Patrick Wintour
Diplomatic editor
Wed 11 Oct 2023 15.35 EDT
Emergency meeting of Arab League calls for ‘serious negotiations between the PLO and Israel’
Arab foreign ministers have urged Israel to meet its international obligations as an occupying power and return to negotiations on a two-state solution that provides a viable state for Palestine.
At an emergency meeting of the Arab League in Cairo on Wednesday, ministers underlined “the importance of resuming the peace process and starting serious negotiations between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel”.
The move is part of a twin track – and largely Saudi-led – initiative designed to de-escalate the crisis, but also make Israel accept that its refusal to negotiate has led to the collapse in relations with Hamas.
The Biden administration has privately expressed disappointment that Saudi Arabia – far from condemning the brutal attacks by Hamas at the weekend – is maintaining that the violence would not have occurred if Palestinians had been granted the independent state they have demanded for decades.
The Saudi stance is being compared unfavourably by Washington to the willingness of the United Arab Emirates to explicitly denounce the crimes committed by Hamas. The UAE fully normalised ties with the Israel after the 2019 Abraham Accords, but Riyadh has not, despite dangling a potential rapprochement.
Since the unprecedented Hamas onslaught on Saturday, Faisal bin Farhan, the Saudi minister of foreign affairs, has been on the phone to Gulf and western leaders – including speaking to the UK foreign secretary James Cleverly – seeking to de-escalate the crisis. A Saudi statement afterwards urged the international community “to come together to meet the aspirations of the brotherly Palestinian people”. The read-out also referred to the need to protect unarmed civilians as a result of the military operations.
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