Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 1997, Pages 129-131

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

Compiled by Janet McMahon

Aug. 1: Following the July 30 suicide bombings in West Jerusalem, Israel tightened its crackdown on Palestinians in the West Bank, arresting a total of 79 suspected militants ranging in age from 15 to 92.

*All but two ministers of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) offered to resign in the wake of a report detailing widespread government corruption.

*At a White House ceremony, President Heydar Aliyev of Azerbaijan signed agreements for exploring Caspian Sea oil fields with four U.S. oil companies.

Aug. 2: Calling on American President Bill Clinton to personally intervene to rescue the Mideast peace process, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat traveled to Egypt to seek President Hosni Mubarak's support in the face of what he called "Israel's war on the Palestinian people."

*Calling for cooperation among Iran's ruling mullahs, Mohammed Khatemi assumed the presidency of Iran, succeeding Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Aug. 3: Acknowledging that it represented a clear violation of the Oslo accords, the Israeli cabinet approved a proposal suspending reimbursement of tax monies and other fees it owes to the PNA, amounting to some two-thirds of the PNA's annual revenue.

*The trial of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the accused mastermind behind the World Trade Center bombing, opened in New York.

Aug. 4: The Clinton administration threatened to join other European countries in suspending contacts with Bosnia's U.N. ambassador unless Bosnia's three-member presidency agrees on joint appointments of diplomats reflecting its Muslim, Croat and Serb ethnic groups.

*Israeli commandos killed five Hezbollah guerrillas near the southern Lebanese town of Kfour, outside Israel's occupied "security zone."

Aug. 6: As President Clinton sent special envoy Dennis Ross back to the region, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright announced a shift in U.S. Mideast policy to a "fast track" approach on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, similar to an April plan proposed by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu rejected by the Palestinians.

*Less than a week before U.N.-sponsored talks on Cyprus were scheduled to begin, Turkey and northern (Turkish) Cyprus agreed to work toward partial integration, a move Turkey had threatened if talks between the European Union and (Greek) Cyprus, planned for next year, begin.

*U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke returned to the former Yugoslavia to restart the deadlocked peace process, meeting in Split with Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic.

Aug. 7: A woman and her two children were among the five people killed by Israeli shelling and roadside bombs in southern Lebanon, raising the toll to 13 dead, including seven civilians, in four days.

Aug. 8: Israeli warplanes attacked a PLFP guerrilla base some 10 miles south of Beirut after Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon fired rockets on the northern Israeli border town of Qiryat Shemona.

*As U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke met with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, American General Eric Shinseki, in charge of NATO peacekeeping troops in Banja Luka, announced a plan to force the disbanding of paramilitary forces in Bosnia and the arrest of those who refuse.

*Following U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's approval of a distribution plan for humanitarian supplies, a Security Council committee approved an oil pricing formula for Iraq's "oil-for-food" program.

Aug. 9: Acknowledging that his latest mission to Bosnia had met with only limited success, U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke won the promise of the Serbian member of Bosnia's tripartite presidency to honor a July 1996 pledge that former Bosnian Serb leader and indicted war criminal Radovan Karadzic no longer participate in political life.

Aug. 11: The PLO agreed to an undisclosed settlement with the family of Leon Klinghoffer, the American whose body was thrown into the Mediterranean by hijackers of the Achille Lauro in 1985.

*U.N.-sponsored Cyprus peace talks opened between Greek and Turkish Cypriot negotiators in Switzerland.

*Thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip marched against Israel and the U.S., whose demands that he further rein in potential terrorists Palestinian President Arafat reluctantly accepted.

Aug. 12: The Palestinian Authority's office in Washington, DC was forced to close after President Clinton failed to waive a ban on it as required by the Middle East Peace Facilitation Act, which Congress then failed to renew before adjourning.

*Following four days of talks with U.S. special envoy Dennis Ross, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators agreed only to report all their information on the July 30 suicide bombings in Jerusalem to a three-way panel including the CIA station chief in Tel Aviv.

*Three members of Palestinian President Arafat's bodyguard unit were convicted of spying for Israel.

*FBI investigators were reported to believe that two Palestinians arrested in Brooklyn in July were trying to collect up to $2 million from the State Department's "Heroes" program for information on terrorist operations, rather than planning bomb attacks on the New York subway system.

*Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic said former leader Radovan Karadzic had turned down a U.S. offer for refuge in a third country as a way of avoiding prosecution for war crimes.

*Iranian President Mohammed Khatemi announced his cabinet nominations, including Ataollah Mohajerani, a former vice president criticized for having advocated direct talks with the U.S., as minister of culture and Islamic guidance.

*Troops loyal to Tajikistan's President Emomali Rakhmonov restored order after a weekend of fighting between rival government factions in the capital city of Dushanbe.

*Israeli police forcibly evicted some 150 Conservative and Reform Jewish men and women who were praying together at the Western Wall amid jeers and taunts of "Hams," "terrorists," and "Christians" by Orthodox Jews.

Aug. 13: Following a meeting in Aqaba with Jordan's King Hussein, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said he would lift sanctions on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza as soon as Palestinian President Arafat demonstrated good faith by cracking down on Islamic militants.

Aug. 14: The State Department ordered that operations be suspended at the embassy of Afghanistan in Washington, DC because of "continuing contention...over who represents Afghanistan" between rival chargés d'affaires, one appointed by the Taliban militia and the other by the ousted Kabul government.

*Turkey's parliament approved an amnesty suspending the prison sentences of at least six editors jailed for violating the country's restrictive press laws, which remained in effect.

Aug. 16: Nearly two months after taking office, Turkish Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz won parliamentary approval of a law restricting religious education.

Aug. 18: In apparent retaliation for a roadside bombing which killed three Lebanese civilians, including two children of former militia commander Maj. Assad Nasser, members of that militia, which reports to the commander of the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army, shelled the port city of Sidon, killing at least six people and wounding some three dozen.

*Israel announced the release of some $12 million in tax revenues and customs duties it owes the Palestinian National Authority, which claims Israel owes a total of $62 million versus Israel's assertion that it owes $34 million.

Aug. 19: Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu threatened massive retaliation after Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon fired Katyusha rockets into northern Israel.

Aug. 20: Israeli warplanes bombed power lines and other targets deep in Lebanon.

*At a National Unity Conference to Confront the Challenges, Palestinian President Arafat embraced leaders of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad movement, warning Israel that its policies could result in a new intifada.

*Heavily armed NATO peacekeeping troops took control of six police stations in Banja Luka, the base of Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic, and ousted officers loyal to former President Radovan Karadzic.

*Following a two-day debate, Iran's parliament approved all 22 of President Mohammed Khatemi's cabinet appointees.

Aug. 21: Bosnian Serb President Plavsic issued an ultimatum to the Bosnian Serb government in Pale demanding the replacement of the editors of Serb Radio and Television and the resignation of Information Minister Svetlana Siljegovic.

Aug. 23: As Palestinians in Bethlehem and Hebron protested Israel's three-week closure of the West Bank, Palestinian leaders met to discuss intelligence reports indicating that Israel might be preparing to stage commando raids in Palestinian-controlled territory.

*Israeli war planes attacked Lebanon for the fourth time in a week.

*The Bosnian Serb government in Pale defied President Plavsic by announcing the suspension of her appointment of Acting Interior Minister Marko Pavic, named to replace Dragan Kijac, whom Plavsic had fired.

Aug. 25: As stone-throwing demonstrators in Bethlehem protested Israel's three-week closure of their town, where Israel suspects two masterminds of the July 30 suicide bombings are hiding, Palestinian police aimed their weapons at Israeli troops moving toward Palestinian-controlled territory.

*Israeli officials confirmed a government decision, made last year by National Infrastructures Minister Ariel Sharon and endorsed by Prime Minister Netanyahu, to build a dam on the Yarmuk River in territory claimed by Syria, one mile upstream from the undisputed site selected by the previous Labor government.

Aug. 27: Israel announced it was lifting the four-week blockade of Bethlehem.

*Armed attackers killed 64 villagers in Beni Ali, 40 miles south of Algiers, bringing the death toll from similar attacks and bombings to 100 in the past week and 1,000 since the June 5 elections.

*Italian police arrested Musbah Abulgasem Eter, a former Libyan secret service officer wanted for the 1986 bombing of a Berlin discotheque that killed two American soldiers and in retaliation for which the U.S. bombed Libya, killing at least 15 people.

Aug. 28: The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported that the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin told U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher in 1994 that Israel would consider withdrawing from Syria's Golan Heights to its 1967 border.

*Mobs of Bosnian Serb supporters of Radovan Karadzic, angered over the NATO peacekeeping force's support for President Plavsic, threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at U.S. troops in Brcko, Bijeljina and Doboj.

Aug. 29: Following an accident in which a fire set by Israeli shells changed direction, killing four Israeli soldiers and badly burning six others, Labor Party leader Ehud Barak called for negotiations leading to the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon.

Aug. 30: In a predawn attack on the village of Rais, 15 miles south of Algiers, hooded men armed with axes massacred some 300 residents, slitting their throats or decapitating them.

*A bomb explosion killed one person and injured two in Banja Luka, the base of Bosnian Serb President Plavsic.

*An Egyptian court rejected a $500 million lawsuit against CNN for airing a report showing the genital mutilation of a 10-year-old girl.

Aug. 31: The celebration of the 100th anniversary of the first Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland concluded a week-long academic conference sponsored by the University of Basel.

*Prime Minister Netanyahu rejected Palestinian President Arafat's demand that Israel honor previous agreements to withdraw from rural areas of the West Bank by Sept. 7, instead agreeing in principle to lift "in stages" Israel's closure of the West Bank and Gaza.

*An Egyptian court convicted Azam Azam, an Israeli Druze Arab working in an Israeli-owned textile factory managed by his brother in Cairo, of spying for the Mossad.

*In an open letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Abbasi Madani, leader of Algeria's banned Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), called for an end to the bloodshed in his country.

Sept. 1: Israel eased its month-long closure of the West Bank and Gaza, announcing it would allow 4,000 Palestinian laborers, 2,000 merchants, 250 teachers and 20 Palestinian Authority employees to enter Israel, a fraction of the 100,000 Palestinians who worked in Israel prior to the closure.

*Several hundred Bosnian Serb supporters of former leader Radovan Karadzic again clashed with U.S. peacekeeping troops, who fired tear gas at the stone-throwing and club-swinging demonstrators trying to retake control of a key television transmitter in the northeastern Bosnian town of Udrigova.

*A U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence report found that China was the most active supplier of nuclear materials and technology to Iran.

*Following his previous day's public appeal for an end to violence in Algeria, Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) leader Abbasi Madani, recently released from six years in prison, was placed under house arrest in Algiers and ordered to limit his contacts to family members.

Sept. 2: Jewish settlers in Hebron threw stones and fired pellet guns at Palestinians working on the U.S.-sponsored renovation of Shuhada St., and Israeli police arrested the American project manager, David Muirhead, and two Palestinian employees.

*U.S. peacekeeping troops in Bosnia agreed to return a TV transmitter to Bosnian Serb supporters of Radovan Karadzic in return for a promised airing of opposition views and an end to inflammatory anti-Western rhetoric.

Sept. 3: American Gen. Wesley K. Clark, the new military commander of NATO, warned that NATO peacekeeping troops in Bosnia were prepared to use "lethal means" to protect themselves from attacks by Bosnian Serb mobs.

*Saying, "National leaders cannot be charged with war crimes," former Bosnian Serb leader and indicted war criminal Radovan Karadzic proposed that U.N. human rights envoy Elisabeth Ren interview him and fellow alleged war criminal Gen. Ratko Mladic and act as mediator between them and the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

Sept. 4: Three Palestinian suicide bombers set off bombs within minutes of each other in a crowded shopping promenade on Jeusalem's Ben Yehuda Street, killing themselves and four Israeli passers-by and injuring some 180 people.

*At least 11 elite Israeli naval commandoes were killed in an attempted raid in southern Lebanon when they were detected as they were landing shortly after midnight some 15 miles south of Sidon.

Sept. 5: Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu declared that Israel no longer considers the Oslo accords binding and will not return the large parts of the occupied West Bank it is scheduled to turn over in mid-1998.

Sept. 6: At least 80 Algierians were massacred by hatchet-swinging attackers in the neighborhood of Beni Messous, 12 miles west of the capital, Algiers.

Sept. 7: Jordan's King Hussein and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat met in Cairo with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to discuss the crisis in the peace process, calling on Israel to honor its commitments.

Sept. 8: The Justice Department announced it would drop an indictment for terrorism against Hani Abdel Rahim Sayegh, the Saudi dissident who withdrew his plea bargain agreement to provide information on the Khobar Towers bombing.

Sept. 9: On the eve of U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's first official trip to the Middle East, Palestinian police rounded up scores of suspected Hamas members in the Gaza Strip, as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu prepared a new list of demands to present to Albright.

*After a day-long confrontation in Banja Luka, the base of Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic, a mob of her supporters forced supporters of Plavsic rival Radovan Karadzic to flee the city.

Sept. 10: Arriving in Israel, Secretary of State Albright met with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and called on Palestinian President Arafat to "take unilateral steps and actions to root out the terrorist infrastructure" and on Israel to "refrain from actions that undermine confidence and trust," an appeal the Israeli leader rejected at their joint press conference.

*FBI Director Louis Freeh said charges had been dropped against Saudi dissident Hani Abdel Rahim Sayegh in part because Saudi authorites failed to provide sufficient admissable evidence against him.

Sept. 11: Following a meeting in Ramallah with Palestinian President Arafat, U.S. Secretary of State Albright urged Israel to take a "time out" in settlement-building activity.

*Moscow warned NATO to stop pressuring Bosnian Serbs.

Sept. 12: Saying she would not return until both Israelis and Palestinians "have made hard decisions," Secretary of State Albright left Israel and flew to Damascus, where she met with Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad.

*Following clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah guerrillas on the edge of Israel's self-declared "security zone" in southern Lebanon, Israeli warplanes attacked Lebanese army positions there.

Sept. 13: Secretary of State Albright arrived in Saudi Arabia after meeting with Egyptian President Mubarak.

*Thousands of Bosnians returned to their former towns and villages to vote in municipal elections.

Sept. 14: Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu decided to pay the Palestinian Authority one-half of what Israeli owes it in collected customs and tax revenues.

Sept. 15: As U.S. Secretary of State Albright returned home from her trip to the Middle East, three Jewish families, protected by scores of Israeli police, moved into the Arab East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ras Al-Amoud, into homes bought by Jewish American developer and "bingo king" Irving Moskowitz of Miami. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu criticized the settlers' action, saying it "is not good for Jerusalem, it's not good for the state of Israel."

Sept. 16: In an accord brokered by U.N. mediator and former Secretary of State James Baker, Morocco and the Polisario Front agreed on a code of conduct for a referendum on the disputed Western Sahara.

*Robert Frowick, the American head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's mission in Bosnia, overruled a Norwegian OSCE judge's order barring a slate of Bosnian Serb nationalist politicians from the previous weekend's municipal elections.

Sept. 17: The Israeli government announced that 10 yeshiva students would replace the 11 Jewish settlers who had taken over Arab housing in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ras Al-Amoud. Palestinian President Arafat rejected the agreement as a "trick," and hundreds of Palestinians clashed with Israeli police.

Sept. 18: Suspected Islamic militants attacked a tourist bus outside the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, killing 10 people, including 6 Germans.

Sept. 20: At a meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo, Palestinian President Arafat said the U.S. should do more to rescue the Mideast peace process, and called on the Clinton administration to support the creation of a Palestinian state.

Sept. 21: In a sweep of the northern West Bank north of Nablus, Israeli elite paratrooper and undercover units arrested some 50 suspected Islamic militants.

*At the conclusion of its three-day meeting, the Arab League issued a statement calling on Israel to accept the principle of land-for-peace and endorsing U.S. Secretary of State Albright's efforts to restart the stalled peace process. Member states also voted to permit aircraft carrying Libyan leader Col. Muammar Qaddafi, and flights for religious and humanitarian purposes, to land on their territory.

Sept. 22: In what was seen as a setback to President Slobodan Milosevic, Serbian election results showed no party winning an outright parliamentary majority, with the opposition Radical Party winning 30 percent of the votes, a close second to the 36 percent won by Milosevic's Socialist Party.

*Two Israeli Embassy security guards were shot at in Amman, an attack for which a previously unknown group called the Jordanian Islamic Resistance claimed responsibility.

Sept. 23: Attackers armed with machine guns, firebombs and knives murdered an estimated 200 Algerians in the capital suburb of Baraki.

*Israeli officials said DNA tests had identified at least four of five recent suicide bombers as Palestinians from the West Bank village of Assira Shamaliya, under joint Israeli-Palestinian control.

*National Security Adviser Samuel R. (Sandy) Berger said the U.S. and its NATO allies must be prepared for an extended stay in Bosnia beyond the scheduled June 1998 pullout date.

Sept. 24: Vowing that the Jewish presence in the occupied West Bank would grow, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu promised to build 300 new homes for Jewish settlers.

*The leader of Algeria's Islamic Salvation Army called for his troops to "stop operations" on Oct. 1.

*Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic and Momcilo Krajisnik, the Serb member of Bosnia's joint presidency and a top aide to former leader Radovan Karadzic, agreed to a plan for three elections to determine who should rule the Serb portion of Bosnia.

Sept. 25: U.S. Secretary of State Albright criticized the Netanyahu decision to build an additional 300 Jewish housing units in the West Bank settlement of Efrat.

*The U.S. and France agreed to discuss possible joint measures to help alleviate the situation in Algeria.

*Turkish warplanes bombed rebel Kurd positions in Iraqi territory.

Sept. 26: In a botched operation which would not become public knowledge for another week, Israeli Mossad agents attempted to assassinate Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal in the Jordanian capital of Amman, but were caught by Meshal's bodyguard and a Jordanian security officer.

*Rejecting U.S. criticism, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said he would continue building in Jewish West Bank settlements.

Sept. 27: The CIA said it had evidence that Egyptian agents had abducted exiled Libyan dissident Mansour Kikhia from a 1993 human rights conference in Cairo and turned him over to the Libyan government, which executed him.

*Algeria's Islamic Salvation Front urged all opposition groups to observe a truce called for Oct. 1.

Sept. 29: Iraqi air force planes chased Iranian warplanes that had attacked opposition Mojahedin Khalq (People's Mojahedin) bases in southern Iraq.

*After meeting with Secretary of State Albright in New York, Palestinian and Israeli negotiators agreed to resume low-level talks in two weeks on such already-decided issues as the release of Palestinian prisoners, Israeli redeployment from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the opening of an airport and seaport in Gaza.

*The French government warned that it would support a $2 billion oil deal between Iran and a consortium of companies led by France's Total regardless of U.S. legislation prohibiting such investments in Iran.

Sept. 30: The U.S. warned Iran against further air strikes on opposition bases in southern Iraq.