The Arab League was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945 with six members: Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan (renamed Jordan after independence in 1946), Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria.
During the Six-Day War, the Arab League was instrumental in the oil embargo, which lasted until the Khartoum Resolution in September 1967.
The Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel signed the Oslo Accords in 1993 which led to the setting up of the Palestinian National Authority.
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, had been in exile since 1937, and spent the war years in occupied Europe, actively collaborating with Nazi leadership.
As the war ended, Amin al-Husayni escaped to Egypt, and moved to Lebanon in 1959; he died in Beirut on 4 July 1974.
[2][3][4][5] 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), became known as the Azzam Pasha quotation, after it was widely disseminated in English as anti-Arab propaganda.
[6][7] The Arab League bitterly opposed any attempts to establish a Jewish state and worked strenuously to defeat any partition of Palestine.
[8][9] On Friday, 14 May 1948, a day before the British Mandate over Palestine expired (the next day being Shabbat), the Jewish People's Council gathered at the Tel Aviv Museum, and approved a proclamation declaring the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.
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.
This plan was strongly opposed by King Abdullah I of Transjordan, and received only half-hearted support from the Arab Higher Committee.
[14] 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.
'"[15] As a result of 1949 Armistice Agreements, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem were ruled by Jordan, while the Gaza Strip was occupied by Egypt until the 1967 Six-Day War.
On 15 November 1988, the Palestinian National Council unilaterally proclaimed the establishment of the State of Palestine, which the Arab League immediately recognized.
On 13 September 1993, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel signed the Oslo Accords which led to the setting up of the Palestinian National Authority.
In response, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres stated: "... the Saudi step is an important one, but it is liable to founder if terrorism is not stopped.