Arabs shouldn't normalize with Israel: Muslim cleric

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Arab countries should not take any step toward normalizing ties with Israel until a Palestinian state is created and the Jewish state withdraws from their territories, a prominent Muslim cleric said on Wednesday.

Egyptian scholar Youssef al-Qaradawi was speaking on the sidelines of a meeting attended by Muslim and Christian figures shortly after Arab leaders started a two-day summit in Saudi Arabia to revive an Palestinian-Israeli peace plan.

"Some people (Arab nations) have normalized with Israel, some of them reject the idea. We will not normalize and we don't accept normalization as long as the occupation is still there," Qaradawi told a news conference when asked whether he had any message for the summit.

"We don't accept normalization with Israel unless a Palestinian state is created. When a Palestinian state is created, then we can consider normalizing."

On a visit to Algeria from his base in Qatar, Qaradawi was chairing a conference of the al-Quds Foundation, a body which seeks to preserve the Arab identity of Jerusalem.

Few Arab countries have formal ties with Israel. Egypt and Jordan signed peace treaties with the Jewish state and have diplomatic relations.

The Arab League summit will discuss a peace plan with Israel endorsed in 2002, offering the Jewish state normal ties with all Arab countries if it fully withdraws from land it occupied in 1967, accepts a Palestinian state and agrees to a "just solution" for Palestinian refugees.

Israel captured Jerusalem's Old City along with the rest of Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed the area as its capital in a move not recognized internationally.

Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of a state they hope to establish in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.