2025-08-01 18:40 <br/> Tags: #USGov ![[THE MATRIX/Images/images 2/image-3.png|265x349]] *US Secretary of State William Rogers August 10, 1970 cover of Time Magazine.* # Rogers Plan - The Rogers Plan was a plan put forward by US Secretary of State William P. Rogers first in 1969 then revised in 1970. - The plan was meant to solve the ongoing war of attrition following Israel's offensive [[1967 Six Day War]]. - After the war a formal peace was never agreed to, and a war of attrition primarily between Israel and Egypt at the Suez Canal ensued. The war of attrition took the form of artillery being launched over the Suez Canal back and forth. - Rogers' first proposal announced on December 9, 1969 followed the common wisdom of the time in the form of "land for peace." - This meant that Israel would relinquish the Sinai peninsula back to Egypt and gain access to the Suez, the Straits of Tiran, and the Gulf of Aqaba. ![[image 4.png|330x378]] *Red = Suez | Green = Straits of Tiran | Yellow = Gulf of Aqaba* #### Reaction - The plan was rejected by the Israelis and American Jewry one day after it was proposed. They cited 'right to self defense.' They were also opposed on the grounds that the plan rewarded Arab aggression. *This is in line with constant Jewish victimhood. They prosecute a war of offense and blame the aggression on the other side.* - [[AIPAC]], the main arm of the Israel lobby which works to directly influence the US government, launched a rapid opposition campaign. - AIPAC organized 1,400 Jewish leaders from around the country descending on DC to lobby against the plan. - They were effective in lobbying over half of Congress to oppose the plan. - The success of AIPAC's efforts was viewed as a great victory by the American Jewish lobby. Large scale aggressive lobbying became a fixture of Jewish tactics after the Rogers Plan success. - Nixon's National Security Advisor [[Henry Kissinger]], an immigrant Jew himself, colluded with the Israelis behind Secretary Rogers back. Kissinger used a backchannel to the Israeli embassy to collude with Israeli US ambassador [[Yitzhak Rabin]] and PM [[Golda Meir]]. - [[Max Fisher]], a prominent Jewish leader who led the [[United Jewish Appeal (UJA)]] from 1965-67 and was a member of the exclusive [[Mega Group]], personally lobbied Nixon against the plan. - [[Conference of Presidents]] chairman rabbi [[Herschel Schacter]] was involved in direct hardliner lobbying of President Nixon. - Nixon caved under the Jewish pressure which he described as "enormous influence of the Jewish lobby." - Immediately after the plan was revealed the Israeli cabinet convened to organize its opposition. - Israel's Ambassador to the United States [[Yitzhak Rabin]] was called back to Israel for the occasion. - Israeli Prime Minister [[Golda Meir]] spent 1970 traveling the US speaking to the Jewish network in opposition to the plan. Meir had an edge for an Israeli PM *(in the same way Netanyahu does)* as she spent her youth in the United States and spoke fluent English without an accent. - Throughout 1970 Israel displayed how little it thought of the Rogers Plan and how little it cared about US input by increasing its military action against the Egyptians at the Suez. - The Arab countries all rejected the plan. They (Egypt, Jordan, Syria) had agreed to work as a unified bloc. For this reason Egypt rejected the plan as it was a solo agreement only dealing with Egypt's issues and not those of Jordan, Syria, or the Palestinians in the form of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). #### Rogers Plan Two - In June 1970, Rogers' announced a ceasefire plan which involved no territorial concessions and only dictated that no additional military action be taken by either side within 50 kilometers of the ceasefire line. - Both sides agreed to the ceasefire and it went into effect in August 1970. - The hardliners in Israel opposed even a basic ceasefire plan. - These hardliners took the form of [[Menachem Begin]]'s [[Gahal]] party. Gahal resigned from the Israeli government in protest to the agreement. #### References - Richard M. Nixon, _Memorandum from the President to the Secretary of State (Rogers)_, May 26, 1971, in _Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XXIII, Arab-Israeli Dispute, 1969–1972_, Document 233 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004), accessed August 1, 2025, Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. - Kathleen Christison, _Perceptions of Palestine: Their Influence on U.S. Middle East Policy_ (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 221. [https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=kt5t1nc6tp](https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=kt5t1nc6tp). - Yehuda U. Blanga, _The U.S., Israel, and Egypt: Diplomacy in the Shadow of Attrition, 1969–70_ (London: Routledge, 2020). - _Israel Rejects the Rogers Plan (December 1969)._ Jewish Virtual Library. Accessed August 1, 2025. - “Sisco Offers Defense of Rogers Plan,” _Jewish Telegraphic Agency_, October 11, 1972. - “Rogers Plan.” _Wikipedia_. Last modified July 25, 2025. Accessed August 1, 2025. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Plan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Plan).