1974 Arab League summit

The 1974 Arab League summit was a meeting of Arab leaders held in Rabat, Morocco in 1974. Leaders to twenty Arab countries were present, including King Hussein of Jordan and Anwar Sadat of Egypt, together with representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). A unanimous resolution was passed which, for the first time, declared the PLO to be the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people." Furthermore, the Arab League resolved that the "oil-rich Arab states ... [provide] multi-annual financial aid to the [states in confrontation with Israel] and the PLO" (Sela 158).

The summit shaped the future of the conflict in several ways. First, it forced King Hussein to relinquish his claim to be able to speak for the Palestinians and to acknowledge that a future Palestinian state would have to be independent of Jordan. Second, it "weakened the American position. [U.S. Secretary of State Henry] Kissinger agreed with the Israelis that it was preferable to negotiate with Hussein rather than with the PLO" (Bickerton 176).

See also

• Arab League

References and links

• The Rabat Summit Conference
• Seventh Arab League Summit Conference, Resolution on Palestine
• King Hussein's address to the nation
• Bickerton, Ian J., and Carla L. Klausner. A Concise History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2002.
• Sela, Avraham. "Arab Summit Conferences." The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East. Ed. Sela. New York: Continuum, 2002. pp. 158–160

Arab League summits 1964–1979 1964 Cairo / Alexandria 1965 Casablanca 1967 Khartoum 1969 Rabat 1970 Cairo 1973 Algiers 1974 Rabat 1976 Riyadh / Cairo 1978 Baghdad 1979 Tunis 1980–1999 1980 Amman 1982 Fes 1985 Casablanca 1987 Amman 1988 Algiers 1989 Casablanca 1990 Baghdad / Cairo 1996 Cairo 2000–2019 2000 Cairo 2001 Amman 2002 Beirut 2003 Sharm el-Sheikh 2004 Tunis 2005 Algiers 2006 Khartoum 2007 Riyadh 2008 Damascus 2009 Doha 2010 Sirte 2012 Baghdad 2013 Doha Italics indicate extraordinary meetings.