History - (Part III)

The Camp David Accords, 1978

"The Yom Kippur war," said Gen. Yitzhak Rabin, "was not fought by Egypt or Syria to threaten the existence of Israel. It was an all-out use of their military force to achieve a limited political goal. What Sadat wanted by crossing the canal was to change the political reality and, thereby, to start a political process from a point more favorable to him than the one that existed. In that respect, he succeeded."(161)

In the aftermath of the war, there was a movement toward settling the dispute between Israel and Egypt, at the expense of the Palestinians and an overall settlement. That approach suited the three major parties--Israel, Egypt, and the United States. Israel wanted to keep the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights (which it would annex in 1981), but it was not committed to holding the Sinai. Egypt wanted to move into the U.S. camp; Sadat was disillusioned with the Soviets' inability to guarantee the cease-- fires, and he wished the capital to modernize his country. Weary of war, he wished to normalize relations with Israel, regardless of what other compromises had to be made. And Kissinger continued to oppose a comprehensive settlement.(162)

In early 1974 Yitzhak Rabin, who was then prime minister, signed a disengagement agreement with Sadat. At the end of the year and early in 1975, Kissinger did more diplomatic shuttling in search of a further Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai. He found Sadat highly accommodating and Israel intransigent. In March President Gerald Ford lost his patience with Israel and announced a "reassessment" of U.S. policy. From March to September no new arms agreements with Israel were concluded. To protect Israel's position, 76 senators sent a letter, drafted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the chief American lobbying organization for the Jewish state, to Ford demanding that he declare that the United States "stands firmly with Israel" in future negotiations. The letter hardened Israel's position on the Sinai. Finally, in September, the parties reached an agreement on partial withdrawal, including the deployment of U.S. troops. The cost of the agreement to the United States was a list of wide-ranging secret commitments contained in a memorandum of understanding. It included military aid, an end to pressure for an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, a promise to defend Israel if the Soviet Union went to war against it, and a pledge not to talk to the PLO until it recognized Israel and accepted relevant UN resolutions. The memorandum, an executive agreement, was never submitted to Congress. "In substance, the administration underwrote--politically, economically, and militarily--the Israeli-Egyptian agreement."(163) It would not be the last time. Kissinger also worked out a disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria.

President Hafez Assad of Syria was willing to normalize relations with Israel, but Israel was determined to hold on to the Golan Heights. The final agreement called only for withdrawal from land captured in the latest war. Kissinger commented that Assad's actions "bespoke a desire for accommodation." At that time the United States voted for a Security Council resolution condemning Israel for a big raid into Lebanon after a guerrilla action, but Israel's anger with the vote prompted a reversal. Washington pledged to support future raids against "terrorists," stating that it would "not consider such actions by Israel as violations of the cease-fire and [would] support them politically." The U.S. pledge was read at a public session of the Knesset, or Israeli parliament.(164) The "special relationship" apparently was the top priority as the Nixon and Ford administrations came to an end.

The year that Jimmy Carter became president, 1977, was the same in which Menachem Begin and his right-wing Likud coalition broke the ruling monopoly of the Israeli Labor party. Although the Laborites were as intransigent regarding the Palestinians,(165) the Likud, perhaps because of its overt actions, appeared more so. The government intensified the repression of the Palestinians on the West Bank and accelerated the building of settlements on their land, a policy that amounted to de facto annexation. Indeed, Begin's Herut party was committed to a Greater Israel (Eretz Israel) that stretched across the Jordan River. The United States condemned the West Bank settlements, calling them an obstacle to peace and illegal, but it never did anything about them, such as end the massive military and economic aid to Israel.(166)

The PLO, which at a 1974 Arab summit had been designated the sole representative of the Palestinians, was turning away from guerrilla activity and toward diplomacy. In November 1974 PLO chairman Yasser Arafat was invited to address the UN General Assembly, a first for the head of any nongovernment organization. (The United States and Israel voted against the invitation.) "I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand," Arafat said at the end of his address that called for a democratic state for Muslims, Jews, and Christians.(167) Many European countries opened contacts with the PLO and came to support the idea of an independent Palestinian state. Those events demonstrated the influence of the advocates of diplomacy over the advocates of violence within the PLO. Their continued influence would depend on the efficacy of diplo-macy.

Well into Carter's first year in office, the United States and the Soviet Union shifted gears from the Kissinger tenure and jointly outlined a plan for a comprehensive resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The plan included Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab lands, a resolution of the Palestinian issue, normalization of relations between Israel and the Arab states, and international guarantees provided at least in part by the United States and the Soviet Union. The point of the proposal was to revive the Geneva conference, which was convened but abruptly halted in late 1973, but neither PLO participation nor a U.S.- and Soviet-sponsored state was in the package. The Arab states welcomed the joint statement, and more significant, the PLO agreed to a unified Arab delegation, a major compromise on its demand for independent representation. Yet Israel rejected both a reconvention in Geneva and PLO participation.(168)

There was other evidence of a change in tone on the part of the Carter administration. In March 1978 Israel invaded Lebanon, ostensibly to retaliate against guerrilla attacks. The actual purpose, however, was to establish a "security zone" in southern Lebanon under the supervision of Israel's client, renegade Lebanese army officer Saad Haddad. Carter formally requested that Israel leave Lebanon, and the administration proposed a UN Security Council resolution to that effect. Israel withdrew in July, four months after a UN observation force arrived. But Israel continued to be active in southern Lebanon, even after it agreed to a U.S.- arranged cease-fire with the PLO. The PLO had observed the cease-fire for a year when Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982.(169)

Carter was no less committed to the U.S.-Israeli relationship than his predecessors had been, but he did something none of them had done: he expressed concern for the Palestinians and their need for a homeland (not necessarily a state). That action earned him criticism from Israel's supporters and forced him to add heavy qualifications. For example, after meeting with Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan, Carter promised never to force Israel to compromise by threatening to withhold or cut economic or military aid. He also promised to hold steadfastly to UN Resolutions 242 and 338 (the latter passed during the 1973 war), which do not mention the Palestinians. In effect, Carter allowed Israel to veto the joint U.S.-Soviet initiative. U.S. aid to Israel also continued to grow during his administration.(170)

The effort to move toward some kind of settlement received a boost on November 9, 1977, when Sadat dramatically announced that he was prepared to go to Jerusalem to talk peace. During his visit later that month, he addressed the Knesset, extended recognition to Israel, and offered a peace based on a comprehensive settlement of the Israeli-Arab- Palestinian dispute. Because it occurred without U.S. supervision, Sadat's initiative caught the Carter administration off balance, but soon the apprehension of U.S. officials turned to optimism.

That optimism did not last. In December, when Begin made a return trip to Egypt, the proposal he carried was not calculated to please Sadat. It called for a limited Egyptian military presence in the Sinai and Israeli retention of settlements and military airports there. Begin proposed an end to military rule of the West Bank (or Judea and Samaria, as the Likud called it) but continued Israeli responsibility for security. The Palestinians would be granted control over their own education, sanitation, and the like, and the residents would choose between Israeli and Jordanian citizenship. Israelis would be able to buy land on the West Bank, but the issue of sovereignty would be put off until a later date.(171)

The distance between Begin and Sadat induced Carter to involve himself in the negotiations, starting from a position closer to Sadat's than to Begin's. Carter was about to give up on Begin but then decided to bring him and Sadat to the presidential retreat at Camp David and personally manage the negotiations. Two agreements came out of the conference, a "Framework for Peace in the Middle East" and a "Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel."

The first framework, premised explicitly on UN Resolutions 242 and 338, stated that the inhabitants of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip should elect a self-governing authority that would replace the Israeli military government. During a five-year transition period, negotiations on the final status of the territories would begin among Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and elected representatives from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. (Arab Jerusalem and the West Bank Jewish settlements were not mentioned.) The Palestinian provisions were intentionally fuzzy, according to Carter's key adviser, William B. Quandt.(172) A peace treaty between Israel and Jordan would also be an objective of the negotiations. Other parts of the document dealt with pledges not to use force, each country's full recognition of the other, economic cooperation, and settlement of financial claims.

The second framework called for an Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty within three months and full implementation within three years. Among the principles the treaty would embody were Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai; restoration of Egyptian sovereignty (although much of the peninsula would be demilitarized); and freedom for Israeli vessels to pass through the Suez Canal, the Gulf of Suez, the Strait of Tiran, and the Gulf of Aqaba (the last two were proclaimed international waterways). UN forces would be stationed in the Sinai and in border areas.(173)

The two frameworks were not linked; thus the peace treaty with Egypt could be concluded before the fate of the Palestinians was settled. Sadat was so disturbed by the compromises asked of him that he nearly left the conference. The evening before the signing, two of his key advisers resigned, but Sadat stayed. One may reasonably ask if Carter bought the settlement with the taxpayers' credit card. Aid to Egypt was increased substantially, which made that nation the recipient of the second largest amount of U.S. foreign aid (Israel still received the largest amount). Egypt received $1.5 billion in military credit, $200 million in economic grants, and $100 million in economic loans. Israel got $3 billion to build new air fields to replace the ones in the Sinai. When one adds to that total the foreign aid promised by Carter through FY 1982, the Camp David accords cost U.S. taxpayers $17.5 billion.(174)

Signing an agreement was one thing; carrying it out proved to be another. While still in the United States, Begin announced that Israel retained the right to remain on the West Bank indefinitely and that a provision freezing West Bank settlements was only for three months. Carter said that, on the contrary, the freeze was for five years. But the supposed agreement on the freeze was oral; it was not put in the accords. Feeling that the Camp David agreement was in jeopardy, Carter intervened again. In early 1979 he induced Sadat and Begin to sign the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty, which stipulated that negotiations on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were to begin within the month. Those talks were held, with U.S. involvement, but they came to naught. The Carter administration did not help matters when it reversed its UN vote against Israel's settlement policy, claiming the initial position was an "error."(175)

The Palestinians in the occupied territories opposed the Camp David accords. Several West Bank mayors denounced the accords as a means of perpetuating the occupation. The accords cost Sadat much Arab support. In March 1979 Egypt was suspended from the Arab League, and even the moderate Arab states accused Sadat of deserting them for a bilateral treaty with Israel. They also blamed the United States for driving a wedge into the Arab world. Some of the Arab states, including Syria and Iraq, moved closer to the Soviet Union. The Camp David accords eventually cost Sadat his life. In October 1981 Muslim fundamentalists assassinated him. In the words of Middle East analyst Robin Wright, "Sadat's historic trip to Jerusalem to promote Arab-Israeli peace in 1977, followed by the U.S.-orchestrated Camp David Treaty in 1979, was the ultimate sacrilege in the eyes of the militant fundamentalists."(176)

Historian George Lenczowski ironically summed up the Camp David accords this way: "If the United States' national interest demanded the strengthening of Israel at the expense of the Arabs by isolating Egypt from the Arab community and by leaving the issue of Palestine and related problems, such as the Golan Heights, vague and in suspension, then the objective was attained."(177)

The Lebanon War, 1982-83

Supporters of the Camp David accords may have thought that the Israeli-Egyptian peace would inspire Israel to seek peace with the rest of its adversaries. But the Begin regime viewed the matter differently: security on its west flank freed Israel to pursue its other objectives. One of those was the discrediting and destruction of the PLO, which, by June 1982, had observed its cease-fire with Israel for about a year and had been pursuing a diplomatic strategy. In that month Israel's ambassador to London, Shlomo Argov, was wounded in an assassination attempt. Israel declared that the PLO had violated the cease-fire, and on June 6, under the direction of Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, launched Operation Peace for Galilee--a massive invasion of Lebanon.

Actually, the PLO was not responsible for Argov's shooting; it was committed by a rival group of Arafat's al-Fatah led by Abu Nidal. Nevertheless, the time was opportune for Israel to accomplish two long-held goals. (The Falklands war between Great Britain and Argentina was distracting the world at that time.) Those objectives were the destruction of the PLO, whose turn to diplomacy was regarded as a threat to Israeli ends, and the establishment in Lebanon of Maronite rule that would recognize Israel's claim to Lebanese territory from the northern Israeli border to the Litani River.(178) Lebanon had been in turmoil and civil war for about a decade as the result of both internal and external problems. Lebanese fought Lebanese, the Muslims backed by Syrians, some Christians backed by Israelis. The presence of Palestinians, refugees from the 1948 and 1967 wars as well as PLO guerrillas, aggravated the indigenous problems, and the Israelis regularly inflicted brutal punishment from the air.(179)

Shortly after the invasion, Begin told the Knesset that it was for the limited purpose of clearing Palestinians from a 25-mile-deep strip along the Israel-Lebanon border. He did not tell the Israeli people that the objective was much more ambitious: to push the Palestinians to Beirut, then to force Syria, which had been in Lebanon since 1976, to withdraw, leaving the Palestinians unprotected. The plan backfired, however, because it ignited Arab hatred that transcended the intra-Arab rivalries.

The Israeli campaign included nine weeks of brutal ground attacks in southern Lebanon and ferocious bombing of Muslim West Beirut, with great loss of civilian life.(180) What role did the United States play in the war? The Reagan administration knew of the plans for an invasion as early as October 1981, when Begin confided in Secretary of State Alexander Haig at Sadat's funeral. Although Begin assured President Reagan in January 1982 that he would not invade, Israel's chief of military intelligence, Gen. Yehoshua Saguy, told Haig and Pentagon officials that the invasion was being considered. Haig got several other notices. The response Haig gave the Israelis was, "The United States will not support such an action. . . . [But] the United States would never tell Israel not to defend itself from attack, but any action she took must be in response to an internationally recognized provocation."(181)

According to two Israeli journalists, Ze'ev Schiff and Ehud Ya'ari, Haig went even further. At a meeting at which Sharon said, "No country has the right to tell another how best to protect its citizens," Haig "nodded his head." Sharon then indicated that the war might go beyond the narrow aim of removing the PLO military in the south. "How far will you go?" asked an American at the meeting. "As far as we have to go," Sharon said. Haig said he expected the Israeli action to be fast and efficient, like a lobotomy. As Schiff and Ya'ari later wrote:

Sharon was clearly pleased with the results of his meeting with Haig: the secretary had confirmed Israel's right, in principle, to respond to acts of terrorism as long as they were indisputable provocations on the part ofthe PLO. . . . To Sharon's way of thinking, Haig's response added up to American recognition that Israel would not turn the other cheek if sorely provoked and, more important, that such recognition could be construed as tacit agreement to a limited military operation. From Israel's standpoint, this was sufficient. Neither in the Yom Kippur War nor the Six-Day War before it had Israel enjoyed such heartening understanding from Washington. . . . [Sharon] returned to Israel with the tidings that Washington was not averse to an Israeli advance into Lebanon.(182)

When U.S. officials became concerned that Haig had been indiscreet, the White House had him send a clarifying letter to Begin. The letter sought to "impress upon you that absolute restraint is necessary" and noted that Reagan would be dispatching his envoy to help deal with the guerrilla activity. The Israeli officials, wrote Schiff and Ya'ari, "came away with the impression that the letter represented a cautious diplomatic maneuver--the formal expression of a reservation by which the Americans intended to cover themselves against liability in case Israel got into deeper trouble than it could handle."(183)

As the war raged in Lebanon, the Reagan administration's statements were mildly negative, but, at Haig's urging, the administration vetoed a UN Security Council resolu- tion condemning the invasion.(184) Haig was also responsible for the scrapping of a harsh letter to Begin demanding an unconditional Israeli withdrawal. However, Reagan did ask Begin to accept a cease-fire. At a June 30 press conference, Reagan agreed with Israel that the PLO should leave Lebanon, but in July he suspended shipment of cluster bombs to Israel because it "may have violated" the Arms Export Control Act. (The shipments were later resumed.) As the bombing of West Beirut continued, Reagan voiced his concern, but he did not threaten to cut off aid.

With the siege of Beirut continuing, the administration worked for a cease-fire. Finally, in mid-August the United States helped to arrange an agreement that included a PLO evacuation to other Arab countries overseen by a (non-UN) multinational force, including 800 U.S. Marines. The U.S. forces left after 17 days when the PLO evacuation was completed. U.S. policy then shifted toward restoration of the authority of Lebanon's government and removal of Syrian and Israeli troops.(185) That shift again demonstrated the blunt nature of U.S. foreign policy and obliviousness to subtleties. In the Arab world the presence of Israeli and Syrian forces in Lebanon was not seen as symmetrical because, among other reasons, Lebanon is an Arab country and the Arab League had sanctioned the Syrian entry. Thus, the U.S. policy was doomed from the start.

On August 23, 1982, the leader of the Lebanese Forces (the Maronite militias, including the Phalange),(186) Bashir Gemayel, was elected president of Lebanon. He opened discussions with Israel, seeking an alliance that would preserve the minority Maronites' dominance and rid the country of the Palestinians and Syrians. Begin and Sharon demanded that Israel's Lebanese client, Major Haddad, be named minister of defense. They also made other demands that indicated their designs on Lebanon. Before Gemayel could conclude an agreement, he was assassi-nated, perhaps by rival Christians. His brother Amin, who succeeded him, showed an interest in coming to terms with Syria.

Before Amin Gemayel's election, however, Israel violated the cease-fire and completed its occupation of West Beirut. Then, on September 16-18, the Lebanese Forces massacred Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps outside Beirut. According to the Israelis, 328 men, women, and children were killed, and almost 1,000 people were missing. Under the cease-fire pact, the United States had promised to protect the Palestinians. And Israel controlled the area. Indeed, the Israeli military commander had let the Lebanese Forces, seeking vengeance for the death of Bashir Gemayel, into the camps. Israeli soldiers illuminated the camps, facilitating the massacre, and readmitted Phalange forces when the Israelis knew the massacre was in progress.(187) The world reacted with horror to the atrocity, but the United States threatened to veto a UN resolution if it mentioned Israel.(188)

Because of the damage to U.S. credibility, the Reagan administration--at Lebanon's request--sent 1,800 Marines back into Lebanon on September 29 as part of a multinational force that included troops from Britain, France, and Italy. The force was initially to act as a peace-keeping buffer between the Israelis and everyone else. In that environment of civil disorder, bombings, and kidnappings, the mission of the U.S. Marines was unclear. They were harassed by the Israeli forces and opposed by other factions. Particularly ominous was the activity in the Bekaa Valley of Iranian guerrillas and Lebanese Shi'ites, such as the Hezbollah group, who were sympathetic to the Iranian regime. In April 1983 one of those groups, the Islamic Jihad, claimed responsibility for the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut in which 46 people were killed.

In August Israel partially withdrew to the south, leaving the Marines in the crossfire between Lebanese factions and removing their reason for being there in the first place. The Marines suffered casualties from Druze artillery--although it is not clear that the shelling was intentional--and the U.S. Sixth Fleet off the coast countered by firing shells the weight of Volkswagens at Druze positions. U.S. aircraft flew bombing missions as well. The United States had clearly taken sides in the Lebanese civil war.

The consequences of U.S. intervention became all too apparent on October 23 when a truck filled with explosives entered the Marine headquarters at Beirut airport. The resulting blast killed 241 Marines. By February 1984 Reagan had abandoned the intervention in Lebanon and withdrawn the surviving Marines.(189)

Five months earlier, Secretary of State George Shultz (who had succeeded Haig in mid-1982) had pushed Amin Gemayel into a peace agreement with Israel under which Israel and Syria would withdraw simultaneously from Lebanon. Syria rejected the agreement, giving Israel grounds for remaining, and after the U.S. evacuation, Gemayel scrapped the agreement. Israel has remained in its self-proclaimed "security zone" in the south of Lebanon ever since. The Syrians also remained, finally consolidating their hold in 1990.

The United States came out of that tragedy with a firmer reputation as a partisan of the country that had inflicted so much suffering on Lebanon. In the aftermath, American citizens in Lebanon were taken hostage by Iranian-backed groups. Several of those hostages remain in captivity. The hostage taking, in turn, gave rise to the Iran-Contra affair. President Reagan defended his pro-Israel policy on the grounds that the United States had a vital interest in keeping Lebanon out of the Soviet bloc.(190) Thus, he followed in the dubious footsteps of his predecessors.

The Expanding U.S.-Israeli Security Relationship

The invasion of Lebanon was not the only occasion the Reagan administration had for giving aid and comfort to Israel. As Prime Minister Shamir put it, "This is the most friendly administration we have ever worked with."(191) Reagan himself had said that "the security of Israel is a principal objective of this Administration," and he wrote to Begin that "I am determined to see that Israel's qualitative edge is maintained."(192) Military and economic aid to Israel grew, and loans were occasionally forgiven.

The occasional difference between the Reagan administration's public and private positions regarding Israel was demonstrated in June 1981, when Israel destroyed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad. In carrying out the attack, Israel used U.S.-made F-16 and F-15 fighters. Secretary Haig reported to Congress that the attack "may" have been a violation of the 1952 U.S.-Israel Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement. The United States officially condemned the strike, and Reagan suspended a scheduled delivery of four F-16 fighters to Israel. But a few days later he sounded more sympathetic to Israel's position. What was not known publicly at the time was that Israel had used satellite photographs provided by the CIA to plan the strike. Israel had almost unlimited access to such information under an intelligence-sharing agreement set up with the approval of CIA chief William Casey. Cooperation between U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies was nothing new, but it had rarely reached such levels.(193)

Also in 1981 the Reagan administration offered Israel a strategic cooperation agreement. Among other things, it set up a committee to arrange joint U.S.-Israeli military exercises, gave the U.S. Sixth Fleet use of Israeli ports, alowed the United States to store military supplies in Israel for the Central Command, provided for resumption of the shipment of cluster bombs to Israel, and called for a U.S.- Israeli free-trade agreement. The strategic agreement, which did not have to be submitted to the U.S. Senate, also promised increased military aid.(194) When Israel annexed the Golan Heights a few weeks later, Reagan re-sponded by putting the strategic agreement into "abeyance." In November 1983 it was reinstated.

The Reagan administration also gave sanction to Israel's policy on settlements in the West Bank. Despite the policy's illegality under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and contrary to the position of previous presidents, Reagan pronounced the policy "not illegal" shortly after he took office. That policy had resulted in the Israeli government's taking over more than half of the West Bank (not including East Jerusalem).

Although Secretary of State Shultz formulated a peace plan that, among other things, called for a freeze on settlements, the Reagan administration was also increasing aid that could free Israeli funds to build them. The plan proposed autonomy for the Palestinians after five years, in association with Jordan, but no independent state. The plan was vague about borders, but it reiterated support for UN Resolution 242's land-for-peace principle. The Reagan (Shultz) peace plan was issued nearly simultaneously with the Arab League's Fez plan of September 9, 1982, which called for a Palestinian state and implicitly recognized the existence of Israel. (A similar plan, the Fahd plan, had been previously proposed by Saudi Arabia.) Israel rejected the Reagan peace plan and announced that it would proceed to build 42 new settlements.

U.S. Response to the Intifada

Shultz tried to bring the Reagan peace plan back to life in January 1988, after the outbreak of the intifada, after the uprising against the Israeli occupation by rockthrowing Palestinians on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, and after the nightly television news clips of Israeli soldiers breaking the bones of Arab youths. Shultz sought a comprehensive solution, beginning with Israeli-Jordanian-Palestinian negotiations later in the year. Again, UN Resolutions 242 and 338 would provide the basis for the negotiations on a transition and then a final settlement. A conference of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council would also be part of the process, albeit mostly ceremonial.

In March 1988 Prime Minister Shamir all but said no to the Shultz plan. Shamir opposed the international conference and said that Israel had discharged its Resolution 242 obligations when it returned the Sinai.(195) The PLO also turned down the proposal, objecting to the absence of Palestinian self-determination as a goal of the negotiations. Reagan nonetheless warmly greeted Shamir in Washington, and even before the visit Reagan had accelerated delivery of a shipment of 75 F-16 fighters. Reagan also reconfirmed the Strategic Cooperation Agreement of 1981. Moreover, his administration moved to close PLO offices in Washington and New York, the latter of which was the PLO's UN observer mission, on the grounds that the PLO was a terrorist organization. A federal court ruled that closing the UN mission violated the 1947 UN headquarters agreement.

But there were also currents running in the opposite direction. To Israel's dismay, Shultz met in late March with two Palestinian-Americans (Professors Edward Said and Ibrahim Abu Lughod) who were members of the Palestine National Council (a parliament in exile). Shamir said the meeting violated the U.S pledge to have no contact with the PLO. A few months later, Bassam Abu Sharif, a close aide to PLO chairman Arafat, published an article endorsing a two-- state solution; accepting the UN resolutions; and most significant, calling for negotiations with Israel. Attention was further shifted to the PLO when King Hussein of Jordan relinquished responsibility for the West Bank. Arafat him- self then spoke. "I am ready to meet at the United Nations with any Israeli representative. We set no preconditions for a meeting. . . . I extend to the Israelis the hand for peace negotiations," he told the European Parliament.(196) (He also broached the idea, anathema to Israel, of an Israeli withdrawal to the 1947 borders.) Shultz continued to oppose a separate Palestinian state.(197)

In November 1988 the Palestine National Council, meeting in Algiers, voted to accept UN Resolutions 242 and 338 and thus implicitly acknowledged Israel's existence and right to security. The council then declared an independent Palestinian state. Speaking at the December 1988 UN General Assembly session in Geneva, Arafat said the PLO wanted a comprehensive settlement that would respect every state's "right to exist in peace and security." He also noted that the Palestine National Council had "reaffirmed its rejection of terrorism in all its forms." Shultz said Arafat's statement did not meet U.S. conditions for official recognition as representative of the Palestinians. At a press conference the following day, Arafat essentially repeated what he had said the day before. The second time it was good enough for Shultz, who announced that the U.S. ambassador to Tunisia (where the PLO had been based since leaving Lebanon) would begin discussions with Arafat's organization.(198)

The low-level discussions over 18 months between the United States and the PLO signified no real change in U.S. policy. It was never clear what the discussions were to achieve. Nor did they represent an effort to get the Israeli government to meet with the PLO, despite the growing sentiment in Israel that that was necessary.(199) The matter became academic in 1990 when President Bush suspended rela tions with the PLO because he was dissatisfied with Arafat's response to an attempted attack on Israel by the Palestinian Liberation Front, which is represented in the PLO.(200)

The year before, Secretary of State James A. Baker III, as had come to be expected, had formulated yet another peace plan. But as he made clear before formally introducing his plan, the Bush administration's "goal all along has been to try to assist in the implementation of the Shamir initiative."(201) The Shamir plan of May 1989 calls for elections in the occupied territories to choose a Palestinian delegation to negotiations. The process is to produce a settlement on borders with Jordan. But Shamir's "basic premises" are essential to his initiative: no Palestinian state, no negotiations with the PLO or Palestinians affiliated with it, and no change in the status of the territories except according to the Israeli government's guidelines. The Palestinians will not go along with a plan that does not have PLO approval, which Shamir's does not. Baker stands behind Israel's insistence that it have a veto over its negotiation partners. "The United States understands that Israel will attend the dialogue only after a satisfactory list of Palestinians has been worked out," declared a State Department press release.(202) That policy was continued by the 1991 Baker initiative for a U.S.-Soviet Middle East conference. The Bush policy is consistent with past policy and bodes ill for resolution of the Palestinian question.

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