In an opening speech at the summit meeting, the emir said the Islamic and Arab heritage of Jerusalem, which the Arabs call Al-Quds, is under threat because of Israel’s claims on the entire city as its capital. The Palestinians have asserted that Jerusalem should be the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Image Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani Credit Kirsty Wigglesworth/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“There will be no peace before we find a just, permanent and comprehensive solution that meets all the legitimate rights of the Palestinians, primarily through the establishment of an independent state, with Al-Quds being its capital,” the emir said.

Exhorting fellow Arab League members to back their verbal pledges of support for the Palestinians with money, the emir said “I hereby ask you to approve the formation of a fund that supports Al Quds with a capital of one billion dollars. This should be implemented as soon as this summit ends.” He did not explain precisely how the money should be used.

A spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry criticized the emir’s proposal, accusing him of seeking to negate the Jewish heritage of Jerusalem and promoting it as a city with an exclusively Islamic past.

“There is no history of Jerusalem without Jewish history,” said the spokesman, Yigal Palmor. “To deprive Jerusalem of its Jewish foundations would be like depriving Mecca of its Islamic foundations, which would be absurd.”

The emir has inserted himself vigorously into the Palestinian issue before, particularly in efforts to achieve reconciliation between the Palestinian Authority, the government in the Israeli-occupied West Bank run by the Fatah faction, and Hamas, the Islamist militant group that governs Gaza. Israel, the United States and European Union consider Hamas a terrorist organization.