Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June/July 1997, pgs. 113-114

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

Compiled by Janet McMahon

March 1 : Palestinian President Yasser Arafat denounced Israel's decision to build a Jewish-only housing settlement in Arab East Jerusalem, saying, "There will be no peace as long as Israel violates our rights in Jerusalem."

• The Turkish military command issued a communiqué stating  that "no steps away from the contemporary [meaning  secular] values of the Turkish Republic" would be  tolerated.

March 2: Two days after separate earthquakes hit Iran and Pakistan, leaving an estimated 3,000 people dead and 2,000 injured, another earthquake rocked northwestern Iran.

March 3: Following a White House meeting with Palestinian President Arafat, President Bill Clinton said he wished Israel had not decided to build the Jewish-only Har Homa settlement in Arab East Jerusalem, saying it "builds mistrust." Palestinians protesting the decision observed a five-hour strike in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

March 4: Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu ordered four Palestinian offices in East Jerusalem closed.

March 5: At a private meeting in New York, Palestinian President Arafat told 11 Jewish leaders that the paragraphs in the Palestinian covenant calling for the elimination of Israel had been annulled. Later, at the United Nations, he asked for international assistance in preventing the Israeli construction of the Jewish-only Har Homa settlement at Jabal Abu Ghneim in Arab East Jerusalem. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Bill Richardson, while reiterating that the U.S. was "concerned" about Israel's decision to build the settlement, told the Security Council that U.N. "interference" in the peace process "can only provoke mistrust."

• After a five-day delay, Islamist Prime Minister Necmettin  Erbakan signed a military-backed plan designed to protect  Turkey's secular constitution.

March 6: Following a seven-hour debate, the Israeli cabinet voted 10-7 for full or partial withdrawals of Israeli troops from an additional 9 percent of the West Bank, giving the Palestinian Authority full control over 4.8 percent (Area A) and partial control with Israel over 32 percent (Area B), with Israel retaining full control of the remaining 63.2 percent (Area C).

March 7: The U.S. vetoed a Security Council resolution urging Israel to abandon plans to construct the Har Homa settlement. The Council's 14 other members voted for the resolution, sponsored by France, Britain, Portugal and Sweden.

March 9: The Palestinian Authority, saying that a September 1995 agreement called for Israel to withdraw initially from 30 percent of West Bank land, announced it would reject Israel's plan to withdraw from only 9 percent. Israel claimed that a U.S. note concerning the agreement left the extent of the pullout to Israel's discretion.

March 10: At a press conference following their White House meeting, President Clinton defended the U.S. veto of a Security Council resolution calling on Israel to abandon plans to construct the Har Homa settlement, while Egyptian President Mubarak said the veto "may have given a signal to the Israelis" that new settlement construction is acceptable.

March 11: Replying to a March 9 letter to him in which Jordan's King Hussein characterized Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's recent actions as seemingly "bent on destroying" the peace process and deliberately humiliating the Palestinians, the Israeli leader said he was "baffled by the personal level of the attacks against me."

March 13: Following the U.S. veto of a similar Security Council resolution, the General Assembly voted 130 to 2 (the U.S. and Israel) that Israel's planned construction of the Har Homa settlement was "illegal" and "a major obstacle to peace."

• A Jordanian border guard fired on a group of Israeli  junior high school girls on a school trip to Naharayim,  Jordan, killing seven girls and wounding six before being  overpowered by fellow soldiers.

March 14:The Israeli cabinet unanimously approved plans to build the Jewish-only Har Homa settlement on Jabal Abu Ghneim.

March 15: At an emergency meeting in Gaza City, Palestinian President Arafat appealed to international sponsors to help "save the peace process." U.S. Consul General Edward G. Abington, who attended the meeting despite the strong protests of the Israeli government, which was not invited, and its American Jewish supporters, blocked the adoption of a resolution criticizing recent Israeli actions.

March 16: Saying, "Your daughter is like my daughter, your loss is my loss," Jordan's King Hussein visited the Israeli town of Beit Shemesh to grieve with the families of the students killed and wounded by a Jordanian border guard.

March 18: After Israeli troops in riot gear, along with snipers and helicopters, sealed off wooded Jabal Abu Ghneim, bulldozers began breaking ground for the Jewish-only Har Homa settlement.

• The CIA disclosed that it had suspected as early as 1986  that Iraq was storing chemical weapons in Khamisiyya, in  southern Iraq, where an arsenal was blown up by U.S.  troops at the end of the Gulf war.
• An Israeli army spokesman said that former air force  general Rami Dotan would be released from prison April  21, after serving only half of his 13-year sentence for  fraud involving multimillion-dollar U.S. military  assistance contracts.

March 19: As Palestinian President Arafat rejected a proposal by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu for a Camp David-like summit aimed at reaching a final accord within six months, Egyptian President Mubarak said Israel's construction of the Har Homa settlement could mark "the beginning of a new cycle of violence" in the Middle East.

March 20: In Bethlehem, hundreds of Palestinians, angry over Israel's clearing of land on Jabal Abu Ghneim for the construction of the Har Homa settlement, threw stones at Israeli troops, who responded with live ammunition, tear gas and water-cannon spray.

• Palestinian President Arafat and leaders from Lebanon and  Syria flew to Cairo for separate meetings with Egyptian  President Mubarak to discuss the crisis caused by  Israel's decision to proceed with the construction of the  Har Homa settlement.
• The first food shipments resulting from the U.N.-Iraqi  oil-for-food agreement arrived in Kurdish regions of  northern Iraq.

March 21: For the second time in two weeks, the U.S. vetoed a Security Council resolution calling on Israel to halt construction of the Har Homa settlement on Jabal Abu Ghneim.

• A suicide bomber killed himself and three Israelis in a  crowded café in Tel Aviv.

March 22: Some 100 Palestinians were injured in clashes with Israeli troops in Hebron.

• Canadian immigration officials detained two Saudi Arabian  men for suspected involvement in the June 1996 truck  bombing of a U.S. military housing complex in Dhahran.

March 23: Palestinian officials angrily rejected Israeli accusations that President Arafat had given a "green light" to resume street protests and terrorist attacks.

March 24: The U.S. called on Palestinian President Arafat "to make very, very clear that there is no place for terrorism in the Middle East or in the strategy there." Rejecting Israeli demands for a clampdown on militants, Mohammed Dahlan, chief of secret police in the Gaza Strip, said, "The role of the Palestinian Authority is not to protect the security of the Israeli people, but to save the interests of the Palestinian people and to protect the political agreement."

• On a visit to Washington, Bosnian President Alija  Izetbegovic said only 20 percent of the U.S. plan to arm  and train the Bosnian military had been implemented.

March 25: Despite attempts by the U.S. and Israel to prevent her from using the microphone on the main podium, Palestinian Minister of Education Hanan Ashrawi told a U.N. Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva that Israeli "bulldozers are burying the prospects, and our dreams, of peace."

March 26: As seven days of Palestinian street protests spread to the West Bank city of Ramallah, President Clinton sent special envoy Dennis Ross to the Middle East to attempt to bring an end to the current crisis caused by Israel's decision to build the Har Homa settlement on Jabal Abu Ghneim.

• Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright said the U.S.  was "prepared to have a dialogue with a successor  regime" to that of Iraq's Saddam Hussain.
• While saying that Turkey "belongs to Europe"  and is "an important country with great  responsibilities," German Foreign Minister Klaus  Kinkel said, "It is clear that Turkey will not  become a member of the European Union in the foreseeable  future."

March 27: A document prepared by Canadian officials investigating the immigration status of Hani Abd Rahim al-Sayegh, being detained as a suspected lookout in the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, said the bombing was carried out by a militant Shi'i group with links to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

• The lawyer for the Jordanian soldier who shot and killed  seven Israeli schoolgirls said Sgt. Ahmed Mousa Daqamseh  opened fire "on the spur of the moment" because  the students had mocked him while he prayed.

March 28: After a three-year break in talks, India and Pakistan resumed negotiations on Kashmir.

March 29: The Palestinian cabinet issued a statement saying it was "not useful" to hold talks with Israel "as long as the policy of expansion of settlements, confiscation of land and violating the agreement is continuing." In Ramallah, Israeli troops killed a Palestinian student during demonstrations against the Har Homa settlement.

March 30: Israeli troops and tanks surrounded West Bank towns and Palestinian police restrained protesters on the annual observance of Land Day.

March 31: Arab League members meeting in Cairo passed a non-binding resolution freezing relations with and reinstating the economic boycott of Israel.