Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Elder of Ziyon
Yet while Palestinian issues usually dominate the discussions and declarations, this time there was very little that was stated beyond the boilerplate condemnations of Israel.
The real story was the idea of a joint Arab rapid strike force, but there were plenty of others listed before they even mentioned Palestinian Arabs in the territories.
The only declaration concerning them that was slightly concrete was a new pledge of $100 million in monthly financial aid to the PA and to increase the capital of the Al-Aqsa Fund and Jerusalem Fund by 50 percent, or $500 million.
Both those pledges will almost certainly be ignored, as nearly all Arab pledges of financial help to the PA are.
Yes, there was a declaration, as there is every time, that Israel should give the Golan to Syria. (There was no condemnation of Syria for killing tens of thousands of Arab civilians, of course.) There was a declaration that the Shebaa Farms belongs to Lebanon, not Israel. They said "the continued Israeli occupation of the region poses a serious threat to peace and security in the Middle East and the world."
But everyone knows that those declarations are just for show. Even Arab media widely ignored the condemnations of Israel and concentrated on the real issues, Iran and Yemen and Libya. A 14-paragraph summary of the declarations at Al Riyadh doesn't mention Palestinians once.
The difference between this summit and earlier ones is quite instructive. Here's what happened in the 1969 summit:
If there is one thing that Palestinian leadership hates, it is being ignored. After this summit, they must be seething.
