A regularly updated roundup of commentary from Arab newspapers
Stuck between terrorism and sectarianism
The London-based Ash Sharq Al Awsat on March 27 commented that Saddam Hussein was probably laughing over what he was being told about developments in his country as his predictions were becoming a reality.
The Saudi-owned daily said that the toppled Iraqi leader had for years warned that his ousting from power would mean a civil and sectarian war and that he was the only guarantor of Iraq's unity.
It argued that events since his regime's collapse were leading to the "nightmare everyone fears" as indications of a civil war appeared, adding that the Iraqis were stuck between terrorism and sectarianism.
It insisted that terrorism was the lesser of two evils because it "is defeated without the need for a media campaign" and was opposed by all Iraqis.
It accused religious institutions and religious leaders for turning their differences into narrow sectarian ones, warning that dividing Iraq along these lines is the beginning of "divisions within every group pushed by blind fanaticism".
Summit resolutions must be more than ink on paper
The United Arab Emirates' Al Khaleej said in its March 27 editorial that the Arab summit this week faces many serious issues, but that the Arab masses hope that it will not settle on simply issuing resolutions.
The pro-government daily said that the Arab people want their leaders to translate the resolutions into action through feasible mechanisms because "if the decisions remain ink on paper, they will become a burden on the summit institution and on common Arab action".
That would strip the summit of its credibility and ability to face the growing challenges, the paper stressed, adding that this has been the case with Arab summits, which end with resolutions on paper.
"That's why the world takes us for granted," it complained, and that is why Israel does not take Arab positions seriously, "especially after the Arabs abandoned all options in the conflict and surrendered to the option of peace, which Israel bases on aggression, expansion and terrorism".
Because of Arab weakness, the paper added, the United States feels free to invade, occupy, threaten, pressure and draw up the future of the Arab countries.
PA should reveal "fangs" to Israel, not Hamas
Jordan's Ad Dustour said in a March 27 commentary that if the Palestinian people wanted to vote for the political program of the Palestinian Authority (PA), they would have voted for Fatah, not Hamas.
The mass-circulation daily added that the people chose Hamas based on its political program and resistance, adding that it was unfortunate that the presidency of the PA would "reveal its fangs to Hamas, not to Israel, which takes every chance to embarrass the PA".
It referred to Israeli Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's recent description of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas as a "failure", saying "we did not hear a single response to that from the president".
The paper complained that the Palestine Liberation Organization's Executive Committee did not want to recognize that the Palestinian struggle has changed "and that what was real in the 1970s and 1980s had changed in the 1990s".
Khaddam no savior
Bahrain's Al Ayyam on March 27 blasted former Syrian vice-president Abdel Halim Khaddam for presenting himself as the savior of Syria from the rule of the Assad family.
The pro-government daily said in a commentary that Khaddam was "up to his neck with responsibility for the terrible conditions of Syria under the first and second Assad regimes".
It insisted that had Khaddam remained in his position in Damascus, he would have been the first to stop any attempt at reforms, adding that he may have fled his country to save himself from his imminent fate and that is why the Syrian people "rejected his plan" to topple the regime, even if he allied himself with the exiled Muslim Brotherhood.
The paper commented that Khaddam seems to have forgotten that no opposition in exile has ever succeeded in any Arab country, saying that Iraq was a good example of how its people have rejected "those who came on top of the American occupation tanks and did not taste the suffering of the people
inside".
Review of Arab editorials
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