Last week’s Cairo Summit revived the lustre associated with previous Arab summits since the first was held in Anshas, Egypt, in 1946 to discuss the Palestinian question. Once again, Cairo took the initiative, calling for an emergency summit to confront plans to forcefully displace the population of Gaza.
The summit succeeded in presenting a comprehensive vision for addressing this and other dangers looming over Palestine at this juncture. However, we must first commend Egypt for its leadership of Arab efforts in this regard.
The Egyptian stance, which President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi clearly expressed in his speech at the summit, puts paid to all attempts to cast aspersions on Egyptian policy. Critics and sceptics never tire of repeating groundless allegations and then, without a hint of embarrassment, watching them collapse before the evidence of Egypt’s unswerving support for the Palestinian cause.
Not only did the summit’s final communiqué reaffirm the Arabs’ unequivocal rejection of any form of expulsion of the Palestinian people from their land, but it also warned against annexation attempts that would drive the region into a new phase of conflict.
This message must be underscored again and again. The short-sighted policies that Israel is pursuing to achieve tactical gains will only perpetuate the conflict and its catastrophic consequences, which will not spare Israel as we have seen since 7 October 2023.
The summit’s final communiqué also placed the Arab opposition to the displacement plan in its proper context: the Arabs’ commitment to achieving a just and comprehensive peace that meets all the rights of the Palestinian people and ensures security for all the peoples and countries of the region, including Israel.
This was the substance of the Arab Peace Initiative adopted at the Arab Summit of 2002, and the Cairo Summit reaffirmed it. It also reiterated the Arab willingness to cooperate with all parties towards these peaceful ends, including the US. The bottom line is yes to cooperation with the US administration, but according to the Arab vision as opposed to projects that disregard the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.
The summit’s adoption of the Egyptian plan for an early recovery and reconstruction drive in Gaza is a constructive response to the US-Israeli mass-displacement scheme. This drive necessitates marshalling international funding and support, but it also requires a political horizon.
Accordingly, the summit participants adopted an Egyptian proposal for an Arab concept of the “day after” in Gaza. This calls for the formation of a committee to administer Gaza composed of local professionals who would operate under the auspices of the Palestinian government for a transitional period. During this period, efforts would be made to lay the groundwork for the return of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to Gaza, embodying the unity of the Palestinian Territories.
The summit devoted considerable attention to the question of internal Palestinian political reform. This point calls for legislative and presidential elections to be held as soon as possible. Although it added the caveat “when conditions allow,” leaving room for the usual opponents of reform to obstruct it, all the parties should bear in mind that successful reform is a prerequisite for the PA to continue fulfilling its responsibilities.
In addition to such strategic matters, the summit communiqué addressed Israel’s aggressive and expansionist behaviour in Palestine, as well as in Lebanon and Syria. It stressed that the implementation of the current ceasefire agreement in Gaza is of the highest priority and condemned Israeli-US attempts to undermine it and prevent it from moving to its second and third phases.
The communiqué also called for a halt to all forms of Israeli aggression in the West Bank, warning that Israel is repeating the same kind of crimes it committed in Gaza there, but without the pretext of 7 October.
The summit communiqué condemned the Israeli breaches of the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon, stressing that all the terms and conditions of the ceasefire must be implemented and that Israel must fully withdraw from Lebanon to the internationally recognised borders.
Likewise, the participants at the Cairo Summit condemned Israel’s assaults against Syria, its incursions into Syrian territory, and its violation of the 1974 Armistice Agreement. They called on the UN Security Council to compel Israel to cease its aggression and to withdraw from the Syrian territories it occupied after breaching the 1974 Agreement. They also reiterated the Arab rejection of Israel’s annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights.
Israel’s actions substantiate analyses that see its policies as belligerent, expansionist, and flagrant violations of international law. They tell us that even the legal commitments Israel signs up to under pressure are worthless, as it will seize the first opportunity to renege on them, as it has done with the 1974 Armistice Agreement with Syria.
In this case, Israel has said that it does not trust the new government in Damascus, despite that government’s repeated reassurances of its peaceful intentions towards Israel. But Israel will always have a pretext ready to hand for its abuses, as with its flimsy excuse for refusing to withdraw its forces from Lebanon in accordance with the terms of the agreement to do so.
In relation to the current ceasefire with Hamas, Israel’s pretexts for violating it have been blatantly fraudulent, and now it has seized on the proposal by US President Donald Trump’s envoy in the region to overturn the agreement entirely. After all, the US has always been Israel’s mainstay in all its violations and abuses, and never more so than under the current Trump administration.
In their final communiqué, the Cairo Summit participants devoted considerable attention to international mechanisms for confronting Israel. They called on the Security Council to deploy international peacekeeping forces to help ensure security for Palestinian and Israeli people in the West Bank and Gaza.
However, as such a proposal is certain to run up against the US veto in the Security Council, the summit communiqué proposes other mechanisms that might be more effective, at least in terms of notching up the diplomatic and media pressure on the Israeli Occupation.
In particular, it urges UN member states to commit to implementing the orders and advisory opinions of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which had found plausible grounds to investigate Israel on the charge of genocide. The summit communiqué stresses the need to activate all international and national mechanisms to bring all those responsible for the genocidal crimes committed against the Palestinian people to justice.
The summit tasked a committee of Arab State Parties to the 1948 Genocide Convention with studying whether the displacement, forcible transfer, and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, including through the creation of a coercive environment conducive to their expulsion, constitute components of the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
The principles and positions adopted by the summit in Cairo are unquestionably sound. The biggest challenge now is to translate them into reality.
The writer is professor of political science at Cairo University.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 13 March, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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