The 1988 Shultz Initiative was a peace initiative by United States Secretary of State George Shultz to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in early 1988.
While the American government under Ronald Reagan had largely abandoned its attempts to resolve the conflict after the failure of the Reagan peace plan in the early 1980s, the outbreak of the Palestinian First Intifada and the international outcry over the Israeli government's attempts to suppress the uprising in late 1987 prompted Shultz to renew Americans peace efforts. After a tour to the Middle East in February 1988, Shultz would formally propose a new peace initiative: An international peace conference would be held in the spring of 1988 to begin negotiations, including all five Permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and all parties involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and without any power to enforce an agreement on the parties; That negotiations should be based on United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 and United Nations Security Council Resolution 338; A further independent round of negotiations would then be held between Israel and a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation over the establishment of an interim self-government for Palestinians in the occupied territories; By the end of 1988, before the interim Palestinian autonomy was implemented, negotiations over the final status of the occupied Palestinian territories would begin; The interim Palestinian autonomy would last for three years before implementation of the final status.
Despite carrying out extensive shuttle diplomacy in the spring of 1988, Shultz's initiative largely failed to garner any significant buy-in from the governments involved, with only the Egyptian government of Hosni Mubarak endorsing the initiative. The governments of Jordan, under King Hussein, and Syria, under Hafez al-Assad, both endorsed the idea of an international peace conference, but were reluctant to support the specifics of Shultz's proposal, accusing the American government of prioritising Israel's demands over a genuine peace effort. The Israeli government never reached a consensus on the initiative, with bitter infighting between the Likud cabinet members led by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir (who opposed the ideas of an international peace conference and "land for peace") and the Israeli Labor Party members led by Minister of Foreign Affairs Shimon Peres (who supported the initiative and the idea of the Jordanian option). Palestinians were only marginally involved in the negotiations, and both the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the Unified National Leadership of the Uprising opposed the initiative due to its lack of direct Palestinian representation and fears that it would harm the momentum of the Intifada.
Background Previous American peace initiatives
In 1978, American President Jimmy Carter mediated the singing of the Camp David Accords between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, consisting of the Egypt–Israel peace treaty and the Framework for Peace in the Middle East. The Egypt-Israel peace treaty normalised relations between the two countries, guaranteed Israeli ships free passage through the Suez Canal, demilitarised the Sinai Peninsula, and saw the withdrawal of the Israeli occupation of the Sinai Peninsula, including the withdrawal of Israeli settlers in the Sinai. The Framework for Peace in the Middle East called for the establishment of a Palestinian autonomous authority based on United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 and further negotiations between Israel, Egypt, and the Kingdom of Jordan. The Framework for Peace in the Middle East, however, was negotiated without Palestinian involvement and Begin stated that "on no condition will there be a Palestinian state." The Framework was consequently rejected by the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the Palestinian autonomy talks between Israel, Egypt, and Jordan made little progress.
In 1981, Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency of the United States. At first, Reagan,s administration largely viewed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a minor front of the Cold War in the Middle East, with Israel as an American ally in the Middle East and the PLO as a Soviet ally. As such, his administration prioritised strengthing Israeli military capacities and containing the PLO over pushing for a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Christison, Kathleen. Perceptions of Palestine: Their Influence on U.S. Middle East Policy. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1999 1999. Pages 198-204. https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=kt5t1nc6tp Following the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, however, a domestic outcry against the destruction during the siege of Beirut prompted Reagan's administration to play a more active role as a peace mediator. His administration proposed the Reagan peace plan, which would establish interim Palestinian autonomy culminating in a federation with Jordan. The plan was immediately rejected by the Israeli government under Menachem Begin, who described it as "a serious danger to Israel, its security and its future." After several months of intensive debate, the PLO's Palestinian National Council ultimately voted to reject the plan as well, demanding a fully independent Palestinian state that could then enter into a federation with Jordan as equals.
Following the failure of the Reagan plan, Reagan's administration largely abandoned its efforts to mediate peace between Palestine and Israel through the mid-1980s.Tucker, Spencer C. Middle East Conflicts from Ancient Egypt to the 21st Century. ABC-CLIO, 2019. Pages 1172-1173 In 1985, the PLO and the Jordanian government announced the Palestinian-Jordanian Joint Action Agreement based on the Reagan Plan, however, the agreement collapsed in part after the American and Israeli governments refused to participate in subsequent negotiations due to the inclusion of PLO members within the joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation. Other started peace negotiations in the mid-1980s prior to the First Intifada, such as the Peres–Hussein London Agreement and the Amirav-Husseini peace meetings, were undertaken without American involvement and also resulted in failure.Reiter, Yitzhak. National Minority, Regional Majority : Palestinian Arabs Versus Jews in Israel, Syracuse University Press, 2009. Page 111.
Outbreak of the First Intifada
In early December 1987, an Israeli truck accidentally crashed into a line of Palestinian cars at the Erez Crossing in northern Gaza, resulting in the deaths of four Palestinian workers. The accident, and rumours that it had been a deliberate attack in retaliation for the murder of an Israeli salesman in Gaza several days earlier, sparked a wave of rioting and unrest across the occupied Palestinian territories. By mid-January 1988, the unrest had coalesced into a popular Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation led by the PLO-affiliated Unified National Leadership of the Uprising (UNLU), who advanced a strategy of civil disobedience, including boycotts, refusal to pay taxes, strike action, as well as the formation of cooperatives and underground classrooms. The Israeli response to the unrest and subsequent uprising sparked international controversy, with several dozen Palestinians having been shot and killed by Israeli forces by the end of January 1988, and several cases of unarmed protestors having been beaten.
History Prelude When the truck accident occurred in Gaza, the American government's foreign policy focus was on the Washington Summit between American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, during which they signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Through mid-December 1987, the American government would remain relatively quiet on the growing unrest in the occupied Palestinian territories, although the United States Department of State privately urged the Israeli government to reduce its use of live ammunition against rioters. By late December 1987, the American government began to publicly criticise the Israeli government's approach, while also criticising Palestinian rioters, including abstaining on United Nations Security Council Resolution 605. At the same time, the American government faced some controversy over the effects of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987, signed into law by Reagan on 22 December 1987, which would close the PLO's observer mission to the United Nations.
On 5 January 1988, the United States would vote in favour of United Nations Security Council Resolution 607, the first American vote in favour of a resolution criticising the Israeli government since the early 1980s. Several days later, United States Secretary of State George Shultz gave a speech calling for an international peace conference between Israel and Arab governments, saying that "the whole history of the Middle East shows that violence — terrorism, war — just has not worked. It is negotiations that work," while reaffirming that "Israel is a democratic country seeking stability and peace and the ability to pursue its destiny, and we support that country and we support those objectives and we work closely with Israel." By late January 1988, Shultz and the State Department had begun more concrete internal debates on proposing a new peace initiative for the Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. According to David K. Shipler of The New York Times, writing on 22 January 1988, the American government was facing pressure from the Egyptian government, the Soviet government, and the Israeli Labor Party (whose leader, Shimon Peres, was serving as Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs) to make a more active push for peace, and also had growing concerns over the Israeli government's recently announced Force, might, and beatings policy to subdue the unrest. At the same time, according to Shipler, State Department officials were concerned that Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir showed no signs of being willing to drop his opposition to an international peace conference and that King Hussein of Jordan was still reluctant to enter a new peace initiative after the failure of the Peres–Hussein London Agreement in the spring of 1987.
Before the end of January 1988, Shultz would welcome Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to Washington to discuss the situation in the Middle East. During Mubarak's visit, Shultz stated that he remained "convinced that direct face-to-face negotiation is the best way to achieve results, and we will pursue any avenue to get to that point, including an international conference." Shultz would also meet with Hanna Siniora and Fayez Abu Rahmeh, two Palestinian moderates, after the Israeli government agreed to lift a travel ban on the two. During the meeting, Siniora and Abu Rahmeh pressed Shultz to include the PLO in peace negotiations, saying that PLO chairman Yasser Arafat was willing to negotiate with the Israeli government, to which Shultz stated that the PLO would need to formally accept United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 and United Nations Security Council Resolution 338 first. Siniora and Abu Rahmeh would also present Shultz with a list of fourteen steps they wished to see the Israeli government take to reduce tensions, including allowing municipal elections to be held in the occupied Palestinian territories, the release of those arrested since the start of the unrest, removal of the value-added tax charged by the Israeli government inside the occupied territories, and decriminalising contacts with the PLO. In late January, Shultz would also meet with Israeli Cabinet Secretary Elyakim Rubinstein and World Zionist Organization chairman Simcha Dinitz. As well, American diplomat Philip C. Habib, who had participated in the Camp David Accords negotiations, was sent by the American government to Jordan to meet with King Hussein.