Reagan peace plan
The Reagan peace plan, also known as the Reagan Middle East peace plan, was announced by United States President Ronald Reagan during a speech on September 1, 1982. The plan's stated goals was to "reconcile Israel's legitimate security concerns with the legitimate rights of the Palestinians." It proposed a five-year transition period, during which Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza would obtain full autonomy, and an association of the territories with Jordan.
Background
After emerging victorious in the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel occupied the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as the Syrian Golan Heights and the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula. The Israeli government, particularly after the right-wing Likud came to power for the first time in 1977, began promoting Jewish settlement in the occupied territories. The number of settlers increased by 70 percent between 1981 and 1982, leading to increasing clashes between settlers and Palestinians. At the same time, the Israeli government refused to negotiate directly with the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, recognized by the U.N. as the representative of the Palestinian people, and moved to suppress any advocacy for Palestinian nationalism, including dismissing elected Palestinian city councils, repeatedly shutting down Palestinian universities, banning Palestinian newspapers, and banning an extensive list of books.The Israeli occupation of the Sinai Peninsula would come to an end with the Camp David Accords, signed between Israel and Egypt with American mediation in 1978. The Accords, which were negotiated without any Palestinian representatives, also stipulated that the Palestinians must achieve 'full autonomy' and that Israel should withdraw to 'specific military locations' in the West Bank. The PLO, which was backed by the Soviet Union, rejected the 'Camp David conspiracy', believing it detracted from "the complete liberation of all the land of Palestine." When the Reagan administration took office in January 1981, it was preoccupied with the Cold War and viewed America's cooperation with Israel primarily as a means to contain the common Soviet threat, rather than to advance the prospects of Israeli-Arab peace. As well, Reagan viewed the PLO as terrorists and stated he would refuse to negotiate with it even if it accepted United Nations Security Council Resolution 242. Consequently, Reagan and his administration initially largely ignored the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and pressure from the governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia to help build peace in the region.
In mid 1982, however, Israel invaded Lebanon to end the PLO insurgency in Southern Lebanon and install a pro-Israel government in Beirut, beginning the 1982 Lebanon War. While the war resulted in the expulsion of the PLO from Lebanon, the American public's outrage at the death and destruction during the siege of Beirut prompted the Reagan administration to propose a peace plan.
"King Fahd called begging me to do something. I told him I was calling P.M. Begin immediately. And I did—I was angry. I told him it had to stop or our entire future relationship was endangered. I used the word holocaust deliberately & said the symbol of his war was becoming a picture of a 7 month old baby with its arms blown off. "
Main points
The plan was based on the outcomes of the Camp David Accords, as well as Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. Some commentators have described the contents of the plan as "vaguely worded".The following main points were outlined in a statement by Secretary Shultz before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 10, 1982:
The plan suggested a five-year transition period, during which the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip obtain full autonomy over their affairs. Its purpose would be to prove that the Palestinians are capable of managing their own affairs, and that Palestinian autonomy would not pose a threat to Israel's security.
Failure of the plan
Rejection by the Israeli government
The Israeli Government, led by Menachem Begin, and the Knesset, quickly opposed the initiative. On 3 September 1982, Begin's cabinet voted unanimously to reject the Plan, releasing an official communiqué claiming that Reagan's proposals "seriously deviate from the Camp David agreement, contradict it and could create a serious danger to Israel, its security and its future." Specifically, the communiqué stated that:- The city of Jerusalem was indivisible under Israeli sovereignty and that Palestinian residents of the annexed East Jerusalem could not be given voting rights in a future Palestinian authority;
- That Israel would need to continue to have jurisdiction over internal security in the Palestinian territories or else the PLO would "perpetrate constant bloodshed;"
- That Israeli settlement in the Palestinian territories was "a Jewish inalienable right and an integral part of our national security;"
- That autonomy could only refer to autonomy for residents of the Palestinian territories and not for Palestine as a territory;
- That the Camp David Accords made no mention of social and economic ties between the West Bank, Gaza, and Jordan;
- That there was nothing in the Camp David Accords that precluded Israel from achieving full sovereignty over the Palestinian territories after the establishment of an autonomous Palestinian authority;
- That the American had pledged not to support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, but that Reagan's Plan "proves this to be an illusion," and that nothing in the Plan would stop King Hussein of Jordan from ceding control over Palestinian to the PLO, at which point the PLO would "conclude a pact with Soviet Russia and arm itself with every kind of modern weaponry" so that it could "launch an onslaught against Israel to destroy her" in coalition with other Arab states such as Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.
In an early February 1983 speech to the Knesset, Begin reiterated his opposition to the Reagan Plan, saying that "one cannot freeze the settlements just as one cannot freeze life itself" and that "the only agreement signed was the Camp David agreement and this is the only agreement that should be negotiated." In early April 1983, Spokesperson for the United States Department of State John Hughes stated that the American government would "do our best to assure that the results of these negotiations are not prejudiced from the outset by activities of any party which reduce the prospects of a negotiated peace," specifically citing Israeli settlements, in an attempt to convince the Jordanian government to continue working on Reagan's Plan. In response, Israeli Minister of Defence Moshe Arens accused the US of trying "to dictate to another state its security requirements," while spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in Washington Víctor Harel stated that "we will not accept any preconditions for negotiations from any party, including Jordan."
Arab League counter-proposal
The Arab League did not directly address the initiative but presented its own proposal in November 1982, the Fahd Plan, which conflicted with Reagan's proposal on key issues. Among the notable disagreements were the Palestinian right of return and the total dismantlement of settlements. The Israeli government rejected the Fahd Plan, stating that it contained "useless proposals" and "does not contain any substantial new elements that differ from traditional Arab positions." The Palestinian National Council, on the other hand, voted in favour of accepting the Fahd Plan.Rejection by the PLO
PLO's chairman Yasser Arafat's initial public reactions in the days following Reagan's proposals was to say that "We do not reject them, nor do we criticize them. We are studying them." In the weeks following Reagan's speech, Arafat held several promising but ultimately inconclusive meetings with King Hussein of Jordan in which the King urged Arafat to accept Jordan's role as an intermediary, but with Arafat indicating that the PLO did not want Palestine to form a federation with Jordan unless first achieving independence as a state in its own right. Arafat also publicly criticised the Syrian government's immediate rejection of the plan. When he addressed a closed session of the Arab League summit in early September, Arafat indicated that Reagan's plan and the League's Fahd Plan could be used together as a starting point for negotiations, urging Arab states to take a "conciliatory attitude" towards the Reagan plan. PLO spokesperson Mahmoud Labadi stated in October 1982 that the PLO would "welcome the implemention of Reagan’s initiative," but would require an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories as a prerequisite for negotiations.In the months that followed, the PLO leadership debated Reagan's proposals at length, but struggled significantly to maintain a public image of unity. Concerns were raised within the PLO that the Plan did not explicitly call for Palestinian independence, that agreeing to the plan could lead to assassination attempts from hardline Palestinian factions, and that the American government might not be prepared to truly pressure the Israeli government into following the plan. On the other hand, moderate voices within the PLO, notably Isam Sartawi, called for realism, warning that after the damage done to the PLO during the Lebanon War, the PLO was on the brink of total defeat. Moderates also argued that Arab states had proven themselves incapable of backing the Palestinian cause and that the increasing pace of Israeli settlement in the occupied territories risked the territories becoming de facto annexed by Israel.
In mid-October 1982, a statement claiming to represent five of the PLO factions was printed by Syrian Ba'ath Party newspaper Al-Ba'ath attacking Arafat for his meetings with King Hussein. In late November 1982, the Palestinian Central Council, one of the central bodies of the PLO, released a statement that accused the Plan of failing to "satisfy the inalienable national rights of our people," although without entirely rejecting the Plan and without ruling out the idea of mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO. That month, official PLO periodical Falastin Al Thawra asserted that "the confirmation of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people contradicts the existence of the Zionist state." The Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization met in Aden in January 1983 to discuss the plan, however, four hardline factions boycotted the meeting over Arafat's refusal to outright reject the Reagan proposal.
In February 1983, the Palestinian National Council was finally convened in Algiers to discuss the Plan and determine the PLO's official stance, spending several days debating intensely. Radical factions within the PNC pushed to have the Council immediately and entirely reject the Plan, however, were defeated by moderates, who agreed to follow Arafat's line that the proposal was merely insufficient. Ultimately, the PNC chose to reject the Plan, but indicated that it might be willing to reconsider if the plan was reoworked to contain an explicit guarantee of the Palestinian right to self-determination. The PNC explained its decision in a statement: "The Reagan plan in substance does not satisfy the inalienable national rights of the Palestinian people as it denies them the right to self-determination and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in Palestine. The Reagan plan also does not recognize the P.L.O. as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. This Reagan plan, which is in contradiction of international legality, is not acceptable to the P.N.C. as a sound basis for a just solution of the Palestine problem and the Arab-Israel conflict."
On 31 March 1983, at a rally marking Land Day in Damascus, Arafat stated that "There are quarters that wish the P.L.O. would say yes to the Reagan plan so they may say we are traitors. I say to all: no to the Reagan plan or the liquidation plans. If there is to be a solution it will be on the basis of the resolutions of the Fez summit." Arafat continued to pursue negotiations over the Reagan plan with King Hussein in early April 1983, but the two failed to reach an agreement.