Algeria fought for the summit.

First came the pandemic, then the Ukraine war broke out.

The heads of state and government of the Arab League were originally supposed to meet in Algiers in March.

Now the flags of the 22 member states are flying everywhere in Algiers.

The 31st summit meeting of the Arab League begins this Tuesday in the “International Conference Center Abdelatif Rahal”;

it last met in Tunis in 2019.

The complex on the Mediterranean Sea, built by a Chinese construction company, bears the name of the main diplomatic adviser to the late President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who was himself foreign minister for many years.

His successor, Abdelmajid Tebboune, wants to continue the golden age of Algerian diplomacy, when Algiers played a leading role in the Arab world and in Africa.

Hans Christian Roessler

Political correspondent for the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb based in Madrid.

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He has already announced a first triumph: Algeria mediated an agreement between the quarreling Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas.

The "Algiers Declaration" is not the first attempt at reconciliation in the Palestinian civil war;

several similar initiatives have already failed.

The announced reconciliation is an important signal for the Algerian hosts.

"Unity instead of division" was Tebboune's slogan and deliberately placed the Palestinians in the foreground.

After four member states normalized their relations with Israel without regard to the Palestinians, Algiers has sided with them in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

This kind of solidarity corresponds to the way Algeria sees itself, where the National Liberation Front (FLN) once expelled the French colonial power.

The summit is now convening on the 68th anniversary of the start of the Algerian war.

In the Western Sahara conflict, too, Algeria is the protecting power of the Polisario Liberation Front, which is fighting against the Moroccan annexation.

Many western representatives in Algiers

Relations with Israel and Russia mark the dividing lines in the Arab League.

With the so-called "Abraham Accords", the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain normalized their relations with Israel, and later also with Morocco and Sudan.

Algeria leads the camp of states that reject this policy of detente.

This also includes Syria.

Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, who owes his survival to Russian military intervention, is not welcome in Algiers.

Algeria failed to fulfill the Russian ally's wish and allow Syria to return to the league after 11 years.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt are opposed.

Which place is left empty?

This is one of the most intriguing questions that the Arab League always asks itself up to the last minute.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is staying in Riyadh because of what is said to be an acute ear infection.

The Presidents of the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon also refused to attend, as did the Emir of Kuwait, the King of Bahrain and the Sultan of Oman.

The Egyptian President Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi, Qatar's Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani and allegedly the Moroccan King Mohammed VI have promised.

Should the monarch really come to Algiers, that would be another important sign of detente: Algeria has broken off diplomatic relations because of the Western Sahara conflict, and resentment about Moroccan rapprochement with Israel is also said to play a role.

From the energy-hungry West, on the other hand, visitors to the natural gas-rich country are stepping in hand.

After French President Emmanuel Macron, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne was in Algiers with a large delegation in October.

Former Italian Prime Minister Mario Dragi was there twice before resigning.

Algeria is now Italy's largest energy supplier.

While the oil and gas exporters are getting richer and richer as a result of the Ukraine war, the population in many countries is suffering from the consequences, the food supply of more than 140 million people in the Arab world is at risk, and protests are increasing.