ThePalestinian autonomy talks was an outgrowth of theEgypt–Israel peace treaty and were designed to lead to a resolution of thePalestinian nationalism in theWest Bank andGaza Strip. According to The Framework for Peace in the Middle East, one part of the 1978Camp David Accords,Egypt andIsrael were to agree within one year on elections for a Palestinian “self-governing authority.”[1] The idea was directly related to Israeli Prime MinisterMenachem Begin’s idea of Palestinian autonomy.
PresidentJimmy Carter appointedRobert S. Strauss as his envoy to the autonomy talks.[2] Neither thePalestine Liberation Organization nor any other Palestinian organization was directly involved in the talks.
The talks began on May 25, 1979 inBeersheva,Israel. The second round was held inAlexandria,Egypt on June 11–12, 1979. The third round of talks were held atHerzliya, Israel on June 25–26, 1979, followed by talks in Alexandria (July 5–6) andHaifa (August 5–6).[3] The delegations were led by Prime MinisterMustafa Khalil (Egypt), Minister of the InteriorYosef Burg (Israel), and AmbassadorJames Leonard (United States). Egypt said it did not speak for the Palestinians but rather sought Palestinian elections for a council that would represent the Palestinians.[4]
Delegates met on January 31-February 1, 1980 inHerzliya and in theNetherlands on February 27–28, 1980.[5]
On May 8, 1980,Anwar Sadat unilaterally suspended the negotiations.[6] In July 1980, the talks resumed but Egypt again suspended them. By this time, the U.S. mediator wasSol Linowitz, who had replaced Strauss in late 1979.[7] By the end of the Carter administration. Linowitz claimed that 80% of the issues had been resolved.Wat T. Cluverius IV, who worked on Linowitz's team, later explained that while the hardest issues had not been resolved, "We had done an awful lot of the clearing of the underbrush for a serious negotiation over the toughest issues--the West Bank and Jerusalem. So there was something handed to the incoming Reagan administration."[8]
The United States tried to re-launch the autonomy talks in 1982 but that effort was sidetracked by the outbreak of the1982 Lebanon War.[9] In January 1982, Secretary of StateAlexander Haig went to the Middle East to try to revive the talks. He did not succeed.[10] The final blow to the Autonomy talks came on August 16, 1982, when the Egyptian government suspended them in protest for the Israeli fighting in Lebanon.[11]
The talks did not achieve a direct breakthrough but some of the ideas – a five-year interim period with delayed negotiations on the final status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip – were incorporated into theOslo Accords.[12]
