Arab League summit: Opportunists and collaborators posing as champions of Palestine

By Ghadir Khumm

An Arab League summit in Cairo on Tuesday, March 4, resulted in the adoption of an Egyptian-led initiative for the reconstruction of the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, as announced by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in his closing statement.

The post-war plan, which proposes $53 billion in funding, aims to address the extensive destruction in Gaza resulting from the US-backed Israeli genocidal war since October 2023. However, beyond its stated objectives, the summit highlighted deeper political contradictions within the Arab leadership.

Notably, the presence of figures such as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the former leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq and founder of Jabhat al-Nusra—Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate—who also collaborated with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the emir of Daesh, should have raised significant concerns regarding the summit’s composition and underlying agendas.

Additionally, Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority—an entity widely criticized for its collaboration with the Zionist occupation in the suppression and arrest of Palestinians, particularly in the occupied West Bank—was among the attendees.

While officially framed as a forum for Palestinian reconstruction, the high-profile summit reflected the moral and political failings of the wider Arab leadership.

Many of these states that had representation at the Cairo summit not only refrained from supporting the Palestinian people during the 2023–2024 genocidal war on Gaza but also actively pursued normalization with the occupying settler-colonial entity.

This contradiction should raise critical questions about the sincerity and efficacy of their proposed reconstruction plan for Gaza, particularly in light of their ongoing diplomatic and economic engagements with the very entity responsible for Gaza’s destruction.

It is a hypocritical and performative act to sit in a room not only with the Arab states—who remained passive during the genocide on Gaza—but also with Syria’s Abu Mohammad al-Jolani (now known as Ahmed al-Sharaa), a figure who installed himself as the leader of Syria.

Under his authority, Maher Marwan, the newly appointed governor of Damascus, stated in an interview released on December 27 that Syria’s new leadership seeks to establish cordial ties with Israel, declaring, “We want peace, and we cannot be an opponent to Israel.”

This marks a stark departure from the era of Bashar al-Assad, under whose rule no peace negotiations with Israel ever took place. However, with al-Jolani’s rise—enabled by his role as an asset to the US, Israel, Turkey, and Qatar—such normalization efforts have seemingly aligned with both his personal ambitions and the interests of these foreign powers.

As the leader of the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militant group, al-Jolani claims to lead a Syrian movement for liberation. Under his rule, however, Syria has experienced numerous massacres, particularly aimed at the ethnic cleansing of Shia, Alawite, and Christian communities, revealing the deep contradictions and violent nature of his so-called leadership.

The 2025 Arab Summit was also marked by betrayal on multiple levels, particularly with the attendance of Lebanese President Joseph Aoun. This summit was his first regional gathering since taking office in January.

Both Aoun and Jolani were seen sitting next to each other, a sight that not only amounted to disrespect for the countless martyrs Lebanon has given for both the Palestinian and Lebanese causes but also reflects a tone-deaf betrayal.

A Lebanese president—meant to represent the people of Lebanon—sat among leaders who openly view the Hezbollah resistance movement as a threat while simultaneously legitimizing the presence of HTS, a group responsible for massacring Syrian civilians.

HTS has even engaged in armed clashes with the Lebanese army along the Lebanon-Syria border, making this display all the more disgraceful and contradictory.

The outcome of their dalliance remains uncertain and can only be assessed based on concrete developments on the ground. With Israel advancing deeper into Syrian territory, ongoing attacks in southern Lebanon by the Israeli army, and continued aggression in the occupied West Bank, the situation could either result in a spectacle of political theatrics between Syria’s Jolani and Lebanon or lead to more significant shifts.

Ultimately, however, the decisive factor will be Hezbollah and how the resistance movement chooses to respond. These talks are also deliberately taking place to weaken Iran’s role in providing financial assistance to Hezbollah—an objective that the Israeli enemy seeks to achieve through intermediaries such as Jolani and Mahmoud Abbas.

Despite these efforts, Palestinian resistance groups, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), have openly expressed gratitude for Iran’s immense support.

Similarly, Hezbollah benefits significantly from Iranian aid, though Iran does not play a role in Hezbollah’s leadership or the execution of its strategies. These resistance groups operate independently but also coordinate when necessary.

The assertion that Hezbollah operates as a mere extension of Iran’s strategic interests is a deliberate misrepresentation, constructed to frame the resistance group within an Iranian pretext. This claim not only distorts Hezbollah’s independent decision-making but also serves as a rhetorical tool to delegitimize its role in regional resistance movements.

Martyr Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah explicitly stated on multiple occasions that Hezbollah formulates its own policies and strategic decisions without external dictates. The persistence of this narrative is deeply rooted in both Islamophobic and anti-Shia rhetoric, strategically deployed to weaken the Muslim populations that have stood firmly with the Palestinian cause.

Beyond its ideological implications, this discourse also functions as a mechanism of geopolitical coercion, intensifying the external pressures on Hezbollah at a time when the organization faces mounting challenges from multiple adversarial fronts.

Furthermore, this narrative directly serves the interests of figures such as al-Jolani, as Hezbollah remains a critical force preventing the full-scale consolidation of hostile powers in both Lebanon and Damascus—specifically in the latter, where the shrine of Lady Zainab holds religious significance.

The broader agenda behind this manufactured narrative is not merely to isolate Hezbollah but to reshape the power dynamics of the region by facilitating the encroachment of actors aligned with Western and Israeli interests.

The Syrian Arab Army fought courageously in the 2011 war, enduring over a decade of war against Israeli-backed groups, including Al-Qaeda and Daesh. Many of the fighters who joined this battle were Lebanese men from Hezbollah, motivated both by their duty to defend the land and by their religious obligation to protect the shrine of Lady Zainab in Damascus.

The broader takeaway from this Arab League summit is that it was not only filled with hypocritical Arab leaders but also with individuals who, despite their religious identity, failed to uphold even the most fundamental Islamic and moral principles.

For over a year and a half, the children of Gaza pleaded for help—not just for an end to the war but for essential aid, including food and water.

However, Egypt refused to open the Rafah border, and many Arab governments remained indifferent, driven by greed and self-interest. In contrast, the leaders of Yemen, Hezbollah, Iraq, and Iran took action, with Hezbollah notably being the first Arab resistance movement to enter the war on October 8, 2023, without any formal request to do so as confirmed by Hamas.

Syria played a crucial role in the Axis of Resistance, particularly through its material support, which significantly contributed to Hezbollah and Hamas’s weaponry. However, today, not only have the majority of Syrian military bases been bombed by the Zionist enemy, but the country itself is undergoing a process of complete demilitarization—all while this aggression continues unchallenged, with Jolani allowing it.

Hundreds of Lebanese men were martyred fighting Daesh and its splinter groups in Syria, preventing Lebanon from falling under the control of the terror fanatics.

In light of these events, the Arab summit we witnessed was not only a disgrace but an act of extreme betrayal. Meanwhile, Syria is now a land of massacres, gang violence, and the looting of people’s homes.

This summit not only exposed the deep fractures within the Arab and Muslim leadership but also served as a reminder that while the men within the resistance continue to make sacrifices, those complicit in betrayal pave the way for further occupation and destruction, which will undoubtedly be met with greater resistance.

Ghadir Khumm is a university student in Canada pursuing a master’s degree, focusing on postcolonial studies while also dedicating her time to international relations.

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV)

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