Libya, March 24: Libya’s maverick leader Moamer Gathafi hosts his first Arab summit this weekend that aims to “rescue” Israeli-occupied Palestinian Jerusalem as Tel Aviv defies international calls for a illegal Jewish settlement freeze in the Palestinian Holy City.
The Saturday-Sunday summit in Sirte is also expected to home in on Sudan where President Omar al-Beshir, although faced with an international arrest warrant for alleged war crimes in Darfur, is seeking re-election.
The Israeli-Palestinian peace process has already dominated the runup to the summit amid calls for both the Arab world’s pro-Western and radical leaders to set aside feuding and unite against Israel.
The summit will be the first to be hosted by Libyan leader Moamer Gathafi and is expected also to discuss Sudan where President Omar al-Beshir is seeking re-election.
The Middle East peace process is likely to dominate the summit that opens on Saturday in the Mediterranean coastal city of Sirte.
Israel has infuriated Palestinian and other Arab leaders as well as the wider international community with plans to expand illegal Jewish settlements in Palestinian East Jerusalem.
Its US ally warned the Israeli plans would derail its efforts to revive peace talks with the Palestinians amid a rise of violence in and around occupied Jerusalem in recent days.
In the run-up to the summit, the head of the 22-member Arab League Amr Mussa called for all talks with Israel, direct or indirect, to be suspended.
“Negotiations with Israel at this time are pointless,” he said.
His deputy Ahmed Ben Helli said on Tuesday that Arab foreign ministers would draft a resolution outlining measures “to rescue Jerusalem from being Judaised.”
The draft will be discussed at a preparatory ministers’ meeting in Sirte on Thursday before being submitted to heads of state for approval.
Arab diplomats said the aim is to set up a commission to record Israeli “violations” in East Jerusalem for subsequent referral to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Israel has refused to go back on its announcement of illegal settlement expansion despite strong opposition from its US ally.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the timing of the announcement — during a visit by Vice President Joe Biden on March 9 aimed at promoting US-brokered indirect peace negotiations with the Palestinians — as “insulting”.
But after White House talks on Tuesday, Israel’s hardline Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remained defiant.
Further riling the Palestinians, Israeli media reported that municipal authorities had approved a plan to build a further 20 illegal settler units in Palestinian East Jerusalem.
The so-called Quartet of major players in the Middle East peace process — the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States — issued a statement last Friday calling on Israel to “freeze all settlement activity, including natural growth.”
Regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday that Israel’s “stubbornness” made the idea of renewed negotiations unrealistic and said it would be seeking clarifications from the Quartet.
Netanyahu’s remarks “cast doubts on the peace process as a whole and on the seriousness of ongoing international efforts to start negotiations,” the state Saudi Press Agency quoted an official as saying.
International law considers all Jewish settlements to be illegal because they are built on Arab (mainly Palestinian) land, as it is also inadmissible to acquire territory by war.
Gathafi, who himself has been known to storm out of Arab summits in the past and has a history of ruffling the feathers of fellow Arab leaders at such forums, has set the tone.
His Mediterranean hometown of Sirte in central Libya is decked with banners that proclaim: “The time is not for disputes,” “We must work together,” and “The interest of the (Arab) nation rises above all differences.”
Syria has also set the lofty target of Arab unity and circulated a proposal on how to “resolve Arab differences,” according to delegates.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose country like Libya is emerging from US isolation, called on Wednesday for the Arab world to close ranks and “rescue Jerusalem from Israeli schemes.”
Meanwhile, it remains unclear how many Arab leaders will turn up in Sirte.
Saudi King Abdullah could stay at home, while Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, recovering in hospital from surgery, is sending Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif.
Lebanon which blames Libya for the disappearance in 1978 of leading Shiite cleric Mussa Sadr is still mulling the invitation.
—Agencies