Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett to the Knesset, 1949CIE+
Sharett gives an overview of Israeli foreign policy, key issues, and relationships with UN and Arab states.
Yigal Allon, Lessons From the War of Independence, 1952CIE+
With crisp analysis, Haganah Commander Yigal Allon, later a Prime Minister of Israel attributes Israel’s successes to multiple factors including the absence of a centralized Arab command, limited Arab military training, underestimating the potential fighting capabilities of local Arabs, and Israel’s success in integrating its citizens into the war effort.
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 WarCIE+
After the June 1967 war, the Israeli government sent word through the United States to Egypt and Syria seeking to jump-start a peace process. Apparently no response was received.
The Allon Plan, 1967CIE+
Yigal Allon’s plan for handling the areas captured from Jordan during the just-completed Six-Day War reflects Israel’s previous border vulnerability and seeks a West Bank arrangement that is not a strategic or geographic threat.
Arab League Summit Resolutions, 1967CIE+
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: Framework for Arab-Israeli Negotiations
Resolution 242 calls for Israeli withdrawal from unspecified captured territories in return for the right of all states to live in peace. It does not call for a full withdrawal. It is the basis for treaties with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994) and for PLO recognition of Israel (1993).
U.S. Secretary of State William Rogers’ Plan for an Arab-Israeli Settlement, 1969CIE+
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 ConversationsCIE+
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, 1975CIE+
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 1977CIE+
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, 1977CIE+
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, 1977CIE+
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, 1978CIE+
Early during the Camp David summit, Moshe Dayan, Ezer Weizman and other Israeli officials address resettlement and payment of 1967 and 1948 Palestinian refugees and Israeli military redeployment on the eastern and western borders, while Zbigniew Brzezinski, Cyrus Vance and other Americans emphasize Palestinian sovereignty.
U.S., Israeli Negotiators at Camp David Discuss Resolution 242, September 16, 1978CIE+
U.S. and Israeli officials at Camp David spend a session focused on the land-for-peace U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 and how it applies to the West Bank, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinians. Appropriate for a discussion over 242, whose application depends on the absence of the word “the,” the officials argue over using boundary, border, line, borderline or something else.
U.N. Security Council Resolution 446: Territories Occupied by Israel, 1979CIE+
Carefully sandwiched between Jimmy Carter’s high-risk visit to Egypt and Israel and the signing of those countries’ peace treaty, the Carter administration allows the U.N. Security Council to deplore Israeli settlement building and demographic changes in Jerusalem.
U.N. Security Council Resolution 452, 1979CIE+
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, 1980CIE+
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, 1980CIE+
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 476, 1980: Israel Warned on Status of JerusalemCIE+
Failing to account for the effects on his re-election hopes, President Jimmy Carter for the second of three times in 1980 lets the U.N. Security Council enact a resolution criticizing Israeli behavior beyond the Green Line.
U.N. Security Council Resolution 478, 1980: Criticizing Israel Over Territories Taken in June 1967CIE+
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, 1981CIE+
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 on the West Bank and the Palestinians, 1982CIE+
The United States endorses the application of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 to the West Bank and Gaza, seeks Palestinian control over land and resources, and wants the territories to be affiliated with Jordan.
