Shouts of "monkey" and "infidel" flew back and forth across the room, accompanied by wild hand gestures.
But it was not a kindergarten squabble or a professional wrestling match. It was the death of the last pretenses of Arab unity at an Islamic summit meeting in Qatar Wednesday.
It was the third vicious clash that has erupted between the normally dignified Arab leaders at public meetings over the past several days, revealing bitter feuds that are growing angrier and more emotional under the pressure of a looming war in Iraq.
The Organization of the Islamic Conference had called the emergency summit Wednesday in an effort to unite the world's one billion Muslims against the threatened U.S. invasion of Iraq. Instead, it degenerated into a shouting match between the Iraqi and Kuwaiti representatives.
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's top aide, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, triggered the exchange of insults when he attacked Kuwait for its decision to allow 110,000 U.S. troops to mobilize on its territory, which he condemned as "treason" and "conspiracy with Zionism and colonialism."
He became enraged when he was interrupted by Kuwait's foreign minister. "Shut up, you minion, you [U.S.] agent, you monkey," the Iraqi official yelled at the Kuwaiti. "Curse be upon your mustache, you traitor," he added, using a traditional insult to a man's honour.
Another Kuwaiti delegate leapt to his feet and waved a small Kuwaiti flag. He said the Iraqi insults were "the words of an infidel and a charlatan."
The shouting match was shown on a live television broadcast across the Arab world, until the Qatar state broadcaster shut down transmission of the embarrassing exchange.
Mr. al-Douri had appealed for "joint Muslim action" to rally Islamic people against the approaching war. "We must not allow anyone to break our ranks, or else religion will be wiped out and our territories placed under foreign control," he told the summit delegates.
But at the end of the day, after the public squabble, the delegates could not agree on anything except a vague statement in favour of giving diplomacy more time.
A similar feud had overshadowed an Arab League summit on the Iraqi issue last weekend after the United Arab Emirates suggested that Mr. Hussein could avoid war by resigning and leaving the country. Several Arab countries supported the idea, but Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri angrily told reporters that the UAE Foreign Minister is "a Zionist agent child."
At the same summit, a day earlier, the leaders of Libya and Saudi Arabia had crossed swords in a vitriolic battle over the Saudis' acceptance of U.S. troops in the 1990s.
Observers said the recent feuding is a result of the dying spasms of Mr. Hussein's regime. "I think the Iraqis are feeling the heat of the crisis," said Ahmed Bishara, a leader of a liberal political movement in Kuwait.
"They're aware that their days are numbered, and Kuwait is an easy scapegoat for them. Venting their anger at Kuwait and using unacceptable language at public meetings is a sign of desperation. These are probably the last Islamic meetings that they will attend. By next summer, they will be gone."
The whole notion of Arab unity was never more than a "fleeting dream," Mr. Bishara said. "You cannot group people together just because they speak the same language. It is a contrived effort to put on a united face. Everyone is vying for their own interests. These are diverse regions, and if you try to put them all into one pot, it doesn't work."
I get the feeling that these guys would have brawled it out or had a knife fight if they weren't so old and fat!
These bedouins are hilarious when they fight among themselves and curse each other!
And if the going gets tough, they can always fall back on calling each other "Zionist tools."
How nice to see proof that the specter of Arab unity is only a ghost story and that for would be "messiahs" like Osama who want to lead the Arab peoples to their One Religion World of Islam, it's about as easy as herding cats!
Thank you God for our enemies and their vileness, greed and selfishness which will be their undoing!
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