Resolutions adopted by the League of Arab States at its 155th Extraordinary Session held in Cairo on 3 March 2021

           In the capacity of the State of Qatar as the current Chair of the Council of the League of Arab States at the ministerial level, and in accordance with the rules of procedure of the League of Arab States and Article 54 of the Charter of the United Nations, I have the honour to enclose herewith a letter from the Permanent Observer of the League of Arab States to the United Nations (see annex) transmitting the resolutions adopted by the Council of the League of Arab States at the ministerial level at its 155th ordinary session, held in Cairo on 3 March 2021.

           It would be highly appreciated if you would have the present letter and its annex distributed as a document of the Security Council.

(Signed) Alya Ahmed Saif Al-Thani
Ambassador
Permanent Representative

Annex to the identical letters dated 22 March 2021 from the Permanent Representative of Qatar to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council

[Original: Arabic]

In keeping with the practice followed by the Group of Arab States whereby the chair of each ministerial or summit session of the Council of the League of Arab States is charged with transmitting the relevant resolutions to the appropriate United Nations bodies by means of an official memorandum or letter from the Permanent Observer Mission of the League of Arab States to the United Nations, and in accordance with article 54 of the Charter of the United Nations, I have the honour to transmit to you herewith the resolutions adopted by the Council of the League at the ministerial level at its ordinary session held in Cairo on 3 March 2021 (see enclosure):

1. Resolution 8599: Follow-up to political developments concerning the question of Palestine, the Arab-Israeli conflict and the promotion of the Arab Peace Initiative
2. Resolution 8600: Developments and Israeli violations in the occupied city of Jerusalem

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In accordance with the instructions of the Secretariat of the League of Arab States in that regard, I should be grateful if you would transmit the present letter and its enclosure to the Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council for issuance as a document of the United Nations.

(Signed) Maged Abdelfattah Abdelaziz
Ambassador
Head of the Observer Mission, New York

Enclosure

[Original: Arabic]

                     Question of Palestine and the Arab-Israeli conflict

                    Follow-up to political developments concerning the question of Palestine, the Arab-Israeli conflict and the promotion of the Arab Peace Initiative

The Council of the League of Arab States at the ministerial level,

           Having considered:

• The note of the Secretariat,
• The report of the Secretary-General on the intersessional activities of the Secretariat,

           Recalling all its previous resolutions at the summit level on political developments concerning the question of Palestine, the most recent of which were the resolutions of the Tunis Summit (30th ordinary session) in 2019, the resolutions adopted at the level of ministers for foreign affairs, the most recent of which were the resolutions of the 154th ordinary session held in September 2020, the resolution adopted at the extraordinary session of 8 February 2021, and the resolutions adopted by the Council at the level of permanent representatives,

           Recalling the outcome of the meeting of the Council at the level of permanent representatives held on 1 March 2021,

           Decides

1. To reaffirm the centrality of the Palestinian cause for the entire Arab nation, the Arab identity of occupied East Jerusalem, the capital of the State of Palestine, and the right of the State of Palestine to exercise absolute sovereignty over the entirety of its territory that was occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem, as well as over its airspace, maritime space and territorial waters, and over its natural resources and its borders with neighbouring States;
2. To reaffirm its commitment to peace as the strategic choice for a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict under international law and the authoritative international resolutions, including resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973), 1515 (2003) and 2334 (2016), and the entirety of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, in which it is stated that the precondition for comprehensive peace and normalized relations with Israel is that Israel should end its occupation of the Palestinian and Arab territories that have been occupied since 1967 including East Jerusalem, and recognize the State of Palestine and the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including its right to self-determination and the right of Palestine refugees to return or compensation, and that a just solution to the Palestinian question should be found in accordance with General Assembly resolution 194 (III);
3. To emphasize that any peace plan inconsistent with the terms of reference for the Middle East peace process will be rejected and cannot succeed; to reject any political or financial pressure brought to bear on the Palestinian people or its leadership in an attempt to impose unjust solutions to the question of Palestine;
4. To affirm that the implementation by the Israeli occupation Government of its plans to annex any part of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 would constitute yet another war crime to add to the litany of atrocities perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinian people and to its blatant violations of international law and the Charter and resolutions of the United Nations; to call on the international community to exert pressure and impose punitive and deterrent measures on the occupying Government in order to stop it from implementing its annexation plans and all other aggressive settlement activities;
5. To support the peace plan put forward by His Excellency Mahmoud Abbas, President of the State of Palestine, before the General Assembly on 25 September 2020; to work with the international Quartet and international stakeholders towards establishing a multilateral international mechanism to oversee a credible peace process within a specific time frame and under international oversight. That process should include convening an international conference to relaunch the negotiations on the basis of international law and resolutions, the principle of land for peace and the two-State solution, resulting in an end to the Israeli occupation of the Arab territory occupied in 1967 and the independence of the State of Palestine on the borders of 4 June 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital;
6. To reiterate that it condemns Israel’s colonialist settlement activities and policies, and to call on the Security Council to assume its responsibility for the implementation of Security Council resolution 2334 (2016), hold the perpetrators of breaches accountable, and confront and curb settlement expansion, the construction of the annexation and expansion wall, the forced displacement of Palestinian inhabitants, and the destruction of their property; to emphasize that a boycott is one effective and legitimate way to resist and bring an end to the Israeli occupation and its colonialist system; to call on all States, institutions, companies and individuals to cease all forms of direct and indirect interaction with the Israeli colonialist occupation system and its settlements, which are illegal under international law, including by prohibiting illegal Israeli settlers from entering States;
7. To reaffirm its refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish State; to condemn the systematic and racist Israeli policy of adopting laws that undermine the historic rights of the Palestinian people, including the right of refugees to return and self-determination, and discriminate against Palestinians on grounds of religion and race; and to commend and support the resilience of Palestinians within the 1948 borders;
8. To call on world States and international organizations to assume their responsibility to confront the policies, laws and practices enacted by Israel, the occupying Power, with a view to undermining the prospects for an independent State of Palestine, stymying a peaceful two-State solution and enforcing an apartheid system against the Palestinian people in a violation of the relevant principles of international law;
9. To endorse and support the request of the State of Palestine to be granted full membership in the United Nations; to call on those States that have not yet recognized the State of Palestine to do so; to endorse and support the right of the State of Palestine to join international organizations and ratify instruments with a view to bolstering its legal and international status and asserting its independence and sovereignty over its territory, which is occupied;
10. Welcomes the decision of Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court, in which it states that the territorial jurisdiction of the Court in Palestine extends to the Palestinian territory that has been occupied by Israel since 1967, namely, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem; urges the Court swiftly to open a criminal prosecution for war crimes and crimes against humanity that have been, and continue to be, committed by Israeli against the defenceless Palestinian people, with a view to holding accountable the war criminals in the Government and occupation army and ensuring that they do not escape with impunity;
11. To emphasize the need to implement the resolutions of the Council of the League aimed at confronting the actions taken by Israel against the Palestinian cause and Arab national security in Africa; to strengthen cooperation with the African Union to support the Palestinian cause and relevant resolutions in international forums; to request that the Arab ministerial committee on the issue continue to implement the plan developed for that purpose;
12. To call for continued Arab and Islamic joint action at the level of Governments, parliaments and associations in support of the Palestinian cause; to renew its request that the Secretary-General of the League consult and coordinate with the Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation with regard to various issues and measures involving the Palestinian cause and mechanisms for implementing the relevant Arab and Islamic resolutions;
13. To reject any partition of Palestinian territory; to emphasize the need to confront Israeli plans to separate the Gaza Strip from the rest of the territory of the State of Palestine; and to reject any project for a Palestinian State with provisional borders;
14. To emphasize its respect for the legitimacy of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the legitimate and sole representative of the Palestinian people, under the leadership of President Mahmoud Abbas; praise the efforts of President Abbas to achieve Palestinian national reconciliation; to welcome his issuing a decree calling for elections for the Palestinian legislature and presidency and for the National Council of the Palestine Liberation Organization; to call on the Palestinian factions and forces to facilitate and ensure the success of the Palestinian democratic process as reflected in those elections, until national reconciliation is achieved and the provisions of the final communiqué of the Palestinian national dialogue held in Cairo on 8 and 9 February 2021 are respected; to commend the efforts of Egypt to foster Palestinian national reconciliation; to call on Egypt to continue those efforts;
15. To call on the international community to press Israel, the occupying Power, to refrain from hindering the Palestinian general elections in East Jerusalem and the remainder of occupied Palestinian territory;
16. To commend the efforts of Tunisia, the non-permanent Arab member of the Security Council, to follow up on the developments regarding the Palestinian question in the Security Council;
17. To welcome the intensive efforts made by the Egypt and Jordan, in cooperation with France and Germany, to restart the negotiation process on the basis of the recognized international terms of reference; to express its support for such efforts on the grounds that the Palestinian cause is a pivotal one for Arab States, and that stability in the region can be achieved only against the backdrop of a just and comprehensive peace based on a just settlement that would fulfil the hopes and aspirations of the Palestinian people;
18. To request that the Groups of Arab States in the Human Rights Council and the United Nations Economic, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) respectively continue to mobilize to support and follow up implementation of the present resolution and of resolutions concerning Palestine adopted by the two bodies;
19. To request that the Group of Arab States in the United Nations take the following actions:

• Garner support for resolutions on the Palestinian question in the General Assembly, and follow up efforts in the Security Council to fulfil the latter’s responsibility to maintain international peace and security, end the occupation and bring a stop to all illegal Israeli practices;
• Consult and take the necessary measures to confront the risk that the Israeli occupation authorities could illegally annex parts of the territory of the occupied West Bank;
• Follow up implementation of Security Council resolution 2334 (2016) concerning illegal Israeli settlement activities;
• Follow up actions to ensure that the State of Palestine gains full membership in the United Nations;
• Take all necessary measures to confront any attempt on the part of Israel to be a candidate for membership of, or positions in, United Nations bodies or committees;
• Confront attempts to undermine resolutions concerning the question of Palestine and East Jerusalem;

20. To request that the Secretary-General follow up implementation of the present resolution and report to the Council at its next session on measures taken in that regard.

(Resolution 8599— 155th ordinary session — second meeting — 3 March 2021)

                     Question of Palestine and the Arab-Israeli conflict

                     Developments and Israeli violations in the occupied city of Jerusalem

           The Council of the League of Arab States at the ministerial level,

           Having considered:

• The note of the Secretariat,
• The report of the Secretary-General on the intersessional activities of the Secretariat,

           Reaffirming all its previous resolutions at all levels, namely the summit level, the ministerial level and the level of permanent representatives, concerning developments and Israeli violations in the occupied city of Jerusalem,

           Recalling the outcome of the meeting of the Council at the level of permanent representatives that took place on 1 March 2021,

           Decides

1. To reiterate that East Jerusalem is the capital of the State of Palestine, and to reject any endeavour to diminish Palestinian sovereignty rights over it;
2. To condemn strongly, and reject categorically, all the systematic and illegal Israeli policies and plans to legitimize the annexation of the Holy City, misrepresent its Arab identity, change its demographic composition, undermine the demographic and physical contiguity of its people, and isolate it from its Palestinian environment; to emphasize that such policies, plans and practices, including those provided for in the American-Israeli “deal of the century”, contravene the relevant international resolutions, including Security Council resolutions 252 (1967), 267 (1969), 476 (1980) and 478 (1980);
3. To salute and support the resilience of the Palestinian people and institutions in the occupied city of Jerusalem as they confront the systematic Israeli policies aimed at altering the demographic, legal and historic situation of the city and its holy sites, and as they defend the city and its Islamic and Christian holy sites;
4. To reject and condemn all violations perpetrated by Israel, the occupying Power, in Islamic and Christian holy sites and, in particular, attempts to alter the historic and legal situation in place in the holy Aqsa Mosque, divide it spatially and temporally and turn away or undermine the freedom of Muslim worshippers, take control of Jordanian Islamic religious endowments in occupied Jerusalem, attack staff managing the endowments and prevent them from doing their jobs, attempting to impose Israeli law on the Aqsa Mosque/Haram al-Sharif, and conduct Israeli excavations under the site;
5. Strongly condemn the constant raids and acts of desecration carried out by extremist settlers and Israeli officials in the Aqsa Mosque with the support, protection and participation of the Israeli occupying Government; to warn against the tendency of the so-called Supreme Court of Israel to allow Jewish settlers and squatters to pray at the Aqsa Mosque, which they had previously raided and desecrated; to warn that such acts of aggression will have grave repercussions for international peace and security;
6. To call on Member States to support the efforts of the State of Palestine in UNESCO to preserve the cultural and historic heritage of Palestine, particularly in Jerusalem, and its close cooperation with Jordan to secure the adoption of resolutions by UNESCO asserting, in particular, that the terms Aqsa Mosque and Haram al-Sharif are synonymous, that the Bab al-Magharibah hill is an integral part of the Aqsa Mosque, that the Jerusalem Awqaf and Aqsa Mosque Affairs Administration of Jordan is the sole authority empowered to manage the Haram, maintain it, preserve it and regulate entry to it;
7. To reiterate its condemnation and rejection of the systematic and illegal Israeli measures to undermine the churches, and weaken the Christian presence in the Holy City in a flagrant violation of the legal and historical situation in place in the city’s holy sites and a serious breach of the relevant international conventions and obligations;
8. To condemn Israel, the occupying Power, for confiscating the land of Jerusalemites and illegally demolish their homes, including the frenzied Israeli campaign recently launched by the occupation authorities with a view to demolishing and confiscating residential buildings in various areas and neighbourhoods of the city of Jerusalem, the better to promote its settlement plans both within and beyond the old city, not to mention the bulldozing of thousands of dunams to implement the so-called Greater Jerusalem project, including the E1 settlement project, and to build a ring of settlements that would disrupt Palestinian geographic contiguity in order to take control of those territories;
9. To condemn the systematic Israeli policies aimed at misrepresenting and altering the Arab and Islamic culture and identity of the city of Jerusalem, notably by closing Palestinian institutions, attempting to steal Palestinian heritage and endeavouring to change curricula in Jerusalem, including by imposing financial and administrative sanctions on Palestinian schools that rail to comply with that malign policy;
10. To call on the international community to press the Israeli occupation authorities to end the policy of house arrest that they enforce broadly and systematically against children in the city of Jerusalem with a view to instilling fear and mental illness in Palestinian children and destroying their future;
11. To strongly condemn the decisions taken by Kosovo and Czechia, in violation of international law, to open diplomatic missions in Jerusalem, and to call on Arab States that maintain diplomatic relations with them to reassess those relations accordingly; to reject and condemn once again any unilateral decision to breach the legal status of the city of Jerusalem, including the decision of the former United States Administration to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the occupying Power, and to transfer its embassy to that city, and including also the opening of any offices or diplomatic missions in that city, as such actions are an attack on the rights of the Palestinian people, an act of provocation against the Islamic and Christian Arab nation; to consider any such decision to be null and void and in serious breach of the international law, the relevant resolutions of the United Nations, the opinion of the International Court of Justice on the separation wall, not to mention a dangerous precedent inviting further violations of international law and legitimacy, something that would undermine efforts to achieve peace and endanger international peace and security;
12. To reiterate that States members are determined to take the necessary practical measures at the political, diplomatic and economic levels, in accordance with the resolutions adopted at successive summits and sessions of the League at the ministerial level, in order to confront any decision taken by any State to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the occupying Power, or to transfer its embassy to that city, or to undermine its legal status; to follow up the resolutions of the Council of the League concerning actions taken by certain States that undermine that legal status; and to follow up also the international media plan and the integrated plan of action prepared by the Secretariat of the League for that purpose;
13. To call on all States to comply with Security Council resolutions 476 (1980) and 478 (1980) and General Assembly resolution ES-10/19, by which the Assembly states that decisions and actions which purport to have altered the character, status or demographic composition of the Holy City of Jerusalem have no legal effect, are null and void and must be rescinded in compliance with relevant resolutions of the Security Council; calls on all States to refrain from the establishment of diplomatic missions in the Holy City of Jerusalem; and stresses that Jerusalem is a final status issue to be resolved through negotiations in line with relevant United Nations resolutions;
14. To endorse and support the decisions and measures taken by the State of Palestine to confront any State that recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of the occupying Power, including the filing of claims before the International Court of Justice against any State that violates international agreements and laws in such a manner as to undermine the legal status of Jerusalem; to work with the State of Palestine towards realizing the objective of those decisions at all levels;
15. To condemn Israeli measures applying a racist law intended to undermine the rights of Palestinian Jerusalemites to their own city by rescinding the identity cards of thousands of Palestinian Jerusalemites who live in or beyond the suburbs of occupied Jerusalem; to condemn the resumed enforcement of the so-called Absentee Property Act intended to confiscate the real estate of Jerusalemites; to call on the international community to press Israel, the occupying Power, to put a stop to its racist decisions and laws aimed at emptying the city of its original inhabitants, forcibly displacing them from the city, imposing exorbitant taxes on them, and denying them building permits;
16. To condemn Israel’s arbitrary imprisonment and house arrest of prominent Palestinian legal persons in the city of Jerusalem and the continued closure of national institutions in Jerusalem; to demand the reopening of those institutions, foremost among them Orient House and the Chamber of Commerce, in order for them to provide services to Jerusalemite citizens and protect the Palestinian presence in the Holy City;
17. To call on all States to implement the resolutions of the United Nations and UNESCO concerning the question of Palestine, including those of the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO, which has stated that the Aqsa Mosque / Haram al-Sharif is a Muslim holy site of worship and an integral part of a World Heritage Site, and has condemned the illegal Israeli attacks thereon;
18. To stress that the purpose of the call to visit the city of Jerusalem and its Islamic and Christian holy sites, including the Aqsa Mosque, is to break the Israeli embargo imposed on it, and to protect it from the plans of extremist Jewish groups;
19. To reiterate, in that regard, that the State of Palestine has sovereignty over the city and its holy sites, and that Jordan is the guardian of the Islamic and Christian holy sites therein;
20. To emphasize that the Arab and Islamic worlds are collectively responsible for Jerusalem; to call on all Arab and Islamic States and organizations, Arab funds, and civil society organizations to provide the necessary funding to implement the projects set out in the Strategic Sectoral Plan for Jerusalem (2018–2022) proposed by the State of Palestine with a view to saving the Holy City, protecting its holy sites, shoring up the resilience of its inhabitants, and confronting Israeli plans and practices intended to Judaize it and expel its inhabitants; to work to continue implementing the resolution to support the Palestinian economy that was adopted at the fourth Arab Economic and Social Development Summit held in Beirut on 20 January 2019, which provides for an Arab-Islamic intervention mechanism to implement the Plan in coordination with the State of Palestine;
21. To call once again on Arab capitals to twin with the city of Jerusalem, the capital of the State of Palestine; and to call on governmental and non-governmental educational, cultural, economic, social and health institutions to form partnerships with their counterparts in Jerusalem, in order to support occupied Jerusalem and the resilience of its population and institutions;
22. To commend the efforts of His Majesty King Abdullah Bin al-Hussein of Jordan, as guardian of the Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem; to reject once again all attempts by Israel, the occupying Power, to encroach upon that Hashemite guardianship; commend Jordan’s role in caring for, protecting and maintaining the Islamic and Christian holy places in Jerusalem under the historic guardianship of Jordan, which is reaffirmed in the agreement signed on 31 March 2013 between King Abdullah and President Mahmoud Abbas; to express support for the role of the Jerusalem Awqaf and Aqsa Mosque Affairs Administration of Jordan in protecting the Haram from Israeli breaches and attacks;
23. To commend the efforts of King Mohammed VI of Morocco as head of the Al-Quds Committee, to defend the Holy City and support the resilience of the Palestinian people; to commend the work of the Bayt Mal-al-Quds Agency, an affiliate of the Al-Quds Committee;
24. To commend the efforts of the Custodian of the Two Mosques, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, to support the occupied city of Jerusalem, the capital of the State of Palestine, and to strengthen the resilience of its inhabitants;
25. To commend the efforts of Algeria to support the Palestinian cause, whether through its historic political positions or through its commitment to provide financial support to the budget of the State of Palestine;
26. To commend all Arab efforts to preserve the city of East Jerusalem, the capital of the State of Palestine, and its Arab, Islamic and Christian identity, holy sites, and cultural and human heritage; and confront Israel’s systematic policies of settlement, Judaization and falsification;
27. To commend the charitable programme launched in the city of Jerusalem in memory of the late Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, Amir of Kuwait, and to remember and commend his humanitarian and charitable initiatives and his consistent position in support of the Palestinian cause and the right of the Palestinian people to the occupied city of Jerusalem;
28. To commend the efforts of the Arab Parliament to support the Palestinian cause and protect the legal, spiritual and historic status of the occupied city of Jerusalem; to call on Arab parliaments to mobilize alongside other parliaments around the world;
29. To request that the Group of Arab States in New York continue pursuing its efforts to reveal the threat that Israel’s alarming Judaization practices and measures pose to the holy Aqsa Mosque, and the grave repercussions of those practices and measures for international peace and security;
30. To request that the Secretary-General follow up implementation of the present resolution and report to the Council at its next ordinary session on measures taken in that regard.

(Resolution 8600 — 155th ordinary session — second meeting — 3 March 2021)

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