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Moro
ccan newspapers yesterday took the entire Arab world to task
for Tunisia's abrupt cancellation of an Arab League summit this
week, saying it revealed a debilitating inertia in the bloc.
"Arabs founder in Tunis," headlined the paper Aujourd'hui le Maroc,
adding that the "Arab peoples have never understood why their heads
of state have been meeting for nearly 60 years to do nothing, or
rather to do everything to scupper any desire for unity".
Another newspaper, the Islamic-leaning Attajdid, said: "It is clear
that irresponsible parties sabotaged this summit to avoid answering
the demands of the Arab and Muslim people who want Zionist state
terrorism to be condemned".
Arab foreign ministers who were in Tunis to prepare for the summit
said they were stunned when the Tunisian government told them it
was indefinitely postponing the event because of differences over
political reform.
The stakes for the summit had been especially high as Washington
was pushing for reform as part of its war on terror, while angry
Arab peoples demanded their authoritarian governments do more to
defend the Palestinians against Israel and to end the US-led
occupation of Iraq.
The Opinion daily said the cancellation showed "once again Arabs'
inability to meet the challenges" they face, adding that the
postponement of the summit "will have serious repercussions on
inter-Arab relations ... and on the Middle East conflict in
general".
Al Mounaataf said the move called into question "the future of
common Arab action (and) showed the need to renew this
action".
La Gazette du Maroc went further, saying it has "become obvious
that the structures of the Arab League need a serious
facelift".
Only the socialist newspaper Liberation said the postponement did
not mean the League was incapable of "advancing in its work." The
paper said: "The difficulty resided not in a lack of interest among
members, but to the contrary to a profusion of proposals coming
from the various delegations - from Jordan, Egypt, the (United
Arab) Emirates, Yemen.
"So the debates have begun ... to try to make a synthesis of
everything that has been proposed," Liberation said. – Sapa.
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