LAT/AP: Arab League Split Over Support For Hezbollah

[DeepModem Mom]

Arab League Split Over Support For Hezbollah
By Salah Nasrawi, Associated Press

CAIRO, Egypt -- Foreign ministers of 18 Arab countries passed a resolution Saturday calling on the U.N. Security Council to intervene to stop escalating Mideast fighting.

Despite the unanimous vote, delegates at the emergency meeting bickered over the legitimacy of Hezbollah, a dramatic rift over an Israeli action against one of their own that usually would have united them....

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Moderate states led by the region's political and economic heavyweight Saudi Arabia lashed out at Hezbollah for starting the recent fight, while hard-liner Syria defended its ally....

***

Hezbollah's attacks on Israel, including the capture of two Israeli soldiers Wednesday and rocket barrages, were "unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible acts," one delegate said.

Supporting his stance were representatives of Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq, the Palestinian Authority, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, he said....Representatives of Yemen, Algeria and Qatar lined up behind (Syria)....

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-arableague16jul16,0,1570901.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[cali]

1. That's really interesting.

Seems a pretty lopsided split, as most nations sided with Saudi Arabia.

[WCGreen]

2. Saudi Arabia is moderate....

Well shiver me timbers....

Who would have thunk the Saudi's were moderate...

[President Kerry]

3. I think it has to do with guarding the proper relations with the US.

So they're only "moderate" when that position lines their pockets.

[DELUSIONAL]

4. I am always reminded that we are told that most of the 9/11

were from Saudi Arabia.

[Recursion]

9. Yes, and SA wanted them dead

That's the other half of the puzzle that doesn't get talked about much: all the militant Islamism coming out of SA is coming out against the government's wishes, and against (and because of) their brutal suppression of it. They want their people to sit down, shut up, take their oil money payoff and leave the rest of the world alone. They could buy off their population for a few decades but I'm afraid their grace period is running out :(

[Mojorabbit]

5. Exactly, it's money. Don't want it to spread to their

countries and disrupt finance. I think the average joe though probably thinks differently.

[Recursion]

8. I don't know if I agree

SA really, really, really hates radical Islamist groups and really, really hates Shi'ites, and Hezbollah is both, which means SA really, really, really, really hates them. They kept pretty mum during the last Israeli occupation of Lebanon, too, because it served their interest in counterbalancing pan-Islamist and Shi'ite power north of them. Same reason they were very quietly pro-Saddam until he started threatening them directly.

Just about the only countries that don't fear and hate Hezbollah are Syria and Iran (and the half of Lebanon that Hezbollah controls). And, lest we forget, Syria and Iran are pretty much pariahs in the region except for the fact that our own idiotic foreign policy drives other regimes to stand with them.

Eh... the house of Saud's days are numbered, I fear. Not because I like them, but because I'm very very afraid of what will come to SA after them, which was my exact argument against taking out Saddam, also.

[WCGreen]

10. I couldn't agree more....

But it is the King and his court who are causing the pressure cooker to boil over...

They are in such a precarious situation given that several of the holiest sites in Islam are within their borders...

They can only embrace so much of the west...

They are, indeed, living on the razors edge...

[Behind the Aegis]

6. Arab League Split on Support for Hezbollah

CAIRO, Egypt -- Foreign ministers of 18 Arab countries passed a resolution Saturday calling on the U.N. Security Council to intervene to stop escalating Mideast fighting.

Despite the unanimous vote, delegates at the emergency meeting bickered over the legitimacy of Hezbollah, a dramatic rift over an Israeli action against one of their own that usually would have united them.

Instead of lending their full support to the Lebanese militant group, as demanded by Lebanese and Syrian delegates, Arab ministers displayed frustration and declared the Mideast peace process as "dead," blaming Israel for its demise.

"The Middle East peace process has failed," said Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa. "We are going to the Security Council - this is a unanimous position - to discuss the whole situation from scratch."

more...

[IndianaGreen]

7. BBC version

In Cairo, Arab foreign ministers holding an emergency conference blamed the current outbreak of violence on the failure of the Middle East peace process.

Secretary General Amr Moussa said the process was dead.

The final resolution of the meeting called for an immediate ceasefire and a plan to take the Arab-Israeli conflict back to the UN Security Council.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5184172.stm