The top foreign policy spokesman for the Palestinian Authority, Riyadh al-Malki, told Radio Palestine that "The Arab states will never recognize the Jewish state," Israel Radio reported.
 

According to al-Malki, Arab League foreign ministers told Secretary of State John Kerry in the course of weekend meetings in Paris that this was the united Arab stance.

Kerry has been trying to get support for a peace deal between the Palestinians and Israel from the Arab foreign ministers, Arutz 7 reported.

The League of Arab States is comprised of 22 members all of whom are also constituents of the 56-member Organization of the Islamic Conference — countries which officially identify themselves as Muslim.

The Arab position is that recognizing Israel as a Jewish state would waive the claim that Arab refugees from 1948, when Israel was created, and their descendants, now numbering roughly five million, should always have the right to live in Israel. 

The long-standing Israeli position is that should a peace accord be signed Arab refugees ought to be resettled in the State of Palestine or in the surrounding Arab countries where they live.

In addition to Palestinian claims that their refugees be allowed to re-settle in Israel proper, other stumbling blocks to an accord include Palestinian insistence that there be no Israeli presence — civilian settlements or military outposts — in the strategic West Bank, and that east Jerusalem along with its surrounding neighborhoods be declared the capital of Palestine.

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