Word: knesset
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Israel was already at the center of an international storm over the Knesset's passage of a bill the previous week affirming the city of Jersualem as the capital of Israel. In response to that defiant vote, Egypt's Anwar Sadat wrote Begin an 18-page letter in which he laid out a forceful and sweeping denunciation of Israeli actions. Unless Begin "removed the obstacles to peace," Sadat concluded, the Palestinian autonomy talks would once again be put off indefinitely...
...Israel's Muslim neighbors, for whom Jerusalem is also a revered religious shrine, the Knesset action seemed not only insensitive but also contemptuous. Rallying round Egypt, Islamic nations in the U.N. drafted a resolution calling on the Security Council to impose strict sanctions on Israel for flouting international laws concerning Jerusalem...
...most Israelis the bill was a way of letting off steam, a shaking of the fist at what they regard as a frontal attack on their right to the city of Jerusalem as the focus of both their nation and their faith. What took place in the Knesset was a clash between the demands of rational diplomacy and the inner needs of national identity. The nationalist needs prevailed...
...other legislative action last week, the Knesset passed a bill that forbids public expression of sympathy for a "terrorist organization," meaning the P.L.O., and another that gives the Interior Minister the right to revoke the citizenship of anyone committing a "violation of allegiance" to the state of Israel. The measures were directed at Israeli dissidents and at Arab university students who have demonstrated for Palestinian rights. In a separate development, Begin's Justice Minister, Shmuel Tamir, resigned last week as the erosion of the Likud coalition continued...
...Knesset vote on Jerusalem did not appear to have damaged irreparably the peace negotiations, but the Carter Administration was worried about the next step Begin was apparently ready to take: the long-threatened transfer of the Prime Minister's office from West to East Jerusalem. Such a move would once again be as pointless as it would be provocative, but Begin seemed determined to do it. Washington feared that this step would particularly anger Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf Arabs, causing them to ask: If the U.S. is unable to stop such a calculated insult to the Arab...