Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that answer the question.
Query: What were the original members of the Arab League?
The Arab League has 22 member states. It was founded in Cairo in March 1945 with six members: the Kingdom of Egypt, Kingdom of Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syrian Republic, and Transjordan (Jordan from 1949). North Yemen (later becoming Yemen) joined on 5 May 1945. Membership increased during the second half of the 20th century. Five countries have observer status.
In 1969, Somalia and the United Arab Emirates were among the founding members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Both nations are also members of the League of Arab States.
According to the League of Arab States, the Arab League is an organization of independent Arab States in North and Northeast Africa and Southwest Asia. Member nations are in turn bound by the Charter of the Arab League.
Since its formation the Arab League has promoted the Palestinian Arab cause in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, including the imposition of the Arab League boycott of Israel. The Arab League opposed the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine in 1947. On 15 May 1948, the then seven Arab League members coordinated an invasion of what was by then the former British Mandate, marking the start of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. In 1964, the Arab League created the Palestine Liberation Organization to operate within the territory of Israel. During the Six-Day War, the Arab League imposed an oil embargo, which lasted until the Khartoum Resolution in September 1967. The League members also agreed to continue the state of belligerency with Israel and not to negotiate a settlement to the conflict. The signing of the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty was condemned, and Egypt was suspended from the Arab League in 1979, which lasted until 1989. The Arab League on 15 November 1988 recognized the proclamation of the State of Palestine. The Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel signed the Oslo Accords in 1993 which led to the setting up of the Palestinian National Authority. The Arab League has not made any official statements either supporting the establishment of the Palestinian Authority or condemning it. In October 1994, Jordan signed the Israel–Jordan peace treaty with Israel, and it was not ostracized by the Arab League, as Egypt had been in 1979. In 2002, the Arab League endorsed a Saudi Arabian Arab Peace Initiative which called for full withdrawal by Israel "to the 1967 borders" in return for fully normalized relations.
On 19 May 1951, the Arab League Council passed Resolution 357, which established a successor to the defunct Permanent Boycott Committee, the Central Boycott Office (CBO), with its headquarters in Damascus. Branch offices of the Damascus CBO were established in each of the Arab League member states. To direct the CBO the resolution created the position of Boycott Commissioner and provided for the appointment of his deputies, who were to function as liaison officers accredited by each member state of the Arab League. The primary task of the Damascus CBO was to coordinate the boycott with its affiliated offices, and to report regularly to Arab League Council. Biannual meetings were to be held each year after 1951 to coordinate boycott policies and to compile blacklists of individuals and firms which had violated the boycott. Each member state of the Arab League would enforce the resolution through legal and administrative measures. Finally, the resolution stipulated that "participation in regional conferences organized on the initiative of one country or by an international organization could not be attended if Israel were also invited", expanding upon its 1950 decree that such a conference would not be organized by an Arab state.
The flag of the Arab League comprises a green banner bearing the seal of the Arab League. The twenty-two links in the chain represent the twenty-two members of the League at the time of the flag's adoption. The script gives the name of the organization: "League of Arab States".
South Sudan declared its independence from League member state Sudan in July 2011. A clause in the Charter of the Arab League accords the right of territories that have succeeded from an Arab League member state to join the organization.[18] South Sudan has been assured full membership in the Arab League should its government choose to seek it.[19] Alternatively, the nation could opt for observer status.[20] It has indicated that it would not be joining the League since the government believes it does not meet the pre-conditions for membership; specifically, that "the League requires that the countries must be Arabic speaking countries that consider Arabic language the main language of the nation; on top of that, the league also requires that the people of that particular country must believe that they are actually Arabs. The people of Southern Sudan are not of Arabic origin, so I don't think there will be anybody in Southern Sudan who will consider joining the Arab League".[21] In an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, the Foreign Minister of South Sudan Deng Alor Kuol said: South Sudan is the closest African country to the Arab world, and we speak a special kind of Arabic known as Juba Arabic.[22] Sudan supports South Sudan’s request to join the Arab League.[23] South Sudan applied for observer status in March 2018.[24][25]
African members of the Arab League have hosted 12 editions of the Africa Cup of Nations, with another scheduled for 2017:Meanwhile, Asian members of the Arab League have hosted five editions of the AFC Asian Cup:
At the Arab League Summit of 2001-Amman, the Arab states agreed to create an Arab Parliament, and came up with a resolution to give Amr Moussa the Secretary General of the Arab League the power to start and create the Parliament. In 2004, in the ordinary Arab League Summit in Algiers was the official date where all Arab League Members agreed to send their representative to the temporary Parliament sessions that took place in the headquarters of the Arab League in Cairo, Egypt, with each member state sending four members, until the Parliament is reassigned permanently to its under-construction office in Damascus.
The Charter of the Arab League (also known as the Pact of the League of Arab States) is the founding treaty of the Arab League. Concluded in 1945, the agreement endorses the principle of an Arab homeland while respecting the sovereignty of the individual member states. The internal regulations of the Council of the Arab League and the committees were agreed to in October 1951. Those of the Secretary-General were agreed to in May 1953.
Today, 31 United Nations member states do not recognise the State of Israel. These include 18 of the 22 Arab League members: Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen; and a further 9 members of Organisation of Islamic Cooperation: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brunei, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Mali, Niger, and Pakistan. In 2002, the Arab League offered recognition of Israel by Arab countries as part of the resolution of the Palestine-Israel conflict in the Arab Peace Initiative.
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 next day the seven Arab League members, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, coordinated a march with their forces into what the previous day had been the area of the British Mandate, marking the start of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. In the introduction to the , the Arab League gave reasons for the "intervention" of the Arab States:
Each member state has one vote in the League Council, and decisions are binding only for those states that have voted for them. The aims of the league in 1945 were to strengthen and coordinate the political, cultural, economic and social programs of its members and to mediate disputes among them or between them and third parties. Furthermore, the signing of an agreement on Joint Defence and Economic Cooperation on 13 April 1950 committed the signatories to coordination of military defence measures. In March 2015, the Arab League General Secretary announced the establishment of a Joint Arab Force with the aim of counteracting extremism and other threats to the Arab States. The decision was reached while Operation Decisive Storm was intensifying in Yemen. Participation in the project is voluntary, and the army intervenes only at the request of one of the member states. The growing militarization of the region and the increase in violent civil wars as well as terrorist movements are the reason behind the creation of the JAF, financed by the rich Gulf countries.[8]
Although credited with shaking up the Arab League's bureaucracy, Moussa has been criticized by former and current staff members of the Arab League for his management of the organization. In his book, "The League of the Arab States: what’s left of it", former Arab League and Syrian diplomat Kawkab Najib El Rayess accused Moussa of favoritism and promoting his loyalists into the high ranks of the Arab League at the expense of the more-qualified diplomats.
Initially, in 1945, there were only six members. Today, the Arab League has 22 members, including three African countries among the largest by area (Sudan, Algeria and Libya) and the largest country in the Middle East, (Saudi Arabia).
The Arab League was formed on 22 March 1945 with five members, while a sixth member joined later that year. On 2 December 1945, it issued its first formal declaration of an economic boycott of the Jewish community of Palestine. The declaration urged both Arab United Nations member states and Arab states which had not yet obtained UN membership to prohibit the products and usage of the products of Jewish industry in Palestine, effective January 1, 1946. The declaration, contained in Arab League Resolution 16, stated:
The Arab League began to create the apparatus for implementing the resolution in February the same year. The first body established for this purpose was the Permanent Boycott Committee, based in Cairo, Egypt. On 12 June the Boycott Committee adopted a recommendation in Arab League Resolution 70, which called upon the Arab states to set up national boycott offices. Later measures adopted by the Committee included requiring those selling goods to Arab states to provide a certificate of origin to prove the goods were not manufactured by Palestinian Jews, the allocation of 50% of the value of goods confiscated in this manner to customs officials, the prohibition by Arabs of the use of Jewish banks, insurance companies, contractors, and transport in Palestine. Member states of the Arab League began implementing these resolutions through legal and administrative measures. After the Partition Plan of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states was introduced at the United Nations on 29 November 1947, efforts to apply the boycott were intensified. However, the boycott was unsuccessful, as noted in the first annual report of the Boycott Committee, and trade between Palestine (the vast majority by Jews) and Arab States neighboring Palestine continued to thrive.
Bulgaria was originally an observer, but it began sitting as a full member at the June meeting in Abu Dhabi and thereafter. South Africa boycotted the September meeting in Paris.
Arab League, Gulf Cooperation Council and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation were originally observers, but they began sitting as a full members probably from 29 of July.
1942– The United Kingdom promotes the idea of the Arab League. 1945– Leaders of seven states in the Middle East sign the Alexandria Protocol, thus establishing the first Organization with a Pan-Arabic ideology in the 20th century. The founding members were Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan (entering under the name of Transjordan), and Yemen (which from 1967 was generally known under the name North Yemen). 1953– Libya joins the Arab League two years after independence. 19 January 1956– Sudan joins the Arab League, two weeks after independence from the United Kingdom and Egypt. 1 October 1958– Morocco and Tunisia join the Arab League, two years after independence. 20 July 1961– Kuwait joins the League 31 days after independence, and becomes the first Asian state to join the League after the founding states. 16 August 1962– Algeria accedes to the Arab League, less than two months after independence. 1967– South Yemen joins the Arab League upon its independence. 1971– the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain join the Arab League. 26 November 1973– Mauritania joins the Arab League thirteen years after independence. 14 February 1974– Somalia joins the Arab League fourteen years after independence. 9 September 1976– Palestinian Liberation Organisation joins the Arab League.[11] Its seat is assumed by the State of Palestine following the declaration of independence in 1988.[11] 4 September 1977– Djibouti joins the Arab League two months before its independence from France that same year. 1979– Egypt suspended from the Arab League; readmitted in 1989. 22 May 1990– North and South Yemen unify. 1993– The Comoros accede to the Arab League. January 2003– Eritrea joins the Arab League as an observer. 2003– Brazil joins the Arab League as an observer for one summit. September 2006– Venezuela joins the Arab League as an observer for one summit. April 2007– India joins the Arab League as an observer state for the summit. 22 February 2011– Libya suspended from the Arab League.[12] June 2011– South Sudan gains independence from Sudan, but does not join the Arab League.[13] 16 November 2011– Syria suspended from the Arab League.
The Iraqi Regional Branch could approve or disapprove of marriages of party members and in a party document it was ordered that party branches "to check thoroughly the Arabic origin of not only the prospective wife but also her family, and no approval should be given to members who plan to marry [someone] of non-Arab origin". During the war with Iran, the party began to confront members who were of non-Arab, especially Iranian origins. One memo from the party Secretariat sent directly to Saddam read that "the party suffers from the existence of members who are not originally Arabs as this might constitute a danger to the party in the future". The Secretariat recommended not giving party membership to people of Iranian origins. In a written reply to the document, Saddam wrote: "1) [I] Agree with the opinion of the Party Secretariat; 2) To be discussed in the [Regional] Command meeting". Many of those who were refused, or whose membership had been revoked, were loyal Ba'athists. For instance, one Ba'athist of Iranian origin had been a member of the party since 1958, been a part of the Ramadan Revolution and had been imprisoned by the authorities in the aftermath of the November 1963 Iraqi coup d'état for the Ba'athist cause. Later, the authorities began to specifically look for people of Iraqi origins and any contact with Iran or Iranians functioned as a good enough reason to not be given party membership.
Egypt - Egypt's membership was suspended in 1979 after it signed the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty and the League's headquarters were moved from Cairo to Tunis. In 1987, Arab League states restored diplomatic relations with Egypt, the country was readmitted to the League in 1989 and the League's headquarters were moved back to Cairo.[26]
The official language of the Arab League is Literary Arabic, based on Classical Arabic. However, several Arab League member states have other co-official or national languages, such as Somali, Berber, Kurdish, Assyrian, and Nubian. Additionally, various different Arabic dialects are spoken, such as Egyptian Arabic, Levantine Arabic and Moroccan Arabic.
Being conferred observer status in 2007, India was the first member to enter the League although it does not have an Arab community, neither does it have an indigenous Arabic speaking population. It does, however have a sizeable amount of people claiming Arab descent. Trade between India and Arab League members was valued at US$30 billion in 2007. India's major exports to Arab League countries are chemicals, automobiles, machinery, foodstuff and other fast moving products, while it is a large importer of Arab oil and gas. India also has a large diaspora in the Arab League countries of about 5 million, of which some 20% are professionals.
In 2010, the Eritrean president Isaias Afewerki, sent a letter to the Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, calling for the Arab League's pressure on removing the latest UN sanctions over the country. The sanctions were enforced after his country was accused of supporting insurgents in Somalia, and were enacted in the UNSC by 13 of the 15 members.
The Arab League (Arabic: الجامعة العربية‎ al-Jāmiʻah al-ʻArabīyah), formally the League of Arab States (Arabic: جامعة الدول العربية‎ Jāmiʿat ad-Duwal al-ʿArabīyah), is a regional organization of Arab states in and around North Africa, the Horn of Africa and Arabia. It was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945 with six members: Kingdom of Egypt, Kingdom of Iraq, Transjordan (renamed Jordan in 1949), Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria.[3] Yemen joined as a member on 5 May 1945. Currently, the League has 22 members, but Syria's participation has been suspended since November 2011, as a consequence of government repression during the Syrian Civil War.[4]
The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic is not a member though it is recognized by some Arab League states. Its status is disputed, its territory being claimed by League member Morocco, which makes its membership unlikely for the foreseeable future.