Draft:1946 Arab League summit

The 1946 Arab League summit was the first international organizational meeting of the Arab League held on May 28-29 in Inshas, Egypt, and attended by all founding member countries: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Iraq, and Lebanon.

Participants

The Arab League was still in its infancy, having been established just a year prior. Following a successful meeting with King Abdulaziz Al Saud near Mount Radwa, Yanbu, on January 25th, 1945, King Farouk sought to convene an international summit. Both leaders agreed on their commitment to advocating for Palestine and forming a unified front to counter European influence in the Arab world and the ambitions of the Hashemite royal family, which was governing Iraq and Jordan at the time.

The Inshas Summit, held in 1946, was widely regarded as the first Arab summit involving the seven founding member states: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon. The primary agenda focused on addressing the aggression against Palestine and promoting the liberation of Arab nations from colonial rule.

While some contend that the first Arab League Summit took place under the leadership of the late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in Cairo on January 13, 1964, classifying the Inshas meeting as an emergency summit, this summit nonetheless established several pivotal resolutions that would shape the League's policies for decades to come. The summit convened over two days, May 28 and 29, at King Farouk's palace in Inshas, located 60 kilometers northeast of Cairo, and was attended by notable figures including:

• King Farouk I of Egypt

• King Abdullah I of Jordan
• Saudi Crown Prince Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Saud
• Saif al-Islam Ibrahim bin Yahya Hamid ed-Din, son of Imam Yahya Muhammad Hamid ed-Din of Yemen
• Prince Abdulillah bin Ali Al Hashemi, the guardian of the Iraqi throne
• Bishara al-Khouri, the first president of the Republic of Lebanon
• Shukri al-Quwatli, President of Syria

Its simplicity and careful organization characterized the summit, garnering widespread recognition. Commemorative stamps were issued in honor of the participating dignitaries. Rather than concluding with a final communiqué, this historic event resulted in several resolutions, one of which underscored the necessity for solidarity among Arab states to pursue independence from colonial powers.

Results

The summit did not issue a final statement but rather a set of decisions, the most important of which were:

1. Helping colonized Arab peoples to gain their independence.
3. Declaring the Palestinian issue as a national problem and Palestine as inseparable from the rest of the Arab countries.
5. The necessity of standing up to Zionism, considering it a danger that threatens not only Palestine but all Arab and Islamic countries.
7. Calling for a complete halt to Jewish immigration, preventing the transfer of Arab lands into the hands of the Zionists, and working to achieve the liberation of Palestine.
9. Considering any aggressive policy directed against Palestine by the American and British governments as an aggressive policy towards all Arab League countries.
11. Defending the Palestinian entity in the circumstance of an attack on it.
13. Helping the Arabs of Palestine with money and by all possible means.
15. The necessity of Libya gaining independence.
17. Working to revive the Arab peoples and raise their cultural and material level to enable them to confront any imminent Zionist aggression.