A Chronology of U.S.-Middle East Relations

December 4:

Convicted spy Jonathan Jay Pollard told the Washington Jewish Week he provided Israel with thousands of pages of top secret US documents out of his strong commitment to Israel. He said he saw no contradiction between "being a good Zionist and a good American."

December 4:

Egyptian officials charged 4 army officers and 29 others with plotting to overthrow President Mubarak. Some belonged to the Jihad organization, which took responsibility for President Sadat's assassination 1981.

December 4-8:

Israeli soldiers killed four Palestinians (two Bir Zeit University students, and two boys, aged 12 and 14), and wounded 18 others in the worst week of violence in several years in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

December 9:

Some 100,000 fresh Iranian troops were sent to the Iraqi front as a prelude to Iran's "final offensive," said to be delayed so that it could absorb the roughly $3 billion worth of arms Iran had recently received from a variety of countries.

December 10:

Israeli officials said the arms-to-Iran affair began when the US asked Israel to help establish contacts with Iranian moderates to improve America's strategic position in preparation for the Ayatollah Khomeini's eventual death. In addition, the Israelis contended that the US wanted Israel to help free American hostages held in Lebanon.

December 12:

Turkey and the US signed a five-year renewal of their Defense and Economic Cooperation Agreement. Under the agreement, Turkey will continue to provide the US with an air base and communications and intelligence-gathering facilities. In return the US will provide Turkey with military and economic assistance.

December 15:

US government officials confirmed that the US had supplied Iraq with detailed intelligence information on Iran for nearly two years, to prevent Iran from winning its war with Iraq.

December 18:

Testifying before the House Intelligence Committee, White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan said that President Reagan had opposed a 1985 arms shipment from Israel to Iran. Regan's testimony contradicted earlier testimony by former National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, who said that Reagan approved the shipments in advance. If President Reagan did oppose the arms shipments and Israel made them anyway, Israel, according to US law, would face a suspension of US aid. Israel later disputed Regan's testimony, claiming that McFarlane indicated that President Reagan had given approval in advance.

December 19:

Syrian troops in tanks and armored personnel carriers overpowered Sunni Muslim fundamentalists in Tripoli, killing at least 30 and wounding at least 60.

December 20:

The Boston Globe reported that shortly after Justice Department lawyers began investigating the sale of arms to Iran they uncovered a draft of a National Security Council memorandum prepared by Colonel Oliver North outlining how, by charging Iran high prices for the arms, profits could be diverted to the anti-Sandinista contras fighting in Central America.

December 20:

In northern Chad, Libyan troops attacked the forces of Chad's former President, Goukouni Oueddei, who had been an ally of Libyan leader Muammar Khadafy. The US began an airlift of $15 million in emergency military supplies for Chad.

December 21:

OPEC oil ministers ended a 10-day meeting in Geneva with announcements of a cut in production aimed at raising oil prices to $18 per barrel. Iraq did not sign the final communique.

December 22:

Mordechai Vanunu, on trial in Israel for providing London's Sunday Times with details of Israel's nuclear weapons program, wrote a message on the palm of his hand and flashed it at reporters in Jerusalem. Vanunu's message said he had been kidnapped in Rome on September 30 and brought back to Israel.

December 24:

The New York Times reported that CIA Director William Casey wrote a memorandum in 1985 acknowledging that arms sales to Iran were a straight trade of "American arms for American hostages."

December 24:

The US offered to refinance Egypt's and Israel's outstanding loans from earlier years at a reduced interest rate of roughly 7 percent, instead of the current 12-13 percent.

December 25:

An Iraqi airliner en route from Iraq to Amman, Jordan, was hijacked and crashed in northern Saudi Arabia, killing at least 60 of its 110 passengers. Four men traveling on Lebanese passports hijacked the plane. After a mid-air gun battle with an Iraqi security agent on the plane, a grenade exploded and the plane was forced to crash-land.

December 28:

The Israeli Justice Ministry ruled that Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir did not order the killing of two captured Palestinian bus hijackers in April, 1984.

December 28:

Israel deported 33-year-old Akram Haniye, editor of the East Jerusalem-based Al-Sha'ab newspaper. Haniye had been accused of illegal activity on behalf of the PLO. Neither he nor his lawyer were allowed to see the evidence against him.

December 29:

Shiite leader Nabih Berri called a truce in Amal's three-month battle with the Palestinians in southern Lebanon and allowed food and medical supplies to be brought into Rashidiye and Ein el-Hilweh refugee camps. Lebanese police estimated that the three-month "camps war" killed at least 550 people, many of them civilians, and wounded over 2,000. On several occasions Israeli gunboats joined Amal's fight against the Palestinians.

January 5:

Ending his nine-day visit to the Middle East, New York Archbishop John Cardinal O'Connor said, "there will not be peace with justice in the Middle East until the Palestinian question is addressed." Vatican officials had expressed concern over O'Connor's plans to meet Israeli leaders in their Jerusalem offices, thereby signifying Vatican recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. The Boston Globe reported that O'Connor "had planned the trip as a serious attempt to upgrade relations between the Vatican and Israel." Praise from American Jewish groups for O'Connor's willingness to meet Israeli officials in Jerusalem turned to sharp criticism when he said those meetings were not to be taken as official visits.