As the date draws closer for the 30th Arab League Summit, the outlook for negotiations seems dim.
Several of the 22 countries are choosing to send low level diplomats instead of heads of state.
Lebanon, a founding member of the League, is going to boycott the conference and not send a representative. Saudi Arabia will not be sending King Abdullah and Egypt will send a junior cabinet member, according to the British Broadcasting Corp.
Egypt, another founding member in 1945, was stripped of its membership in 1979 for signing a peace treaty with Israel. It regained status in 1989, but what kind of message did the Arab League send? In the high school world, it is just like ostracizing someone for talking to the school nerd.
The surprising thing is that the main focus of this year’s conference is not violence in the Middle East, the cost of oil or foreign relations. It is going to focus on how many of the nations have not paid the dues to be members of the Arab League.
The Jerusalem Post reported that the uncollected dues tally $88 million. Will the conference turn into a lunch room squabble over money?
Throughout the ordeal, Syria has accused the United States of trying to maliciously undermine the conference. Although that may be partly true, most of it has to do with Syria itself.
Syria has been backing the so-called terrorist group Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Hezbollah has been boycotting the Lebanese parliament in order to prevent a successor to the presidency.
Lebanon has been without a president since November 2007.
The other problem the nations have with Syria is that it has accepted tens of millions of dollars from Iran. This money is said to have been spent supporting terrorism all over the world.
Perhaps some nations are being pessimistic toward the country. The Egyptian newspaper, Rose El-Youssef, printed an editorial stating, “There is no way things would go well … when the country leading the summit works against the joint Arab interest. Cameras will film an Arab summit that is empty of most of the kings and leaders … Syrian embarrassment will rise.”
All of this reminds me of the foremost political film of our time: “Mean Girls.” In the film, nothing gets accomplished because all of the girls gossip and take advantage of each other.
Regina George, the queen of high school society, wants to lose weight before the spring dance. She offends the new transfer student from South Africa, Cady Heron.
To gain revenge she convinces Regina to eat high-calorie bars, claiming they make you lose weight quickly.
Maybe sabotaging a girl’s waist line is not the same as sabotaging negotiations between countries, but it is the same idea.
Hopefully, Syria will stop sabotaging the conference with its open bias and subversive agenda and the other nations will be adult enough to show up.
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