Reagan Plan
REAGAN PLAN
Peace plan presented on 1 September 1982 by U.S. President Ronald Reagan after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the subsequent expulsion of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) following U.S. mediation. This plan provided for the creation of an autonomous Palestinian authority in the occupied territories, to be associated with Jordan.
The basic elements of the Reagan Plan included free elections of an autonomous Palestinian authority in the occupied territories; peaceful and orderly transfer of power from the Israeli government to the Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza over a period of five years, the final status of these territories to be a fully autonomous association with Jordan; an immediate freeze on the creation of new Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza; negotiations on Jerusalem, which must remain undivided; and recognition by the Palestinians of the "right of Israel to a secure future," and by the Arab states of the reality of Israel. Also, President Reagan gave notice that the United States would support neither the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, nor the permanent annexation of these territories by Israel.
Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin rejected the plan and reiterated Israel's claim to the West Bank, while the Arab leaders showed little enthusiasm for it. Events in Lebanon soon drew U.S. attention from it, and it was never pursued.
SEE ALSO Arab-Israel War (1982);Begin, Menachem.