Mahmoud Abbas is on a three day visit to Algeria, meeting with Algerian president Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
One reason for the visit appears to be to beg for money, and that has been successful: Tebboune pledged $100 million to the PA. (Whether he will follow through is a different question.)
But the other reason for the visit was because of the upcoming Arab League summit to be held in Algeria in March.
Palestinian minister of foreign affairs Riyad Al-Maliki told Algerian public radio, “This visit takes place to consolidate coordination between the State of Palestine and Algeria, in order to inscribe the Palestinian cause as the central point on the agenda of the Arab League meeting.“
Tebboune again pledged to do Abbas’ wishes. He said Monday that Algeria will “put the Palestinian cause at the center of this important event.”
Not too long ago, the Palestinians could count on unanimous support in every Arab League meeting. The Palestinian issue and calling Israel names was practically the only unifying theme that the Arab states could agree on, and since they wanted to project an illusion of unity, the Palestinians got lots of resolutions in their favor.
But now the Arab world is divided. Out of the 22 member states of the Arab League, six have relations with Israel (Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, Morocco) and others have softened their tone towards Israel significantly (Saudi Arabia, Oman.)
Mahmoud Abbas needs to shore up his Arab allies who used to be in his pocket.
Algeria is a neighbor of its regional rival, Morocco, which has been normalizing relations with Israel. Abbas’ trip is partially meant to keep the rejectionist Arab nations in his camp. The states that have peace treaties with Israel are in better political shape, by and large, compared to the others. AfrigateNews describes them as “failed states that are going through a very critical phase of transformation.”
The summit will try to bridge the gap between the two camps and keep the appearance of being on the same page.
Israel remains the biggest issue in the Arab world, but now it is a point of disagreement instead of a point of unity.
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