Jerusalem — the OIC summit

As widely forecast the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) moot held over two days in Turkey has proved to be something of a non-event. At the end the leaders of 57 Muslim-majority states declared “East Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine.” Words do not get much emptier than that. The Saudi King — who did not attend the OIC emergency session — said that “Palestinians have the right to East Jerusalem as their capital.” Undeniably true but ultimately equally empty.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had called the meeting in response to President Trump declaring that the US was going to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and that Jerusalem was the capital city of Israel. Routine condemnations followed across the Arab and wider Muslim world. Quite what the moot was expected to achieve is unclear, though it was clear from the outset that the very last thing it was going to do was take any concerted action against the US or Israel. Many of the states sending representatives have close trading and diplomatic relations with America that they were unwilling to compromise. Then there are the huge doctrinal differences between the member states, many of whom are ideologically at odds and have been so in some cases for over a century.

Our own Prime Minister Abbasi attended and was one of the more robust and forthright contributors, though clearly aware that this was nothing more than a comfortable trip to foreign parts, no dramas expected. The Muslim and Arab world is chronically unable to do anything that involves joint action and President Erdogan cannot have been completely unaware of that, neither so any other state attending. The result was an embarrassingly anodyne statement of the blindingly obvious in terms of the rights of the peoples of Palestine, and an equally blindingly obvious impotence within the Muslim and Arab world to do anything about their plight. There are to be no sanctions against the US or Israel, both of which will continue their doctrine of exceptionalism. The status quo remains. We expect no early change.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 15^th, 2017.

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