Arab feuds fester

Press, 24 July 1986, Page 10

Arab feuds fester

NZPA-Reuter Nicosia, Cyprus The summit meeting between King Hassan of Morocco and the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, may help to revive the stalled Middle East peace process, but it has added to divisions in the already fractious Arab world.

The Arab League, particularly Saudi Arabia, wants feuding Arab countries to patch up their differences. But at least 11 states remain at odds over territorial or ideological disputes. Syria, Israel’s main Arab foe, broke off relations with Morocco on Tuesday when word of the meeting between King Hassan and Mr Peres leaked out.

Syria called on the Arab world to follow its example.

There was scattered criticism from other nations, and a reaction of disbelief from Libya, which has a friendship treaty with Morocco. But there was no sign that the Arab world would isolate Morocco In the way that Egypt was cut off after the late President, Anwar Sadat, signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979.

The volatile Arab world, despite paying lip service to the concept of “the Arab nation,” has been torn by feuds for most of the century.

The Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian homeland cause eclipse most of the other disputes that keep the Arabs in disarray and fuel tensions between neighbours. The Iran-Iraq war is another main source of tension.

Syria, bidding for Arab leadership, is at odds with most other countries in the region, mainly because of its alliance with Persian Iran against Arab Iraq in the six-year-old Gulf war.

King Hussein of Jordan, who earlier this year patched up a seven-year-long quarrel with Syria, has tried to reconcile Syria and Iraq, its long-time ideological rival.

But divisions between Damascus and Bagdad, ruled by different wings of the Baath Socialist Party, run so deep that the attempt failed. The Syrians accuse Iraq of instigating a rash of bombings in Damascus and other cities.

Syria’s President, Mr Hafez Assad, once the

main supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, is feuding with its chairman, Mr Yasser Arafat.

Syria’s main ally in Lebanon, the Shi’ite Muslim Amal militia, has battered Beirut’s refugee camps for the last year to prevent Mr Arafat from rebuilding the power base he lost in Israel’s invasion of June, 1982. King Hussein abandoned a year-long alliance with Mr Arafat in February and later closed the offices of his mainstream Fatah faction. The Arab world cut off all links with Egypt in 1979 after the Camp David peace treaty with Israel.

Although there are signs that the tough line may be softening, most hard-line Arab states still view Egypt with suspicion. Many . Arab countries also keep Libya and its leader, Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, at arm’s length. The Arab community condemned the United States attacks on Tripoli and Benghazi on April 15, but did little else.

Libya has hostile relations with its neighbours, Egypt and Tunisia. But, like Syria and Algeria, it backs Iran in the Gulf

Colonel Gadaffi who, like Mr Assad, sees himself as the leader of the Arab world, seeks hegemony over Tunisia. Algeria and Morocco, meanwhile, are locked in a 10-year-old conflict over Algerian sanctuary and support for Polisario guerrillas fighting for independence of the Moroc-can-annexed former Spanish Sahara. Saudi Arabia and the conservative, oil-rich Gulf states back Iraq against Iran. They fear that if Teheran wins the war, they will be swept by Iran’s Islamic revolution.

Political expediency has not solved long-standing disputes between Bagdad and Kuwait, a key member of the six-state Gulf Co-operation Council. They have been quarrelling for more than two decades over the alSameta border region. Iraq claims sovereignty over the stretch of desert that Kuwait controls, and while taking Kuwait’s money, has spumed its efforts to reach a settlement

The Iraqis occupied the area in 1960, but were pushed out by British and Arab League intervention.