resolution 242

'Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict' Res. 242

for a discussion

"Emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in security."

Since World War II, Article 2 of the Charter of the United Nations requires all members to "refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations."

 'However, the Foreign Minister of the Palestinian Authority, Nabil Shaath, said: "Whether a state is announced now or after liberation, its borders must be those of 4 June 1967. We will not accept a state without borders or with borders based on UN Resolution 242, which we believe is no longer suitable. On the contrary, Resolution 242 has come to be used by Israel as a way to procrastinate."

The UN resolution does not specifically mention the Palestinians.

' The resolution also calls for the implementation of the "land for peace" formula, calling for Israeli withdrawal from "territories" it had occupied in 1967 in exchange for peace with its neighbors.^[22] This was an important advance at the time, considering that there were no peace treaties between any Arab state and Israel until the Egypt–Israel peace treaty of 1979. "Land for peace" served as the basis of the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty, in which Israel withdrew from the Sinai peninsula (Egypt withdrew its claims to the Gaza Strip in favor of the Palestine Liberation Organization). Jordan renounced its claims regarding the West Bank in favor of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and has signed the Israel–Jordan peace treaty in 1994, that established the Jordan River as the boundary of Jordan'

 

Supporters of the "Palestinian viewpoint" focus on the phrase in the resolution's preamble emphasizing the "inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war", and note that the French version called for withdrawal from "des territoires occupés" – "the territories occupied". The French UN delegation insisted on this interpretation at the time, but both English and French are the Secretariat's working languages.

Supporters of the "Israeli viewpoint" note that the second part of that same sentence in the preamble explicitly recognizes the need of existing states to live in security. They focus on the operative phrase calling for "secure and recognized boundaries" and note that the resolution calls for a withdrawal "from territories" rather than "from the territories" or "from all territories," as the Arabs and others proposed; the latter two terms were rejected from the final draft of Resolution 242

this is why I got so mad.

 The day after Resolution 242 was adopted, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) rejected it as "fundamentally and gravely inconsistent with the Arab character of Palestine, the essence of the Palestine cause and the right of the Palestinian people to their homeland." and "disappoints the hopes of the Arab nation and ignores its national aspirations [... and] ignores the existence of the Palestinian people and their right of self-determination."

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'When the fighting stopped in June of 1967, the action moved to the United Nations. The Soviet Union, then the superpower-of-choice for Egypt and Syria, pushed for a resolution demanding Israel's withdrawal to its prewar boundaries. Israel wanted recognition of its existence and security guarantees. It found the United States more willing than ever to use its Security Council veto power on Israel's behalf. This was one of the benefits to Israel of the just-blossoming "special relationship." The Security Council argued throughout the summer and fall of 1967 before agreeing on Resolution 242 in November.

Resolution 242 was sponsored by Britain. It passed because it tied the main thing the Soviets and Arabs wanted--Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories--to the main thing Israel and the United States sought--recognition of Israel by its neighbors.

In its key sections, the resolution calls for:

"Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in recent conflict."

"Termination of all ... states of belligerency and ... acknowledgment of the sovereignty ... of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries."

"A just settlement of the refugee problem."

So what's the hang-up? If all the requirements of Resolution 242 were fulfilled, the Arab-Israeli conflict would be settled. Yet a quarter of a century after it was adopted, Resolution 242 has turned out to be a road map to limbo. Israel still occupies several of the territories it captured in 1967; no Arab state except Egypt has recognized Israel's sovereignty nor formally ended the state of war with Israel; and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians still inhabit squalid refugee camps.

The hang-up, as you can also see, is that the language of the resolution is vague enough for each of the parties to see what it wants to see and interpret the rest out of existence.

The United States, for example, sees Resolution 242 as the embodiment of the principle of land for peace, which has been the core of U.S. policy on the Arab-Israeli conflict since 1967. But the United States has not specified what land Israel should give up, what peace guarantees the Arab states should provide, nor what would constitute a "just settlement" for the Palestinians.

For ten years after the 1967 war, Egypt, Jordan and Syria interpreted Resolution 242 in unison. It meant that Israel had to give back all of the territory captured in the war. Until Israel did so, the Arab League agreed, it would have no peace, no recognition and no negotiations. One of the shortcomings of the resolutions is that it doesn't say what should come first, Israeli withdrawal or Arab recognition of Israel (and it never mentions Palestine by name ergo it was designed to remain unfulfilled) . Each side insisted that the other make the first concession.' Frontline

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