"Arab Summit" to support Qatar after Israeli attack, and Doha affirms its continuation to end the Gaza war.
Arabian Sea Newspaper - Special
**Arab Gulf_Agencies:** An "emergency" Arab-Islamic summit is being held in Qatar today, Monday, to discuss the response to the unprecedented Israeli attack that targeted Hamas officials in the capital, Doha, last week. The meeting comes amid widespread international condemnation of the Israeli attack, especially from Arab countries and the United States, Israel's main supporter, in an effort to take a collective stance. Leaders in Doha are expected to discuss a wide range of options, as observers fear that continued escalation will undermine any prospect of resuming negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza. Ilham Fakhro, a fellow at the Middle East Initiative at Harvard University's Kennedy School, said that this summit "is essentially a mechanism for the Gulf Cooperation Council countries to show their unity at a time when Israel has directly targeted the sovereignty of a member state, in the first attack of its kind in history." Fakhro, who is the author of a book on the "Abraham Accords," added that "the Gulf states are expected to call on the summit to rein in Israel, after its strikes on Qatar weakened ceasefire efforts that Tel Aviv has not shown a serious commitment to." Foreign ministers of Arab and Islamic countries held a closed preparatory meeting on Sunday in Doha to discuss a draft statement, which will be presented to the leaders to come up with a unified decision. The summit puts Qatar, which has played a prominent role over the past two years in mediating between Israel and Hamas to stop the war in Gaza, before a critical political test regarding the future of its role in the Palestinian issue. In this context, Karim Bitar, a researcher at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris, believes that "this summit represents a real test for all the Arab and Islamic countries participating in it." He added that "people in the Arab world and in the Global South in general are tired of the classic old statements of condemnation and denunciation." He continued: "What they expect today is that these countries send a very important signal not only to Israel but also to the United States, that the time has come for the international community to stop giving Israel this (blank check), and that this blind and unconditional support be reconsidered, and ideally that a process of imposing sanctions on Israel begins." The Qatari Prime Minister urged the international community on Sunday to stop "double standards," considering that "what encourages Israel to continue on this path is the silence, or rather the inability of the international community to hold it accountable." Bitar pointed out in this regard that "there is now a realization that the threat is existential, not only affecting the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples, but almost every country. And the United States alone has enough influence to push Israel to change its behavior and engage in behavior modification, but the United States will not do so unless it feels that its old allies in the Gulf are putting pressure on it to do so." At the summit scheduled for Monday, Iran confirmed the participation of its President Masoud Pezeshkian, and Iraq confirmed the participation of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani. The Turkish presidency confirmed that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will also attend the summit, while Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas arrived in Doha on Sunday evening. On the eve of the summit, the Palestinian factions sent a message to the attendees demanding "decisive positions" and "using all Arab pressure cards, including activating the joint defense agreement, using the oil weapon, and imposing comprehensive Arab sanctions on the occupying state." Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told the Qatari Al Jazeera channel on Sunday that "the biggest problem now is Israel's expansion in the region," adding, "After defining the problem in this way, Arab and Islamic countries must come together to find a solution to this problem."
