The

Arab League The Arab League ( ar, الجامعة العربية, ' ), formally the League of Arab States ( ar, جامعة الدول العربية, '), is a regional organization in the Arab world, which is located in Northern Africa, Western Africa, E ...

was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945 with six members:

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

Transjordan Transjordan may refer to: * Transjordan (region), an area to the east of the Jordan River * Oultrejordain, a Crusader lordship (1118–1187), also called Transjordan * Emirate of Transjordan, British protectorate (1921–1946) * Hashemite Kingdom of ...

(renamed Jordan after independence in 1946),

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

, and

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...

joined on 5 May 1945. Since its formation the Arab League has promoted the Palestinian Arab cause in the

Israeli–Palestinian conflict The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is one of the world's most enduring conflicts, beginning in the mid-20th century. Various attempts have been made to resolve the conflict as part of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, alongside other ef ...

, including by imposing the

Arab League boycott of Israel The Arab League boycott of Israel is a strategy adopted by the Arab League and its member states to boycott economic and other relations between Arabs and the Arab states and Israel and specifically stopping all trade with Israel which adds to ...

. The Arab League opposed the

United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a proposal by the United Nations, which recommended a partition of Mandatory Palestine at the end of the British Mandate. On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted the Plan as Re ...

in 1947. On 15 May 1948, the then seven Arab League members coordinated an invasion of what was by then the former British Mandate, marking the start of the

1948 Arab–Israeli War The 1948 (or First) Arab–Israeli War was the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had ...

. In 1964, the Arab League created the

Palestine Liberation Organization The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO; ar, منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية, ') is a Palestinian nationalism, Palestinian nationalist political and militant organization founded in 1964 with the initial purpose of establ ...

to operate within the territory of Israel. During the

Six-Day War The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...

, the Arab League was instrumental in the

oil embargo An oil embargo is an economic situation wherein entities engage in an embargo to limit the transport of petroleum to or from an area, in order to exact some desired outcome. One commentator states, " oil embargo is not a common commercial practice; ...

, which lasted until the

Khartoum Resolution The Khartoum Resolution of 1 September 1967 was issued at the conclusion of the 1967 Arab League summit, which was convened in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, in the wake of the Six-Day War. The resolution is famous for containing (in the third ...

in September 1967. The League members also agreed to continue the state of belligerency with Israel and not to negotiate a settlement to the conflict. The signing of the Egypt–Israel peace treaty was condemned, and Egypt was suspended from the Arab League in 1979, which lasted until 1989. The Arab League on 15 November 1988 recognized the proclamation of the

State of Palestine Palestine ( ar, فلسطين, Filasṭīn), Legal status of the State of Palestine, officially the State of Palestine ( ar, دولة فلسطين, Dawlat Filasṭīn, label=none), is a state (polity), state located in Western Asia. Officiall ...

. The Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel signed the

Oslo Accords The Oslo Accords are a pair of agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO): the Oslo I Accord, signed in Washington, D.C., in 1993;

in 1993 which led to the setting up of the

Palestinian National Authority The Palestinian National Authority (PA or PNA; ar, السلطة الوطنية الفلسطينية '), commonly known as the Palestinian Authority and officially the State of Palestine,

. The Arab League has not made any official statements either supporting the establishment of the Palestinian Authority or condemning it. In October 1994, Jordan signed the Israel–Jordan peace treaty with Israel, and it was not ostracized by the Arab League, as Egypt had been in 1979. In 2002, the Arab League endorsed a

n Arab Peace Initiative which called for full withdrawal by Israel "to the 1967 borders" in return for fully normalized relations.

1945–48

At the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

in 1945, the Palestinian Arabs were leaderless. The

Grand Mufti of Jerusalem The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem is the Sunni Muslim cleric in charge of Jerusalem's Islamic holy places, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The position was created by the British military government led by Ronald Storrs in 1918.See Islamic Leadership i ...

, Haj Amin al-Husseini, had been in exile since 1937, and spent the war years in occupied Europe, actively collaborating with

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

leadership. His relative

Jamal al-Husayni Jamal al-Husayni (1894-1982) ( ar, جمال الحُسيني), was born in Jerusalem and was a member of the highly influential and respected Husayni family. Husayni served as Secretary to the Executive Committee of the Palestine Arab Congress ...

was interned in

Southern Rhodesia Southern Rhodesia was a landlocked self-governing British Crown colony in southern Africa, established in 1923 and consisting of British South Africa Company (BSAC) territories lying south of the Zambezi River. The region was informally kn ...

during the war. As the war ended, Amin al-Husayni escaped to Egypt, and moved to

in 1959; he died in

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

on 4 July 1974. In November 1945 the Arab League re-established the

Arab Higher Committee The Arab Higher Committee ( ar, اللجنة العربية العليا) or the Higher National Committee was the central political organ of the Arab Palestinians in Mandatory Palestine. It was established on 25 April 1936, on the initiative o ...

as the supreme executive body of Palestinian Arabs in the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine. The committee was immediately recognised by the then six Arab League countries; the Mandate government recognised the new Committee two months later. However, the Committee fell apart due to infighting, and in June 1946 the Arab League imposed upon the Palestinians the Arab Higher Executive, renamed as "Arab Higher Committee" in 1947, with Amin al-Husayni (then living in Egypt) as its chairman and Jamal al-Husayni as vice-chairman. On 2 December 1945 the Arab League Council formally declared a boycott of any Jewish-owned business operating in Mandatory Palestine: "Jewish products and manufactured oodsin Palestine shall be onsideredundesirable in the Arab countries; to permit them to enter the Arab countries would lead to the realization of the Zionist political objectives.

1948–49

According to an interview in an 11 October 1947 article of ''Akhbar al-Yom'', the Arab League Secretary

Azzam Pasha Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam ( ar, عبد الرحمن حسن عزام) (8 March 1893 – 2 June 1976), also known as Azzam Pasha, was an Egyptian diplomat and politician. He was the first Secretary-General of the Arab League, from 22 March 1945 to ...

reportedly said: "I personally wish that the Jews do not drive us to this war, as this will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades". The second part of this sentence, without the caveat that he hoped to avoid war and incorrectly dated to 15 May 1948 (the day after the

Israeli Declaration of Independence The Israeli Declaration of Independence, formally the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel ( he, הכרזה על הקמת מדינת ישראל), was proclaimed on 14 May 1948 ( 5 Iyar 5708) by David Ben-Gurion, the Executive ...

), became known as the

Azzam Pasha quotation The Azzam Pasha quotation was part of a statement made by Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam, the Secretary-General of the Arab League from 1945 to 1952, in which he declared in 1947 that, were a war to take place with the proposed establishment of a Jewish ...

, after it was widely disseminated in English as anti-Arab propaganda. The Arab League bitterly opposed any attempts to establish a Jewish state and worked strenuously to defeat any partition of Palestine. When the

was adopted in resolution 181(II) by the General Assembly on 29 November 1947, it was unanimously rejected by the Arab League and by all its members and by leaders of the Arab community, including the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee. On Friday, 14 May 1948, a day before the British Mandate over Palestine expired (the next day being

Shabbat Shabbat (, , or ; he, שַׁבָּת, Šabbāṯ, , ) or the Sabbath (), also called Shabbos (, ) by Ashkenazim, is Judaism's day of rest on the seventh day of the week—i.e., Saturday. On this day, religious Jews remember the biblical storie ...

), the

Jewish People's Council The Jewish National Council (JNC; he, ועד לאומי, ''Va'ad Le'umi''), also known as the Jewish People's Council was the main national executive organ of the Assembly of Representatives of the Jewish community (Yishuv) within Mandatory Pale ...

gathered at the Tel Aviv Museum, and approved a ''proclamation'' declaring

the establishment ''The Establishment'' is a term used to describe a dominant social group , group or elite that controls a polity or an organization. It may comprise a closed social group that selects its own members, or entrenched elite structures in specific ...

of a

Jewish state In world politics, Jewish state is a characterization of Israel as the nation-state and sovereign homeland of the Jewish people. Modern Israel came into existence on 14 May 1948 as a polity to serve as the homeland for the Jewish people. It ...

Eretz Israel The Land of Israel () is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine (see also Isra ...

, to be known as the State of

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

. The next day the seven Arab League members, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, coordinated a march with their forces into what the previous day had been the area of the British Mandate, marking the start of the

. In the introduction to the cablegram from the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States to the UN Secretary-General on 15 May 1948, the Arab League gave reasons for the ''intervention'' of the Arab States: :On the occasion of the intervention of Arab States in Palestine to restore law and order and to prevent disturbances prevailing in Palestine from spreading into their territories and to check further bloodshed. Clause 10 of the Cablegram said:- :10. Now that the Mandate over Palestine has come to an end, leaving no legally constituted authority behind in order to administer law and order in the country and afford the necessary and adequate protection to life and property, the Arab States declare as follows: :(a) The right to set up a Government in Palestine pertains to its inhabitants under the principles of self-determination recognized by the Covenant of the League of Nations as well as the United Nations Charter. :(b) Peace and order have been completely upset in Palestine, and, in consequence of Jewish aggression, approximately over a quarter of a million of the Arab population have been compelled to leave their homes and emigrate to neighbouring Arab countries. :(c) The Mandatory has already announced that on the termination of the Mandate it will no longer be responsible for the maintenance of law and order in Palestine except in the camps and areas actually occupied by its forces, and only to the extent necessary for the security of those forces and their withdrawal. The Cablegram also declared - :The Arab States recognize that the independence and sovereignty of Palestine which was so far subject to the British Mandate has now, with the termination of the Mandate, become established in fact, and maintain that the lawful inhabitants of Palestine are alone competent and entitled to set up an administration in Palestine for the discharge of all governmental functions without any external interference. As soon as that stage is reached the intervention of the Arab States, which is confined to the restoration of peace and establishment of law and order, shall be put an end to, and the sovereign State of Palestine will be competent in co-operation with the other States members of the Arab League, to take every step for the promotion of the welfare and security of its peoples and territory. Six days after the invasion, Azzam told reporters: :"We are fighting for an Arab Palestine. Whatever the outcome the Arabs will stick to their offer of equal citizenship for Jews in Arab Palestine and let them be as Jewish as they like. In areas where they predominate they will have complete autonomy." However, despite the rhetoric Arab leaders were disunited. The Egyptians knew of Abdullah's agreement with Meir and were determined to thwart Transjordan's territorial ambitions, "thus the Arab war plan changed in conception and essence from a united effort to conquer parts of the nascent Jewish state and perhaps destroy it, into a multilateral land grab focusing on the Arab areas of the country."Morris, 1999. p.221 An Egyptian Ministerial order dated 1 June 1948 declared that all laws in force during the Mandate would continue to be in force in the Gaza Strip. On 8 July 1948, the Arab League decided to set up a temporary civil administration in Palestine, to be directly responsible to the Arab League. This plan was strongly opposed by King Abdullah I of

, and received only half-hearted support from the Arab Higher Committee. The new administration was never properly established. Another order issued on 8 August 1948 vested an Egyptian Administrator-General with the powers of the High Commissioner.''Palestine Yearbook of International Law 1987–1988'', Vol 4, by Anis F. Kassim, Kluwer Law International (1 June 1988), , p 294 The Egyptian government, suspicious of King Abdullah's intentions and growing power in Palestine, put a proposal to the Arab League meeting that opened in Alexandria on 6 September 1948. The plan would turn the temporary civil administration, which had been agreed to in July, into an Arab government with a seat in Gaza for the whole of Palestine. The formal announcement of the Arab League's decision to form the

All-Palestine Government , image = , caption = Flag of the All-Palestine Government , date = 22 September 1948 , state = All-Palestine Protectorate , address = Gaza City, All-Palestine Protectorate (Sep.–Dec. 1948) ...

was issued on 20 September. The All-Palestine Government was established in Gaza on 22 September 1948 and was recognised by all Arab League countries except Jordan; and on 30 September a rival First Palestinian Congress was convened in

Amman Amman (; ar, عَمَّان, ' ; Ammonite language, Ammonite: 𐤓𐤁𐤕 𐤏𐤌𐤍 ''Rabat ʻAmān'') is the capital and largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of 4,061,150 a ...

and promptly denounced the Gaza "government". "A key feature of the Arabs' plans was the complete marginalization of the Palestinians... This aptly reflected the political reality: The military defeats of April–May had rendered them insignificant. The Arab League through the first half of 1948 had consistently rejected Husseini's appeals to establish a government-in-exile... Under strong pressure from Egypt, which feared complete Hashemite control over the Palestinians, the League Political Committee in mid-September authorized the establishment of a Palestinian 'government.'"

1949–1967

As a result of

1949 Armistice Agreements The 1949 Armistice Agreements were signed between Israel and Egypt,West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

, including

East Jerusalem East Jerusalem (, ; , ) is the sector of Jerusalem that was held by Jordan during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, as opposed to the western sector of the city, West Jerusalem, which was held by Israel. Jerusalem was envisaged as a separat ...

were ruled by Jordan, while the

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...

was occupied by Egypt until the 1967

. During the first few months of 1950, Israel and Jordan came very close to creating a separate "five-year non-aggression agreement". However, on 13 April 1950, Arab League members signed an agreement on ''Joint Defense and Economic Cooperation'', which committed the signatories to coordination of military defense measures, and "the Arab League resolved to expel any Arab state which reached a separate economic, political or military agreement with Israel." Under pressure from the Arab League, the agreement between Israel and Jordan never came to pass. Jordan formally annexing the

West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

on 24 April 1950. King Abdallah was assassinated on 20 July 1951. In 1959, without reference to the Arab League that had created it, Gamal Abdel Nasser officially dissolved the All-Palestine Government by decree, arguing that the All-Palestine Government had failed to successfully advance the Palestinian cause. The Gaza Strip became directly administered by Egypt. At that time, Amin al-Husayni moved from Egypt to Lebanon. At the Cairo Summit of 1964, the Arab League initiated the creation of an organisation representing the Palestinian people. The first

Palestinian National Council The Palestinian National Council (PNC) ( ar, المجلس الوطني الفلسطيني, "'Almajlis Alwataniu Alfilastiniu"') is the legislative body of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and elects the PLO Executive Committee, which ...

convened in

on 29 May 1964. The

was founded during this meeting on 2 June 1964. The area of activity for the PLO was clearly within the then borders of the State of Israel: the Palestinian National Charter of 1964 stated: :This Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the

in the

Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; Romanization of Arabic, tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; Romanization of Arabic, tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levan ...

, on the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah Area. According to Yaacov Lozowick, "It was not the Palestinians themselves who decided to create the PLO after their defeat in 1948; the Arab League set it up in 1964 to attack Israel. For years, Palestinian independence was off the Arab agenda; now it was back. Inventing the PLO was a prelude to war, not a result of it; the goal was to destroy Israel, not to rectify the misfortune of the Palestinians, which still could have been done by the Arab states irrespective of Israel."

1967–2000

On 1 September 1967, in the wake of the

, eight leaders of Arab countries issued the

. Paragraph 3 of the resolution became known as the ''Three No''s: "no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it." President

Anwar Sadat Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat, (25 December 1918 – 6 October 1981) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the third president of Egypt, from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 ...

's visit to Jerusalem, the 1978 Camp David Peace Accords between Egypt and Israel and the Egypt–Israel peace treaty were each condemned in the

Arab World The Arab world ( ar, اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, refers to a vast group of countries, mainly located in Western A ...

, and Egypt was suspended from the Arab League in 1979 after signing a peace treaty with Israel and the League's headquarters was moved from Cairo. Egypt was readmitted in 1989. On 15 November 1988, the

unilaterally proclaimed the establishment of the

, which the Arab League immediately recognized. At the time, the PLO was based in

Tunis ''Tounsi'' french: Tunisois , population_note = , population_urban = , population_metro = 2658816 , population_density_km2 = , timezone1 = CET , utc_offset1 ...

and did not have control over any part of

Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...

. On 13 September 1993, the

(PLO) and Israel signed the

Oslo Accords The Oslo Accords are a pair of agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO): the Oslo I Accord, signed in Washington, D.C., in 1993;

which led to the setting up of the

. The Accords made no reference to the declaration of 1988 of Palestinian statehood, and marked the first political agreement between Palestinian Arab leaders and Israel. The Arab League has not made any official statements either supporting the establishment of the Palestinian Authority or condemning it. In October 1994, Jordan signed the Israel–Jordan peace treaty with Israel, and it was not ostracized by the Arab League, as Egypt had been in 1979.

After 2000

In 2002,

proposed the Arab Peace Initiative in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', which was endorsed unanimously at a summit meeting of the Arab League in

. The plan is based on UN Security Council Resolution 242 and

Resolution 338 The three-line United Nations Security Council Resolution 338, adopted on October 22, 1973, called for a ceasefire in the Yom Kippur War in accordance with a joint proposal by the United States and the Soviet Union. The resolution stipulated a ...

, but makes more demands, essentially calling for full withdrawal by Israel "to the 1967 borders" (i.e., the 1949 Armistice line) in return for fully normalized relations with the whole Arab world. In response, Israeli Foreign Minister

Shimon Peres Shimon Peres (; he, שמעון פרס ; born Szymon Perski; 2 August 1923 – 28 September 2016) was an Israeli politician who served as the eighth prime minister of Israel from 1984 to 1986 and from 1995 to 1996 and as the ninth president of ...

stated: "... the Saudi step is an important one, but it is liable to founder if terrorism is not stopped. ... It is ... clear that the details of every peace plan must be discussed directly between Israel and the Palestinians, and to make this possible, the Palestinian Authority must put an end to terror, the horrifying expression of which we witnessed just last night in Netanya", referring to the

Netanya suicide attack The Passover massacre was a suicide bombing carried out by Hamas at the Park Hotel in Netanya, Israel on 27 March 2002, during a Passover seder. Thirty civilians were killed in the attack and 140 were injured. It was the deadliest attack agai ...

. The Arab League has since re-endorsed the Initiative on several occasions, including at the Riyadh Summit in March 2007.Time to Test the Arab Peace Offer
. By Scott MacLeod. ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

''. 8 January 2009. On 25 July 2007, the

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

ian foreign minister

Abdul Ilah Khatib Abdul Ilah Mohammad Khatib or Abdelilah al-Khatib ( ; ar, عبد الإله الخطيب) (born in 1953) is a former Minister of Foreign Affairs for Jordan. On March 11, 2011 he was appointed as the UN Special envoy to Libya. Early life Marrie ...

and

ian foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit—appointed by the Arab League as its representatives—met with Israeli prime minister

Ehud Olmert Ehud Olmert (; he, אֶהוּד אוֹלְמֶרְט, ; born 30 September 1945) is an Israeli politician and lawyer. He served as the 12th Prime Minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009 and before that as a cabinet minister from 1988 to 1992 and ...

, foreign minister

Tzipi Livni Tziporah Malka "Tzipi" Livni ( he, ציפי (ציפורה) מלכה לבני, ; born 8 July 1958) is an Israeli politician, diplomat, and lawyer. A former member of the Knesset and leader in the center-left political camp, Livni is a former fore ...

, and defense minister

Ehud Barak Ehud Barak ( he-a, אֵהוּד בָּרָק, Ehud_barak.ogg, link=yes, born Ehud Brog; 12 February 1942) is an Israeli general and politician who served as the tenth prime minister from 1999 to 2001. He was leader of the Labor Party until Jan ...

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

. This was the first time that an Israeli government received an official delegation from the Arab League. As of 2021, only six of the twenty-two members of the Arab League have recognized Israel:

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...

Bahrain Bahrain ( ; ; ar, البحرين, al-Bahrayn, locally ), officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, ' is an island country in Western Asia. It is situated on the Persian Gulf, and comprises a small archipelago made up of 50 natural islands and an ...

Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...

and

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...

. Relations with Israel have deteriorated, especially after the last Gaza War, where

Mauritania Mauritania (; ar, موريتانيا, ', french: Mauritanie; Berber: ''Agawej'' or ''Cengit''; Pulaar: ''Moritani''; Wolof: ''Gànnaar''; Soninke:), officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania ( ar, الجمهورية الإسلامية ...

had suspended its relations with Israel.

1945–48

1948–49

1949–1967

1967–2000

After 2000

See also

References

Further reading