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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Israel
Index
For strategic security and diplomatic support, Israel has
depended almost totally upon the United States. Since the
establishment of the state in 1948, the United States has expressed
its commitment to Israel's security and well-being and has devoted
a considerable share of its world-wide economic and security
assistance to Israel. Large-scale American military and economic
assistance began during the October 1973 War, with a massive
American airlift of vital military matériel to Israel at the height
of the war. From 1948 through 1985, the United States provided
Israel with US$10 billion in economic assistance and US$21 billion
in military assistance, 60 percent of which was in the form of
grants. From 1986 through 1988, total United States economic and
military assistance to Israel averaged more than US$3 billion a
year, making Israel the largest recipient of United States aid. Of
the annual total, about US$1.8 billion was in Foreign Military
Sales credits, and about US$1.2 billion was in economic assistance.
During the administration of President Ronald Reagan, the
United States-Israeli relationship was significantly upgraded, with
Israel becoming a strategic partner and de facto ally. A number of
bilateral arrangements solidified this special relationship. In
November 1983, the United States and Israel established a Joint
Political-Military Group to coordinate military exercises and
security planning between the two countries, as well as to position
United States military equipment in Israel for use by American
forces in the event of a crisis. In 1984 Israel and the United
States concluded the United States-Israel Free Trade Area Agreement
to provide tariff-free access to American and Israeli goods. In
1985 the two countries established a Joint Economic Development
Group to help Israel solve its economic problems; in 1986 they
created a Joint Security Assistance Group to discuss aid issues.
Also in 1986, Israel began participating in research and
development programs relating to the United States Strategic
Defense Initiative. In January 1987, the United States designated
Israel a major non-NATO ally, with status similar to that of
Australia and Japan. Two months later, Israel agreed to the
construction of a Voice of America relay transmitter on its soil to
broadcast programs to the Soviet Union. In December 1987, Israel
signed a memorandum of understanding allowing it to bid on United
States defense contracts on the same basis as NATO countries.
Finally, the two countries signed a memorandum of agreement in
April 1988 formalizing existing arrangements for mutually
beneficial United States-Israel technology transfers.
Israel has also cooperated with the United States on a number
of clandestine operations. It acted as a secret channel for United
States arms sales to Iran in 1985 and 1986, and during the same
period it cooperated with the United States in Central America.
The United States-Israeli relationship, however, has not been
free of friction. The United States expressed indignation with
Israel over an espionage operation involving Jonathan Jay Pollard,
a United States Navy employee who was sentenced to life
imprisonment for selling hundreds of vital intelligence documents
to Israel. During the affair, Israeli government and diplomatic
personnel in Washington served as Pollard's control officers.
Nevertheless, United States government agencies continued to
maintain a close relationship with Israel in sensitive areas such
as military cooperation, intelligence sharing, and joint weapons
research.
The main area of friction between the United States and Israel
has concerned Washington's efforts to balance its special ties to
Jerusalem with its overall Middle Eastern interests and the need to
negotiate an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict, in which the United
States has played a major mediating role. In 1948 the United States
hoped that peace could be achieved between Israel and the Arab
states, but this expectation was quickly dashed when Arab nations
refused to recognize Israel's independence. American hopes were
dashed again when in 1951 Jordan's King Abdullah, with whom some
form of settlement seemed possible, was assassinated and in 1953
when the Johnston Plan, a proposal for neighboring states to share
the water of the Jordan River, was rejected.
The June 1967 War provided a major opportunity for the United
States to serve as a mediator in the conflict; working with Israel
and the Arab states the United States persuaded the United Nations
(UN) Security Council to pass Resolution 242 of November 22, 1967.
The resolution was designed to serve as the basis for a peace
settlement involving an Israeli withdrawal from territories
occupied in the June 1967 War in exchange for peace and Arab
recognition of Israel's right to exist. Many disputes over the
correct interpretation of a clause concerning an Israeli withdrawal
followed the passage of the UN resolution, which was accepted by
Israel. The resolution lacked any explicit provision for direct
negotiations between the parties. Although the Arab states and the
Palestinians did not accept the resolution, it has remained the
basis of United States policy regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict.
In December 1969, the Rogers Plan, named after United States
Secretary of State William P. Rogers, although unsuccessful in
producing peace negotiations, succeeded in ending the War of
Attrition between Israel and Egypt that followed the June 1967 War
and established a cease-fire along the Suez Canal. In 1971 United
States Assistant Secretary of State Joseph P. Sisco proposed an
"interim Suez Canal agreement" to bring about a limited Israeli
withdrawal from the canal, hoping that such an action would lead to
a peace settlement. The proposal failed when neither Israel nor
Egypt would agree to the other's conditions.
In October 1973, at the height of the Arab-Israeli war, United
States-Soviet negotiations paved the way for UN Security Council
Resolution 338. In addition to calling for an immediate cease-fire
and opening negotiations aimed at implementing Resolution 242, this
resolution inserted a requirement that future talk be conducted
"between the parties concerned," that is, between the Arab and the
Israelis themselves.
In September 1975, United States secretary of state Henry
Kissinger's "shuttle diplomacy" achieved the Second Sinai
Disengagement Agreement between Israel and Egypt, laying the
groundwork for later negotiations between the two nations. The
United States also pledged, as part of a memorandum of
understanding with Israel, not to negotiate with the PLO until it
was prepared to recognize Israel's right to exist and to renounce
terrorism.
Another major United States initiative came in 1977 when
President Jimmy Carter stressed the need to solve the Arab-Israeli
conflict by convening an international peace conference in Geneva,
cochaired by the United States and the Soviet Union. Although
Egyptian President Anwar as Sadat conducted his initiative in
opening direct Egyptian-Israeli peace talks without United States
assistance, the United States played an indispensable role in the
complex and difficult negotiation process. Negotiations ultimately
led to the signing, under United States auspices, of the September
17, 1978, Camp David Accords, as well as the March 1979 Treaty of
Peace Between Egypt and Israel. The accords included provisions
that called for granting autonomy to Palestinians in the West Bank
and the Gaza Strip through a freely elected self-governing
authority during a five-year transitional period; at the end of the
period the final status of the occupied territories was to be
decided. Carter had hoped that this process would enable the
Palestinians to fulfill their legitimate national aspirations while
at the same time safeguarding Israeli security concerns. While
criticizing the Begin government's settlement policy in the
occupied territories, the Carter administration could not prevent
the intensified pace of construction of new settlements.
Following Israel's invasion of Lebanon in early June 1982, on
September 1, 1982, President Reagan outlined what came to be called
the Reagan Plan. This plan upheld the goals of the Camp David
Accords regarding autonomy for the Palestinians of the West Bank
and the Gaza Strip and disapproved of Israel's establishment of any
new settlements in these areas. It further proposed that at the end
of a transitional period, the best form of government for the West
Bank and the Gaza Strip would be self-government by the resident
Palestinian population in association with Jordan. Under the plan,
Israel would be obliged to withdraw from the occupied territories
in exchange for peace, and the city of Jerusalem would remain
undivided; its final status would be decided through negotiations.
The plan rejected the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
Although Labor leader Peres expressed support for the plan, Prime
Minister Menachem Begin and the Likud opposed it, as did the PLO
and the Arab states. The plan was subsequently shelved.
The United States nevertheless continued its efforts to
facilitate Arab-Israeli peace. In March 1987, the United States
undertook intensive diplomatic negotiations with Jordan and Israel
to achieve agreement on holding an international peace conference,
but differences over Palestinian representation created obstacles.
In Israel, Likud prime minister Shamir and Labor minister of
foreign affairs Peres were at odds, with Shamir rejecting an
international conference and Peres accepting it. Peres and Labor
Party minister of defense Rabin reportedly held talks with Jordan's
King Hussein, who wanted the conference to include the five
permanent members of the UN Security Council, as well as Israel,
the Arab states, and the PLO. The Reagan administration, on the
other hand, was reluctant to invite the Soviet Union to participate
in the diplomatic process. The administration insisted that any
prospective conference adjourn speedily and then take the form of
direct talks between Israel and Jordan. The administration also
insisted that the conference have no power to veto any agreement
between Israel and Jordan.
A major difficulty involved the nature of Palestinian
representation at a conference. A Soviet-Syrian communiqué repeated
the demand for PLO participation, which Israel flatly rejected. The
United States asserted that, as the basis for any PLO
participation, the PLO must accept UN Resolutions 242 and 338 with
their implied recognition of Israel's right to exist. Both the PLO
mainstream and its radical wings were unwilling to agree to this
demand. The Palestinian uprising (intifadah) in the West
Bank and the Gaza Strip began in December 1987. In February 1988,
Secretary of State George Shultz visited Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and
Syria; in a statement issued in Jerusalem he called for Palestinian
participation, as part of a Jordanian/Palestinian delegation, in an
international peace conference. The PLO rejected this initiative.
The United States proposal called for a comprehensive peace
providing for the security of all states in the region and for
fulfillment of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people. The
proposal consisted of an "integrated whole" and included the
following negotiating framework: "early negotiations between Israel
and each of its neighbors willing to do so," with the door
"specifically open for Syrian participation"; "bilateral
negotiations . . . based on United Nations Security Council
Resolutions 242 and 338 in all their parts"; "the parties to each
bilateral negotiation" to determine "the procedure and agenda of
the negotiation"; "negotiations between an Israeli and a
Jordanian/Palestinian delegation on arrangements for a transitional
period for the West Bank and Gaza," with the objective of
completing "these talks within six months"; and "final status
negotiations" beginning "on a date certain seven months after the
start of transitional talks," with the objective of completing the
talks "within a year."
On March 26, 1988, Shultz met with two members of the Palestine
National Council (PNC), which represents Palestinians outside
Israel various political and guerrilla groups with the PLO, and
associated youth, student, women's and professional bodies.
According to a PLO spokesman, the PNC members, Professors Ibrahim
Abu Lughod and Edward Said, both Arab Americans, were authorized by
Yasir Arafat to speak to Shultz, and they later reported directly
to the PLO leader about their talks. Little resulted from this
meeting, however, and Shultz found no authoritative party willing
to come to the conference table.
The United States once again involved itself in the peace
process to break the stalemate among the Arab states, the
Palestinians, and Israel following King Hussein's declaration on
July 31, 1988, that he was severing most of Jordan's administrative
and legal ties with the West Bank, thus throwing the future of the
West Bank onto the PLO's shoulders. PLO chairman Yasir Arafat
thereby gained new international status, but Shultz barred him from
entering the United States to address the UN General Assembly in
early December because of Arafat's and the PLO's involvement in
terrorist activities. When Arafat, following his December 14
address to a special session of the UN General Assembly in Geneva,
met American conditions by recognizing Israel's right to exist in
"peace and security," accepted UN Resolutions 242 and 338, and
renounced "all forms of terrorism, including individual, group and
state terrorism," the United States reversed its thirteen-year
policy of not officially speaking to the PLO.
The Israeli National Unity Government, installed in late
December, denounced the PLO as an unsuitable negotiating partner.
It did not accept the PLO's recognition of Israel and renunciation
of terrorism as genuine.
Whether the United States-PLO talks would yield concrete
results in terms of Arab-Israeli peace making remained to be seen
as of the end of 1988. Notwithstanding the possibility of future
progress, the new willingness of the United States to talk to the
PLO demonstrated that, despite the special relationship between the
United States and Israel and the many areas of mutual agreement and
shared geopolitical strategic interests, substantial differences
continued to exist between the United States and certain segments
of the Israeli government. This was especially true with regard to
the Likud and its right-wing allies.
Data as of December 1988
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