At a convention center on the banks of the Jordan side of the Dead Sea on Wednesday, leaders of 21 Arab states reaffirmed their commitment to a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The 28th Arab League Summit had a simple, unifying message: ties with Israel will not be fully normalized until a peace deal with the Palestinians is reached.

As the Arab world deals with a coterie of conflicts–civil wars in Syria, Yemen, and Libya; Islamic State and other terror groups; Iran’s proxy adventures and missile program–leaders showed the decades-old conflict still serves as a unifying force in the region.

The summit meeting comes as the Trump Administration mounts an aggressive campaign to strike a peace deal. President Donald Trump has not thrown his whole weight behind the two-state option, instead opting for whatever approach “both parties like.” And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has broadened his language as well; in recent speeches, he eschews the “two-state” label while still saying he supports peace.

Trump is set to meet with a trio of Arab leaders–Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and the Palestinian Authority’s President Mahmoud Abbas–in the coming weeks. Trump’s envoy for the conflict, Jason Greenblatt, was an observer at Wednesday’s gathering. A statement from the U.S. Embassy in Jordan said Greenblatt “listened to their views and ideas, and held a round of bilateral meetings with Arab leaders and other foreign delegations to discuss U.S. perspectives and policies.”

“He reaffirmed President Trump’s personal interest in achieving a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians and his belief that such a peace agreement is not only possible, but would reverberate positively throughout the region and the world,” the statement added.

Affirming their support for normalizing ties with Israel in exchange for a sovereign Palestinian state, the Arab leaders referenced the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative as a blueprint for a future deal. That initiative calls for a “just and comprehensive peace,” including “full Israeli withdrawal from all Arab territories occupied since” the Six Day War in 1967, in which Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and east Jerusalem.

Israel has rejected the initiative, because it fails to recognize the Jewish people’s ties to east Jerusalem, which contains the religion’s holiest site, the Temple Mount complex. Jordan is a custodian of the fiercely contested site; Jews are currently allowed to visit, but not pray at the site. The initiative also failed to include land swaps for areas of the West Bank inhabited by Israeli settlers, which lay beyond the pre-1967 boundary, a condition Israel says is a pre-requisite for any peace deal.

But for Arab leaders, the West Bank settlements are illegal intrusions on Palestinian land. “Israel is continuing to expand settlements and undermining the chances of achieving peace,” Jordan’s Abdullah said at the summit. In their closing statement, the Arab leaders seemed to recognize the importance the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has for region as a whole, saying “peace is a strategic option” for Arab nations.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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In defiance of the United Nation’s condemnation of its settlement program last week, Israel’s government will issue permits for 618 new settlements on Wednesday. The first installment of 5,600 new homes is expected to be erected in East Jerusalem in the near future.

The settlement planning committee said the permits were being discussed before the UN Security Council passed the resolution last Friday. The resolution called Israeli settlement activity a “flagrant violation under international law” that was “dangerously imperiling the viability” of a future peace settlement establishing a Palestinian state.

“I won’t get worked up over the UN or any other organization that might try to dictate to us what to do in Jerusalem,” Deputy Mayor Meir Turgeman, the planning committee chairman, told an Israeli newspaper. “I hope that the government and the new administration in the United States will give us momentum to continue.”

Over the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted to the resolution by halting aid and canceling meetings with foreign diplomats. He canceled a meeting with the prime minister of Ukraine, one of the 14 countries that supported the resolution. Netanyahu, angered by the U.S.’s decision to abstain rather than veto the resolution, summoned Daniel Shapiro, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, to clarify the U.S. position.

For decades, it has been standard practice for the U.S. to veto anti-settlement measures, but last week it elected to abstain for the first time. Netanyahu claims that the U.S. colluded behind the scenes with the countries that sponsored the resolution, including New Zealand, and played a more direct role in drafting the resolution. He said he had evidence of the U.S.’s involvement and would share it with President-elect Donald Trump.

“Israel is a country with national pride, and we do not turn the other cheek,” Netanyahu said on Monday, adding that Israel’s response is “responsible, measured and vigorous.” It was the “natural response of a healthy people that is making it clear to the nations of the world that what was done at the UN is unacceptable to us,” he said.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have long rankled the international community, and Palestinian leadership. Many consider the settlements a key impediment to peace, though Israeli officials say it is a bargaining chip for negotiations of a two-state solution.

Ron Dermer, Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S., told The New York Times that the Palestinian strategy is to wage a “diplomatic and legal war against Israel.” He added: “Their strategy is not to negotiate an agreement with Israel because a deal is give and take. They want take and take.”

Netanyahu’s conservative government has high hopes that Trump, who will take office in a few weeks, will bring a friendlier relationship to Israel and help change the UN-Israel relationship as well. In a tweet Monday, Trump called the UN “a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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