Mohamed Ameen Dabhelia – 2018/04/17

The Arab League’s 29th League summit took place in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia on Sunday, with leaders at the gathering stressing the centrality of the Palestinian cause and their support for the Palestinian people in their struggle to have an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Representatives included Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi; Lebanon President Michel Aoun; Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas and Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir amongst others.

Mkhaimar Abusada, an associate Professor at Al-Azhar University told Radio Islam that the summit is an important gathering for Arab leaders to meet and discuss issues facing the Arab world.

“With the United States recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and also comes amidst the problems in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya.”

However, leaders at the summit failed to discuss the US-led strikes that came because of the “criminal” alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria by Syrian President Bashaar Al Assad’s regime.

Abusada says this was due to leaders agreeing that there should be no interference in the intermittent affairs of other Arab states.

“The Arab government and leaders are very concerned about the internal enforces from the Iranian government, for example in Yemen and Syria.”

He adds that Arab leaders face plenty challenges coming to a consensus with each other.

“There are twenty two Arab states that means there are twenty two leaders, and it’s very difficult for twenty two leaders to agree on a very specific policy.”

Listen to the full interview below: