To Their Dismay, Arab States Are Being Called Upon to Shape Gaza's 'Day After'
The "small" Arab summit, scheduled to convene in Riyadh with the participation of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, will apparently be postponed by a day. The stated explanation is "scheduling coordination," which will enable the summit to be expanded to include the leaders of all six Gulf states in order to present to U.S. President Donald Trump a significant display of strength by the wealthy pro-Western bloc.
Earlier, the Arab League spokesman reported that its summit, scheduled for February 27, in Cairo, may be postponed, because some Arab leaders have not yet notified their intent to attend, and they apparently see little point in going to a wider Arab summit, which Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sissi wants, just to rubber stamp the important resolutions that will be taken at the limited summit.
The scheduling problems may be resolved, but they indicate the deep distress these leaders find themselves in as they have assumed the burden of formulating an action plan to counter President Trump's, which directly threatens Egypt and Jordan. Meanwhile, it would be better not to hold your breath waiting for the two summits to conven
Historically, summits, whether broad or limited, have not solved regional disputes or stemmed wars. In the past, they set principles, which created what is ambiguously called "the Arab position," a kind of imaginary common conceptual or ideological denominator that did not really dictate the conduct of individual countries. Exceptions were the summits that awarded the PLO sole authority to represent the Palestinians and the 2020 Beirut summit that adopted the Saudi initiative and turned it into an Arab initiative.
Egypt's Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, center, heads a meeting with ministers from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the U.A.E., to discuss U.S. President Donald Trump's proposal for Egypt and Jordan to host Palestinians displaced from the Gaza Strip, in Cairo in February.Credit: Khaled Desouki / AFP
The importance of the summits are the agreements and arrangements, shaped by the decisions of which conflicts to intervene in, which to stay away from and which conflicts will give them an opportunity to cash in on for their regional and international interests.
It now seems that the "freedom of choice," which would enable them to avoid becoming involved in the war in Gaza, has been taken away from them. The group of leading Arab states finds themselves under the weight of the same steamroller that threatened Israel in U.S. President Joe Biden's term, which required them to produce a plan for "the day after."
These states can no longer be satisfied with condemnations and total rejection of the idea of transferring the Palestinians or with an obligatory "position paper," like the Egyptian plan, which included plans for Gaza's reconstruction and the operation of civilian infrastructure by a Palestinian administration subordinate to the Palestinian Authority.
In the face of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's declaration that "After the war, there will be no more Hamas and no Palestinian Authority," senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan said, "Hamas will not give up Gaza in any sense of the term, and it will make no concessions in exchange for the Gaza's reconstruction." He threatened, "We will act against anyone who takes the place of the occupation in Gaza or in any other city in Palestine, just we act against the occupation. This is a totally non-debatable."
The Arab states' maneuvering room now mainly depends on the "mandate" they can get from President Trump, and it is limited in scope and time. It might be concluded from Trump's remarks and his emissaries in the region, beginning with Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff, that even if he were to drop the transfer plan, which is beginning to dissipate, there will be no concession on removing Hamas from the civilian and political system that will govern Gaza. Thus, they are also tasked with proposing an action plan to combat Hamas' continued military presence in Gaza.
A week ago, Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit presented a conceptual outline for resolving this issue, when he said in a television interview, "If international opinion and Palestinian interest clearly demand that Hamas be removed from the picture, it must be done with Arab consent and Palestinian coordination, so that the Palestinian Authority can assume its responsibility for managing Gaza."
Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the secretary-general of the Arab League, in January.Credit: Bilal Hussein / AP
Support is mobilizing for this position, which partly rests on previous statements by Hamas, which contradict Hamdan's recent one, that Hamas is prepared to give up control of Gaza and transfer it to a "technocratic committee" per Egypt's proposal.
The problem is that Aboul Gheit's proposal – a classic of non-binding diplomatic evasiveness – which the United Arab Emirates has supported but Saudi Arabia and Qatar have remained silent on, offers no practical solution to three key questions: what military force will run Gaza; how will, at least, Hamas' military arm, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, be removed from Gaza; and what will Arab states do if the second stage of the cease-fire deal collapses before its implementation and Israel resumes the war?
Only if Trump is prepared to take a new interest in the possibility that the Palestinian Authority jointly with an international Arab force assume the authority to wage a military struggle against Hamas, or if Qatar can be recruited to persuade Hamas to disarm, will it be possible to think about the start of a settlement.
Without a plan that includes realistic solutions to these issues, the Arab summit is liable to revert to its starting point; i.e. Arab leaders, especially the Saudis, could, theoretically, pressure the U.S. to stop implementation of the transfer, but not a continuation of the war and Israel's total occupation of Gaza.
King of Abdullah of Jordan and U.S. President Donald Trump, in February.Credit: Jim Watson / AFP
In that outcome, Jordan and Egypt might be spared the threat of the flood of refugees that would overwhelm them under the Trump plan, while Gaza would return to Israel's "lap" with Trump's backing. It is also highly doubtful if Witkoff could then keep his promise of bringing home all the hostages.
But even if Arab states could persuade Trump to climb down from the transfer idea without achieving an agreed solution for Gaza, Israel would be the one left with the need to manage around two million Gazans. It is doubtful if any Arab or Western state would then agree to share in Gaza's occupation costs or contribute to its reconstruction, not to mention that the dream of normalization with Saudi Arabia would remain a fantasy.