Arab League

As Ethiopian troops made haste toward Mogadishu at the request of Somalia's legitimate government, the 22-member Arab League demanded that Ethiopia withdraw its troops "immediately." In other words, the idea of national sovereignty, the hallmark of international law, means little to the Arab League. Countries such as Saudi Arabia and Sudan claim not only to understand international law but also to follow it. Of course, such countries have broken nearly every international convention on human rights, but for these countries to demonstrate outright disdain for the very foundation of international law is reprehensible.

The recent news of the cease fire in Syria met with a "ho-hum," skeptical and less-than-enthusiastic reaction ("Shaky cease-fire starts in Syria," April 13). I was stunned. Can't we rejoice for the moment over the historic change in a method based on reason and wise counsel to alleviate a violent situation? We see in Syria's cease-fire the results of a committed dialogue from the U.N. and Arab League. I believe the cease fire of today event holds great hope for mankind. Cassandra S. Naylor, Stevenson

WHEN EGYPT'S president, Hosni Mubarak, visited Washington recently, he used his White House press conference to stress what was new about the peace overture by Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah. "This is the first time in the history of the Saudis that they say, `We are ready to normalize relations with Israel, in case a peace prevails,'" said Mr. Mubarak. "We should underline this." Mr. Mubarak emphasized that when the leader of Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, says in English, and in Arabic to his own press, that he is ready, in exchange for a total Israeli withdrawal, to have a "full normalization of relations" with the Jewish state - meaning trade, tourism and embassies - that is noteworthy, and is what caused all the buzz.

Republican presidential hopefuls have been scrambling to figure out the right vocabulary for denouncing President Barack Obama's decision to launch U.S. planes and ships into action against Libya's Moammar Gadhafi. Because Mr. Obama made the decision, they know they're against it. But it took most of them a day or two to settle on exactly why, in part because so many of them had called for intervention before Mr. Obama pulled the trigger. Take Newt Gingrich. Two weeks ago, the former House speaker and possible presidential candidate denounced Mr. Obama for not intervening forcefully against Mr. Gadhafi.

WASHINGTON - Memo to: President Hosni Mubarak, Crown Prince Abdullah, King Abdullah, President Bashar al-Assad and the rest of the Arab League From: President Bush Dear friends: You've all warned me privately about the foul wind of anti-Americanism that is blowing through your region, fed by the perception that I've bowed out of Mideast diplomacy and given a blank check to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel. So let me explain to you exactly my position: I believe your problems with us grow from a misreading of Arab-Israeli history.

CAIRO -- Saudi Arabia and other key Arab nations agreed yesterday to attend a U.S.-sponsored peace conference next week in Annapolis, a move that added credibility to Washington's attempt to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict before President Bush leaves office. The political guessing game over which countries would take part ended here when the Arab League announced that Cabinet-level representatives from its major states, except for Syria, would travel to the meeting in Annapolis.

JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak declared a "timeout" from the Middle East peace process and headed toward a unity government with hard-liner Ariel Sharon yesterday, deepening the polarization caused by more than three weeks of Israeli-Palestinian fighting. Palestinian street fighters, meanwhile, vented their outrage over a restrained declaration by the world's Arab leaders with more battles against Israeli soldiers, more of their own blood and an outbreak of urban warfare near Jerusalem.

JERUSLAEM - The Israeli army killed Hamas co-founder Abdel Aziz Rantisi last night. He had assumed control of the Palestinian militant group after the assassination of the organization's spiritual leader last month. Rantisi, a 56-year-old pediatrician and university lecturer, died less than an hour after at least one missile fired from an Apache helicopter struck his white Subaru near his home in central Gaza City. Two of his bodyguards died instantly. Witnesses said Rantisi ran from the car after it was hit, collapsed in the street and was rushed by ambulance to Shifa Hospital.

Clovis Maksoud, the Arab League's former chief representative to the United Nations and the United States, will address the Baltimore Council on Foreign Affairs at 6 p.m. March 9 at the World Trade Center.The title of Maksoud's talk will be "Global Challenges and Arab Responses."Maksoud teaches international relations at American University in Washington, where he is also director of the school's Center for the Global South. He was the Arab League representative from 1979 to 1990.Anyone wishing to attend his address should call the Baltimore Council on Foreign Affairs at 410- 727-2150.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Months before the invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein tentatively accepted a proposal to go into exile and avert war, but Arab leaders scuttled the deal, unable to reach consensus on it, senior officials in the United Arab Emirates said this week. Sheik Muhammad bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and son of the late president, Sheik Zayed al-Nahyan, told the pan-Arab news channel Al Arabiya that his father had received tentative acceptance from Hussein to go into exile before the invasion of Iraq, in exchange for amnesty and protection.

My fingers and toes are crossed in the hope that President Obama will be able to withdraw the main U.S. forces from the current no-fly zone over Libya, and on cue. The U.S. military is not exactly famed for subtlety and delicacy of touch in its operations, and mission creep hangs over this latest chapter of foreign intervention as the generals and politicians wrestle for control. Handing over the shebang to the countries north and east of the Mediterranean Sea seems the wiser course Of the loose conglomeration of countries signing on to patrol the no-fly operation, Britain needs to continue dabbling its fingers in the Libyan oil wells, French President Nicolas Sarkozy to work off the latest round of personal insults from the Gadhafi family and the need of both France and Italy to close the Libyan conduit of northward moving, illegal, migrants to the underbelly of Europe.

Having recently returned from a 6 month sabbatical in Beersheva, Israel let me tell you the other side of the story that Laila El-Haddad misrepresented ("Israeli brutality — on land and at sea," June 3). Beersheva sits next to Gaza. We frequently heard rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel during our stay. Some friends live in Sderot, and their under 10-year-old children do not know life without sirens and running to shelters. Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, leaving in place economic infrastructure.

CAIRO -- Saudi Arabia and other key Arab nations agreed yesterday to attend a U.S.-sponsored peace conference next week in Annapolis, a move that added credibility to Washington's attempt to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict before President Bush leaves office. The political guessing game over which countries would take part ended here when the Arab League announced that Cabinet-level representatives from its major states, except for Syria, would travel to the meeting in Annapolis.

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia -- Bush administration attempts to broker a truce between its Arab allies and Israel suffered a setback yesterday as leaders at an Arab League summit here condemned Washington's foreign policy and refused to budge on a peace proposal that Israel has rejected. Middle East leaders and diplomats gathered to try to revive the Middle East peace process but instead focused much of their attention on U.S. policy in the region. The summit's host, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, condemned the "illegitimate foreign occupation" of Iraq, and Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa lamented "the absence of honest mediation" in the Arab-Israeli conflict, a reference to U.S. officials perceived as too pro-Israeli.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The first crashing sound came just after lunch, when mortars slammed into the street outside the building where U.S., Iranian and other officials were meeting here yesterday to discuss ways of ending Iraq's violence. The next one came six hours later, when Iran's chief delegate stood at a lectern and ripped into U.S. policy in Iraq, clobbering hopes that the summit would prove an icebreaker in the two countries' chilly relations. Yesterday's meeting, the first such gathering Iraq has hosted since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein four years ago, was intended to shore up support for Iraq, and on that front it appeared to have been a cordial but far-from-resounding success.

As Ethiopian troops made haste toward Mogadishu at the request of Somalia's legitimate government, the 22-member Arab League demanded that Ethiopia withdraw its troops "immediately." In other words, the idea of national sovereignty, the hallmark of international law, means little to the Arab League. Countries such as Saudi Arabia and Sudan claim not only to understand international law but also to follow it. Of course, such countries have broken nearly every international convention on human rights, but for these countries to demonstrate outright disdain for the very foundation of international law is reprehensible.

The recent news of the cease fire in Syria met with a "ho-hum," skeptical and less-than-enthusiastic reaction ("Shaky cease-fire starts in Syria," April 13). I was stunned. Can't we rejoice for the moment over the historic change in a method based on reason and wise counsel to alleviate a violent situation? We see in Syria's cease-fire the results of a committed dialogue from the U.N. and Arab League. I believe the cease fire of today event holds great hope for mankind. Cassandra S. Naylor, Stevenson

Muwaffaq al-Allaf, 70, a former Syrian negotiator with Israel and assistant secretary-general of the Arab League, died Thursday of a heart attack in Cairo. He was named assistant secretary-general of the Arab League last year after serving as Syria's chief negotiator with Israel at peace talks in Washington.Ralph Edward Mahoney, 84, a retired national editor and consultant for the Hearst newspapers, died Tuesday in Frenchtown, N.J., after a long illness. He first worked for the Hearst papers in 1957, as a rewrite editor and feature writer for the New York Journal-American.

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- When hundreds of thousands of demonstrators choked Beirut yesterday to demand the ouster of the U.S.-backed government, their show of political strength came packaged with a harsh threat: Time for a political compromise is running out. A menacing tone laced the speeches of party officials from Hezbollah and its allies. In the jammed streets, frustration crept into the cries of demonstrators who washed over downtown in waves. The huge sit-in has moved into its second week without tangible results, and within the opposition, calls are mounting for an escalation in civil disobedience.

JERUSALEM -- An Israeli general who led troops along the Lebanese border resigned yesterday after an army inquiry faulted him for failing to prevent the capture of two soldiers that ignited 34 days of fighting with Hezbollah. Brig. Gen. Gal Hirsch's angry resignation letter, the most recent in a series of recriminations here over the inconclusive end of the summer war, was expected to raise the pressure on Israel's military chief of staff to step down. He insisted that "senior echelons" should share blame.