March 18, 2010 - The Daily Star - Lebanon disappearance of Imam Mousa al Sader

Lebanon-Libya Arab summit spat just tip of iceberg
Analysts say multiple internal divides weaken effectiveness of league

By Michael Bluhm
Daily Star staff

BEIRUT: Regardless of whether Lebanese officials attend the upcoming Arab league summit in Libya, the roiling Libyan-Lebanese summit spat underscores deep and ongoing Arab divides that render nearly all such gatherings inconsequential, a number of analysts told The Daily Star on Wednesday.
Arab League chief Amr Moussa arrived in Beirut on Wednesday for a two-day visit to attempt to cool Libyan-Lebanese tensions and secure the presence of at least a low-level Lebanese delegation in Tripoli at the March 27-28 summit.
Lebanese antagonism toward Libya stems from the August 1978 disappearance of Amal Movement founder and Shiite Imam Musa al-Sadr, who was last seen in Libya and whose disappearance many here blame on Libyan leader Colonel Moammar Gadhafi, who has denied any connection with the Sadr mystery.
Representatives of Lebanon’s Shiite community, in particular Amal head and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, prevailed President Michel Sleiman to boycott the Libya summit, and Sleiman announced late last week he would not travel to the capital Tripoli.
The row worsened when Libya insulted the Lebanese by trying to deliver an invitation to the summit at the Lebanese embassy in Damascus – Libya’s choice of mailbox implied that Syria was still the permanent address for Lebanese political affairs, despite the 2005 withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, said Hilal Khashan, who teaches politics at the American University of Beirut.
“The way the invitation was handled is definitely adding to the row,” he said, adding that Tripoli was responding to earlier verbal provocations by Amal politicians. “The Arabs are mean when it comes to inter-Arab relations.”
Despite the ongoing contretemps, Lebanon’s potential absence from the Arab rendezvous would have almost no effect on the proceedings, said Habib Malik, who teaches history at Lebanese American University and is the son of Charles Mali, one of the founders of modern Lebanon and co-author of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
“I don’t think much will be lost if Lebanon doesn’t go,” he said, adding that Lebanon might send low-level Lebanese representation, “if the Shiites feel they’ve made enough noise.”
Lebanon’s delegation, however star-studded, will not have the power to wring any substantial action out of the assembled Arab leaders because of the years of rifts that prevent the Arab nations from presenting unanimous stances on any significant issue, said Paul Salem, head of the Carnegie Middle East Center.
“The Arab world is cut up into pieces,” he said, adding that North African states focused more on European matters, while Gulf states had their own priorities and the other Arab constituencies sided with the so-called axis of resistance led by Iran, Syria, Hamas and Lebanon’s Hizbullah.
“Arab summits for a long time frequently have not been very important events, largely because there isn’t a unified Arab position,” Salem said, adding that the last meaningful summit took place in Beirut in 2002 when Arab states ratified a Saudi proposal for resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Arab rifts spring partly from the erratic behavior of Libya’s Gadhafi – for example, Gadhafi foe and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said he was too ill to attend the summit, Khashan said.
“Very few people take him seriously,” Khashan said. “Even in better days, when Arabs had better leadership ... little came out of [Arab League summits]. It will be worthless. I don’t think a summit in Libya would make any difference.”
Irrespective of the results of Moussa’s diplomatic efforts, Lebanon’s Shiites will likely feel further consequences for their open rejection of Gadhafi’s Libya, Khashan said. Tripoli has signaled potential measures against the reputed 20,000 Lebanese working in Libya.
“There will be some Libyan retaliation,” Khashan said, citing Gadhafi’s declaration of a jihad and total economic embargo on Switzerland after the country’s citizens voted to ban the construction of minarets there. “The Libyans have a record when it comes to revenge. Probably they will be selective and aim at Lebanese Shiites. I expect the worst, actually.”
Libya and Lebanon can trace their twisting history to the beginning of Lebanon’s 1975-90 Civil War, when Gadhafi forcefully backed the leftist-Palestinian coalition of the Lebanese National Movement in an attempt to “replace” Egypt’s Gamel Abdel Nasser as the paragon of pan-Arabism, Khashan said.
Libya sent mercenaries to Lebanon and Gadhafi espoused mouthfuls of inflammatory rhetoric against Lebanon’s Christians, as the Phalange Party stood as a main opponent to the leftist-Palestinian alliance, Malik said. “Gadhafi and Libya were pretty vocal and pretty active on the side of the Palestinian-leftist coalition that was fighting against the Christians,” Malik added.
The seeds of today’s hostility arose when Gadhafi and his partners here expressed displeasure that Sadr and his Amal Movement did not join the Lebanese National Movement; Sadr tried to keep himself equidistant from all the belligerents in the Civil War, although Amal fighters did clash with Palestinians and eventually blockaded the Burj al-Barajneh refugee camp in Beirut for four years, Khashan said. Lebanese daily As-Safir also acted as the mouthpiece of Libyan interests in Lebanon, Khashan added.
Libya, however, began to lose interest in Lebanon after the 1982 Israeli invasion, Khashan said. Libya turned its focus to Africa and began to have serious problems with the US; meanwhile, Israel and Syria consolidated their control over Lebanon, Khashan said.