Many words, few deeds at Islamic summit

By Rawhi Abeidoh

DOHA (Reuters): Leaders of the world's biggest Muslim group, set up 31 years ago to liberate Jerusalem, have ended a summit with strong denunciation of Israeli "occupiers" but again failed to agree on binding measures.

Delegates and analysts said that there was little else the leaders could do with a group whose disparate 56 member states are spread across Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe and are brought together by their common faith alone.

As in previous summits, leaders of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) paid only lip service to Palestinians waging a bloody uprising against Israel.

Nearly 200 Palestinians have been killed in seven weeks of clashes with Israeli troops in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

A final communique issued at the end of a two-day meeting late on Monday made no specific mention of financial aid other than the two funds already set up by last month's Arab summit.

It did not name the members of a ministerial committee that was supposed to lobby UN Security Council members for international protection for the Palestinians pending "further consultations among member-states".

"Unfortunately, the big Islamic dilemma is that a small state (Israel) is spilling our blood and the blood of our Palestinian brothers without any deterrence from the United Nations, the Arab or Muslim worlds," said Qatar's Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani.

"Frankly, we must be ashamed of ourselves," he told a news conference after the summit.

Scores of speeches and a 50-page final communique approved by leaders of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims have contained blistering attacks against Israel for what they said its war crimes against Palestinians.

They agreed a non-binding resolution urging members to cut ties with Jewish state. They also omitted a paragraph that criticized the United States for a "biased stance" which it said obstructed the UN Security Council from carrying out its duty to end Israel's occupation of Arab land.

"The dominant tone is fear, fear of the United States," said Abdel Bary Atwan, editor-in-chief of the London-based al-Quds al- Arabi newspaper.

"Most of the OIC members are either protected by America, like the Gulf Arab countries, rely on U.S. financial support like Egypt and Jordan, or are Africans expecting aid from Uncle Sam," he added.

In 1991, the United States led a multinational military coalition to drive Iraq's troops from fellow OIC member Kuwait after a seven-month occupation.

In the 1980-1988 Gulf War, Washington supported Iraq ostensibly to prevent Iran from exporting its fiery brand of Islamic militancy to the pro-Western oil-rich region.

"Despite their anger at the blind pro-Israel bias, most Gulf Arab countries still feel indebted to the United States," said an Arab diplomat.

Delegates said that moderates led by Egypt and Turkey, key U.S. allies in the Middle East, had prevailed in drafting the final communique, rejecting calls by hard-liners Iraq and Sudan for jihad (holy) war against Israel.

Egypt has been the second largest recipient of U.S. aid after Israel since the 1979 Camp David peace treaty with the Jewish State.

Turkey, host of a major U.S. airforce base in the Middle East, is also actively expanding its military ties with Israel to the chagrin of Syria and other Arab states.

The term jihad has been absent from OIC language since the 1991 Madrid conference that launched the Middle East peace process.

The OIC was set up in 1969 to rally Muslims against Israel after an Australian, said by Israel to be insane, set fire al- Aqsa mosque, one of Islam's holiest shrines.

"It is this flowery language in which we always manage to articulate our weakness," said Nabil Abdel Fattah from Cairo- based al-Ahram Strategic Center for Political and Strategic Studies.

"It is so deliberately ambiguous that it leaves the man in the street lost in the labyrinth of stale Arab and Muslim politics," Fattah added.