Paragould Daily Press · 13 September 1982
CP-1982-061
Reagan reuses ideas from old Allon plan
Paul Greenberg
Transcribed from the clipping
Has Ronald Reagan joined Israel's Labor Party? His current peace proposal for the Middle East bears a striking similarity to the one that Israel put forth in 1967 just after the Six Day War, when Labor was in power and the talk in Jerusalem was about trading land for peace and defensible borders. Reagan's new plan is neither new nor a plan.
It's a loose collection of old ideas. The president would have Israel trade Gaza and much of the West Bank for peace with Jordan, which would have to grant the Arabs there local self-rule. Reagan would also widen Israel's borders to assure her security.
About the only difference between the map he draws and the old Allon Plan, named for a late Israeli foreign minister, is that it doesn't include a small strip of fortified Israeli settlements along the Jordan River. That buffer would separate the West Bank from Jordan or, more exactly, Trans-Jordan.
But Reagan left the door open even for that possibility when he spoke of negotiating final borders. The president did not make it clear in his speech that this new semistate would be demilitarized, but perhaps that is understood. If so, this assemblage of vague suggestions could be the Allon Plan translated into laid-back Californian.
The reception accorded the president's sketchy proposal indicates how much has changed since 1967, and how much has not. Israel's kneejerk critics who denounced Golda Meir and her colleagues as “intransigent” when they put forth the Allon Plan now can be expected to describe it as quite reasonable when presented by an American president.
While the Israeli leaders — a whole different crew from those of a decade ago — now have turned down the president's proposals just as they did the Allon Plan when they were in the opposition.
Cite this clipping
"Reagan reuses ideas from old Allon plan," Paragould Daily Press, 13 September 1982. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1982-061. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1982-061
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- All 527 clippings from the 1980s →
Last updated 2 November 2026
This record is part of Covering Palestine, an archive of American newspaper clippings about Palestinians, 1724 to 2023. Researched and assembled by Maria Robles.
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