Arab League Summit Likely to Produce Strong Words but Little Action
BRIAN NELSON, CNN ANCHOR: Arab leaders from across the Middle East are gathered in Cairo right now to discuss the future of peace in the region. And joining us now is Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. She joins us from Washington. Ms. Bennis, thanks for being with us.</s>PHYLLIS BENNIS, INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES: Thank you, Brian.</s>NELSON: At that conference in Cairo, the Arab nations seem to be walking a fine line. On the one hand, they're blaming Israel for the violence in the Middle East and on other hand they're avoiding any real distinct rupture with the U.S. and also avoiding trying to knock the peace process off of the table. What's your assessment of what the summit will achieve?</s>BENNIS: I think the Arab governments are faced with a very difficult challenge. On the one hand, this is period in which the environment in which they're working is one where they have very strong constraints on their freedom of operability. They're more dependent than ever on the United States, militarily for some of them, financially for others. And they cannot afford a break with the United States. In earlier summits, say 10 years ago, there was another superpower in the region contending for influence. That's no longer the case and they can't afford to break with the United States. On the other hand, they're dealing with populations who have access to more information than ever. There is now for the first time a 24-hour news station in the Arab world. People know what's going on. They see the Palestinian causalities. They see the vast disparity of power between the helicopter gunships and tanks mounted with machine guns of the Israeli military versus the stone throwers and a few old rifles of the Palestinian side. And the pressure on the governments from The Arab street is growing enormously. So they have to walk this very fine line. They have to respond to the mass pressure. These are very unstable regimes, some of them, and they can't afford to allow the demonstrations and the protests in their own countries to get out of hand. At the same time, there is no question but that they are fully dependent on the U.S. strategic presence in the region and that means they have to accept, if not fully endorse enthusiastically, the possibility of a return to the Oslo process.</s>NELSON: At the end summit, are we going to dismiss it as simply an exercise in hand-wringing?</s>BENNIS: I'm afraid what we're going see are very strong words and very weak action. There will be great expressions of support for the Palestinians. The only real action I would anticipate is significant amounts of financial support will begin to pour into the PLO and the Palestinian authority. But, we're not going to see a cut off of oil. We're not going to see a return to the Arab boycott. We may see a slowing of the existing trade and diplomatic relations, but countries like Jordan, which is about to sign a free trade agreement with the United States in just a couple of days, countries like Egypt which received two billion dollars a year in U.S. aid, they're not about to cut their relations with Israel. They're not about to challenge U.S. strategy directly.</s>NELSON: All right, thank you for take the time to talk to us Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. She joins us from Washington. Thank you.