(17 September 1975)
Yehuda Lukacs (ed.), The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict a documentary record, 1967-1990, (New York: Cambridge University Press), 1992, pp. 60-61.
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Subsequent to Israel’s signing of the September 1975, Egyptian-Israeli Disengagement Agreement, Israel received assurances from the United States in letters and memoranda about future weapons acquisitions, financial assistance, oil supplies, on the prospects of Israel retaining the Golan Heights in any future peace agreement with Syria, and the future conduct of Arab-Israeli negotiations dealing with Geneva. These letters and memoranda were secret. With regard to the conduct of future negotiations, Israel received an iron-clad promise that Washington would neither recognize nor negotiate with the PLO until it recognized Israeli existence, refuted terrorism, and accepted United Nations Security Council Resolution 242. This promise impeded official American negotiations with the PLO for the subsequent decade; only in 1988 when the PLO accepted the three premises in this memorandum, did the United States open a dialogue with the PLO.
Ken Stein, March 2004
1. The Geneva peace conference will be reconvened at a time coordinated between the United States and Israel.
2. The United States will continue to adhere to its present policy with respect to the Palestine Liberation Organization, whereby it will not recognize or negotiate with the Palestine Liberation Organization so long as the Palestine Liberation Organization does not recognize Israel’s right to exist and does not accept Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. The United States Government will consult fully and seek to concert its position and strategy at the Geneva peace conference on this issue with the Government of Israel. Similarly, the United States will consult fully and seek to concert its position and strategy with Israel with regard to the participation of any other additional states. It is understood that the participation at a subsequent phase of the conference of any possible additional state, group or organization will require the agreement of all the initial participants.
3. The United States will make every effort to insure at the conference that all the substantive negotiations will be on a bilateral basis.
4. The United States will opposed and, if necessary, vote against any initiative in the Security Council to alter adversely the terms of reference of the Geneva peace conference or to change Resolutions 242 and 338 in ways which are incompatible with their original purpose.
5. The United States will seek to insure that the role of the co-sponsors will be consistent with what was agreed in the memorandum of understanding between the United States Government and the Government of Israel of December 20, 1973.
6. The United States and Israel will concert action to assure that the conference e will be conducted in a manner consonant with the objectives of this document and with the declared purpose of the conference, namely the advancement of a negotiated peace between Israel and its neighbors.
* Originally written by Ken Stein and eventually published in the two editions of Itamar Rabinovich and Jehuda Reinharz, Israel in the Middle East: Documents and Readings on Society, Politics and Foreign Relations, Pre-1948-present, Brandeis University Press, 2007.