century but quickly faded. Aside from the brief experiment of the United Arab
Republic—consisting of Egypt and Syria from 1958 to 1961—and a stillborn merger
of Libya and Syria in 1980, the League of Arab States, or the Arab League, repre-
sents the chief embodiment of Arab nationalism. The league has served as a plat-
form for Arab leaders to espouse common goals, and, indeed, its main accomplish-
ments have been rhetorical rather than concrete improvements to the lives of the Arab
people.
The Arab League was founded during a meeting of leaders from six countries held
in Alexandria, Egypt, in late September and early October 1944, by which time the
Middle East no longer was an important theater in World War II. The delegates from
Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Transjordan (later Jordan) signed a
protocol with several goals, including “to coordinate their political plans so as to insure
their cooperation, and protect their independence and sovereignty against every aggres-
sion by suitable means.” This protocol was transformed into a formal treaty on March
22, 1945, in time to make the Arab League an official regional organization under the
rules of the newly established United Nations. Other countries joined the league from
the late 1940s through the 1970s, bringing the organization’s total membership to
twenty-one countries, plus the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which was
accorded full membership in 1976.
Although the league’s treaty calls for “close cooperation” among Arab states, some
of the most memorable events in the organization’s history have involved discord
rather than harmony. One prominent case occurred in 1979, when the league voted
to expel Egypt after it became the first Arab state to sign a peace treaty with Israel.
This step was all the more embarrassing for the concept of Arab unity because Egypt
was (and remains) the most populous Arab country and the league’s headquarters
were in Cairo. Member states allowed Egypt back into the league in 1989, after pas-
sions had cooled.
The league also fractured in 1990 after one member country (Iraq) invaded and
announced its annexation of another member country (Kuwait). Meeting in Cairo on
August 10, 1990, twelve Arab League members backed a resolution calling for troops
to be sent to support Saudi Arabia, which feared that it might be Iraq’s next target.
Jordan, Mauritania, and Sudan also voted for the resolution with reservations, while
Libya and the PLO, in effect, supported Iraq. Three other countries abstained or did
not attend (see Camp David Peace Process, p. 118; Persian Gulf War, p. 455).
Opposition to Israel and offering political support for Palestinians have been the
most unifying forces in the Arab League’s history, with the central question often being
how tough a stand to take against the Jewish state. The Arab League officially declared
war against Israel immediately after its founding in May 1948, but the league played
no formal role in the numerous subsequent wars involving Israel. A league meeting in
Khartoum following the Arab defeat in the June 1967 war—in which Egypt, Jordan,
and Syria lost territory—was the venue for the united Arab position on the “three
noes” involving Israel—no recognition, no negotiations, and no peace (see Khartoum
Declaration, p. 108).
With the passage of time, the league’s hard-line stance gradually gave way to a grudg-
ing acknowledgment of Israel as a permanent fact of life in the Middle East. At the same
time, it has demanded that Israel accept a Palestinian state consisting of the Gaza Strip
and the West Bank, with a capital in East Jerusalem. Meeting in Beirut on March 27–28,
ARABS AND ISRAELIS 49