How did Saudi Arabia and Iran contribute to the failure of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation?

Since its founding half a century ago, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation has failed to solve the enormous and growing problems facing Muslims all over the world, and has done nothing for the Palestinian cause for which it was created.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation remained captive to the conditions of its establishment, and it did not succeed in expanding the areas of cooperation and commercial, economic, scientific and technological exchange between its countries and peoples, and did not respond sufficiently to the requirements of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and the aspirations of a billion and a half billion Muslims to catch up with progress, modernity and development were not translated properly on the basis of expansion and deepening The common interests of its member countries.

Perhaps this failure was sympathetic to the narrowness of some of the main member states, particularly Saudi Arabia, which hosts the headquarters of the Islamic Organization, with attempts to “employ” them in their wars and regional conflicts, specifically against other member states and not against Israel, the “main enemy” that the organization emerged to confront.

Iran’s role

On the other side, Iran has contributed to weakening the Islamic Organization, due to its ongoing conflict with Saudi Arabia, and the strengthening of its strategic influence in the Middle East.

Iran has built a network of allies from armed groups in the Middle East region, often referred to as “proxy militias”, and has been mainly stationed in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, which has increased disputes between Islamic countries, and increased tension between them.

Arab countries accuse Iran of destabilizing Arab countries, and Tehran’s moves in the Middle East have prompted some Arab countries to cut ties with them.

On Monday (3 February 2020), the Organization of Islamic Cooperation held an emergency meeting at the level of foreign ministers to discuss its position on the “Deal of the Century” announced by US President Donald Trump.

While the Islamic world lives the most dangerous conspiracy in dividing the state of Palestine in favor of the Israeli entity, the differences within the Islamic Organization are escalating, which was evident at the current summit by not allowing Iran to participate in it.

Iran accused the Saudi authorities of preventing an Iranian delegation from attending a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in the city of Jeddah, and said it had submitted a complaint to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, accusing Riyadh of using its position as the organization’s headquarters.

Although Saudi Arabia announced after that that it granted a visa to the Iranian representative to participate in the conference, Tehran refused to attend and participate.

This summit comes days after Trump announced, in a press conference in Washington, “The Deal of the Century”, in the presence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which includes the establishment of a Palestinian state in the form of an archipelago linked by bridges and tunnels, and making the city of Jerusalem an undivided capital for Israel.

Long failure

The burning of the Israeli occupation forces to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in 1969 was a strong motivation behind thinking about the establishment of the organization, but since its foundation its roles and functions have been limited to providing support and support to the Palestinian side, and it has spontaneously adopted the positions and concluding statements of the League of Arab States, distancing itself from “deep involvement” in dispute issues Within the Islamic world and between its countries, it suffices to support the positions of Islamic countries in their conflicts with non-Muslim countries.

During the past 50 years, the organization held various sessions of the Islamic Summit Conference, a number of extraordinary conferences, and sessions of the Council of Foreign Ministers, but throughout these years it has assumed the role of the debtor for everything that happens, and its statements were only released to denounce and denounce during international conferences and forums.

The organization did not come up with any radical solutions regarding the current crises, especially in Palestine, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Nigeria, nor did it take a stand against the massacres of Muslims in Burma by Buddhists, Muslims in Myanmar, in addition to Rohingya detainees in China. .

It is remarkable that the wars experienced by the Islamic Cooperation countries caused the largest displacement in the world. In May 2017, a report issued by the Organization of Cooperation stated that the displaced people from its member states constitute 61.5% of the total displaced people of the world.

She did nothing

Palestinian political analyst Maher Shawish said: “The Arab and Islamic nations are concerned, by virtue of duty, and not out of grace over the Palestinian issue, and it is their responsibility that falls on the Palestinian people.”

He believes in his speech that the Organization of the Islamic Conference “is not based on the Palestinian issue commensurate with the size and capabilities of this organization and the specificity of its establishment, especially since this came after the burning of Al-Aqsa Mosque in 1969.”

He added in his speech to “Al Khaleej Online” that the organization represents about a billion and a half Muslims, and is the second largest organization in the world after the United Nations, but that “by returning to the record and history of its achievements towards Palestine and its people, we find that they are modest and do not rise to the size of the challenges facing the issue Palestinian, or to its potential and hoped for. ”

He described the role of the Islamic Organization as “the helpless who is close to the point of failure to touch the concerns and suffering of our Palestinian people at home and in the diaspora, especially as we have noticed that its decisions after Trump declared Jerusalem as the capital of the entity were not up to the level of the event.”

In the context of his speech, he called for “a serious stand that is based on the rule of cutting and boycotting; severing relations with the Israeli entity, and boycotting everything that results from it and even those who support it, until he feels actual pressure to make him and his successors back away from such unfair and unjust deals and settlements against our Palestinian people.” At the same time, he called for “the necessity of stopping normalization as a crime and a betrayal that should not be passed on.”

He continued: “If these frameworks and organizations do not move at this critical and dangerous time in which the foundations and foundations of the Palestinian cause are targeted, foremost of which is Jerusalem, the first of the two kisses and the third of the Two Holy Mosques, when will they move? And what is the point of their existence?”

Saudi Arabia .. shed and fail

In the recent years of the organization’s failure, the situation has made matters worse in the Kingdom’s attempts to form coalitions and axes of a military nature; sometimes in the context of the war on Yemen, and again in the face of Iran within the framework of what has become known as “Middle Eastern coalition” projects, or “Arab NATO” led by the United States, Or “Islamic NATO”.

Saudi Arabia is trying to preserve the unity of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, not in order to achieve the successes of the organization, but in order to maintain its hegemony over it, and describes itself as the “collective voice of the Islamic world”, which is based in Jeddah.

Perhaps the “adventurous politics” that the Kingdom has pursued in recent years, since Muhammad bin Salman assumed the reign of Al-Ahd in Saudi Arabia, has led to “alienation” from Arab and Islamic poles, and the direction of a number of them to adopt the policy of “keeping a distance from Riyadh”, the last of which was to hold an Islamic summit in Kuala Lumpur with the participation of “Qatar, Turkey, Malaysia and Iran”, and a number of Islamic countries.

Perhaps the Yemeni adventure (the Yemen war) of Muhammad bin Salman, the crime of assassinating journalist Jamal Khashoggi at his country’s consulate in Istanbul, and the detention of the Lebanese Prime Minister in Riyadh and forcing him to resign, and the arrest of scholars, made many Islamic countries alienate from the axis of Riyadh, whose dominance has recently vanished .

Saudi Arabia and its interventions

With regard to Saudi interference in the decisions of the Islamic Organization, political analyst Maher Shawish said: “The size of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s interference with its decisions cannot be underestimated by the fact that the geography of its headquarters is controlled, and that it controls many of its work paths.”

But in the context of his speech to “Gulf Online” indicates that this “imposes on the rest of the Islamic countries under it the necessity of pressing towards the liberalization of its decisions from any hegemony and make it serve the primary goal for which it was established.”

The researcher in international relations, Abd al-Rahman al-Samawi, notes that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation “has not come up with a single decision in favor of vulnerable Muslims anywhere in the world.”

And he believes in his talk to “Al Khaleej Online” that the Islamic countries must now “search for an alternative that would be more suitable for Muslims, after the organization, which was not worthy of pursuing the issues of the Islamic world, failed.”

He emphasized that Saudi Arabia had failed in its management of the Cooperation Organization, but rather worked in reversing its goals, and evidenced his words by saying: “There is a difference in dealing with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia speaks from time to time about Palestinian rights, but in practice it has abandoned the issue Palestinian, and engaged in a gradual normalization with Israel. ”

He continued: “Riyadh is driven by a realistic, authoritarian policy, with little interest in Islamic solidarity, and may no longer have the same position in the Islamic world. It is now only looking to prove itself, and the organization is a way for it to prove its reality among Islamic countries.”