With the escalation of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, Arab countries are preparing to hold an extraordinary summit in Saudi Arabia next Saturday, to discuss the Israeli aggression. Saudi Investment Minister Khalid Al-Falih confirmed yesterday, Wednesday, that the Kingdom will host two summits of Arab and Islamic countries in the coming days to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

He said at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore: “We will see this week and in the next few days, Saudi Arabia holding an emergency Arab summit in Riyadh, and an Islamic summit.”

The awaited Arab summit comes in light of major challenges, more than a month after the Israeli massacres against the Palestinian civilian population, which amounted to genocide, with escalating talk about transferring the residents of Gaza to other areas.

What is required of the leaders at the Riyadh summit

Regarding what is required of Arab leaders and leaders, Amr Hashim Rabie, Vice President of the Al-Ahram Center for Strategic Studies, said in an interview with Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that “what is required of the leaders gathered at the upcoming Arab summit is to use their capabilities to stop the war, and stop normalization with all that it means.” From withdrawing ambassadors and stopping airlines, trade, goods and security cooperation.”

He added, "Despite the ease of the measures that can be taken in this regard, the Arabs have a historical feeling of helplessness, and some of them have a historical feeling of fear, and there is a state of hesitation and excuses that this is not my battle, but rather Hamas created it. But no one thinks about the reasons." Which prompted Hamas to do so,” considering that “the first way for the summit to fail is to blame Hamas.”

Mukhtar Al-Ghobashi: Withdrawing and recalling ambassadors, and freezing relations, are things that the Arabs can do

Rabie continued: "The problem is that they deal with Israel as a state, but if they dealt with it as a settler colonial project, they would have the ability to deal with the situation." He believed that "the most effective means is the issue of cutting off oil supplies, but this is a topic that is far from being achieved to a large extent, but if only they implement what we mentioned about stopping normalization, this will be considered an indescribable historical achievement."

Vice President of the Arab Center for Political and Strategic Studies, Mukhtar Al-Ghobashi, saw that the Arab countries have a lot to do in confronting Israel. He said in an interview with Al-Araby Al-Jadeed: “The Arabs have 5.4 trillion dollars in their hands, deposits and investments in the United States and the Western world, as well as 252.6 billion dollars, debt securities and treasury assets, which 11 Arab countries bought from the US Treasury, and it is enough to return the debt bonds.”

Al-Ghubashi continued: “The Arabs also have the oil weapon in their hands, and he reviewed how the missile that the Houthis launched at a depth of 1,200 kilometers in the eastern region of Saudi Arabia raised the price of a barrel of oil by more than 3 dollars, and then the Western world and the United States rushed to Saudi Arabia to fix the problem, so that the Kingdom could maintain Its production volume exceeds 11 million barrels per day.

Al-Ghobashi stressed that the Arabs “have relations with the United States and the Western world, including economic, diplomatic and other relations, which makes the Western world listen to them attentively.” He added, "Withdrawing and recalling ambassadors, freezing relations, and canceling deals, are all things that the Arab world, which has the capabilities, can do."

But at the same time, he said, “The position of the Arab world is characterized by disappointment and suspicious silence, which is not broken by statements of denunciation, condemnation, and denunciation. All of this talk will be of no benefit to Israel, which has reached the point of threatening one of its ministers to drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza.”

Al-Ghobashi continued: “Is it appropriate for the Arab world, in such circumstances, to set a summit with this temporal dimension in light of this humiliation and what is happening inside the Gaza Strip?” He considered that “the summit has lost its value, in light of deadly strikes, and in light of calls for help and alert from many.” "The people of the world, even the countries that support Israel, and the Arab world are helpless."

He added: "The Arab summit was supposed to be held before or immediately after the peace summit held by Egypt, and mechanisms for stopping this conflict quickly would be discussed, in light of this death and destruction that is occurring inside the Gaza Strip."

Hossam El-Hamalawy: I rule out making decisions such as cutting off oil from the West

In turn, political science researcher Hossam El-Hamalawy told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that “the holding of the Arab summit comes more than a month after the war, which raises the question about its feasibility.”

He added: "For a long time, the League of Arab States has not had any influential role in any of the events in the region. I do not expect any decision to be taken that could change the course of the conflict. There will be statements of denunciation and condemnation to relieve embarrassment from them, and some of them will be for propaganda."

Al-Hamalawy ruled out taking decisions “such as cutting off oil from the West or even threatening to do so, or cutting off diplomatic relations with the Zionist entity, by normalizing countries.” He also ruled out "severing diplomatic relations with Israel, closing its embassies in Arab capitals, and severing economic ties with it."

Potentials from the Arab Summit

For his part, the political analyst, Mohamed Sayed Ahmed, said in an interview with Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that “the Arab summit will not add anything new, and will revolve around the Cairo Peace Summit that was held in Egypt, because we know very well that the summit that was held in Egypt was not able to “Unfortunately, it has not even been able to complete a final statement.”

He believed that "the summit that will be held in Riyadh will be with the same countries, and within the same framework, and will not go beyond compliments, words, denunciations and condemnations, or demanding that the two sides stop combat operations in exchange for confirming the idea of opening humanitarian corridors and confirming the humanitarian dimension, but the Arab position will remain unclear and inconsistent." He is able to declare that the Zionist enemy is the oppressor and the usurper of the land, and he has no right to this land, and therefore we cannot equate the resistance that is defending itself with the Zionist enemy that says it is defending itself.”

Ahmed expressed his regret that “the Arab position is still revolving around the application of international legitimacy laws, but where is international legitimacy in the first place, from the first resolution in 1947 until now? They are all unjust decisions, because they gave the Zionist enemy a right that it does not have, for this land is not “His land from the beginning,” adding that “proposing the two-state solution at all summits will lead to the Zionist enemy granting the Palestinians an independent state, when it is the one that seized their lands?”

He continued: "Even if the enemy gives you an independent state, he wants it outside historical Palestine, in Sinai, meaning by seizing new land, and all of this is within the Zionist state according to the Zionist doctrine." Ahmed concluded by saying, "The diplomacy that takes place will neither advance nor delay anything, and there are no solutions with this Zionist enemy except armed confrontation and the liberation of the occupied Arab territory."

Source: Alaraby AlJadeed