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Will Arab Disputes Postpone Algeria Summit?

Tensions between Arab Maghreb countries and debater over Syria’s reinstatement are main hurdles

Leaders at the Arab League summit in Tunisia in 2019. (Egyptian presidency)
Leaders at the Arab League summit in Tunisia in 2019. (Egyptian presidency)
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Will Arab Disputes Postpone Algeria Summit?

Leaders at the Arab League summit in Tunisia in 2019. (Egyptian presidency)
Leaders at the Arab League summit in Tunisia in 2019. (Egyptian presidency)

Disputes between Arab countries and differences over the reinstatement of Syria are threatening to postpone the upcoming Arab League summit, scheduled for Algeria in November.

Algeria has been preparing to host the 31st summit since 2019. It will be the first in-person summit for Arab leaders since the coronavirus pandemic.

President Abdelmadjid Tebboune stressed earlier this month that the summit will be a success “because it seeks Arab reconciliation after years of division and fragmentation.”

Syria’s return?

Algeria politician and lawyer Mohammed Adam Mokrani noted, however, that Syria’s return to the Arab fold will be among the main hurdles at the summit.

In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, he said that Algeria has for months been supporting Syria’s return seeing as it is founding member of the Arab League.

Syria was suspended in wake of its regime’s brutal crackdown on peaceful protests that broke out in 2011.

Syria’s return has not been advocated by all Arab countries. Mokrani suggested the issue could be put up to a vote during the summit so that it would not remain as a sticking point or a reason to postpone the meeting.

Moroccan former MP Adil Benhamza described the situation in the Arab world as “extremely divided”.

He told Asharq Al-Awsat that the pandemic was used as an excuse to postpone summits in the past, but it can no longer be used to justify repeated delays.

Several other issues could prompt the delay, among them the dispute over Syria’s return, he added.

Dr. Hassan Abou Taleb, of the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said it would be “very difficult” to hold the summit given the “major disputes over how to handle Syria and Algeria’s efforts to end the boycott against it.”

There is no Arab consensus over this issue and leaders appear unwilling to even discuss it at the summit, he noted.

Hussein Haridy, Egyptian former Assistant Foreign Minister for Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Affairs, said it was “difficult to predict” whether the summit will be held on time.

He told Asharq Al-Awsat that numerous developments have taken place in the Middle East since the last regular summit was held, so the Algeria meeting must be held to allow Arab leaders to agree on how to address them.

“Failure to hold the summit on schedule will send an unwanted message to regional and international powers that Arab leaders lack the joint will to address regional and international developments and pressing financial and political affairs,” he warned.

However, he said that Algiers’ insistence on reinstating Syria’s membership “in spite of the opposition of influential Arab powers” may ultimately lead to the postponement of the summit.

On the official level, Arab League Assistant Secretary General Hossam Zaki had last month stated that no specific time can be set regarding Syria’s return to the organization.

Its return is not imminent, but it is not far either, he said.

An Arab diplomatic source said this position has not changed.

Speaking on condition of anonymity to Asharq Al-Awsat, the source confirmed that preparations are still underway to hold the summit on schedule in spite of Arab disagreements.

Maghreb tensions

Another sticking point at the summit is the tensions between Morocco, Algeria and recently Tunisia.

Rabat and Algiers had severed relations in wake of the dispute over the Western Sahara.

Over the weekend, Morocco summoned its ambassador to Tunis after Tunisian President Kaies Saied received Polisario Front movement chief Brahim Ghali.

Morocco said Tunisia's decision to invite Brahim Ghali to a Japanese development summit for Africa that Tunis is hosting this weekend was “a grave and unprecedented act that deeply hurts the feelings of the Moroccan people”.

Tunisia, in response to Morocco's decision, announced it was recalling its ambassador to Rabat for consultation.

Tunisia's ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement early on Saturday that the country maintains its complete “neutrality over Western Sahara issue in compliance with international legitimacy”.

In a terse foreign ministry statement, Morocco said it would no longer take part in the Africa summit. It also accused Tunisia of having recently “multiplied negative positions” against Morocco, and said its decision to host Ghali “confirms its hostility in a blatant way”.

Abou Taleb said relations between the Maghreb countries are “very strained”, posing a challenge for plans to hold any Arab summit.

The tensions may lead to countries even lowering their level of representation or calling for the delay of the meeting altogether, he added.

“The Arab region is boiling with tensions and crises, casting doubts that the summit will be held as scheduled,” he stated.

Mokrani and Benhamza speculated that Morocco may even skip the summit given its dispute with Algeria.

The diplomatic source stressed that Algeria was determined to hold the summit and would not allow disputes to hinder it even if it had to make concessions over Syria’s reinstatement.

Algeria wants to use the summit to demonstrate its “strong return to the international and regional scene. It may therefore abandon its demand over Syria to avoid being held responsible for the failure of the summit,” he explained.

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Childhood Cancer Patients in Lebanon Must Battle Disease while Under Fire

Mohammad Mousawi, 8, a displaced boy from the southern suburb of Beirut who suffers from leukaemia, steps out the entrance of the Children's Cancer Center of Lebanon, in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Mohammad Mousawi, 8, a displaced boy from the southern suburb of Beirut who suffers from leukaemia, steps out the entrance of the Children's Cancer Center of Lebanon, in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
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Childhood Cancer Patients in Lebanon Must Battle Disease while Under Fire

Mohammad Mousawi, 8, a displaced boy from the southern suburb of Beirut who suffers from leukaemia, steps out the entrance of the Children's Cancer Center of Lebanon, in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Mohammad Mousawi, 8, a displaced boy from the southern suburb of Beirut who suffers from leukaemia, steps out the entrance of the Children's Cancer Center of Lebanon, in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Carol Zeghayer gripped her IV as she hurried down the brightly lit hallway of Beirut’s children’s cancer center. The 9-year-old's face brightened when she spotted her playmates from the oncology ward.

Diagnosed with cancer just months before the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel erupted in October 2023, Carol relies on weekly trips to the center in the Lebanese capital for treatment.

But what used to be a 90-minute drive, now takes up to three hours on a mountainous road to skirt the heavy bombardment in south Lebanon, but still not without danger from Israeli airstrikes. The family is just one among many across Lebanon now grappling with the hardships of both illness and war.

“She’s just a child. When they strike, she asks me, ‘Mama, was that far?’” said her mother, Sindus Hamra, The AP reported.

The family lives in Hasbaya, a province in southeastern Lebanon where the rumble of Israeli airstrikes has become part of daily life. Just 15 minutes away from their home, in the front-line town of Khiam, Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters clash amidst relentless bombardments.

On the morning of a recent trip to Beirut for her treatment, the family heard a rocket roar and its deafening impact as they left their home. Israeli airstrikes have also hit vehicles along the Damascus-Beirut highway, which Carol and her mother have to cross.

The bombardment hasn’t let up even as hopes grew in recent days that a ceasefire might soon be agreed.

More than war, Hamra fears that Carol will miss chemotherapy.

“Her situation is very tricky — her cancer can spread to her head,” Hamra said, her eyes filling with tears. Her daughter, diagnosed first with cancer of the lymph nodes and later leukemia, has completed a third of her treatment, with many months still ahead.

While Carol's family remains in their home, many in Lebanon have been displaced by an intensified Israeli bombardment that began in late September. Tens of thousands fled their homes in southern and eastern Lebanon, as well as Beirut’s southern suburbs — among them were families with children battling cancer.

The Children’s Cancer Center of Lebanon quickly identified each patient’s location to ensure treatments remained uninterrupted, sometimes facilitating them at hospitals closer to the families' new locations, said Zeina El Chami, the center’s fundraising and events executive.

During the first days of the escalation, the center admitted some patients for emergency care and kept them there as it was unsafe to send them home, said Dolly Noun, a pediatric hematologist and oncologist.

“They had no place to go,” she added. "We’ve had patients getting admitted for panic attacks. It has not been easy.”

The war has not only deepened the struggles of young patients.

“Many physicians have had to relocate,” Noun said. “I know physicians, who work here, who haven’t seen their parents in like six weeks because the roads are very dangerous.”

Since 2019, Lebanon has been battered by cascading crises — economic collapse, the devastating Beirut port explosion in 2020, and now a relentless war — leaving institutions like the cancer center struggling to secure the funds needed to save lives.

“Cancer waits for no one,” Chami said. The crises have affected the center’s ability to hold fundraising events in recent years, leaving it in urgent need of donations, she added.

The facility is currently treating more than 400 patients aged from few days to 18 years old, Chami said. It treats around 60% of children with cancer in Lebanon.

For Carol, the war is sometimes a topic of conversation with her friends at the cancer center. Her mother hears her recount hearing the booms and how the house shook.

For others, the moments with their friends in the center's playroom provide a brief escape from the grim reality outside.

Eight-year-old Mohammad Mousawi darts around the playroom, giggling as he hides objects and books for his playmate to find. Too absorbed by the game, he barely answers questions, before the nurse calls him for his weekly chemotherapy treatment.

His family lived in Ghobeiry, a neighborhood in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Their house was marked for destruction in an Israeli evacuation warning weeks ago, his mother said.

“But till now, they haven’t struck it,” said his mother, Suzan Mousawi. “They have hit (buildings) around it — two behind it and two in front of it.”

The family has relocated three times. They first moved to the mountains, but the bitter cold weakened Mohammad’s already fragile immune system.

Now they’ve settled in Ain el-Rummaneh, not far from their home in the southern Beirut suburbs known as Dahiyeh, which has come under significant bombardment. As the Israeli military widened the radius of its bombardment, some buildings hit were less than 500 meters (yards) from their current home.

The Mousawis have lived their entire lives in Dahiyeh, Suzan Mousawi said, until the war uprooted them. Her parents’ home was bombed. “All our memories are gone,” she said.

Mohammad has 15 weeks of treatment left, and his family is praying it will be successful. But the war has stolen some of their dreams.

“When Mohammad fell ill, we bought a house,” she said. “It wasn’t big, but it was something. I bought him an electric scooter and set up a pool, telling myself we’d take him there once he finishes treatment.”

She fears the house, bought with every penny she had saved, could be lost at any moment.

For some families, this kind of conflict is not new. Asinat Al Lahham, a 9-year-old patient of the cancer center, is a refugee whose family fled Syria.

“We escaped one war to another,” Asinat’s mother, Fatima, added.

As her father, Aouni, drove home from her chemotherapy treatment weeks ago, an airstrike happened. He cranked up the music in the car, trying to drown out the deafening sound of the attack.

Asinat sat in the back seat, clutching her favorite toy. “I wanted to distract her, to make her hear less of it,” he said.

In the medical ward on a recent day, Asinat sat in a chair hooked to an IV drip, negotiating with her doctor. “Just two or three small pinches,” she pleaded, asking for flavoring for her instant noodles that she is not supposed to have.

“I don’t feel safe ... nowhere is safe ... not Lebanon, not Syria, not Palestine,” Asinat said. “The sonic booms are scary, but the noodles make it better,” she added with a mischievous grin.

The family has no choice but to stay in Lebanon. Returning to Syria, where their home is gone, would mean giving up Asinat’s treatment.

“We can’t leave here,” her mother said. “This war, her illness ... it’s like there’s no escape.”