Arab leaders attempted to find a solution Tuesday to bring to an end Israel's 18-day blitz on the Gaza Strip as Qatar called for an emergency summit, Egypt's president headed to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait MPs urged the government to ban Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas from attending an upcoming economic meet."A solution! We must find a solution!"
"I've got it! Hamas could quit random rocketing of Israeli communities!"
"No. That'd never work."
"Sorry. I got carried away."
Qatar requested an emergency Arab League summit to discuss the situation in Gaza but no other countries have so far agreed, Arab League spokesman Abdel-Alim al-Abiyad said.
"Yes! We need a summit! An Arab summit, with all that implies!"
"Nah. I don't think so."
"Hokay. We need something else."
Saudi Arabia said another meet in Qatar would be "inappropriate" and stressed that leaders should focus on the Arab summit to be held in Kuwait on Jan. 19. Doha, the only Gulf Arab country that has ties with Israel, had called for an emergency Arab summit to be held the same day.
"Competing Arab summits would be twice as ummm... whatever Arab summits are."
The leaders of Saudi and Egypt agreed to discuss the events in Gaza at the Kuwaiti summit.
"Yes! We must discuss!"
"Discuss what?"
"Events, I guess."
"We do not see it as appropriate to hold another summit," Ahmad al-Qattan, Saudi's permanent representative at the Cairo-based Arab League, Al Arabiya TV.
"Certainly not on the same day."
Egypt, whose president Hosni Mubarak travelled to Saudi to meet with King Abdullah, also rejected the Qatari proposal.
"Nah. It'd never work."
Egyptian officials say Qatari and Syrian requests for a summit seek to embarrass Cairo, a reference to Egypt's attempts to broker a peace deal.