On Wednesday, Palestinian leaders failed to convince the Arab League to condemn the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – Israel deal of normalizing ties.
Although Saudi Arabi reaffirmed support for Palestinian statehood, the Arab League voted against the Palestinian leadership’s draft resolution of condemning the UAE-Israel accord, according to a Palestinian diplomatic source.
Commenting on the three-hour meeting’s outcome, Arab League Assistant Secretary-General Hossam Zaki told reporters, “Discussions regarding this point were serious. It was comprehensive and took some time. But it did not lead in the end to agreement about the draft resolution that was proposed by the Palestinian side.”
Early Wednesday, Riyad al-Maliki, Palestinian Foreign Minister urged the Arab nations to reject the UAE-Israel deal.
“In the face of the UAE-Israeli normalisation agreement, it has become necessary for us to issue a position to reject this move,” Maliki said.
“Otherwise, our meeting will be considered as a blessing or being complicit with the normalisation,” he added.
However, after the meeting with the Arab League, both the Arab country ministers and the Palestine leadership concluded not to state a clear condemnation of the UAE-Israel normalization deal, according to Palestinian Ambassador Muhannad Aklouk’s talk with news agency Maan.
Muhannad Aklouk and the secretary-general of the Arab League, Ahmed Abul Gheit, stated that Palestine and Arab countries agreed to stay firm on their commitment to the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative and the two-state solution.
“The goal all our Arab countries seek, without exception, is to end the [Israeli] occupation and establish an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital,” the secretary-general of the Arab League, Abul Gheit, said during the 154th Arab League session.
In context of UAE normalizing ties with Israel, Abul Gheit stated that each nation has the “sovereign and indisputable right” to their own unique foreign policy.
On the other hand, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal had recently said that the Kingdom was determined to remain committed about the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative and to not normalizing ties with Israel until Israel signs the internationally-recognised peace accord with the Palestinians.
Price Faisal had reirrated that Israel’s annexation policies were “unilateral” and that Israel constructing settlements in the ‘occupied’ West Bank was “illegitimate” and “detrimental” to a two-state solution.
However, Prince Faisal did say that the UAE-Israel deal “could be viewed as positive” as these are “efforts that result in holding back the threat of annexation”.
Currently, among Arab nations, only Egypt and Jordan have active diplomatic ties with Israel.
The August 13th step, brokered by the United States (US), made UAE the first Gulf Arab nation and the third Arab country to sought diplomatic ties with Israel, amid the continuous tensions between Palestine and Israel.
Recently, the ruler of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, issued a decree formally ending UAE’s boycott of Israel. The decree permits Israelis and Israeli firms to conduct business in the UAE, purchase and trade Israeli goods, as well as jointly work on the financial sector.