According to the French newspaper LaCroix, the Algerian government has made the celebration of the 68th anniversary of the beginning of the war of independence (war of liberation for the Algerians) coincide with the opening of the 31st Summit of the Arab League held on November 1 and 2 in Algiers, to show its ambition to return to the forefront of the diplomatic scene. Indeed, the daily Le Soir d’Algérie wrote: November 1, 1954-November 1, 2022, an appointment with history.
Major absentees at the Summit
Until the day before the opening of the Summit, Algiers expected to host King Mohammed VI. The Moroccan king has backtracked in the home stretch. It would have been a smart move for Algeria to re-establish relations with its adversary after breaking ties with Rabat in August 2021.
This 31st Summit, held under the theme of “unifying the Arab ranks”, will be attended by the Egyptian president, the Emir of Qatar, and the UN secretary-general, among others, as a special guest. But there are some major absentees, including the leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain. The Algerian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ramtane Lamamra, tempered the blow by describing the participation rate at the Algiers Summit as “respectable and very important”, and emphasizing the “high level of relevance” of the agenda, reports the official news agency APS.
It has been a long time since Algeria ruled the non-aligned world and imposed itself on the international stage. President Abdelmadjid Tebboune is struggling to reconnect with its past greatness following the country’s protracted “eclipse” since President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s stroke in 2013. The country has, among other things, lost a lot of weight and aura in supporting self-determination for Western Sahara, which is more than 80 percent held by Morocco.
“Algeria’s setback is considerable. Morocco has weaved its geo-economic and religious way – with the training of African imams – and has gained a strong foothold on the part of the African continent until its return to the African Union, under the nose of Algeria,” notes an observer.
Topics of disagreement:
On the Arab scene, several influential League members have not shied away from blocking the road to Algeria. Thus, Algiers has failed to designate a UN special envoy to Libya twice in 2020 and 2022, while Ramtane Lamamra was approached in 2020 and Sabri Boukadoum before last summer.
This Arab League meeting, dubbed “the top of all summits” by the daily Echourouk, must first and foremost confront discord. Algeria, which had hoped to bring Syria back into the fold of the Arab League in collaboration with Russia, had to give up.
The rapprochement between Israel and several Arab states:
Algeria finds itself increasingly isolated in its support for the Palestinian cause, which is “going through one of its most difficult stages, characterized by a stalled political process and an occupier who persists in its policy of fait accompli,” laments Ramtane Lamamra. However, according to the head of diplomacy, this universal support for Palestinians, which will be one of the Summit’s primary conclusions, may be pretty formal.
The situation inside the Arab League has shifted dramatically. While it has historically prioritized the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, several of its 22 members, especially the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Bahrain, and Sudan, have finally forged ties with Israel as part of the Abraham Accords – brokered in 2020 by the United States under the presidency of Donald Trump. A rapprochement is also underway with Saudi Arabia, the leader of the Gulf monarchies, which appears to be relinquishing its prior demand for recognition of a Palestinian state.