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.

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 (PLO), 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. " (Reagan diary, Thursday, August 12, 1982)

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.