Facts For Your Files: A Chronology of U.S.-Middle East Relations

Washington Report, May 16, 1983, Page 6

Facts For Your Files: A Chronology of U.S.-Middle East Relations

April 14:

Albert Spiegel, a Los Angeles businessman and long-time supporter of President Reagan, left his unofficial position as advisor to President Reagan on matters of concern to Jewish Americans. Mr. Spiegel said there were "procedural as well as programmatic" reasons for his decision.

April 17:

Secretary of State George Shultz informed Israel's Defense Minister, Moshe Arens, in a letter that Israel could purchase American-designed parts for the Lavie fighter aircraft that Israel is planning to build and hopes to test-fly in 1985.

April 18:

More than 60 people, including 17 Americans, were killed when a bomb destroyed a large section of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. An extremist pro-Iranian group, the Islamic Jihad Organization, claimed responsibility. At the White House, President Reagan said: "This criminal attack on a diplomatic establishment will not deter us from our goals of peace in the region. We will do what we know to be right."

April 19:

The House Foreign Affairs Committee approved $251 million in 1983 supplemental economic and military aid funds for Lebanon. The Committee also passed an amendment to the aid bill which said that "the President shall obtain statutory authorization from the Congress with respect to the introduction of U.S. armed forces into Lebanon in conjunction with agreements providing for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Lebanon and for the creation of a new, more permanent multinational peacekeeping force."

April 20:

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved $251 million in additional military and economic aid to Lebanon for 1983, the same amount authorized by a House committee April 19. Attached to the Senate bill was an amendment requiring President Reagan to obtain congressional approval for "any substantial expansion in the number or role of the U.S. armed forces in Lebanon or for the creation of a new, expanded or extended multinational peacekeeping force in Lebanon."

April 20:

Deputy Secretary of State Kenneth Dam sent a letter to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Charles Percy (R-IL) indicating that the Administration would seek Congressional approval before deploying additional American soldiers to Lebanon should they be needed in connection with the withdrawal of foreign troops from Lebanon. It said, in part: "It is our intention to seek authorization from Congress as soon as possible following the completion of the ongoing negotiations, and we trust that Congress and the Executive Branch would then work expeditiously together with the objective of obtaining such authorization, if at all possible, prior to such new developments."

April 22:

At a White House news conference President Reagan announced that he was despatching Secretary of State George Shultz to the Middle East. "His primary purpose," the President said, "will be to bring to a successful conclusion the negotiations in Lebanon," which are aimed at achieving the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Lebanon.

April 22:

In an interview with a major American newspaper, Secretary of State George Shultz said that under President Reagan's proposed Middle East peace plan "if the settlers (Israeli settlers in the West Bank) want to stay in their settlement, they stay, but they would live under the jurisdiction of whatever is the jurisdiction of that territory. In the President's plan, it's perfectly consistent with Jews living in the West Bank."

April 28:

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee provisionally approved $2.61 billion in aid to Israel for fiscal 1984. Of that amount, $910 million would be grant economic aid and $1.7 billion in military assistance, which would be divided evenly between a grant and a repayable loan. The total approved was $125 million more than what President Reagan asked for and the grant portion of aid was $425 million more.

May 4:

In an interview with reporters at the White House, President Reagan said that the leadership of the PLO "certainly was never elected by the Palestinian people—there are millions of Palestinians—and are they going to stand still for their interests being neglected on the basis of an action taken by this group, the PLO. which, as I say, was never elected by the Palestinian people?" The President made a similar remark at a news conference on April 22.

May 4:

Lebanon approved a U.S.-mediated draft agreement for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon. U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz helped negotiate the proposed plan through a series of meetings, beginning April 27, with Israeli and Lebanese officials in both Jerusalem and Beirut.

May 6:

The Israeli cabinet voted 17-2 in favor of accepting "in principle" the U.S.-mediated draft agreement for the withdrawal of its troops from Lebanon, while adding in a statement that it would seek "further clarifications" from the U.S. and Lebanon on a number of "security and political problems."

May 10:

At a mark-up session of the Reagan Administration's 1984 foreign aid bill the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted to increase by $60 million—from $785 million to $850 million—economic assistance to Israel, all of which would be in grant form; and to raise the grant portion of military aid from $550 million to $850 million. Speaking for the Administration, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Alvin Drischler told the Committee: "We do not oppose the add-on."

May 11:

Secretary of State George Shultz—who returned to Washington after spending two weeks in the Mideast and several days in Paris attending an international economic meeting—told reporters that although Syria had been "very critical" of the Lebanon-Israel agreement for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon, he was "confident" that Syria would eventually agree to withdraw its forces from Lebanon.