Summary
U.S. national security adviser and, from 1973, secretary of state, who in Christison’s account approached the Middle East as a globalist contest with the Soviet Union, consolidated Israel as a strategic asset and diplomatic partner, and spent much of his last three years in office trying to undermine the Palestinians’ growing political strength and ignore them as a factor in peace negotiations (Perceptions of Palestine, lines 1302-1320, 1378-1392).
Details
- Before coming to Washington in 1969 he had never visited an Arab country and knew so little about the conflict that he thought his leg was being pulled when he first heard the phrase “a just and lasting peace within secure and recognized borders” (Perceptions of Palestine, lines 1378-1392).
- His memoirs’ account of the conflict’s origins, as quoted, omits the Palestinians and their displacement entirely (Perceptions of Palestine, lines 1378-1392).
- His was the strategy of “standstill diplomacy”: strengthening Israel while deliberately frustrating Arab hopes for diplomatic progress, undercutting the State Department’s regionalists and Secretary of State Rogers (Perceptions of Palestine, lines 1322-1342, 1378-1392).
- He rebuffed at least four PLO overtures in 1973, sending “a nothing message” to the first and General Vernon Walters in November 1973 to listen, not negotiate; he watered down the Geneva conference invitation to exclude mention of the Palestinians and secretly promised Israel a veto on other parties’ participation (Perceptions of Palestine, lines 1456-1484).
- In September 1975 the United States, as part of Sinai II, pledged at Israel’s demand not to recognize or negotiate with the PLO until it recognized Israel’s right to exist and accepted Resolutions 242 and 338 (Perceptions of Palestine, lines 1496-1508).
- He publicly dismissed the November 1975 Saunders Document as an “academic exercise” after Israeli and U.S. supporter anger, although he had checked and revised its wording and is reported to have cleared it with President Ford (Perceptions of Palestine, lines 1546-1548).
- Asked by journalist Edward Sheehan during the 1975 reassessment consultations what plans he had for the Palestinians, he replied: “Do you want to start a revolution in the United States?” (Perceptions of Palestine, lines 1536-1544).
Related pages
Perceptions of Palestine, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Harold H. Saunders, Palestine Liberation Organization