DAMASCUS, October 29 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Eighteen of the 22 members of the Arab League pledged to “reactivate” a half-century-old ban on trade with the Jewish state as they wrapped up here on Tuesday, October 29, a four-day meeting of the League’s Boycott Office of Israel (BOI).

“It is necessary to reactivate the Arab boycott of Israel and combat the import of Israeli products to Arab countries,” said a statement issued after the talks.

The meeting was skipped by the three League members with full diplomatic ties with the Jewish state - Egypt, Jordan and Mauritania - and anarchic Somalia.

“The economic boycott of Israel is a peaceful, legal and noble means of struggle against the enemy and is aimed at preserving security and peace,” the statement said.

Arab states once boycotted not just Israeli firms themselves, but third-country companies which do business with the Jewish state.

However, the indirect boycott has largely lapsed since the launch of the Middle East peace process in 1991, and the six-monthly meetings of the Damascus-based BOI do little but go through the motions.

The BOI held its first official meeting in eight years last October, where it drew up a list of 15 firms to be black-listed, but the list remained unpublished.