Word: gaza
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...First Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs Osama el Baz calls "the chronological parallelism" (euphemism for linkage) between Israel's Sinai withdrawal and preparations for self-rule in the occupied territories. In these letters the two leaders would pledge that 1) talks on autonomy for the West Bank and Gaza would begin within one month of the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, and 2) elections for local governing councils for those territories should take place by the end of 1979. U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance presented the plan to Begin and Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan...
Meanwhile, Sadat offered a compromise proposal of his own. In effect, he suggested that the negotiators set aside the question of the West Bank for the moment and concentrate on Gaza. The West Bank is just too complicated and too emotional an issue for both the Israelis and the Arabs, he was implying, and Egypt was hardly in a position to negotiate alone on behalf of the West Bank Palestinians, while neither they nor Jordan's King Hussein was willing to join the peace process...
...Gaza is another matter. Egypt administered it from 1948 until 1967, when the Israelis captured it, along with the Sinai. Thus Sadat proposed that the Egyptians and the Israelis agree to a time limit for negotiating self-government for Gaza, and that Israel allow the Egyptians to maintain civil order there until local governments have been established. Sadat thought it possible that some Gaza leaders could be persuaded to join the talks. He also believed that if a Gaza settlement could lead to West Bank negotiations, then perhaps Hussein and some of the West Bankers might be willing to participate...
That sounded fine in Cairo, but it did not play very well in Jerusalem. The Israelis were particularly distrustful of Sadat's suggestion that the Egyptians should assume police powers in Gaza on a temporary basis. To the Israelis, this sounded as if the Egyptians were widening their demands and were trying to regain a special status in the Gaza Strip...
...Defense Minister Ezer Weizman had "acted without authority" in their zeal to reach a settlement with the Egyptians in Washington. Later the Cabinet was the scene of an unusually angry argument over a plan by hawkish Agriculture Minister Ariel Sharon to establish a big new Israeli settlement in Gaza. Many of Sharon's colleagues thought this a bad idea anyway; practically all of them were angry that his aides had leaked the details of the plan while the peace talks were at a delicate stage in Washington...