Documents / FOIA release
This is a Central Intelligence Agency release of Foreign Broadcast Information Service coverage of the Middle East peace talks from December 1977. It collects British, Israeli and Soviet press and radio items on President as-Sadat's initiative and the planned Cairo conference. It also covers Prime Minister Begin's visit to London, Secretary of State Vance's regional tour and the Knesset debate on the peace plan. It contains no material on unidentified aerial phenomena.
“Cairo”42 pages
PPROVED FOR RELEASE CIA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS DIVISION AR 70-14 13NOV201 V. 28 Dec 77 - H 13 ISRAEL W proposed and are offering an additional piece of advice: that we should not reject settlements of a temporary nature. I have gained the impression, Mr Prime Minister, that you have also .actively adopted this advice with regard to the clauses referring to Judaea, Samaria and Gaza, in the plan that you have read [several minutes indistinct] to soften the Egyptian position on Judaea and Samaria and it is doubtful if these have i uo niot know if this is true or not, but yesterday the radio and this morning the press stated that Egypt was surprised by the concessions proposed by Israel in Sinai during the first stage of the negotiations, and I do not know if they were joking or not, but the Egyptians proposed Israeli sovereignty over Yamit. One should remember that, according to Resolution 242, there is room for border changes in order to create secure borders. Considering the size of the territory in Sinai--and the government called this 'a vast areas [last three words in English]--what was it that prevented the government from demanding changes of a modest nature along the international borders, for example, a territorial belt 20 or 30 km wide west of and parallel to the international border [several minutes indistinct] ties with Jordan will bring the issue of the PLO into Jordanian hands and Jordan has proved that it can deal with this issue. Moreover, [several minutes indistinct] these advantages are lacking from the government's proposal but it also has other disadvantages. The prime minister prefers from a lin- guistic point of view the Greek word autonomy and the English translation self-rule [said in English] to the Hebrew self-government [mimshal 'azmi]. The Hebrew [indistinct interjection]...I can understand the difference and for this reason I did not translate it into Hebrew. I know that the difficulty does not lie in the translation but. in the way it sounds. The Hebrew points to the confusion that lies in this definition, for one cannot stop such a definition on the administrative line. One cannot stop it. Granting the possibility of a choice between an Israeli and a Jordanian passport opens the possibility--at least in the Gaza Strip--that the Jordanian passport will merely be issued, while the Israeli passport will remind the refugees that they have the possibility to demand their lands and property in Israel. The proposal about mutual rights of settlement enables the residents of the territories to purchase land in Israel but it does not actively grant a parallel right to Israelis, for Waqf lands and government lands will also be subject to the rule of the administra- tive council that will arise. [indistinct interjection) If you have doubts about Jordan you proposed a tripartite council with a Jordanian representative. Thus, there are both doubts and hopes which further strengthen the claims on this issue. [sentence as heard] On the other hand, the owners of private land in Judaea and Samaria will always be subject to Jordanian law, which threatens anyone with a death sentence who sells land to Jews. The government plan, which the prime minister has just read, not only suffers from a vagueness of definition but also from a pressure of temporariness [lahaz shebezemaniyuta]. If it can be appealed in 5 years time, does anyone really believe that the Arab side will not do so? And does anyone think that the Arab side will sit quietly for 5 years without doing anything, simply waiting for the review? And if it acts and appeals, in which direction will it do this? In the direction of rapprochement with Israel or in the direction of more extreme demands?
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 65 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.