Resolution 242 (land for peace) and British security interests: Setting the
record straight
By Eran Benedek, 2nd September 2007 The Henry Jackson Society
http://zope06.v.servelocity.net/hjs/sections/middleeast/resolution_242
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
The Middle East's geopolitical destiny is uncertain, with the Arab-Israeli
conflict being but one of many factors that will determine this.
June 2007 marked the 40th anniversary of the Six-Day War, and November 2007
will commemorate 40 years since the adoption of United Nations (UN) Security
Council Resolution 242.
Confusion remains over the proper interpretation of Resolution 242. The
resolution's primary components are often misunderstood or distorted. For
example, many assume that Resolutions 242 and 338 call for a full Israeli
withdrawal to the pre-Six-Day War lines (the lines of June 4, 1967) and
establish the principle of land-for-peace to resolve the Arab-Israeli
conflict. Both assumptions are incorrect.
The essence of Resolution 242 is that Israel is allowed to remain in the
territories it captured in 1967 until such a time as "a just and lasting
peace in the Middle East" is achieved. The authors of the resolution
emphasised time and again that Israel was not required to retreat to the
pre-war lines.
For these and other reasons, the Saudi Initiative/Arab Peace Plan twists the
intent and meaning of Resolution 242: it demands a full Israeli withdrawal
and implies that Arab refugees could settle anywhere west of the Jordan
River. It is also unclear how this plan serves British interests, given that
its full implementation would weaken Israel and thus jeopardise stability in
the eastern Mediterranean.
The geopolitical destiny of the Greater Middle East remains an open
question, owing to multiple players and factors, only one of which is the
Arab-Israeli conflict.
The Middle East lies on the borders of the EU and always faces the
possibility of inter-Arab wars which run the risk of spilling over to affect
Europe. This reality is mitigated by Israel's presence. Recently the
official British position has been that any negotiated settlement "should
also build on Crown Prince Abdullah's initiative."[1] It is unclear how this
plan serves British interests, for it would undermine any stability in the
eastern Mediterranean. It is essential to comprehend how the Saudi
initiative came into existence as this would contribute to the preservation
of British national security interests.
June 2007 marked the 40th anniversary of the Six-Day War of June 1967, but
November 2007 also marks another important anniversary: the adoption of
United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 242 on November 22, 1967.
Observers of Middle East affairs are aware of the central role played by
Resolutions 242 and 338. Yet, much confusion reigns regarding the proper
legal and political interpretation of these documents.
Conventional wisdom assumes, for example, that Resolutions 242/338
established a land-for-peace formula for conflict resolution and required
Israel to fully withdraw to the pre-Six-Day War lines. The reality, however,
is more complex. Resolution 242 defines guidelines to arrive at the desired
goal: a peaceful environment in the Middle East. Resolution 338 describes
the vehicle necessary to arrive at this goal: negotiations between the
parties.[2]
The potential future borders of Israel and its relations with the Arab
states are intimately bound within these documents, but the territorial
provisions they defined are misunderstood or misrepresented. Furthermore,
the details on this subject should not be dismissed out of hand as mere
legalism; they are part and parcel of a subject that receives considerable
media attention.
The essence of Resolution 242
As is well known, in the course of the 1967 war, Israel captured the Gaza
Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank of the Jordan River, the Jordan
Rift Valley, the Golan Heights and east Jerusalem. By early to mid-June, the
UN adopted ceasefire resolutions that specifically omitted provisions for
military withdrawal of Israeli forces; unlike the Soviet Union, the majority
of the Security Council's members recognised that Israel was not the
aggressor and that a return to the status quo ante was a recipe for
permanent unrest rather than lasting peace.[3] The emergency special session
of General Assembly also rejected a similar Soviet resolution. Some months
later, in September 1967, the Security Council began debating the content of
a resolution that would produce peaceful relations in the region.
The language of Resolution 242 was painstakingly drafted and carefully
worded by its British sponsor and author (Lord Caradon) and its American
co-authors (UN Ambassador Arthur Goldberg and Undersecretary of State for
political affairs Eugene Rostow). The resolution was the product of long and
exhaustive debate in the UN. In its own language, Resolution 242 applies to
"every State in the area" of the Middle East; it is thus a fundamental
component of regional geopolitics and should not be reduced to being a
"pro-Israel" or "pro-Arab" document.
Furthermore, because Resolution 242 applied to existing Mideast states, it
does not refer in name to the Arab Palestinians living west of the Jordan
River.[4] At the time, the Arab refugees were not referred to as the
Palestinians as historically, both Jewish and Arab residents of the British
Mandate of Palestine were called Palestinians, and Mandatory Palestine
encompassed both banks of the Jordan River. That is, Palestine comprised
both Western Palestine (Cisjordan) and Eastern Palestine (Transjordan) until
1946 when the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan gained independence.
The crux of Resolution 242 - and this is often overlooked - is that Israel
is allowed to remain in the territories it captured in 1967 until "the
establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East."[5] It
declares that Israel and the Arab states should make peace with each other
and, once these condition are met, Israel could withdraw from some but not
necessarily all of the areas to "secure and recognized boundaries." Some of
the territorial provisions were left vague in order for the parties
themselves to agree to the terms of future peace agreements; the resolution
calls for an "agreement" and hence rejects an imposed peace.[6]
Additionally, no demand exists on Israel to withdraw from all the land
captured in 1967 and return to the pre-Six-Day War lines (the lines of June
4, 1967).[7] Indeed, the authors of the resolution fully recognised that
Israel needed to establish defensible borders because the pre-war lines were
indefensible and invited attack.
Most famously, Resolution 242 explicitly calls for the "withdrawal of
Israeli armed forces from territories occupied" during the war -
specifically not from "the territories" or "all the territories." The
omission of the definitive article "the" in front of "territories" in the
binding English version of the resolution is of the highest significance; it
should not be derided as mere wordplay or legal acrobatics. Some five and a
half months of debate and diplomacy over the resolution's wording produced
several draft resolutions: Israel must "withdraw immediately all its forces
to the positions they held prior to 5 June 1967" (Non-Aligned version);
Israel must "withdraw all its forces from all the territories occupied"
(Latin American version); "Israel's forces should withdraw from all the
territories occupied" (India, Mali and Nigeria's version ); and "The parties
to the conflict should immediately withdraw their forces to the positions
they held before 5 June 1967" (Soviet Union's version). [8]
All of these were defeated in the General Assembly and Security Council, and
the British version was unanimously adopted on November 22. This is decisive
proof that the omission of the definite article is of the highest
significance. Israel has never been expected to retreat to the pre-Six-Day
War lines, even though the Soviet Union continuously sought such language
and the Arab states then and now insist on this as a precondition for
diplomatic resolutions. Furthermore, the debate over which version of
Resolution 242 is binding - the English or French version (which uses a
definitive article - "des territories") - is less complex than usually
thought. In the UN, the binding version of any resolution is the one that is
submitted to the voting body. In the case of Resolution 242, the English
version takes precedence over the French version. [9]
Land for peace vs. No withdrawal without peace
Resolution 242 links withdrawal (of Israeli military presence from
territories it captured in that war) to the attainment of peace (between
Israel and the Arab states) within "secure and recognized boundaries." This
is often seen as the basis of the land-for-peace formula. This principle,
however, is inaccurate. Eugene Rostow carefully explained that Resolution
242 ".requires no withdrawal without peace-a rule often wrongly described as
'trading land for peace.' Actually, it is quite different. It prescribes
that there should be no withdrawal until peace is made; then there can be a
complete withdrawal, a partial one, or none, depending on what the parties
decide." [10]
What does this mean exactly? Resolution 242 defined three principles
regarding the territorial component of the peacemaking process: [11]
Israel is allowed to administer the territories it captured in the course of
the Six-Day War until the Arab states make peace (i.e., until "the
establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East").
Peace agreements reached between Israel and the Arab states should demarcate
"secure and recognized boundaries" and set out the area to which Israel
could withdraw. At this point, the Israeli military should withdraw "from
territories" occupied in the 1967 war-again, not from "all the territories"
or from "the territories."
Israel's future boundaries would necessarily be different from the 1949
armistice lines and the lines of June 4, 1967, which are essentially the
same.
The ramifications of these principles are crucial. The territorial
requirements of the resolution are to be settled through an agreement among
the parties.[12] In other words, the responsibility to resolve the disputes
over land depends on the parties achieving peace agreements through
negotiations. No expectation exists on Israel to make unilateral withdrawals
(though it could if it wishes, as was done in the disengagement from the
Gaza Strip and 300 square miles of the northern West Bank in
August-September 2005), nor can the Arab states demand land concessions
without first achieving peace agreements.[13] The 1979 Israel-Egypt peace
treaty satisfied the guidelines of Resolution 242 when Israel relinquished
control of the Sinai Peninsula (which constituted 91 percent of the
territory Israel occupied after the 1967 war). These guidelines, however,
would have been equally satisfied had Egypt ceded part of the Sinai to
Israel.[14] Indeed, as part of the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty, Israel
agreed to transfer land in the Arava Valley to Jordan, but "a settlement
between Jordan and Israel would satisfy the guidelines of Resolution 242 if
it provided for the annexation by Israel (or Jordan) of some or all or none
of the territories occupied by Israel in the course of the Six-Day War."
[15]
Two other common misperceptions also warrant re-examination: (1) Israel's
presence in the West Bank is an illegal occupation and (2) the West Bank is
Arab land stolen by Israel. First, Israel is legally allowed to remain in
the areas it captured and to administer them until the parties reach
agreements and negotiate "secure and recognized" borders to which Israel
would agree to withdraw.[16] Nowhere in Resolution 242 does the text state
that the occupation of territory is illegal. Although the resolution remarks
on "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war," this was
placed in the preamble rather than in the operative paragraphs because
preambles are not binding, whereas the operative paragraphs of resolutions
can produce legal responsibilities.[17] Arthur Goldberg, in a 1983 interview
published posthumously, emphasised that the British version, which became
Resolution 242, included
"a troublesome addition, which we had to accept, because they showed it to
the Arabs. It is a preambular statement about recognizing the
inadmissibility of force to settle international disputes. This is not
international law. If so, we ought to give up Texas and New Orleans. The
Russians ought to give up the Kurile Islands and part of Poland, and Poland
ought to give up part of Germany. International law unfortunately recognizes
that to the victor belongs the spoils."[18]
More recently, Yehuda Blum, professor of international law at the Hebrew
University, noted that the "inadmissibility" clause is weaker and that it
was adopted to placate the Latin American countries where the principle of
"victory does not give rights" is coveted due to their regional history.[19]
At any rate, Stephen Schwebel, a former President of the International Court
of Justice in the Hague, argued persuasively that Israel had a strong legal
case in capturing land in the Six-Day War because Egypt and Jordan had
belligerently and unlawfully conquered territory in 1948: the Gaza Strip (by
Egypt) and the West Bank and east Jerusalem (by Jordan). Schwebel wrote
that, "where the prior holder of territory had seized that territory
unlawfully, the state which subsequently takes that territory in the lawful
exercise of self-defense has against the prior holder, better title." [20]
Second, the West Bank is an unallocated part of the British Mandate of
Palestine. No legal sovereign has existed in the West Bank since the Ottoman
Empire-thus creating a situation of "an internationally recognised vacuum of
legal state ownership"-but it was part of the area west of the Jordan River
designated for legal Jewish settlement (a right that has not been
terminated). [21] Rostow also underlined that the land is not Arab
territory: "The public debate about the future of the West Bank and the Gaza
Strip is confused by the common assumption that those areas are somehow
'Arab' territories. This is not the case." [22]
Legal claims vs. Policy wisdom
Such claims are completely separate from the policy question of who should
ultimately control these areas; they are also separate from the policy
wisdom of pursuing land-for-peace, which has traditionally meant the loosing
aggressor ceding territory to the victorious defender, but which has been
reversed in the Arab-Israeli context. The historical record shows that, in
the interest of achieving peaceful relations, Israel has demonstrated a
willingness to dismantle settlements and undertake territorial concessions.
The trouble is that Resolution 242 is routinely invoked to mean full Israeli
withdrawal to the pre-Six-Day War lines or the 1949 armistice lines (which
are not international boundaries and which, at the time, the Arabs states
insisted were not meant to be permanent borders) and the pursuit of a
two-state, two-sovereignty solution. Again, this may or may not be a
desirable policy, but neither of these propositions was in any way a part of
the original intent of the resolution.
In this sense, the Saudi Initiative/Arab Peace Plan of 2002-which was
renewed in 2007-flips Resolutions 242/338 on their head. It predicates the
establishment of relations only after Israel withdraws fully to the
pre-Six-Day War lines and leaves room open to several million Arab refugees
to settle in any part of Israel, thereby ending the Jewish State. In any
event, this plan is more of a diktat than an offer of peace, as evidenced by
Prince Saud al-Faisal's warning that, "If Israel refuses, that means it
doesn't want peace and it places everything back into the hands of fate.[and
in] the hands of the lords of war." [23] Despite this grim proposition, the
official British position maintains its stance that any negotiated
settlement "should also build on Crown Prince Abdullah's initiative."[24] As
mentioned above, it is unclear how this plan serves British interests, for
it would undermine any stability in the eastern Mediterranean.
Additionally, President George W. Bush stated on July 16th that
"re-launching the Arab League initiative was a welcome first step," [25]
noting that the Arab countries need to go further and improve on this, but
he also floated the idea of an international meeting or peace conference
later this year. His administration's proposed arms deal with Egypt, Saudi
Arabia and the Gulf States, along with an increased military aid package for
Israel, has been framed as a means to "help bolster forces of moderation and
support a broader strategy to counter the negative influences of al-Qaeda,
Hizballah, Syria, and Iran." [26] The rationale, then, is for the United
States to build a coalition of countries to impede Iran. The trouble is that
international conferences are often a euphemism for greater Israeli
concessions of land in exchange for promises of peace-promises that may not
be delivered or that may disguise belligerent objectives. If the United
States and its allies desire a strong counterweight to Iran and its allies,
implementing the Arab Peace Plan seems counterproductive and more in-line
with Iranian interests, never mind those of the ostensibly moderate Arab
countries. Because this plan calls for a full Israeli withdrawal and more,
full implementation would render Israel's borders both insecure and
indefensible, contrary to the letter and spirit of Resolution 242. And, as
experts of international relations are well aware, weakness invites attack.
The old observation that a society's treatment of its Jewish population is a
measure of that society's decency and potential longevity hovers between
being a cliché and a truism. In the Mideast context, this observation
signals yet another open question intimately bound with the region's
geopolitical destiny: when will the Arab and Muslim societies genuinely
recognise and accept the small Jewish state that inhabits some 0.002 percent
of the Arab countries?
---------------
Eran Benedek is a London-based analyst. He has worked as a researcher at The
Washington Institute for Near East Policy and at the Britain Israel
Communications and Research Centre. This article is written in a personal
capacity.
Notes
[1] Foreign and Commonwealth Office, "Middle East Peace Process - Plans for
Resolution of the Conflict":
www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/Preview&c=Page&cid=
1076522473455#Geneva%20Initiative
[2] Resolution 338 was adopted after the 1973 October (Yom Kippur) War and
reaffirmed 242.
[3] Arthur Goldberg, "U.N. Resolution 242: Origin, Meaning, and
Significance," originally published in American Foreign Policy Interests in
1988 and republished in April 2002 by the National Committee on American
Foreign Policy: www.ncafp.org/projects/middle_east/un_res242.pdf .
[4] Meir Rosenne, "The Legal Perspective: Understanding UN Security Council
Resolution 242 of November 22, 1967, on the Middle East," Defensible Borders
for a Lasting Peace, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2005: pp. 41-50.
[5] Eugene Rostow, "A False Start in the Middle East," Commentary, October
1989: p. 24.
[6] Goldberg, April 2002.
[7] The lines of June 4, 1967 are often referred to as 'Pre-67 lines' or the
'1967 Borders,' which are essentially the same as the 1949 armistice lines
(a.k.a., the Green Line).
[8]UNSC 242: The Building Block of Peacemaking, The Washington Institute for
Near East Policy, 1993: pp. 71-80.
[9] Meir Rosenne, 2005. Shabbtei Rosenne, "On Multi-Lingual Interpretation,"
Israel Law Review, vol. 6, no. 3, 1971. Goldberg, April 2002. For details on
the Soviet Union's efforts, see Dore Gold, Tower of Babble: How the United
Nations Has Fueled Global Chaos, New York: Three Rivers Press, 2005: pp.
99-107.
[10] Eugene Rostow, "Don't Strong-Arm Israel," New York Times, March 19,
1991.
[11] This list is adapted from Eugene Rostow, "Peace still depends on the
two Palestines," Wall Street Journal (Eastern edition), April 27, 1988.
[12] Goldberg, April 2002.
[13] Meir Rosenne, 2005.
[14] Rostow, April 27, 1988.
[15] Rostow, April 27, 1988.
[16] Rostow, October 1989.
[17] Meir Rosenne, 2005.
[18] Transcript, Arthur J. Goldberg Oral History Interview I, 3/23/83, by
Ted Gittinger, Internet Copy, LBJ Library. Online:
www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/oralhistory.hom/GoldbergA/goldberg.asp
. See pp. 17-18.
[19] "40 Years since Resolution 242 of the United Nations Security Council,"
Conference of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and the Konrad
Adenauer Stiftung, June 4, 2007. Speech by Yehuda Blum:
http://media-line.co.il/Events/Jcpa/242%5FConference/Default.aspx . Goldberg
corroborates this view in his interview. He said that the original American
draft resolution was rescinded because the Argentine president was reluctant
to approve it, and that the British version is essentially the same "with a
few additions," primarily the clause on the "inadmissibility of the
acquisition of territory by war."
[20] Stephen Schwebel, "What Weight to Conquest?" The American Journal of
International Law, vol 64, no 2, April 1970: p. 346.
[21] Dan Diker, "A Return to Defensible Borders," Azure, Summer 2005: p. 57.
[22] Rostow, April 27, 1988. Rostow, March 19, 1991, explained: "Beyond
security, there is the moral claim established by law. Israel has a stronger
claim to the West Bank than any other nation or would-be nation because,
under the League of Nations Mandate, Israel has the same legal right to
settle the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem that it has to settle
Haifa or West Jerusalem."
[23] David Blair, "Accept peace plan or face war, Israel told," Daily
Telegraph, March 28, 2007.
[24] Foreign and Commonwealth Office, "Middle East Peace Process - Plans for
Resolution of the Conflict":
www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/Preview&c=Page&cid=1076522473455#Geneva%20Initiative
[25] "President Bush Discusses the Middle East," July 16, 2007:
www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070716-7.html
[26] "Assistance Agreements with Gulf States, Israel and Egypt: Statement by
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice," July 30, 2007:
www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2007/89600.htm . The United States has also
agreed to provide training to the security services of Palestinian Authority
(PA) of President Mahmoud Abbas.
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