President Carter inherited a foreign policy ‘stalemated on the level of power, and excessively cynical on the level of principles’. Spurred by his proclaimed commitment to human rights, he saw no reasonable hope for a settlement of the Middle Eastern question without a homeland for the Palestinians. In frequent speeches he stressed that the type of settlement he envisaged would require an Israeli withdrawal to approximately the pre-1967 borderlines and the setting up of a Palestinian entity. Thus, at Aswan in Egypt, he declared on 4 January 1978 to the whole people of the Middle East,

The Geneva conference: some working papers

Carter's first initiative was to replace Kissinger's previous step-by-step approach with a comprehensive one. It involved a multilateral peace effort with all the leading protagonists, including the Soviet Union, taking part, in order to deal collectively with the full range of issues on the basis of the implementation of Security Council Resolution 242 as a single package. The venue envisaged was Geneva, where the previous attempt at peace-making had been stalled by Kissinger. Leading up to this the US produced three statements. The major one issued in conjunction with the Soviet Union, which had co-chaired the previous Geneva Conference, was published on 1 October 1977.