Word: settlements
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Middle East's festering sores: the status of the Palestinian people, especially the 1.3 million living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Reagan dropped the former U.S. role of anxious and often baffled mediator to outline an American plan for progress toward a settlement, setting out some firm U.S. guidelines while leaving the Arabs and Israelis plenty of room for their own negotiations. Its essence: Palestinian self-government "in association" (presumably some kind of loose federation) with Jordan, which ruled the West Bank from 1949 to 1967. Reagan called upon Israel to halt any further Jewish...
...President first made clear what the U.S. would not accept. One was the opening of any more Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. Since 1967 Israel has established roughly 100 settlements in those territories, housing about 30,000 people. Arabs fear that the purpose of the settlements is to tie the territories so closely to Israel that they can never be detached. Said Reagan: "The immediate adoption of a settlement freeze by Israel, more than any other action, could create the confidence needed for wider participation in these [autonomy] talks...
Other Jewish leaders echoed the Israeli concern that by putting forward a plan of his own, Reagan was attempting to "impose" some kind of settlement on Israel. Those worries appeared to be misplaced, or at least greatly exaggerated. As Administration spokesmen made clear in background explanations, the President's ideas for a peace were not carved in stone, and were intended primarily to break a stalemate in the peace negotiation. That in itself was an act of creative diplomacy. Whether or not the President's plan would ever be initialed at a second Camp David summit, Reagan...
...accept a significant number of P.L.O. evacuees was Egypt, which had been asked by the U.S. to take a group of 3,000 Palestinians. The government of President Hosni Mubarak refused, saying that the removal of the P.L.O. from Lebanon should be linked with diplomatic steps toward a comprehensive settlement of the Palestinian problem. Explained an Egyptian official: "When we signed the Camp David peace treaty, we were accused by other Arabs of only being concerned about a partial solution," that is, of getting the occupied Sinai back from Israel. "We do not want the same accusations to be leveled...
discussions occurred. As he struggled toward a settlement, Habib had to cope with the suspicions of both the P.L.O. and the Israelis. At first the Palestinians were convinced that Habib was pro-Israel and, what was more, that he was acting, said one senior P.L.O. official, as a "high commissioner" who had come to dictate terms. The Israelis initially felt that he was keeping them in the dark about the true state of the negotiations...