EGYPT is gearing up for the first Arab summit in six years as the Arab world tries to forge a united front in the face of Israel's new right wing government.
The meeting tomorrow and on Saturday was announced last week by the leaders of Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia amid Arab dismay over Mr Benjamin Netanyahu's hard line attitude towards the peace process.
But whether it will be possible for the Arab states to paper over their differences in the three day meeting remains to be seen. The last Arab Summit was held in August 1990 after President Saddam Hussein's invasion and annexation of Kuwait, and ended with an Arab world split between countries that supported Iraq and those who backed the US led coalition.
That these tensions are still felt was highlighted by the insistence of some Gulf states that Iraq be excluded from this weekend's meeting. All 21 other Arab League countries, including Libya and Sudan, will be attending.
The difficulties of convening the meeting have been exacerbated by Mr Netanyahu's speech to the Knesset on Tuesday. At his swearing in ceremony, he infuriated Arab leaders when he pledged peace talks without preconditions and then proceeded to list preconditions that included "no" to a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital and another no to a return of the Golan Heights to Syria.
"It clarifies the hardening in the Israeli position," said the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Mr Amr Musa. "And that's something that can only lead to negative results in the peace process.
Until now most Arab states had avoided any criticism of Mr Netanyahu, hoping that once he had formed a government he would prove more flexible and pragmatic. The US has also urged Arab governments not to prejudge Mr Netanyahu.
But many observers say Mr Netanyahu's speech has cast a pall over this weekend's meeting giving Arab states little room to manoeuvre and making it difficult for them not to challenge the new Israeli government.
Still, key Arab players in the peace process including Egypt, Syria, Jordan and the Palestinians hope the meeting will serve as a warning to Mr Netanyahu that he cannot renege on commitments already made in the peace process. They also want Arab agreement on the shape of a final peace and possible action to take if Mr Netanyahu violates the Oslo Accords.
Issam Hamza reports from Damascus
Syria wants Arab leaders meeting in Cairo this weekend to forge a, united front against the "aggressive and anti peace" policies of Mr Netanyahu, a senior official said yesterday.
Officials and diplomats said Syria believes Mr Netanyahu's hardline policies require Arabs to halt all normalisation moves towards Israel and to tighten their economic boycott of the Jewish state.
"Netanyahu's policies and stands demanding Arabs abandon their lands and rights and submit to the Israeli will have undermined the basis of real peace," the Syrian official said.
"All we want is a unified Arab stand to counter this aggressive and anti peace stand and to stress the Arabs' commitment to the just and comprehensive peace which returns the lands," he said.
Mr Netanyahu, has called on Arab states to renew peace talks with his government without preconditions.