Arab Summit Concludes in Qatar. Yawn.

The Economist helps outsiders understand what Arab Summits are good for. These are meetings of the Arab League, a regional organization with 22 members, including Palestine.

“The only use of summits,” said Salama Ahmed Salama in Egypt’s daily, al-Shorouk, “is that they sharpen trends of rejection and opposition to these regimes.” “The only novelty they bring is new divisions,” chimed Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of al-Quds al-Arabi, a daily published in London.

My first class on Middle East Studies was in high school. Our excellent teacher explained the themes in the first class: unity and division. The Arab world has a strong, emotional instinct towards 'unity', a word with heavy emotional baggage coming from Islamic culture as well as anti-imperialist political language. The flip side of that attraction is the reality that the Arab world is huge, and fraught with divisions that cannot be papered over with abstract calls for unity.

Oil rich and wealthy Arab nations have different imperatives that poor ones. Those with large Shia minorities (or majorities) have different calculations that those almost entirely Sunni. North African countries like Morocco have a difference set of calculations vis-a-vis Europe than say, Oman. Some Arab countries are propped up by the West, while others are constantly undermined by the West. The idea that your ethno-linguistic grouping would overwhelm all these factors and create a shared, compelling interest is patently ridiculous. What makes it all even more farcical is how the existing divisions are dealt with. Instead of a mature understanding that a diverse community will have diverse views (a good thing) different sides of any given issue will denounce the other for the temerity of 'breaking unity.'

The unity that never existed.

They did agree on one thing though:

With 17 heads of state in attendance, the meeting did agree on one thing, however. Fellow Arab leaders rallied around Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, in a chorus of condemnation against the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which has ordered his arrest on charges of organizing the extermination, rape and forcible transfer of a large part of the civilian population of Darfur.

All those with power agree that those in power should be protected. All those with power agree that minorities and the weak should be left to their own devices when fending off the genocidal authority of the state. Of course, that's not the view on Israel.

Arab diplomacy would gain a lot from adherence to principles that apply equally in Gaza and Darfur, within Israel and within Egypt. But don't hold your breath.