Arab Shame: A League of Theirs Blown

Meetings of the 22-member Arab League have seldom been more than jamborees of the world's largest congregation of tinpots, despots and tyrants. Largest, that is, by the number of people these 22 autocrats control: 300 million. (Or should that be 21? Lebanon at least pretends to give democracy a chance.)

Imagine what a positive force that world could be if its people were freed from the bounds of autocracy and fundamentalism. It could be an Arab version of the European Union, its potential as a cultural and economic powerhouse finally realized.

Instead, from Baghdad to Casablanca, and without getting blinded by the deceptive glitter of one-party capitalism in the Gulf States (Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates), the Arab world is to the 21st century what the Soviet Union was to the 20th: a sorry homage to political repression and, on top of that, social regression. Arab League meetings are the theatrical version of that tragedy.

The last one was supposed to be a two-day summit in Qatar. The theme: reconciliation. It lasted one day. The 17 chiefs of state who showed up couldn't take more of each other than that.

There was Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, supposedly the leader of the Arab world, boycotting the whole thing. He's unhappy with Syria aligning itself with Iran and Qatar letting Al Jazeera blister Mubarak's regime for not supporting Palestinians in the latest Gaza war. He's also jealous over the emir of Qatar, who's been making a name for himself as a peace mediator, trying to negotiate the release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier Hamas took captive 1,005 days ago. Egypt likes to think it owns mediation rights to Shalit's fate.

There was Libya's Muammar el Qaddafi living up to his reputation as the Arab world's Dennis Rodman, and exploding in a tirade against King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, calling him a "British product and American ally" and comparing himself to something like a sphinx: "I am an international leader, the dean of the Arab rulers, the king of kings of Africa and the imam (leader) of Muslims, and my international status does not allow me to descend to a lower level." Later he and the king kissed and made up for the cameras. Qaddafi would make a great addition to Donald Trumps "Celebrity Apprentice" now that Rodman got canned.

There was the Arab League's end-of-summit statement, an embarrassment of hypocrisy that makes even the Jerusalem Post's usual scorn for most things Arab look forgiving in comparison: The League heaped the usual criticism on Israel but said its 2002 peace initiative calling for Israel to withdraw to the 1967 borders won't be on the table for ever. Why the blackmail? And to achieve what as an alternative? The League, as always, has no plan.

There was the growing division between the bloc of Arab countries aligned with Iran (itself not an Arab country and not represented at the summit, it's worth remembering), including Syria, Qatar and Sudan, against the bloc of countries shaking with fear over Iran's growing influence (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and now Morocco). Unlike what you hear most Western and Israeli analysts say, the fears have little to do with Iran's nuclear ambitions and more to do with Iran's subversive inspiration to Islamists tired of their autocrats. It's not that the Islamists would impose more just regimes. Look at Iran. But when they point to the illegitimacy of monarchs and autocrats looking after their own survival at the expense of their people's welfare and advancement, they have a case. Israel and the West prefer the stability of autocrats to the risk of revolution. They have less of a case.

Finally, in a crowning shame, there was the Arab League's rallying around Sudan's Hassan al-Bashir, the genocidal leader behind Sudan's various disintegrations who's under indictment from the International Criminal Court in Paris. He should have been arrested the moment he stepped off the plane in Qatar. Instead, the emir of Qatar gave him, literally, the red-carpet treatment, kisses on both cheeks, and a hero's welcome.

The rest of the league followed suit, embracing their genocidal brother in heaps of mendacity. The United Nations' criminal court, they said, is interfering with the sovereignty of Arab nations--the same Arab nations that plead for United Nations condemnations of Israeli atrocities against Palestinians. And why indict Bashir, they claimed, when Israel is being let off the hook after its war in Gaza?

The self-serving logic is revolting. Arab leadders could have seized a unique opportunity to display honor and legitimacy by respecting the court's indictment (and respecting international law), which would have given them the right to then cry foul about Israel. Instead, the league doubled up on hypocrisy by not only equating the genocidal atrocities in Sudan with Israeli atrocities in Gaza (say what you will about Israel's atrocities, and I've said plenty, comparing them with Sudan's is ludicrous), but by denying the genocide in Sudan and subordinating international law to the league's self-esteem.

What a disgrace. What a shame. What lost opportunities. And that, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is what passes for "reconciliation" in the Arab world.