Typical/Atypical

The Arab League held an emergency meeting today to discuss the situation in Lebanon and Gaza. They responded in a typical fashion:

The Arab League said on Saturday after an emergency meeting of foreign ministers in Cairo that the Middle East peace process had failed, and called on the United Nations Security Council to intervene to stop the escalating violence.

The Arab foreign ministers also adopted a resolution supporting Lebanon and the Palestinians, but also called on all parties to avoid actions that "may undermine peace and security in the region".

"We all decided that the peace process has failed and that the mechanisms, proposals and committees were either deceptive or sedatives or contrary to the peace process, or handed the process over as a gift to Israeli diplomacy to do with as it wished," Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said.

"This has led to and is leading to the collapse of stability in the Middle East… So there is no peace process," he added.

Speaking to reporters at the 22-member Arab League headquarters, Moussa said the group would turn to the UN Security Council for help.

"So we take it back to the United Nations, and maybe the date will be in September," he said.

In other words, it's all Israel's fault. No blame assigned to the kidnappers. No blame to the puppetmasters behind the terrorists. However, there is one very atypical element to the entire charade:

Ministers at the meeting traded barbs over whether Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah bore any responsibility for the escalation in violence that followed its capture of two Israeli soldiers.

The Saudi foreign minister appeared to be leading a camp of ministers criticizing the guerrilla group's actions, calling them "unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible acts."

"These acts will pull the whole region back to years ago, and we cannot simply accept them," Saudi al-Faisal told his counterparts.

Supporting his stance were representatives of Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq, the Palestinian Authority, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, delegates said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem lashed back al-Faisal, asking "How can we come here to discuss the burning situation in Lebanon while others are making statements criticizing the resistance?"

Moallem emerged as the leader of another camp of ministers defending Hezbollah as carrying out "legitimate acts in line with international resolutions and the UN charter, as acts of resistance," delegates said.

Salloukh, a Shiite close to the mainstream Amal faction as well as the militant Hezbollah, said Arab governments were not doing enough to protest Israel's assault on Lebanon.

Saudi Arabia leading the critics of Hezbollah is a very big shift. There is a camp in the Arab world that is not at all happy with the Iranian adventure and they are going public with their criticism. That is highly unusual. In fact, it may be a first. A sign of a fracture in the united front?

We can but hope.

UPDATE: Big Pharaoh also sees this as very unusual, and maybe trouble for Hezbollah. Rantings Of A Sandmonkey as well. Vital Perspective also sees the conflict as unusual.