And the outcome of all this? Not a lot. The Israelis grabbed the headlines with an offer to release 250 Fatah prisoners. There are over 10,000 Palestinians in prison in Israel. Just over half have been convicted of an offence and around 800 are held without charge.
Other than that, there is talk of lifting checkpoints in the Fatah-controlled West Bank so as to improve the quality of life for Palestinians there and the provision of humanitarian assistance for those in the Gaza Strip. But there is a shortage of detail. The Israelis have offered to release Palestinian tax receipts but have insisted that this money only go to the West Bank in order to prevent any money reaching Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
All this left some of the Palestinians around me wondering if enough has been offered to empower Mahmoud Abbas. They want what Abbas described as 鈥渟erious negotiations with an agreed timetable鈥 toward the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
鈥淚n these tumultuous times, I also see a chance," Prime Minister Olmert said as the talks ended. "An opportunity has emerged to genuinely advance the regional diplomatic process. I do not intend to let this opportunity pass us by.鈥 But he didn鈥檛 announce a resumption of talks.
The summit wraps up. The media caravan moves to Jerusalem for the meeting of the Middle East Quartet 鈥 Russia, the United States, the European Union and the UN. The big story is whether Tony Blair鈥檚 next job might be as the Quartet鈥檚 Middle East envoy. Will he have the credibility and energy to achieve the real movement that is demanded by many in Sharm el-Sheikh? Before too long Blair might find himself here - enjoying the heat.
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Firstly, journos 'sweating in the sun' is not ever news. Why scarequotes around the use of moderate arab governments without explanation? This piece is written cynically and is therefore distorted, is fact-lite and not impartial seemingly viewing HAMAS in positive terms.
The HAMAS are not 'a success story' but another nail in the coffin for any kind of socially liberal, modern and free civil society for the arabs living in Gaza. They are also a real military threat that is already causing blowback on the always fragile democracies of Israels arab neighbours that have after many years of blatant antisemitism come to terms with the reality of a Jewish Nation. Just as the early 'militant' PLO militarily threatened Lebanon and Jordan in the Seventies and Eighties.
'Not a lot' is editorialising over the facts.
Israel has made several concessions to assist the PLO whom is, at least, an address for resuming the peace process after the second intifada ended it, seemingly forever.
Israel has released hundreds of millions of tax revenue withheld from the HAMAS 'militants' to back up that which was transfered, since HAMAS took control, to NGOs instead. To prevent it from being spent on weapons and antisemitic propaganda. 'Militants' whom never seem short of machineguns, bullets and RPGs smuggled in literally under the noses and feet of the Egyptian-controlled border guards during the limited financial embargo. An embargo placed on the HAMAS led government because it had broken all previous peace treaties and agreements toward a two-state solution. This still is the only political solution acceptable to both Israel and the PLO after the horror of decades of terrorism and the concommitant repression of that terrorism had been overcome by a hopeful and brave effort to establish a lasting and secure peace fifteen years ago.
Hopes that were dashed by the narrow election victory of the 'militant' HAMAS just when talks at Sharm and then Taba were very close to ending the military occupation in 2002 that was the direct result of Arafats' Second Intifada after his rejection of the Camp David deal in 2000.
The military menace of the HAMAS coupe worries Egypt now as much as those civilians in Israel that are attacked, killed and wounded almost daily by over 2000 rockets launched with the full approval of HAMAS from Gaza since they gained power.
Israel will also remove or un-man several internal checkpoints in the West Bank with much wider relaxing of security restrictions and a return to joint security management with the PA apparently imminant.
Former PM Tony Blairs new role as Quartet envoy is to assist the PA in establishing Palestinian civil institutions either destroyed by the second intifada or never present in the first place. The implementation of accounting procedures to prevent the widescale corruption of those institutions and finances are fundamental to create the basis of a functional state with intermediate autonomy. To end the basket-case nature of the PA epitomised by the Gazan situation and to led to a fully mature arab state in formerly Jordanian occupied West Bank rather than the Judenrein Palestine that is the aim the Islamic 'militants'.
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