Arab League rejects Trump's Israel policies, slams Iran meddling

Tunis - Arab leaders also reiterated their commitment to resolving the conflict based on the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002.

The Arab League rejected the US recognition of Israeli control over the Golan Heights and other Trump administration policies seen as unfairly biased towards Israel at an annual summit on Sunday, showcasing unity on one of the few issues that unites the regional bloc.
Arab leaders also reiterated their commitment to resolving the conflict based on the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, in which they would recognise Israel in return for a full withdrawal from the Golan Heights as well as east Jerusalem and the West Bank, lands occupied in the 1967 war.
This year's Arab League summit, held in Tunisia, comes against a grim backdrop of ongoing wars in Syria and Yemen, rival authorities in Libya and a lingering boycott of Qatar by four fellow League members.
Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Sudan's President Omar Al Bashir skipped the meeting as they contend with mass protests against their long reigns. Syria, a founding member, was expelled in 2011 during the early days of the uprising against President Bashar Assad.
Representatives from the 22-member league - minus Syria - jointly condemned President Donald Trump's recognition of Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights and his decision last year to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
In their final statement, the leaders affirmed that the Golan, a strategic plateau once used to shell northern Israel, is "Syria's occupied territory."
At the opening of the summit, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia, said Saudi Arabia "absolutely rejects any measures undermining Syria's sovereignty over the Golan Heights" and supports the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with east Jerusalem as its capital.
He added that Iran's meddling was to blame for instability in the region.
Calling the meeting "the summit of resolve and solidarity," Host-country Tunisia's President Beji Caid Essebsi decried "regional and international interventions" in Arab affairs.
Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit said Iran and Turkey have "worsened some crises and created new problems," calling on Arab leaders to "unite as one force under one umbrella against the regional interventions."
One of the few things that have united the Arab League over the last 50 years is the rejection of Israel's occupation of the Golan Heights as well as east Jerusalem and the West Bank, territories that the Palestinians want for their future state.
The international community, including the United States, largely shared that position until Trump upended decades of United States policy by moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem last year and recognizing Israel's 1981 annexation of the Golan earlier this month.
United States officials say both moves recognise reality on the ground and contribute to Israel's security.
The Arab leaders meeting in Tunisia condemned those policies but did not announce any further action.
In Syria, small protests against Trump's Golan move were held and state media criticised the Arab summit. "The Golan is not awaiting support from the Arabs, and not a statement to condemn what Trump has done," the Thawra newspaper said in an editorial. The Arab League had been expected to consider readmitting Syria, but there was no reference to the subject in the final statement. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres attended the meeting, along with European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and African Union Commission chair Moussa Faki.
Guterres reiterated international support for an Israeli and a Palestinian state "living side by side in peace within secure and recognised borders, and with Jerusalem as capital of both states."
"There is no Plan B: without two states, there is no solution," he said.

• MENA