PLO National Covenant, 1964
Palestine Liberation Organization seeks Israel’s destruction through armed struggle. It retains this stated policy until December 1988.
Israeli Government-Designed Peace Plan After June 1967 War
Following the conclusion of the June 1967 War, the Israeli government sent word to Egypt and Syria seeking peace plan that was intended to jumpstart a peace process with Israel’s belligerent neighbors, Egypt and Syria. The messages were sent through the US, but no response was apparently received.
The Allon Plan, 1967
July 26, 1967: The Alon Plan reflects a response to Israel’s pre-1967 war border vulnerability seeking a future west bank arrangement that is not a strategic/geographic threat to Israel and its coastal plain population centers.
Arab League Summit Resolutions, 1967
Arab states declare “no peace, no negotiation, no recognition” with Israel after their collective defeat in the June 1967 War.
U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, 1967
The Resolution calls for unspecified Israel withdrawal from territories in return for right of all states to live in peace. It does not call for full withdrawal. It is the basis of Egyptian (1979) and Jordanian (1994) Treaties with Israel, and PLO (1993) recognition of Israel.
U.S. Secretary of State William Rogers’ Plan for an Arab-Israeli Settlement, 1969
Without any consultation with Jerusalem, Israel rejects US proposal for full withdrawal.
Natan Alterman, “Victory as a Scapegoat,” Maariv, 1969
One of Israel’s greatest writers, Natan Alterman, reminded Israel’s accusers in 1969 that well into the 20th century the Palestinians did not even understand themselves as a separate people with a distinctive national identity marking them off from other Arabs. His argument, if framed as a question, might be formulated along these lines: If no one else, not least the Palestinians’ ancestors, saw their distinctive nation in Ottoman Palestine, how can the Zionists be blamed for not seeing one either? Thus, to fault the Zionists for failing to see what was not yet visible to anyone else, including the Palestinians, is to fault them not for suffering from blindness, but for lacking clairvoyance.
The October 1973 War and Its Aftermath — Quotable Quotes and Key Conversations
In carrying out research in the 1990s for Heroic Diplomacy: Sadat, Kissinger, Carter, Begin and the Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace, Routledge, 1999, I undertook 84 interviews with individuals who participated in the diplomacy.
Assistant Secretary of State Saunders on U.S. Foreign Policy and Peace in the Middle East, 1975
For the first time a US State Department official states the “legitimate interests of the Palestinian Arabs must be taken into account in the negotiating of an Arab-Israeli peace.”
President Carter’s Meeting With Israeli Foreign Minister Dayan, September 1977
The vast gulf in US and Israeli positions about Palestinian self-determination, the degree of withdrawal from the West Bank, and future borders is precisely stated. A year later at the end of the Camp David negotiations, Israeli and US views had not changed at all.
Joint U.S.-Soviet Statement on the Middle East, 1977
Naively, the Carter Administration believes that a conference with the USSR would start comprehensive negotiations; instead, the fear of Moscow’s engagement helps drive direct Egyptian-Israeli talks.
Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s Palestinian Autonomy Plan, 1977
Five weeks after Egyptian President Anwar Sadat flew to Jerusalem in November 1977, to accelerate Egyptian – Israeli negotiations, Begin brought to President Jimmy Carter, Israel’s response to Sadat’s peace initiative: political autonomy for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. No Palestinian state was considered.
Memorandum of Conversation of Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan and Defense Minister Ezer Weizman With U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and Secretary of Defense Harold Brown at Camp David, September 7, 1978
September 7, 1978 Source: Israel State Archives/Box/A4314/1. Notes taken by Elyakim Rubinstein. By the time the American, Egyptian and Israeli delegations convened at Camp David, dozens of direct meetings had occurred between Israeli and Egyptian…
U.S., Israeli Negotiators at Camp David Discuss Resolution 242, September 16, 1978
September 16, 1978 Source: Israel State Archives/Box/A4314/1. Notes taken by Simcha Dinitz. Discussion at Camp David, Maryland, on the use of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 Top Secret Participants: Vance, Mondale, Brzezinski, Lewis, Dayan, Barak…
U.N. Security Council Resolution 446: Territories Occupied by Israel, 1979
Carefully sandwiched between Carter’s high-risk presidential visit to Egypt and Israel on March 10, 1979—to solve contentious disagreements between Sadat and Begin—and the Peace Treaty signing on March 26, 1979, his administration gladly votes at the UN to deplore Israeli settlement building; including demographic changes in Jerusalem. After the Peace Treaty signing, until it leaves office in 1981, the Carter administration will continue to barrage Israel with condemnation for settlement building.
U.N. Security Council Resolution 452, 1979
This was the second UNSC Resolution within four months supported by the Carter administration condemning Israel’s settlement building in the territories. It too greatly angered the Israeli government and American supporters of Israel.
U.N. Security Council Resolution 465 on Jerusalem, Settlements and Territories, 1980
Showing its public opposition to Israeli actions in the lands taken in the June 1967 war, an area that the Carter Administration
wanted reserved for Palestinian self-rule, it ‘strongly deplores’ Israel’s settlement policies. Passage of the resolution three weeks
prior to the New York and Connecticut presidential primaries, cause many Jewish voters to vote in favor of Ted Kennedy
and not for Carter, helping to splinter the Democratic Party.
Venice Declaration on the Middle East Concerning Inclusion of PLO in Negotiations, 1980
It calls for “recognition of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, a just solution to the
Palestinian problem, the right to self-determination, [and] for PLO association to the negotiations.”
U.N. Security Council Resolution 478 on Territories Taken in June 1967, Enacted 1980
The United States abstains on a Security Council resolution declaring Israel’s Basic Law on Jerusalem to be in violation of international law.
The Problem of Rafah: Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s Letter to Shlomo Goren, 1981
Prime Minister Menachem Begin argues for the return of Rafah to Egypt; the greater purpose is implementation of the Egyptian-Israeli Treaty, which also meant Israel”s withdrawal from settlements in Sinai near Rafah. Egypt in treaty negotiations with Israel, did not want to have the Gaza Strip again under their administration as they had between 1949 until after the June 1967 War
President Reagan Statement on the West Bank and the Palestinians, 1982
US endorses application of UN Resolution 242 to the West Bank and Gaza, and seeks Palestinian
control over land and resources, and for the territories to be affiliated with Jordan.
London Document: Jordan-Israel Agreement on International Peace Conference, 1987
In Aprili 1987, the Jordanian King and Israeli Labor Party leaders secretly outlined a plan to convene an international conference to move Israeli-Palestinian talks forward through a conference format, but Likud opposition leaders in Israel squashed the idea.
Jordanian King Hussein on the Hashemite Kingdom’s Separation From West Bank
Jordan’s King Hussein made a strategic decision to disassociate administratively from the West Bank, leaving it to focus Jordanian national identity on only the east bank of the Jordan River. The PLO subsequently negotiated with Israel to rule over some of these lands, as codified in the 1993 Oslo Accords, but no Palestinian state was promised.
Quotations From Hamas Sources Expressing Hatred for Zionism, Israel and Jews, 1988-Present
Since its inception in 1988, Hamas has been crystal clear about its total opposition to Zionism and Israel. It opposes any kind of negotiations or agreements that recognize Israel as a reality, and its more extreme spokesmen regularly incite or celebrate the killing of Jews.
