Confusion at the Summit

"I am very happy to be here in the Kingdom of Libya," the delegate from South Yemen said as he stepped off a plane in Morocco. A number of other delegates to last week's Rabat summit of 26 predominantly Moslem nations seemed less confused than the Yemeni about where they were--but not about why. Morocco's King Hassan II helped organize the conference after the fire last August in Jerusalem's Al Aqsa mosque, third holiest of Islam's shrines after Mecca and Medina. The summit's aim was to discuss the problem of Al Aqsa and protest Israel's occupation of the Arab sector of Jerusalem. In addition, militant Arabs hoped that they could persuade non-Arab Moslems from Indonesia, Iran and Senegal to join in their campaign against Israel.

Diplomatic Illness. What with the immense diversity of the Moslem world, the delegates had trouble joining one another just to talk. In the gaudy ballroom of the government-owned Rabat Hilton sat such disparate types as Saudi Arabia's conservative King Feisal, the moderate Shah of Iran and Algeria's strongman Houari Boumedienne. Host Hassan neatly averted the problem of sitting alongside an old enemy, Mauritania's President Moktar Ould Daddah, by having his placard lettered "Kingdom of Morocco." That enabled him to move down seven places at the alphabetically arranged table.

Because of their resentment of the conservative Moslem monarchies, the radical Baathist leaders of Iraq and Syria never got to the table. Neither did Egypt's Gamal Abdd Nasser. Pleading a case of flu, Nasser stayed in Cairo and sent a second-echelon delegate. He feared that the hastily organized meeting would accomplish little--despite its billing as the most important political parley in Islam's 1,389-year history.

Nasser was right. Trouble started soon after the delegates invited India, whose Moslem minority of 60 million gives it the world's third largest Islamic population (after Indonesia's 100 million and Pakistan's 90 million). Next day the Indian Ambassador to Morocco, a gray-bearded Sikh sporting an elegant white turban, joined the Congress. He was, of course, not a Moslem, and it was as if W. C. Fields had shuffled into a W.C.T.U rally. Sputtered a Pakistani journalist: "If India can come, there could be an Islamic summit next year to which Israel could be invited. They have a Moslem minority too."

Outraged, Pakistan's President Yahya Khan retreated to his white guest villa and boycotted the meeting, refusing even to answer the telephone. Only after formal assurance that India would stay away did Yahya finally rejoin the conference. In the process, he forced Hassan to begin his lavish farewell dinner nearly four hours late.

The Protector. Because of the delays, the delegates stayed on an extra day to endorse a final communique. As far as the militants were concerned, they need not have bothered. Seven of the non-Arab Moslem countries, including Iran, Senegal and Turkey, have diplomatic ties with Israel. As a result, resolutions calling for all Moslem nations to break off relations with Israel were foredoomed. The final communique simply echoed parts of the 1967 U.N. resolution, calling on Israel to withdraw from the Arab territories that it occupied during the Six-Day War and asked the Big Four to redouble their efforts to bring about a settlement of the area's disputes. The delegates also declared their support for the Arab refugees who have left Israel since the 1948 war. Observed a Syrian official in Damascus: "Thesummit failed. The only solution lies on the battlefield."

Meanwhile, a five-member Israeli investigative commission, including two Moslems, issued a 19-page report on the issue that launched the conference --the Al Aqsa fire. The report accused the mosque's Moslem guards of laxity for having allowed the alleged arsonist, a 28-year-old Australian, to slip into the shrine before visiting hours. Fire damage could have been greatly reduced if modern extinguishers had been available in the mosque, the report added, but Arab officials had rejected an earlier Israeli offer of fire-fighting equipment. Their reasoning, the report went on, was: "There is nothing to fear; God is great and he will protect the place for us."

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