Arab League and the Arab–Israeli Conflict

The Arab League, formally the League of Arab States, is an association of independent Arab countries established to coordinate political activity, protect member sovereignty, and promote cooperation. Its governments have used it to articulate common positions on Palestine, Israel, war, refugees, recognition, and regional peace. The League’s impact has nevertheless depended on agreement among sovereign members rather than centralized authority.[3][4]

Its policy has changed over time. Early League activity opposed the creation of a Jewish state, supported Arab forces in the War of Independence, and promoted nonrecognition and economic boycott. Later summits recognized the PLO as the Palestinians’ representative and adopted the Fez plan and the Arab Peace Initiative, both of which linked Israeli withdrawal and Palestinian statehood to wider peace arrangements. These declarations did not erase disagreements among members or guarantee uniform implementation.[1][2]

The Pact of the League of Arab States was signed in Cairo on March 22, 1945, by Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen. A preparatory council had begun meeting on March 17 with Musa al-Alami participating as the Palestinian representative. Yemen was absent from those deliberations and signed the pact on May 5. The negotiations attempted to combine pan-Arab cooperation with the continued sovereignty and independence of each member state.[3][5]

The pact called for coordination of political activities, protection of member independence, and cooperation in economic, cultural, health, communications, and social-welfare matters. Each state received one Council vote. Under Article 7, unanimous decisions bound every member, while majority decisions bound only states that accepted them. Treaties concluded by one member with another state did not bind the other members. These provisions later allowed collective declarations to coexist with divergent national policies.[3]

Palestine received a special annex. It asserted that Palestine’s independence “can, therefore, no more be questioned de jure than the independence of any of the other Arab States” and authorized an Arab delegate to participate until Palestine “enjoys actual independence.” These were the League’s political and legal claims, not a description of an independently functioning Palestinian state in 1945. A contemporary survey reported that initial hopes raised by the pact soon diminished when the League failed to agree on practical assistance for the Arab cause in Palestine.[3][6]

Palestine became a major subject of League deliberation. At the June 1946 Bludan meeting, reported decisions included establishing a League Palestine Committee and a supreme Arab committee in Palestine, calling for Zionist disarmament, and creating a fund supported by Arab governments.[7]

After the UN partition vote of November 1947, a U.S. memorandum reported that the League decided to supply Palestinian Arabs with arms, ammunition, funds, and volunteers—“everything short of actual participation by the states themselves.” The League also raised the Arab Liberation Army after Iraqi general Isma’il Safwat urged preparation by member-state armies. The volunteer force entered Palestine between January and March 1948 but was defeated and disintegrated before the regular Arab armies entered the conflict.[8][9]

Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948. Forces from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt then entered the former mandate; Saudi Arabia supplied a formation under Egyptian command, and Transjordanian forces intervened. This state intervention followed months of fighting involving Palestinian Arab groups, the Arab Liberation Army, and Jewish forces.[10]

In their May 15 statement, Arab governments rejected partition and said intervention was intended “solely” to restore peace, security, and the rule of law. They advocated a unitary Palestinian state with equal legal rights and minority protections. This was their stated justification, not an independent determination of the war’s causes or conduct.[11]

League efforts to create Palestinian institutions were short-lived. It opposed an Arab Higher Committee request for a provisional government early in 1948, later supported an All-Palestine Government in Gaza, and confronted opposition from Transjordan and divisions among Palestinian leaders. The government never controlled territory and soon collapsed. Separate armistice agreements between Israel and Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria were concluded during 1949 rather than through a League-wide peace settlement.[12][13]

On December 2, 1945, the League Council called on members to prohibit products made by the Jewish sector of Palestine and created a mechanism to coordinate implementation. After Israel’s establishment, the boycott expanded into primary restrictions on direct trade with Israel, secondary restrictions on companies trading with Israel, and tertiary restrictions on entities connected with those companies or regarded as supportive of Israel.[6][14]

Sources use different conventions for the boycott’s starting date. The December 1945 Council resolution is documented, while the Anti-Defamation League dates the boycott’s initiation to 1946. The difference concerns whether the formal resolution or subsequent operation is treated as the beginning.[14][15]

The League established the Central Office for the Boycott of Israel in Damascus in 1951. It maintained a blacklist, but its rulings were advisory and state participation varied. Egypt and Jordan later ended their participation through peace agreements, and the boycott did not prevent Israel’s economic development.[14]

Postwar League policy also supported nonrecognition of Israel, the claimed right of Palestinian refugees to return, and opposition to permanent refugee resettlement outside Palestine. A 1950 diplomatic record separately reported Israeli concern that an Arab state making peace without League consent could be treated as outside the organization and subjected to economic boycott. The record documents Israel’s interpretation and concern rather than an independent account of negotiations with Jordan.[16][17]

The first Arab summit, held in Cairo on January 17, 1964, responded to Israel’s diversion of Jordan River headwaters. A second summit in Alexandria in September formally approved the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The League later recognized the PLO as the “sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people,” giving it a central position in collective Arab diplomacy.[1][18]

Following the Six-Day War, Arab leaders met in Khartoum from August 29 to September 1, 1967. They called for coordinated efforts to obtain Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied since June 5, stronger military preparation, support for affected Arab states, and recognition of Palestinian rights. The resolution also adopted the principles known as the Three No’s: “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it.”[19]

The declaration did not describe every member’s conduct. Jordan’s King Hussein subsequently maintained secret contacts with Israel concerning the West Bank—known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria—and East Jerusalem. Khartoum was therefore a collective position rather than proof of uniform national policy.

At the 1974 Rabat summit, leaders from 20 Arab countries unanimously supported an independent Palestinian state on land liberated from Israeli control and recognized the PLO as the Palestinians’ sole legitimate representative. A contemporary U.S. assessment contrasted Rabat with Khartoum and described the later summit as directed toward a united Arab negotiating front.[18]

Egypt’s separate diplomacy with Israel tested the League’s collective policy. At the November 1978 Baghdad summit, the League said the Camp David agreements harmed Palestinian rights, urged Egypt not to ratify them, and froze relations with the Egyptian government.[1]

After Egypt signed its peace treaty with Israel on March 26, 1979, Arab foreign ministers and PLO representatives adopted compromise sanctions. They suspended Egypt’s League membership and diplomatic relations, halted Arab financial and technical assistance, and transferred the League headquarters from Cairo to Tunis. The conference rejected some stronger proposals after disagreements over the sanctions’ severity.[20]

Egypt was readmitted in May 1989. The headquarters returned from Tunis to Cairo in August 1990, resolving the timing ambiguity in accounts that associate both developments generally with Egypt’s restoration to the League.[21]

At the 1982 Fez summit, the League adopted a revised version of Saudi Crown Prince Fahd’s plan. It called for Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in 1967, removal of Israeli settlements beyond the prewar lines, religious freedom, a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and return or compensation for Palestinians. It also proposed a transitional UN role in Judea and Samaria and Gaza and guarantees for implementation. Israel rejected the plan, which remained the League’s official position until the 1991 Madrid Conference.[1][22]

Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah proposed a broader initiative in 2002, and the League adopted a revised version at its Beirut summit on March 28. The declaration described comprehensive peace as the Arab countries’ strategic choice and stated that a military solution “will not achieve peace or provide security for the parties.”[2]

The Arab Peace Initiative requested full Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied since June 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights to the June 4 lines and remaining occupied Lebanese territory. It called for an agreed just solution to the Palestinian refugee issue under UN General Assembly Resolution 194 and a sovereign Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital.[2][23]

In return, Arab states said they would consider the Arab–Israeli conflict ended, enter peace agreements with Israel, provide security for regional states, and establish normal relations in the context of comprehensive peace. The initiative also rejected forms of Palestinian “patriation” conflicting with the circumstances of Arab host countries.[2]

A 2018 INSS analysis says all 22 League members adopted the initiative after Syria and Lebanon pressed for language supporting refugee return. The League repeatedly reaffirmed it, including in 2007. Debate has centered on whether its provisions were intended as negotiating terms or conditions to be fulfilled beforehand, and on how the refugee clause would operate. Israel did not accept the initiative as presented.[24]

The Arab Peace Initiative offered a League-wide route to normal relations, but sovereign member states continued to make separate decisions. Egypt’s treaty with Israel survived the League’s sanctions, and country-level conduct also diverged at the October 2000 summit. Morocco and Tunisia cut economic relations with Israel and Oman severed relations, while Egypt and Jordan retained economic ties; the summit itself adopted no operative decision changing Israel’s regional status.[20][25]

The divergence became more visible in 2020. The League did not adopt a Palestinian-backed resolution condemning the UAE–Israel normalization agreement, while its secretary-general reaffirmed the Arab Peace Initiative. The episode demonstrated that support for the collective initiative did not prevent an individual member from normalizing relations on different terms.[26]

This unevenness reflects the charter itself: unanimous decisions bind all members, but majority decisions bind only those accepting them, and treaties made by one member do not bind the others.[3]

At an emergency summit in Cairo on March 4, 2025, the League discussed Gaza’s reconstruction, governance, and postwar arrangements. An INSS analysis said the meeting sought consensus around Egypt’s reconstruction proposal and rejected plans to depopulate and rebuild Gaza. A preparatory meeting in Riyadh had ended without a joint statement, and the Saudi and Emirati leaders did not attend the Cairo summit.[27]

The reported declaration proposed a technocratic committee to manage civilian affairs in Gaza and called for PLO reorganization. It did not mention Hamas or require its disarmament, despite earlier Egyptian statements excluding Hamas from postwar governance as a sovereign military-political entity. At the time of the INSS publication, the statement had been released by Egypt’s presidential office but had not yet appeared as an Arab League publication; its institutional status therefore required caution.[27]

The League has provided the principal intergovernmental forum for collective Arab positions on Israel and Palestinian political representation. Its founding pact included a Palestinian delegate, and later initiatives supported committees, armed formations, short-lived governing institutions, and eventually the PLO. These efforts demonstrate sustained institutional attention but also repeated limits caused by Palestinian and inter-Arab divisions.[3][9]

Declared policy evolved from armed opposition, boycott, and nonrecognition toward proposals pairing Israeli withdrawal and Palestinian statehood with peace agreements and normal relations. Khartoum’s Three No’s represented the 1967 collective position; Rabat elevated the PLO; Fez outlined a settlement framework; and the 2002 initiative explicitly offered comprehensive peace and normal relations on stated terms.[19][2]

The League’s influence has always been constrained by member sovereignty. Egypt and other states conducted their own diplomacy, boycott enforcement varied, and League voting rules limited the binding force of majority decisions. The organization’s record is consequently both a history of collective Arab diplomacy and an illustration of the limits of Arab political consensus.[3][14]

Several historical details are described differently across sources. The formal December 2, 1945 boycott resolution is documented, but some accounts date the boycott’s initiation to 1946. Accounts also differ over how long the All-Palestine Government survived and have used both “suspended” and “expelled” for Egypt’s status after 1979. Precision should therefore follow the underlying records rather than treating these terms as interchangeable.[14][15]

The League’s 1948 intervention remains politically and historically contested. Its governments portrayed their action as restoring order and advocating a unitary state, while military histories document support for irregular forces followed by invasion by regular Arab armies. The governments’ declaration establishes their stated rationale, not an independent judgment about responsibility for the war or displacement.[10][11]

Khartoum and the Arab Peace Initiative are also interpreted differently. The Three No’s were part of a resolution that simultaneously demanded withdrawal and affirmed Palestinian rights. The 2002 initiative offered peace and normal relations, but its territorial and refugee provisions and the sequence between Israeli action and Arab normalization remain disputed.[19][24]

Finally, analysis of the 2025 Gaza summit must retain its source’s caveat: the document examined by INSS had been issued by Egypt’s presidency and had not yet been published by the League when the analysis appeared.[27]