The U.S. president announces a coalition of countries to fight the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. His plan calls for limited U.S. military action with supplies provided to others fighting on the ground.
Barack Obama, while seeking to improve America’s image by urging an end to violence and stereotypes, emphasizes the need for a two-state Israeli-Palestinian solution as part of a reset of U.S. relations with the Muslim world. His advocacy of soft power distinguishes his administration from George W. Bush’s use of force. Nine years later, Donald Trump’s secretary of state, also in Cairo, heavily criticizes the Obama soft-power approach.
The map includes the Israeli border and the Litani River, which is about 18 miles north of the Israeli-Lebanese border and runs roughly parallel to it. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 from 2006 calls for…
In only the second Knesset address by a U.S. president, Bill Clinton hails the treaty Jordan and Israel signed the previous day as part of a peaceful wave sweeping the region, including the year-old Oslo Accords and soon a likely treaty with Syria.
A day after the signing of the Jordan-Israel peace treaty and hours before addressing the Knesset, U.S. President Bill Clinton meets with his Syrian counterpart, Hafez al-Assad, in Damascus and expresses optimism that Syria will be part of a comprehensive Middle East peace. Assad continues to insist on the full return of the Golan Heights.
From 1970 to 1984, Khaddam served as Syria’s foreign minister, and later he was Syria’s decision-maker for actions in Lebanon. He recounts Syrian anger toward Egyptian President Sadat’s slow but continual bilateral engagement and recognition of Israel. He recalls how Syrian President Assad, after a four-hour meeting, refused Henry Kissinger’s invitation to attend the 1973 Geneva peace conference, not wanting to sanction the closeness Sadat was establishing with Israel and with Washington. These were the same reasons why Syria refused President Carter’s invitation to attend a similar Middle East peace conference in 1977. Khaddam says, “We were shocked by Sadat’s actions.”
October 1991 Kenneth W. Stein and Samuel W. Lewis, Making Peace Among Arabs and Israelis: Lessons From Fifty Years of Negotiating Experience, United States Institute of Peace, Washington, October 1991, second printing 1992, 69 pages.
Israel and Lebanon agreed to a treaty in 1983 through U.S. mediation, only for Syria’s dominance and Lebanon’s dysfunction to block ratification.
In two meetings at the White House, the Syrian foreign minister insists on the PLO’s presence at a regional peace conference and wins U.S. support for some kind of Palestinian “entity.”
Unknown to the Carter administration and one month before it issued the US-Soviet Declaration to convene an international Middle East Peace Conference, Prime Minister Begin tells the cabinet that he learned from the Rumanian president that Sadat wishes to have Israeli and Egyptian representatives meet in secret talks. That bi-lateral Dayan -Tuhami meeting takes place on September 16. Begin refers to advanced drafts of proposed treaties between Israel and each Arab state; he presents details about Rumanian Jewish immigration to Israel.
This meeting was the only one between U.S. President Carter and Syrian President Assad during the Carter administration. Carter wanted to learn Assad’s requirements for an agreement with Israel. Assad doubted that the Saudis would join this process. In the end, Assad made it clear that he was not rushing into an agreement with Israel, even if asked by the United States. Carter acknowledged knowing little about the Palestinian refugee issue and said the U.S. was committed to the security of Israel.
President Ford promises that the US will give “weight” to any future Israeli peace agreement with Syria that Israel should remain in the Golan Heights.
On the Golan Heights, Israel agrees to a limited withdrawal, and the United Nations places forces between the Syrian and Israeli armies. With few exceptions this border remains quiet for more than 40 years.
Henry Kissinger and and Hafez al-Assad meet in Damascus in December 1973 (credit: Agence France-Presse stringer, released by Getty in January 1974). By Ken Stein Sandwiched between the end of the 1973 October Middle East…
U.S. Secretary of State Kissinger failed to persuade Syrian President Assad to attend the December 1973 Geneva Middle East Peace Conference. Assad saw the proposed conference, which it was, a ruse to cover up a “pre-cooked” Israeli-Egyptian arrangement. Assad wanted no part of implicitly supporting any agreement where Israel’s legitimacy might be enhanced.
Egyptian President Sadat colluded with Syrian President Assad to attack Israel on October 6, 1973. Sadat’s objective was not to seek Israel’s destruction but to gain a limited success by crossing the canal. He also sought to engage American diplomacy to generate talks with Israel that would see Israeli withdrawal from Egyptian land Israel secured in the June 1967 War. Sadat took a large gamble by attacking Israel yet he unfolded a negotiating process with Israel that lasted through 1979. He achieved his overarching long-term priority of having Egyptian Sinai returned to Egyptian sovereignty.
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.
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.
Two days after the conclusion of the June 1967 War, Eshkol, recounts the series of events that led to war, the war itself and the immediate aftermath. He reaches out to Arab states for peace seeking a path to peace with her belligerent neighbors. A week later, Israel will quietly messages Cairo and Damascus through the US, hat Israel seeks an end to the conflict. No answers are received.
The Israel State Archives’ “The Six Day War Files” includes Cabinet and Security Cabinet meeting transcripts that were classified for 50 years.
The post-WWI San Remo Conference allocates former Ottoman territories to Britain and France and recognizes Jewish self-determination in Palestine by adopting the language of the Balfour Declaration, decisions the League of Nations confirms two years later.
Britain and France secretly divide the Arab provinces of the reeling Ottoman Empire to meet their own geopolitical interests. They offer no concern for the political aspirations of indigenous populations.
The Sharif of Mecca and Sir Henry McMahon, a British official in Cairo speaking for the Foreign Office, exchange letters about the current war effort against the Turks and the future political status of specific Arab lands in the Ottoman Empire. McMahon says, as he repeats in 1937, that the area of Palestine is excluded from any area to be provided to an Arab leader after World War I. The British instead allow the area of Palestine to develop as a “national home for the Jewish people.”
August 9, 2006 Israel’s Security Cabinet approves an expansion of the military offensive in southern Lebanon nearly a month after the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War. Also known as the Israel-Hezbollah War, the conflict…
