Word: israell
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...easiest such points, perhaps, is the Sinai. Israel is prepared to let nearly all the area revert to Egypt, though it claims the right to maintain two military bases and several civilian settlements there. But even on this relatively simple matter, Sadat insists that he cannot sign a bilateral agreement with Jerusalem. He wants to link a Sinai accord with at least some progress (from the Arab viewpoint) on other fronts. By this he hopes to avoid charges that he is betraying the interests of other Arabs for the sake of a deal with Israel. Sadat thus has been trying...
Begin, who repeatedly professes his willingness to negotiate about anything, has proved very elusive about any acknowledgement of Arab sovereignty over the West Bank. The only "concession" Israel has granted came at the Leeds Castle meeting. Instead of merely being willing to negotiate "the nature of the future relations" after a five-year transition period, Dayan said there, Israel would be prepared to discuss "the question of sovereignty." This minute change of nuance satisfied neither the U.S. nor Egypt. Sadat had by then concluded that Begin had no intention...
...signing a peace agreement and was determined to keep the Arab lands as part of "a greater Israel...
...Israel understandably does not want to give up territory that it feels it needs for security. But the U.S. has long argued that it should be possible to satisfy Israel's security requirements without a full-scale Israeli occupation of Arab territories. And Sadat, for one, told the Knesset: "We agree to any guarantees you accept." Egyptian officials have indicated that they would even be willing to permit some kind of Israeli military presence on the West Bank for a limited time (perhaps up to ten years), if it did not undermine the principle of Arab sovereignty. Last week, moreover...
There are suspicions, however, that security is no longer Israel's sole reason for trying to hold on to the lands it conquered eleven years ago. The fiercely devout Begin has introduced a troubling religious factor into the argument by maintaining that events related in the Old Testament give Israel a historic claim to the West Bank. He even insists on calling the region by its Biblical names of Samaria and Judea. He declared to the Knesset: "We did not take strange land; we returned to our homeland. The tie between our nation and this land is eternal...