Arab leaders meet in Tunisia to oppose Trump's Golan move

TUNIS, Mar 31 (AP): Arab leaders are meeting in Tunisia's capital hoping to project unified opposition to President Donald Trump's recognition of Israel's sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights.
The annual Arab League summit was set to take place on Sunday. The leaders of Algeria, Sudan and Morocco have announced they are skipping the meeting.
Arab League spokesman Mahmoud Afifi says the 22-member bloc will aim to issue a proclamation affirming the international consensus that the Golan is occupied Syrian land.
The annual gathering will also look into readmitting Syria's membership in the Arab League, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Saudi Arabia-Iran rivalry and the war in Yemen.
The pan-Arab bloc froze Syria's membership in 2011 over a bloody government crackdown on protesters.
Many Arab countries have recently renewed ties with the government of President Bashar Assad.
Arab leaders are already grappling with unrest in Algeria and Sudan, international pressure over the war in Yemen, regional splits over Iran's influence in the Middle East and a bitter Gulf Arab dispute.
They face a new challenge after President Donald Trump signed a proclamation last week recognising the Golan Heights as Israeli, less than four months after recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.
Arab officials said the summit would be dominated by the Golan Heights and Palestinian demands for an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, areas also occupied by Israel in the 1967 war.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil said on Saturday Arab ministers had expressed support for a proposal to declare that the US move violated the UN charter against acquiring land by force.
They also agreed to back Syria's right to regain Golan and Lebanon's right to the Shebaa farms, a small strip of land next to the Golan claimed by Beirut, he tweeted.
Summit spokesman Mahmoud Al-Khmeiry said Arab leaders would repeat an Arab call for peace with Israel in exchange for occupied Arab lands and would reject any initiative not in line with UN resolutions.
Khmeiry appeared to be referring to a still-unannounced US peace plan by White House adviser Jared Kushner and Trump son-in-law that Palestinians have refused to discuss.
Trump's aides have said his moves have drawn a less severe reaction privately from Arab states than experts had predicted.
While opposition to Israel and its actions can unite the 22-member Arab League, Arab states remain divided over a range of other issues, including pro-democracy protests that have erupted in the region since 2011 and over Iran's Middle East influence.