September 1989, Page 29

Facts For Your Files: A Chronology of US-Mideast Relations

Compiled by Fred Donovan

July 3: Senior PLO officials revealed that the United States was considering its proposal for participation of prominent Palestinian-Americans in negotiations with Israel over elections in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. The proposal was first made on June 8 during a US-PLO meeting in Tunis.

July 4: Israeli troops arrested 200 Palestinians in a major sweep just before a Likud Party meeting to discuss Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's election plan. The operation, involving the largest number of arrests since the beginning of the intifada, appeared aimed at undercutting Shamir's right-wing rivals by demonstrating the prime minister's determination to stamp out the Palestinian uprising.

July 5: Prime Minister Shamir accepted limitations on his election plan demanded by hard-line Likud Party members. The conditions included a pledge that none of the West Bank and Gaza would be returned to "foreign sovereignty;" Palestinians living in East Jerusalem could not vote; the intifada would have to stop prior to elections; and Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza would continue to be built. These conditions were overwhelmingly approved by a voice vote of the 1,600 member Likud central committee.

July 6: An Arab passenger grabbed the steering wheel to plunge an Israeli passenger bus traveling from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem 400 feet into a ravine, causing 16 deaths. The Arab suspect was reported to have carried out the attack to protest Israel's mistreatment of relatives. The Israeli army demolished his family's home after the attack.

July 7: The Afghan government broke the siege of Jalalabad by the mojahedin rebels and took the initiative with its forces for the first time since Soviet troops withdrew from the country in February.

July 9: PLO Chariman Yasser Arafat said that the PLO could no longer consider supporting the Israeli election plan because the Likud Party conditions were unacceptable. The PLO had been considering conditional approval of the election plan for the West Bank and Gaza, provided it was given a role in the process.

July 10: The leadership of Israel's Labor Coalition passed resolutions calling for it to leave the coalition government with the Likud Bloc, following the Likud decision to attach strict limitations on the Palestinian election proposal. Officials said the Labor Coalition's central committee would be convened in the next few weeks to vote on the resolutions.

July 12: The Israeli government announced that it was preparing to reopen schools in the occupied West Bank, which had been closed for most of the 19 months of the intifada, in a move seen as a concession to the United States. A defense ministry statement said that the schools would be reopened "gradually in the near future."

July 13: Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin touched off a controversy by saying that the Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Shamir, had been engaged in "clear and official negotiations" with the PLO through the United States. Aides to Shamir denied the charge.

July 14: US officials said that the Bush administration would postpone sending a special envoy to Israel to assess the Israeli government's commitment to the election plan for Palestinians and to forestall a collapse of the coalition government.

July 16: US officials said that the US government was sending new mine-clearing equipment, missiles, mortars, artillery shells and other weapons to the Afghan guerrillas in the hope that they could regain momentum in fighting Afghan government troops.

July 17: Afghan rebel sources and Western diplomats confirmed that as many as 30 Afghan rebel military leaders, including many senior field commanders, were ambushed and killed by a rival guerrilla group while returning from a strategy meeting in norther Afghanistan the previous week.

July 20: Artillery exchanges resumed between the Syrian army and Christian militias in Beirut, breaking a cease-fire negotiated by the Arab League and announced on May 11. The renewed fighting dealt a severe blow to the Arab League attempt to construct a peaceful settlement in Lebanon.

July 22: Israel opened West Bank schools for some 200,000 Palestinian students for the first time since January 1988.

In Kabul a rocket hit a crowded bazaar, killing at least 20 persons and wounding about 150. This attack was the latest in a series of increased guerrilla attacks on Kabul.

July 23: The Israeli cabinet ended the government coalition crisis by voting 24-4 to endorse Prime Minister Shamir's plan for Palestinian elections as originally proposed. The Labor Coalition had earlier threatened to leave the government after the Likud Bloc voted to bind its members to conditions for elections which would have made the plan unacceptable to Palestinians.

July 25: Jamil Tarifi, a prominent West Bank Palestinian associated with the PLO, announced that he had met with Prime Minister Shamir the previous week, contradicting denials by Shamir's aides of press reports that the prime minister had been meeting with PLO supporters living in the occupied territories.

July 27: For the first time, the PLO offered a specific list of conditions under which it might allow Israel's plan for elections in the occupied territories to proceed, Israeli government officials said. The list was given to Israeli officials by Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Gennadi Tarasov, who had met with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and a senior member of Israel's Labor Coalition.

July 28: Israeli commandos abducted Sheik Abdel Karim Obeid, a Shi'i spiritual leader of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia in southern Lebanon, and two others, including Obeid's cousin. Israel contended that the raid was aimed at setting up a possible prisoner exchange for three Israeli soldiers being held by Hezbollah.

Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani scored an overwhelming electoral victory over a token opponent to become Iran's new president. Although a leading member of the Khomeini government, the 55-year-old Rafsanjani is expected to be a more pragmatic and less ideological leader than Khomeini.

July 31: Israel's supreme court moved to restrict the army's practice of demolishing Palestinian homes in the occupied territories, saying residents had a right to appeal in court before any action was taken.

The unanimous decision came in response to a petition from a civil rights group and marked the first time since the onset of the intifada that the Israeli high court had issued an order against army security measures.

The Iranian-backed group Hezbollah claimed to have hung US Lt. Col. William Higgins in retaliation for Israel's abduction of Sheik Obeid the previous day. The group distributed a videotape showing a figure identified as Higgins dangling from a noose. CIA officials said Higgins might have been killed or died under torture as early as December 1988.