Watch Out! Autonomy

Translation / Interpretation / Caption Text / Source

Hebrew translation:

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Watch out!

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Autonomy*

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*A temporary name for Palestinian State

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Published by: Jewish Settlement Council in Judea, Samaria and Gaza; Jordan Valley Settlements; Judea Settlements; Benjamin Settlements; Judea Desert Settlements; Gush Etzion Settlements; Kiryat Arba'; Gaza Strip Settlements

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The question of Palestinian autonomy

This stunning event led Shamir to form another national unity government, with Rabin again as defense minister and Peres as finance minister. Rabin was convinced that Israel needed a political initiative to end the intifada and deflect the PLO. He persuaded Shamir to revive the Camp David-era autonomy plan, but this time it was stripped of its Jordanian component and aimed specifically at the Palestinians. Israel was also facing a new U.S. administration, led by Pres. George H.W. Bush, that was determined to restrict Israeli settlement expansion. Efforts by the United States to create an Israeli-Palestinian negotiation on autonomy, however, were rejected by Shamir, who insisted that the Palestinian negotiating team be drawn exclusively from residents of Gaza and the West Bank and not from Jerusalem or the PLO. Peres thereupon resigned from the unity government, only to be outmaneuvered by Shamir, who formed a Likud-dominated coalition that excluded Labour. The prime minister decided to ride out the intifada while concentrating on a sudden breakthrough with the Soviet Union: as part of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms, a massive number of Soviet Jews were allowed to emigrate to Israel, the exodus continuing after the Russian Federation was created in the early 1990s. Included among the hundreds of thousands of new arrivals were many highly trained doctors, engineers, and scientists.