DEAD SEA: Arab leaders on Wednesday endorsed key Palestinian positions in the conflict with Israel — a signal to US President Donald Trump that a deal on Palestinian statehood must precede any Israeli-Arab normalisation.

In a one-day summit, they relaunched a peace plan that offers Israel normalisation with Arab and Muslim states, provided it cedes lands it captured in 1967 to a future Palestinian state. A closing statement said that “peace is a strategic option” for Arab states.

“The summit has ended with a message of peace,” said Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi.

The Arab peace plan was first launched in 2002. Its renewed endorsement on Wednesday would undercut Israel’s proposal of a regional peace in which normalisation with some Arab countries would precede a deal with the Palestinians.

The Palestinian quest for independence also served as a showcase for Arab unity in a fractured region, where leaders find themselves on opposite sides of long-running conflicts, particularly Syria’s six-year-old civil war.

The 21 kings, presidents and top officials gathered on the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea, with a clear view of the Israeli-occupied West Bank on the opposite shore.

Despite demands for urgent political reform to tackle the region’s challenges, including high unemployment and widespread gender inequality, the optics of the summit signalled business as usual. The leaders around the conference table were all men, most of them elderly.

Syrian President Bashar Assad was absent as he hasn’t been invited since Syria’s suspension from the 22-member Arab League following his crackdown on a 2011 uprising that quickly turned into a brutal civil war.

The gathering came ahead of White House meetings in coming weeks between President Trump and three Arab leaders — Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

President Trump hasn’t yet formulated a policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but has suggested the internationally backed idea of a two-state solution isn’t the only option on the table. His international envoy, Jason Greenblatt, held meetings with President Abbas and the foreign ministers of Qatar and Egypt on the sidelines of the summit.

The Palestinians want to set up a state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, lands Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war.

President Abbas told Arab leaders on Wednesday that the summit resolutions would “send a clear message to the world” of a united Arab stance.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2017