Arab League broaches two-state solution, denounces moving embassies

CAIRO – 1 April 2017: A communiqué read by Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit discouraged all countries from recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital or moving their embassies there.

The speech came during the 28th Arab League summit that began Thursday in the Jordanian capital. Amman.

“The League stresses its insistence to initiate serious and dynamic peace talks to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” Aboul Gheit said. “Achieving safety and stability requires a settlement based on a two-state solution and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state [based] on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital,” he added.

The pre-1967 border is a demarcation line set in 1949 according to an agreement between Israel and Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria; it was signed after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

The pre-1967 border served as the Israeli state’s borders from 1949 until 1967 when a war erupted between Israel and the neighbouring states of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, in which the Israel Defence Forces managed to recover the Old City of Jerusalem from Jordanian control, among other territories.

Aboul Gheit said comprehensive peace is a strategic option determined by the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative that was endorsed by the Arab League in 2002 at the Beirut Summit, which the Organization of Islamic Cooperation supported.

The 2002 initiative called for peace between Israel and Arab countries under the condition that Israel withdraw from all occupied territories and provide a “just settlement” for Palestinian refugees who were displaced because of the 1948 war.

The Israeli government, under Ariel Sharon, rejected the initiative although it offered normal relations and full peace with Arab states,

BBC reported

.

In February, U.S. President Donald Trump backed away from a decades-long policy of supporting a two-state solution in the Middle East. During a

joint news conference

with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump asked Netanyahu to hold back on settlements for a while, adding that he is open to either a two-state or a one-state solution.

“So I am looking at two states and one state. I am very happy with the one that both parties like,” Trump said. “If Israel and the Palestinians are happy, then I am happy with the one they like the best.”

Ahead of the meeting between Trump and Netanyahu, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres

said in a press conference

in Cairo that there is no “plan B” to the situation between Palestinians and Israelis, referring to the two-state solution as the only solution.

Aboul Gheit’s speech at the Arab League summit included an apparent reference to Trump’s campaign speeches about moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move that would inherently recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said during the American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy

conference

in Washington on Sunday, “After decades of simply talking about it, the president of the United States is giving serious consideration to moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.”

Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in his

speech

during the summit, said since 2009 Israel has been working to undermine the two-state solution by accelerating the pace of settlements and the confiscation of land.

“Israel should stop depriving Palestinians from their freedom and independence; only then, it will be granted respect by its neighbors,” Abbas added.