Under what conditions the Arab League sees a “peaceful coexistence” in the Middle East. Block's message after intensifying the Israeli offensive in Gaza
Israeli strokes in the Gaza strip. Photo: AA / Abaca / Abaca Press / Profimedia
The Arab League has said that peaceful coexistence in the Middle East cannot be obtained without a Palestinian state and without ending what has described as “hostile practices” of Israel, AFP reports.
In a resolution presented by Egypt and Saudi Arabia and adopted on Thursday, the Liga said that “failure to reach a fair solution for the Palestinian cause and hostile practices of occupation” remain major obstacles to the “peaceful coexistence” in the region.
The resolution was part of a wider meeting in Cairo, which ended on Friday and in which the Arab Foreign Ministers approved a “common vision for security and cooperation in the region.”
The meeting took place in the context in which the Israeli forces intensified their military offensive in the area of Gaza-the largest urban center in Palestinian Enclava-and just a few days after the Israeli Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, asked to annex some areas of a Palestinian state.
In the resolution, whose copy was obtained by AFP, the Arab block declared that sustainable peace, cooperation and coexistence in the Middle East are not possible as long as Israel continues to occupy Arab territories or “issue implicit threats to occupy or annex other Arab territories.”
Egypt and Jordan treated peace signed with Israel.
The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Moroccus have normalized relationships with Israel in 2020, in the Avraam agreements, intermediated by the US.
The discussions of normalizing the relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel were frozen after the Hamas attack in October 2023, which triggered the Gaza War.
In its resolution, the League stated that any sustainable resolution must be based on a solution with two states and on the Arab Peace Initiative of 2022, which proposes a complete normalization of relations in exchange for the full Israeli withdrawal from the territories it has occupied in 1967.
