By Ted Belman
Nothing should be taken for granted. Neither Resolution 242 nor the proposed “land for peace” trade off.
On June 5th 1967, Israel, under great threat of an imminent attack, had no choice but to defend itself. And defend itself, it did. Six days later Israel found itself in possession of what was left of the British Mandate after Jordan was removed from it.
Israel made two fateful policy decisions;
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1. Rather than annex the lands pursuant to its rights under the British Mandate, Israel offered to return much of the land for peace.
2. Rather than to obliterate the al Aksa Mosque which sits on the Temple Mount, Israel took down the flag of Israel and turned its management over to the Muslim Wakf.
To no avail. The Arabs, meeting three months later at Khartoum, decided on no negotiations, no recognition and no peace.
Israel clearly wanted peace not land and the Arabs wanted land (Israel’s destruction), not peace.
Had Israel decided otherwise on both accounts, history would have been rewritten in Israel’s favour. There may not have been a formal peace but a defacto peace.
Pursuant to Article 33 of Chapter VI of the UN Charter which provided
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1. The parties to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice.
the Security Council deliberated on the terms for ending the dispute and finally in November of ’67 passed Resolution 242. Maurice Ostroff details its meaning here.
It should be remembered that such a Chapter VI resolution is only a recommendation and to become mandatory must be followed by a Chapter VII resolution which never happened.
Obviously the Security Council could have passed anything it wanted, from demanding full retreat to recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the conquered lands.
In the end, it accepted the principal that Israel was to remain in occupation until it had negotiated “secure and recognized borders.” It articulated two principles,
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Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;
Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force;
In other words, land (but not all land) for peace. Considering that the US/Israel alliance had not yet been consummated, this was quite an accomplishment.
For forty years, the Arabs have not been willing to offer peace for land. True, Egypt entered a peace agreement for the return of “every inch” of the Sinai but Israel never received the promised peace.
Even now, pursuant to the Arab Peace Initiative, the Arabs are demanding every inch of land for vague promises of “normalization”. They are further threatening the ostensible peace they are offering by demanding the “right of return”.
There was no need for the peace process beginning with the Madrid Conference, then Oslo Accords, then Mitchell, then Tenent, then Zinni, then the Roadmap, then Rafah Agreement then this, then that.
All that was/is needed is for the Arabs to negotiate peace. Instead, the Arabs choose, intransigence, incitement, terrorism and war. The West responds with pressure on Israel to yield rather than pressure on the Arabs to compromise.
These remarks by Dean Rusk from The birth of the US/Israel alliance are telling,
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“Your big problem is how two-and-a-half million Jews [Israel’s population at the time] can live in a sea of Arabs” and.“If the Arabs see an Israel they cannot live with, one that is intolerable to them, they won’t back away from an arms race”
In The Conspiracy to Shrink Israel, I quoted Henry Kissinger’s remarks to an Iraqi diplomat in ’75,
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On the contrary, Israel does us more harm than good in the Arab world [..]
We can’t negotiate about the existence of Israel but we can reduce its size to historical proportions.
I don’t agree Israel is a permanent threat. How can a nation of three million be a permanent threat? They have a technical advantage now. But it is inconceivable that peoples with wealth and skill and the tradition of the Arabs won’t develop the capacity that is needed. So I think in ten to fifteen years Israel will be like Lebanon–struggling for existence, with no influence in the Arab world.
And that’s the problem. Implicit in these quotes is the belief that the size, not the existence of Israel, is the issue. Furthermore there is an acknowledgment, if not a commitment, to a reduced Israel to please the Arabs.
Yoram Ettinger took up the subject in Land for Peace (L-F-P) – a politically incorrect examination and rightly concluded it was a failed strategy.
Both Israel and the US have been proven wrong. They have been attempting for the last forty years to trade land for peace and have gotten war not peace for their pains.
To the contrary, Israel should adopt another strategy. Israel should try keeping land for peace.
Fortunately, according to a recent poll 53% of Israelis (Jews and Arabs) answered “no” when asked “Do you support giving territory to the Palestinians within the framework of a peace agreement?
in the end the situation on the ground will be final determinent. Nobody here is going to change long inbedded concept nomatter how fallcious it might seem. 2 state solution and land for peace are mantra. the arabs will prove to all but extreme left lunatic fringe that there can never be peace between arabs and anybody else especially israel. Wait! it will happen and we will overcome the threat mainly due to having no choice in the matter and even our most inept of leaders at the end of the day will do what has to be done. The road ahead will have many curves and zig zags but as always arabs will be arabs and this will be the final determinent. If I were not so optimistic I would not still be here. It is only cost that most of us are concerned with cost in lives and monetary costs. this is mainly the crux of all debate here, everything else is secondary consideration.
It is the only thing that makes sense now. It was the only thing that made sense about 34 years ago at least after Israel survived the Yom Kippur war of 1973 by which time surely it was incontrovertible that Israel was on the wrong path to peace.
After 34 years of chasing dreams, reality screams out that:
G”D willing, Israel is not deaf to reality screaming in her ear.
What has the U.S. sacriphiced excepyt phor Israel!
very few israelis then and few today understand the nature of the arabs in general and arab culture in particular. They were all clouded in their thinking and desires based on eastern euroean socialist and communist dogma. all knew that force was key but few understood the confict based on muslim beliefs could never be reconcilled with their own socialist utopian vision of the world and what they had hoped to acheive here. If there ever was an absolute opposit of islamic beleifs and customs it is communism not democracy. yet the muslims in order to advance their goals and beleifs were to use the russian bear for what they could get and then discarded them when they felts their usefullness had run it course. and the major arab power egypt makes a deal with the other devil america gets what they want from america( parity with israel in military hardware and the freindship of todays ultimate superpower the USA. For the purpose of one day confronting israel from position of at least equal strength. They will pick the time and they are preparing so what I am saying here is that even peace treaties are essntial weapons in their arsenal.Peace treaties weaken israel; reduce its preparedness, causes dulling of isreali sense of security threats, and finally cause internal israeli social disentigration and disunity.
The goal of the arabs and most western nations including russia is to reverse all gains by israel from the 6 day war. This is the real goal and peace and peace processes are just part of the international and arab vehicle to attain that goal. The only way to avoid such scenarios is to oppose land for peace concept and institute POLICY OF PEACE FOR PEACE- WAR FOR WAR without blinking and with no compromising on this point.