There is one thing about Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Even if you do not agree with him, you like the way he expresses his opinions.
But this time, millions of Arabs and Muslims would agree with the key Arab leader when he says that talking of an Arab summit at this point is illogical.
A veteran player seen by many as the de facto leader of the Arab nation, due to the position Egypt holds in the region and the world, Mubarak seems to share the Arab masses’ view that the two Arab summits held during the ten-month-old Intifada yielded virtually nothing but rhetoric – rhetoric that has not filled one empty stomach of a Palestinian under the Israeli siege, or wiped away the tears of a single Palestinian woman whose child has been killed by the bloodthirsty occupiers.
No need for millions to be spent on the luxurious trips of Arab leaders, while their people just want them to do their jobs.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, who met with Mubarak Wednesday, might have seen the pragmatic side of the Egyptian leader more clearly this time, when he went to the mother of Arab states reportedly pushing for a summit.
Arafat was hoping a plea might make a difference at a time when he sees that one of his people is killed by Israel’s US-made weapons every two hours. Child or leader, indiscriminately.
Egypt says contacts at any level are not bad, and has insisted on keeping in touch with Israel despite an Arab League decision to suspend all political contact. The key moderate Arab country certainly has its own way of doing something about the international community’s military and diplomatic support for Israel’s 34-year-old occupation, and its pressure on the Palestinians to break the mythical “cycle of violence.”
In the face of all this, Mubarak can only do what he does best: use his contacts around the world to exert quiet pressure, deliver messages and convey the Arab World’s outrage.
If the Arab World truly backed him, and made a unified stand in the face of Israel and the US, maybe there would be a light at the end of the tunnel.
Alas, even the thought of this is “illogical,” and the Palestinians, who will never kneel down, have only one option: to die defending their rights while we, their brothers, watch footage of Israeli massacres on TV while eating dinner with our children in our safe homes.
