The
London Agreement between King Hussein of
JordanJordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in Western Asia spanning the southern part of the Syrian Desert down to the Gulf of Aqaba. Jordan shares borders with Syria to the north, Iraq to the northeast, Saudi Arabia to the east and south, the Gulf of Aqaba to the southwest,...
and
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
i
Foreign Affairs MinisterThe Foreign Affairs Minister of Israel is the political head of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The position is one of the most important in the Israeli cabinet after Prime Minister and Defense Minister...
Shimon Peres' is the ninth and current President of the State of Israel. Peres served twice as Prime Minister of Israel and once as Interim Prime Minister, and has been a member of 12 cabinets in a political career spanning over 66 years...
, was signed during a secret meeting held at the residence of Lord Mishcon in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
on April 11, 1987. Also present in the meeting were Jordanian Prime Minister
Zaid al-RifaiZaid al-Rifai served as Prime Minister of Jordan twice and . His father, Sameer al-Rifai was also an important Jordanian politician and served as prime minister....
and Director Generel of the Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry,
Yossi BeilinDr. Yosef "Yossi" Beilin is a left-wing Israeli politician and a former Knesset member, Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister and Justice Minister, representing both the Labor Party and Meretz-Yachad, of which he served as chairman between 2003 and 2006...
.
The agreement outlines the framework for an international peace conference hosted by the
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
, and whose purpose is “the peaceful solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict based on resolutions
242United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 was adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council on November 22, 1967, in the aftermath of the Six Day War. It was adopted under Chapter VIof the United Nations Charter...
and
338The three-line United Nations Security Council Resolution 338 , approved on October 22, 1973, called for a ceasefire in the Yom Kippur War in accordance with a joint proposal by the United States and the Soviet Union...
and a peaceful solution of the Palestinian problem in all its aspects”.
The
London Agreement between King Hussein of
JordanJordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in Western Asia spanning the southern part of the Syrian Desert down to the Gulf of Aqaba. Jordan shares borders with Syria to the north, Iraq to the northeast, Saudi Arabia to the east and south, the Gulf of Aqaba to the southwest,...
and
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
i
Foreign Affairs MinisterThe Foreign Affairs Minister of Israel is the political head of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The position is one of the most important in the Israeli cabinet after Prime Minister and Defense Minister...
Shimon Peres' is the ninth and current President of the State of Israel. Peres served twice as Prime Minister of Israel and once as Interim Prime Minister, and has been a member of 12 cabinets in a political career spanning over 66 years...
, was signed during a secret meeting held at the residence of Lord Mishcon in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
on April 11, 1987. Also present in the meeting were Jordanian Prime Minister
Zaid al-RifaiZaid al-Rifai served as Prime Minister of Jordan twice and . His father, Sameer al-Rifai was also an important Jordanian politician and served as prime minister....
and Director Generel of the Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry,
Yossi BeilinDr. Yosef "Yossi" Beilin is a left-wing Israeli politician and a former Knesset member, Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister and Justice Minister, representing both the Labor Party and Meretz-Yachad, of which he served as chairman between 2003 and 2006...
.
The agreement outlines the framework for an international peace conference hosted by the
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
, and whose purpose is “the peaceful solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict based on resolutions
242United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 was adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council on November 22, 1967, in the aftermath of the Six Day War. It was adopted under Chapter VIof the United Nations Charter...
and
338The three-line United Nations Security Council Resolution 338 , approved on October 22, 1973, called for a ceasefire in the Yom Kippur War in accordance with a joint proposal by the United States and the Soviet Union...
and a peaceful solution of the Palestinian problem in all its aspects”. The agreement also stipulates that the conference would not impose a solution on the parties, and that the Palestinians would be represented by the Jordanian delegation. Its requirements that all parties accept UN resolutions 242 and 338 as well as renounce violence and terrorism effectively excluded PLO participation. The signatories agreed that their plan would be presented to US Secretary of State George Shultz for its promotion as an American initiative.
Peres, serving as the Foreign Affairs Minister on behalf of the Labor Party in the Israeli National Unity Government, left for the meeting with the consent of Prime Minister
Yitzhak Shamir' was Prime Minister of Israel from 1983 to 1984 and again from 1986 to 1992.-Biography:Yitzhak Shamir was born in Ruzhany , Russia later Poland. He studied at a Hebrew High School in Białystok, Poland. As a youth he joined Betar, the Revisionist Zionist youth movement...
of the
LikudLikud is the major center-right political party in Israel. It was founded in 1973 by Menachem Begin in an alliance with several right-wing and liberal parties. Likud's victory in the 1977 elections was a major turning point in the country's political history, marking the first time the left had...
. He was hoping the meeting would lead to a breakthrough allowing the promotion of the ‘Jordanian Option’, namely the resolution of the Palestinian issue through Jordanian sovereignty over the
West BankThe West Bank is a landlocked territory and is the eastern part of the Palestinian territories; on the west bank of the River Jordan in the Middle East. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel, which maintains the security of this area. To the east,...
. Shamir, however, was unenthusiastic about the ‘Jordanian Option’, and feared that an international conference would force an undesirable solution on Israel. Peres informed him of the agreement on his return to Israel, however refused to provide Shamir with a copy and continued to promote it independently. Mistrust between both leaders as well as ideological differences led to Shamir’s rejection of the agreement, and subsequently to Peres’s failure to approve it in the Israeli Cabinet in May. Concomitantly, Shamir sent
Moshe ArensMoshe Arens is an Israeli aeronautical engineer, researcher and former diplomat and politician. He was a member of the Likud party, and served as Minister of Defense three times and once as Foreign Minister. Arens has also served as the Israeli ambassador to the U.S...
to meet with Shultz and block the peace conference.
Hussein was bitterly disappointed by Peres’s inability to realize the agreement, and consequently disengaged from any further initiative to promote a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Following the breaking out of the
First IntifadaThe First Intifada was a Palestinian Uprising against Israeli rule in the Palestinian Territories. The uprising began in the Jabalia refugee camp and quickly spread throughout Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem....
in December 1987, the ‘Jordanian Option’ became effectively irrelevant, and in July 1988 Hussein announced that Jordan relinquishes any sovereignty over the
West BankThe West Bank is a landlocked territory and is the eastern part of the Palestinian territories; on the west bank of the River Jordan in the Middle East. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel, which maintains the security of this area. To the east,...
. An international peace conference between Israel and the Arab countries was eventually held in
MadridMadrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. It is the third-most populous municipality in the European Union after Greater London and Berlin, and its metropolitan area is the third-most populous city by urban area in the European Union after Paris and London.The city is located on the river...
in October 1991, adhering to a framework similar to that agreed by Peres and Hussein in 1987.