ABSTRACT
In the period that followed the Camp David agreement in Israel only the Labor Alignment and its supporters promoted the US peace initiatives. With the Oslo talks both Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) recognized that negotiations were a positive-sum if nonsymmetrical game. The George Shultz plan was initiated after the Arabs had begun to pay more attention to the Iran-Iraq war than to their conflict with Israel and after the outbreak of the intifada. The first National Unity government nearly collapsed over the international conference idea. It survived only because Shimon Peres, who did not have the votes to form a new coalition, chose to drop the idea and remain in the government. But the second National Unity government did not survive the debate over Palestinian elections in the territories, Peres and his colleagues deciding they could no longer be partners with Likud.
