T. Belman. I was going to write this article until I came upon what Dore Gold wrote in 2005. I certainly couldn’t improve upon it. The point I wanted to make was that the international community, led by the US, the EU and the UN, all of whom constantly accuse Israel of violating international law, are themselves the biggest violators because they refuse to be bound by Res 242.
Instead, they demand 100% withdrawal and and ignore the requirement of defensible borders. President Obama tasked his military to study the border issue in order to make the case that the ’67 lines could be “defensible borders”. But Israel didn’t buy it.
I noted my disagreement with Gold who praised the US for abiding by it. In my comment #13, I begged to differ.
Also, Res 242 laid out the principles to achieve peace between all parties to the conflict. The Palestinians didn’t exist as a people at that time, let alone a country, and it wasn’t included. But in 1993, their spokesman, the PLO, agreed that Resolutions 242 and 338 should be the basis for negotiations with Israel when it signed the Oslo Declaration of Principles.
Nevertheless, they reject the true meaning of the resolution as does the US, EU and UN.
The U.S. and “Defensible Borders”:
How Washington Has Understood UN Security Council Resolution 242 and Israel’s Requirements for Withdrawal
By Dr. Dore Gold, JCPA, 2005
U.S. Policy Does Not Seek Israel’s Return to the 1967 Borders
The United States has historically backed Israel’s view that UN Security Council Resolution 242, adopted on November 22, 1967, does not require a full withdrawal to the 1949 Armistice Lines (the 1967 borders). Moreover, in addition to that interpretation, both Democratic and Republican administrations have argued that Israel was entitled to “defensible borders.” In other words, the American backing of defensible borders has been bipartisan, right up to its latest rendition that was provided by President George W. Bush in April 2004. And it was rooted in America’s long-standing support for the security of Israel that went well beyond the various legal interpretations of UN resolutions.
Why is the U.S. position so important to consider? First, while it is true that ultimately Israel and the Palestinians themselves must decide on the whereabouts of the future borders as part of any negotiation, the U.S. position on borders directly affects the level of expectation of the Arab side regarding the depth of the Israeli concessions they can obtain. To the extent that the U.S. limits its demands of Israel through either presidential declarations or statements of the secretary of state, then the Arab states and the Palestinian Arabs will have to settle for less in terms of any Israeli withdrawal. U.S. declaratory policy, then, fundamentally affects whether Arab-Israeli differences can ultimately be bridged at the negotiating table or whether they simply remain too far apart.
Second, there is a related dynamic. Historically, Arab diplomats preferred to extract Israeli concessions through international bodies, like the UN, or even through the U.S., and thereby limit the direct concessions they must provide to Israel in return. According to this scenario, the UN, with U.S. acquiescence, could set the terms of an Israeli withdrawal in the West Bank that Israel would be pressured to fulfill with only minimal bilateral commitments provided by the Arab states. In fact, it was Egyptian President Anwar Sadat who used to say that the U.S. “holds 99 percent of the cards” in the peace process, before he signed the Israeli-Egyptian Treaty of Peace in 1979. Therefore, if the Arab states understand that the U.S. won’t just deliver Israel according to their liking, then they will be compelled to deal with Israel directly.
Confusion in Jerusalem About the U.S. Position
Yet despite the critical importance of America’s traditional support for Israel’s understanding of UN Security Council Resolution 242, historically there has been considerable confusion in Jerusalem about this subject. All too frequently, Israeli diplomats err in asserting that, according to the U.S., Israel must ultimately pull back to the 1967 lines, with perhaps the addition that minor border modifications will be allowed. Those Israelis who take this mistaken position about U.S. policy tend to conclude that Israel has no alternative but to accept this policy as a given, and thereby concede Israel’s right to defensible borders.
The U.S. Position on UN Resolution 242
However, a careful analysis of the development of the U.S. position on UN Security Council Resolution 242 reveals that this “maximalist” interpretation of U.S. policy is fundamentally mistaken. In fact, successive U.S. administrations following the 1967 Six-Day War have demonstrated considerable flexibility over the years regarding the extent of withdrawal that they expected of Israel. True, sometimes the State Department bureaucracy – especially diplomats in the Near Eastern Affairs division that dealt with the Arab world – adhered to a more hard-line view of Israel’s requirements for withdrawal. But this issue was not decided at their level. Indeed, over time, successive administrations would even go so far as to issue explicit declarations rejecting the requirement of full withdrawal and backing Israel’s right to defensible borders instead.
What was the source of America’s support for Israel? It is important to recall that UN Security Council Resolution 242 of November 22, 1967, was a joint product of both the British ambassador to the UN, Lord Caradon, and the U.S. ambassador to the UN, Arthur Goldberg. This was especially true of the withdrawal clause in the resolution which called on Israeli armed forces to withdraw “from territories” and not “from all the territories” or “from the territories” as the Soviet Union had demanded.
Resolution 242 was a joint product of both the British and U.S. ambassadors to the UN. George Brown, who was British Foreign Secretary in 1967, said 242 “means Israel will not withdraw from all the territories.”
The exclusion of the definite article “the” from the withdrawal clause was not decided by a low-level legal drafting team or even at the ambassadorial level. And it was not just a matter for petty legalists. Rather, President Lyndon Baines Johnson himself decided that it was important to stick to this phraseology, despite the pressure from the Soviet premier, Alexei Kosygin, who had sought to incorporate stricter additional language requiring a full Israel withdrawal.1
The meaning of UN Security Council Resolution 242 was absolutely clear to those who were involved in this drafting process. Thus, Joseph P. Sisco, who would serve as the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, commented on Resolution 242 during a Meet the Press interview some years later: “I was engaged in the negotiation for months of that resolution. That resolution did not say ‘total withdrawal.'”2 This U.S. position had been fully coordinated with the British at the time. Indeed, George Brown, who had served as British foreign secretary in 1967 during Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s Labour government, summarized Resolution 242 as follows: “The proposal said, ‘Israel will withdraw from territories that were occupied,’ not ‘from the territories,’ which means Israel will not withdraw from all the territories.”3
President Johnson: ’67 Line a Prescription for Renewed Hostilities
President Johnson’s insistence on protecting the territorial flexibility of Resolution 242 could be traced to his statements made on June 19, 1967, in the immediate wake of the Six-Day War. In fact, Johnson declared that “an immediate return to the situation as it was on June 4,” before the outbreak of hostilities, was “not a prescription for peace, but for renewed hostilities.” He stated that the old “truce lines” had been “fragile and violated.” What was needed, in Johnson’s view, were “recognized boundaries” that would provide “security against terror, destruction and war.”4
Ambassador Goldberg would additionally note sometime later another aspect of the Johnson administration’s policy that was reflected in the language of its UN proposals: “Resolution 242 in no way refers to Jerusalem, and this omission was deliberate.”5 The U.S. was not about to propose the restoration of the status quo ante in Jerusalem either, even though successive U.S. administrations would at times criticize Israel’s construction practices in the eastern parts of Jerusalem that it had captured.
In the wake of the Six-Day War, President Lyndon Johnson declared that “an immediate return to the situation as it was on June 4,” before the outbreak of hostilities, was “not a prescription for peace, but for renewed hostilities.” What was needed were “recognized boundaries” that would provide “security against terror, destruction and war.”
Within a number of years, U.S. diplomacy would reflect the idea that Israel was entitled to changes in the pre-1967 lines. At first, public expressions by the Nixon administration were indeed minimalist; Secretary of State William Rogers declared in 1969 that there would be “insubstantial alterations” of the 1967 lines. At the time, Rogers’ policy was severely criticized by Stephen W. Schwebel, the Executive Director of the American Society of International Law, who would become the Legal Advisor of the U.S. Department of State and later serve on the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Schwebel reminded Rogers of Israel’s legal rights in the West Bank in theAmerican Journal of International Law (64\344,1970) when he wrote: “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 that prior holder, better title.” In the international legal community there was an acute awareness that Jordan, the West Bank’s previous occupant prior to 1967, had illegally invaded the West Bank in 1948, while Israel captured the territory in a war of self-defense.
In referring to the 1967 lines, Nixon told Kissinger: “you and I both know they [the Israelis] can’t go back to the other borders.”
President Nixon: The Israelis “Can’t Go Back” to the 1967 Borders
Rogers was soon replaced, in any case, by Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s national security advisor, who significantly modified Rogers’ position. Already in 1973, in subsequently disclosed private conversations with Kissinger, in referring to the 1967 lines, Nixon explicitly admitted: “you and I both know they [the Israelis] can’t go back to the other borders.”6 This became evident in September 1975, under the Ford administration, in the context of the Sinai II Disengagement Agreement. While the agreement covered a second Israeli pullout from the Sinai Peninsula, Israel’s prime minister at the time, Yitzhak Rabin, achieved a series of understandings with the U.S. that covered other fronts of the Arab-Israeli peace process. For example, President Ford provided Prime Minister Rabin with a letter on the future of the Golan Heights that stated:
The U.S. has not developed a final position on the borders. Should it do so it will give great weight to Israel’s position that any peace agreement with Syria must be predicated on Israel remaining on the Golan Heights.7
This carefully drafted language did not detail whether the U.S. would actually accept Israeli sovereignty over parts of the Golan Heights or just the continued presence of the Israel Defense Forces on the Golan plateau. In either case, the Ford letter did not envision a full Israeli pullback to the 1967 lines or even minor modifications of the 1967 border near the Sea of Galilee. These details are not a matter for diplomatic historians alone, for the U.S. explicitly renewed its commitment to the Ford letter just before the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference, when Secretary of State James Baker issued a letter of assurances to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. Moreover, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu obtained the recommitment of the Clinton administration to the Ford letter, just prior to the opening of Israel-Palestinian negotiations over Hebron.
President Ford wrote to Prime Minister Rabin that the U.S. “will give great weight to Israel’s position that any peace agreement with Syria must be predicated on Israel remaining on the Golan Heights.”
It was the administration of President Ronald Reagan that most forcefully articulated Israel’s right to defensible borders. Reagan himself stated: “In the pre-1967 borders, Israel was barely ten miles wide at its narrowest point. The bulk of Israel’s population lived within artilleryrange of hostile armies. I am not about to ask Israel to live that way again.”
President Reagan: I Can’t Ask Israel to Return to the Pre-1967 Borders
It was the administration of President Ronald Reagan that most forcefully articulated Israel’s right to defensible borders, just after President Carter appeared to give only lukewarm support for the U.S.-Israeli understandings of the Ford-Kissinger era. Reagan himself stated in his September 1, 1982, address that became known as the “Reagan Plan”: “In the pre-1967 borders, Israel was barely ten miles wide at its narrowest point. The bulk of Israel’s population lived within artillery range of hostile armies. I am not about to ask Israel to live that way again.” Reagan came up with a flexible formula for Israeli withdrawal: “The extent to which Israel should be asked to give up territory will be heavily affected by the extent of the peace and normalization.”8 Secretary of State George Shultz was even more explicit about what this meant during a September 1988 address: “Israel will never negotiate from or return to the 1967 borders.”9
What did Shultz mean by his statement? Was he recognizing Israeli rights to retain large portions of the West Bank? A half year earlier, he demonstrated considerable diplomatic creativity in considering alternatives to a full Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines. He even proposed what was, in effect, a “functional compromise” in the West Bank, as opposed to a “territorial compromise.” Shultz was saying that the West Bank should be divided between Israel and the Jordanians according to different functions of government, and not in terms of drawing new internal borders. In an address to the Council on Foreign Relations in February 1988, he asserted: “the meaning of sovereignty, the meaning of territory, is changing, and what any national government can control, or what any unit that thinks it has sovereignty or jurisdiction over a certain area can control, is shifting gears.”10
Secretary of State George Shultz was even more explicit: “Israel will never negotiate from or return to the 1967 borders.”
In his memoirs, Shultz elaborated on his 1988 address. He wrote that he had spoken to both Israeli and Jordanian leaders in the spirit of his speech and argued that “who controls whatÉwould necessarily vary over such diverse functions as external security, maintenance of law and order, access to limited supplies of water, management of education, health, and other civic functions, and so forth.”11 The net effect of this thinking was to protect Israel’s security interests and provide it with a defensible border that would be substantially different from the 1967 lines.
Clinton’s Secretary of State Reaffirms: Israel Entitled to Defensible Borders
U.S. support for defensible borders had clearly become bipartisan and continued into the 1990s, even as the Palestinians replaced Jordan as the primary Arab claimant to the West Bank. At the time of the completion of the 1997 Hebron Protocol, Secretary of State Warren Christopher wrote a letter of assurances to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In the Christopher letter, the Clinton administration basically stated that it was not going to second-guess Israel about its security needs: “a hallmark of U.S. policy remains our commitment to work cooperatively to seek to meet the security needs that Israel identifies” (emphasis added). This meant that Israel would be the final arbiter of its defense needs. Christopher then added: “Finally, I would like to reiterate our position that Israel is entitled to secure and defensible borders (emphasis added), which should be directly negotiated and agreed with its neighbors.”12
In summary, there is no basis to the argument that the U.S. has traditionally demanded of Israel either a full withdrawal or a nearly full withdrawal from the territories it captured in the 1967 Six-Day War. This is particularly true of the West Bank and Gaza Strip where only armistice lines were drawn in 1949, reflecting where embattled armies had halted their advance and no permanent international borders existed. The only development that has altered this American stance in support of defensible borders in the past involved changes in the Israeli position to which the U.S. responded.
The Unofficial Clinton/Barak Parameters Are Off the Table
About two weeks before he completed his second term in office, President Bill Clinton presented his own plan for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on January 7, 2001. The Clinton parameters were partly based on the proposals made by Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Barak, at the failed Camp David Summit of July 2000.
In the territorial sphere, Clinton spoke about Israel annexing “settlement blocs” in the West Bank. However, he made this annexation of territory by Israel conditional upon a “land swap” taking place, according to which Israel would concede territory under its sovereignty before 1967 in exchange for any new West Bank land. This “land swap” was not required by UN Resolution 242, but was a new Israeli concession made during the Barak government that Clinton adopted; it should be noted for the record, however, that Maj.-Gen. (res.) Danny Yatom, who served as the head of Barak’s foreign and defense staff, has argued that Barak himself never offered these “land swaps” at Camp David.
Additionally, under the Clinton parameters, Israel was supposed to withdraw from the Jordan Valley (which Rabin sought to retain) and thereby give up on defensible borders. Instead, Clinton proposed an “international presence” to replace the Israel Defense Forces. This particular component of the proposals severely compromised Israel’s doctrine of self-reliance in matters of defense and seemed to ignore Israel’s problematic history with the UN and other international forces in even more limited roles such as peace monitoring.
Prior to their formal release, the Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Lt.-Gen. Shaul Mofaz, severely criticized the Clinton parameters before the Israeli cabinet as a virtual disaster for Israel: Yediot Ahronot reported on December 29, 2000, his judgment that: “The Clinton bridging proposal is inconsistent with Israel’s security interests and, if it will be accepted, it will threaten the security of the state” (emphasis added).
The Clinton parameters did not become official U.S. policy. After President George W. Bush came into office, U.S. officials informed the newly elected Sharon government that it would not be bound by proposals made by the Barak team at Camp David, which served as the basis for the Clinton parameters. In short, Clinton’s retreat from defensible borders was off the table.
President Bush: It is Unrealistic to Expect a Return to the Armistice Lines of 1949
The best proof that the U.S. had readopted its traditional policy that Israel was entitled to defensible borders came from the letter of assurances written by President Bush to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on April 14, 2004, after the presentation in Washington of Israel’s disengagement plan from the Gaza Strip. Bush wrote: “The United States reiterates its steadfast commitment to Israel’s security, including secure and defensible borders, and to preserve and strengthen Israel’s capability to deter and defend itself, by itself, against any threat or possible combination of threats.”13 Here, then, was an implicit link suggested between the letter’s reference to defensible borders and Israel’s self-defense capabilities, by virtue of the fact that they were coupled together in the very same sentence.
Bush clearly did not envision Israel withdrawing to the 1967 lines. Later in his letter he stated: “In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.” Bush did not use the term “settlement blocs,” as Clinton did, but appeared to be referring to the same idea. Less than a year later, on March 27, 2005, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice explained on Israel Radio that “Israeli population centers” referred to “the large settlement blocs” in the West Bank.14
President Bush wrote to Prime Minister Sharon on April 14, 2004: “In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.”
More significantly, Bush did not make the retention of “Israeli population centers” in the West Bank contingent upon Israel agreeing to land swaps, using territory under Israeli sovereignty from within the pre-1967 borders as Clinton had insisted. In that sense, Bush restored the original terms of reference in the peace process that had been contained in Resolution 242 by confining the territorial issue to Israel’s east to the dispute over the ultimate status of the West Bank without involving any additional territorial exchanges.
Bush’s recognition of Israel’s right to defensible borders was the most explicit expression of the U.S. stand on the subject, for the Bush letter, as a whole, recognized clear-cut modifications of the pre-1967 lines. Moreover, by linking the idea of defensible borders to Israel’s defensive capabilities, as noted above, Bush was making clear that a “defensible border” had to improve Israel’s ability to provide for its own security. True, a “secure boundary,” as mentioned in Resolution 242, included that interpretation as well. But it could also imply a boundary that was secured by U.S. security guarantees, NATO troops, or even other international forces. Bush’s letter did not contain this ambiguity, but rather specifically tied defensible borders to Israel’s ability to defend itself.
On March 25, 2005, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Dan Kurtzer, was quoted in the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot as saying that there was no U.S.-Israeli “understanding” over Israel’s retention of West Bank settlement blocs. Kurtzer denied the Yediot report. Yet the story raised the question of what kind of commitment the Bush letter exactly constituted. In U.S. practice, a treaty is the strongest form of inter-state commitment, followed by an executive agreement (such as a Memorandum of Understanding without congressional ratification). Still, an exchange of letters provides an international commitment as well. Kurtzer himself reiterated this point on Israel’s Channel 10 television: “Those commitments are very, very firm with respect to these Israeli population centers; our expectation is that Israel is not going to be going back to the 1967 lines.” When asked if these “population centers” were “settlement blocs,” he replied: “That’s correct.”15
The Bush letter made clear that a “defensible border” had to improve Israel’s ability to provide for its own security.
Separately, Bush has introduced the idea of a viable and contiguous Palestinian state, which has territorial implications. At a minimum, contiguity refers to creating an unobstructed connection between all the West Bank cities, so that a Palestinian could drive from Jenin to Hebron. Palestinians might construe American references to contiguity as including a Palestinian-controlled connection from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip, like the “safe passage” mentioned in the Oslo Accords. But this would entail bifurcating Israel in two. In any case, there is no international legal right of states to have a sovereign connection between parts that are geographically separated: The U.S. has no sovereign territorial connection between Alaska and the State of Washington. Similarly, there is no such sovereign connection between the parts of other geographically separated states, like Oman. On February 21, 2005, President Bush clarified that his administration’s call for territorial contiguity referred specifically to the West Bank.
There is no international legal right of states to have a sovereign connection between parts that are geographically separated: The U.S. does not have a sovereign territorial connection between Alaska and the State of Washington.
Historically, the U.S. Has Not Insisted on Full Israeli Withdrawal
In conclusion, historically the U.S. has not insisted on a full Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines from the territories that Israel captured in the 1967 War. Yet it is still possible to ask what value these American declarations have if they are made with the additional provision that the ultimate location of Arab-Israeli borders must be decided by the parties themselves. This is particularly true of the 2004 Bush letter which reiterates this point explicitly.
Clearly the U.S. cannot impose the Bush letter on Israel and the Palestinians, if they refuse to accept its terms. The Bush letter only updates and summarizes the U.S. view of the correct interpretation of UN Resolution 242 in any future negotiations. Its importance emanates from two contexts:
- The fact that the April 2003 Quartet roadmap is silent on the subject of Israel’s future borders and those of the proposed Palestinian state. At least the Bush letter protects Israel’s vital interests prior to the beginning of any future negotiations. It is tantamount to a diplomatic safety net for Israel.
- To the extent that other members of the Quartet (Russia, the EU, or the UN) propose that the borders of the Palestinian state in the future be the 1967 lines, the Bush letter essentially says that the U.S. will not be a party to such an initiative.
What is left now for Israel to do is to provide further details as to the territorial meaning of defensible borders and to reach a more specific understanding with the U.S. regarding its content.
Defensible Borders: An Integral Part of the American Diplomatic Lexicon
What is left now for Israel to do is to provide further details as to the territorial meaning of defensible borders and to reach a more specific understanding with the U.S. regarding its content, given the fact that it has become an integral part of the American diplomatic lexicon for the Arab-Israeli peace process.
In the future, would the United States remain sympathetic to Israel’s security concerns so that such understandings can be reached? After all, much of the U.S. positioning on defensible borders began to be articulated during the Cold War. Additionally, in a post-Iraq War Middle East, in which the threat to Israel from its eastern front has been diminished in the immediate term, would the U.S. still back defensible borders? There is a threefold answer to this question. First, the permanence of the changes in the Middle East in 2005 cannot be taken for granted by any defense planner. Even the U.S. retains residual capabilities in the event that the intentions of Russia and China were to change in the future.
Second, Israel’s need for defensible borders also has a context in the war on terrorism. If Israel cedes control over the Jordan Valley, for example, large-scale weapons smuggling to terrorist groups in the West Bank hills that dominate Israel’s coastal plain would become more prevalent. The 9/11 Commission asserted that the struggle to transform the Middle East in order to undercut the threats from the new global terrorism will take decades.16 Thus, Israel has a sound basis for insisting that even after the 2003 Iraq War, its quest for defensible borders remains fully warranted.
The permanence of the changes in the Middle East in 2005 cannot be taken for granted by any defense planner. Even the U.S. retains residual capabilities in the event that the intentions of Russia and China were to change in the future.
Third, during the Clinton years, Washington was sympathetic to the idea of deploying UN and other international forces as a tool for peace-building. This was expressed in the 2001 Clinton proposals for placing international peacekeepers in the Jordan Valley instead of the Israel Defense Forces. Clearly, enthusiasm for such UN deployments has drastically declined since then, with the disasters that have become associated with UN peacekeeping missions throughout the last decade.
An alternative that might be raised by those who nonetheless seek to remove Israeli forces from the Jordan Valley would be the deployment of U.S. forces, or a non-UN multilateral body like the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) in Egyptian Sinai. Yet such a course of action could pose great risks for the troops involved. In the sparsely-populated Sinai Peninsula, U.S. troops are isolated; they only monitor on the ground the implementation of an inter-state agreement between Israel and Egypt. In contrast, in the Jordan Valley they would be closer to Palestinian population centers and involved in a counter-terrorist mission.
Under such conditions, one cannot rule out attacks against Western forces, like the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. While Hamas and Islamic Jihad have not launched attacks against Western targets overseas, nonetheless, they would view any Western presence in what became Palestinian territory through the same ideological prism as militant Islamist groups in the Arabian Peninsula.17 The Palestinians already attacked a U.S. diplomatic convoy in the Gaza Strip on October 15, 2003, killing three Americans, although it has not been ascertained whether or not Islamist motives were involved.
In short, there are no workable substitutes for Israel protecting itself with defensible borders, given the array of threats it is still likely to face.
For Hamas, any Western military deployment in the Jordan Valley would be viewed in the same way that Islamist groups in the Arabian Peninsula perceived the U.S. presence.
* * * 1. Premier Kosygin wrote to President Johnson on November 21, 1967, requesting that the UK draft resolution, that was to become Resolution 242, include the word “the” before the word “territories.” Johnson wrote back the same day refusing the Soviet request. The Soviet deputy foreign minister, Kuznetsov, tried the same day in New York to insert the word “all,” but was rebuffed. See Foreign Relations of the United States, 1967-1968, volume XIX, Arab-Israeli Crisis and War 1967,http://www.stage.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/johnsonlb/xix/28070.htm Notes
2. Adnan Abu Odeh, Nabil Elaraby, Meir Rosenne, Dennis Ross, Eugene Rostow, and Vernon Turner, UN Security Council Resolution 242: The Building Block of Peacemaking(Washington, D.C.: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1993), p. 88.
3. See Meir Rosenne, in ibid., p. 31.
4. Speech by President Lyndon Johnson, June 19, 1967; http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/lbjpeace.html
5. Arthur J. Goldberg, Letter to the Editor of The New York Times, March 5, 1980.
6. Henry Kissinger, Crisis: The Anatomy of Two Major Foreign Policy Crises (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003), p. 140.
7. Letter from President Ford to Prime Minister Rabin, September 1, 1975; http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/ford_rabin_letter.html
8. Speech by President Ronald Reagan, September 1, 1982; http://www.reagan.utexas. edu/resource/speeches/1982/90182d.htm
9. Secretary of State George P. Shultz’s address, September 16, 1988; http://www.findarticles. com/p/articles/mi_m1079/is_n2140_v88/ai_6876262
10. George P. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State (New York: Charles Schribner’s Sons, 1993), p. 1022.
11. Ibid., p. 1023.
12. Letter of U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, January 17, 1997; http://mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH00qo0
13. Exchange of letters between President Bush and Prime Minister Sharon, April 14, 2004; http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace+ Process/Reference+Documents/Exchange+of+letters+Sharon-Bush+14-Apr-2004.htm
14. Aluf Benn, “PM: Understanding With U.S. About West Bank Settlement Blocs Holds Firm,” Ha’aretz, March 27, 2005.
15. http://www.usembassy-israel.org.il/publish /mission/amb/032505b.html
16. The 9/11 Commission Report (Authorized Edition) (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004), p. 363.
17. “Will a Gaza ‘Hamas-stan’ Become a Future Al-Qaeda Sanctuary?” Yaakov Amidror and David Keyes, Jerusalem Viewpoints, November 1, 2004; http://jcpa.org/jl/vp524. htm* * * See Appendix 2
Letter from U.S. President George W. Bush to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,
April 14, 2004
@ CuriousAmerican:Yes thank you for informing me their is a problem!
All fine and dandy. I would agree with you.
But that leaves 2+/- million disenfranchised Arabs (mostly very young) in the contested areas. These are ultimately under Israeli control.
1) Israel controls their exit and return
2) Israel controls their borders to the outside world
3) Israel controls their population registry
4) Israel controls their residency. (Gazans cannot move to J&S)
5) Israel collects their taxes
6) Israel controls their export and import
7) Israel controls their movement
8) Israel enters/invades by IDF at will.
etc.
We might agree what Israel has security reasons for all of this.
But the point is: These people have no say in the government (Israel) which controls their lives so totally. Israel cannot continue this arrangement and call itself democratic.
This is unstable.
I am not in favor of a two-state solution. I do not see cutting up a small nation like Israel. However, neither am I in favor of the present arrangment.
Many here on this board make plans on J&S without considering how to deal with the 2 million Arabs in J&S, other than ethnic cleansing them, killing them, or reducing them to a form of serfdom.
THIS IS NOT STABLE.
@ bernard ross:
I choose not to rebut all your arguments, line by line, but instead to quote from the Interim Agreement of 1995:
For me this settles the point.
I want to focus now on what Gold was arguing. To some extent I disagree with his interpretation.
The fact that Nixon introduced the Rogers Plan in 1970 shows that the US was backtracking from the position of Johnson.
The US under George Bush included in the Roadmap in the preamble, that embraced the Saudi Plan which required full withdrawal. It had no business being there. This further suggests that the US was faltering in their commitment to 242. Fortunately Bush reiterated the principles of 242 in his 2004 letter to Sharon.
But that letter had problems for me. If you are supporting defensible borders why complicate the issue by recognizing the settlement blocs. Its as though he intended to define defensible borders as including the blocs. why bother. Defensible borders are just that, defensible borders. Gold discusses the US attitude regarding the blocs.. Why bother. It takes the focus off defensible borders.
Gold’s article was written in 2005, four years before Obama.
Obama made short shrift of the letter by saying it wasn’t binding. He went on to endorse the Saudi Plan (API) requiring full withdrawal subject to swaps. He also called for a two state solution based on the ’67 lines with negotiated swaps. That’s hardly supportive of defensible borders.
Finally he endorsed, along with Putin, that the Golan must be considered as Syrian territory and returned as part of a peace agreement with Syria.
I would conclude from reading Gold’s remarks that Israel feels bound by their mutually understandings, (ie that Israel must get the US to agree with what Israel wants to do failing which Israel can’t act alone) and that such understandings are potentially in flux.
Obama proved the point.
Ted Belman Said:
newspaper articles may differ in interpretation and are unreliable as legal evidence
LoL, it is the disengagement that is what happened and NOT any legal transfer of rights or claims. They just want to be rid of the pals who always cause the hashemites grief.
Ted Belman Said:
First, a news announcement regarding a speech cannot be considered legal binding evidence on a 3rd party, as you know. A death announcement of a death by heart attack in the NYT cannot substitute for a death certificate. The announcements of Jordan of Israeli Jordan treaty is not the treaty itself. The fact that we can find nothing but an announcement already renders the speech merely a declaration of intent or even an empty promise. Note that we still have NO document to purvey as to what Jordan actually did. the only thing we know that was followed through is JOrdan removing itself and separating itself from the pals. there is no transfer of any rights or claims to land by Jordan. Second, what did Jordan have that it could transfer: the sovereignty of Jordan over the west bank was only recognized by the UK and pakistan… therefore it had nothing to transfer even if it intended to transfer anything.
Ted Belman Said:
even a proclamation is recorded in writing so that we can see what the king proclaims. The verbal proclamation can be enough if the actions which follow support that verbal proclamation. However, it is transparently obvious that Jordan never did the ONLY thing it could do to show that it intended to transfer any property sovereignty rights it may have owned….. Jordan DID NOT mention any thing regarding the land in its treaty with Israel. Had Jordan been serious about transferring its claims as opposed to just severing its relationship with the pals it would have simply made it part of the Israel treaty which would have also shown that Israel agrees. Therefore the absence of any such reference demonstrate that Jordan had no intention to protect or to transfer those mythical rights.
Ted Belman Said:
Please show me the wording in the Declaration of principles of Oslo 1993 which support your position. I only see vague reference to 242 to be used as a basis. This could mean anything, it could also be limited to merely the refugee issue as clearly there is no mention of soveriegnty over the west bank by the PLO.
There is no mention of Israels acceptance of Jordanian sovereignty, past or present, nor the acceptance of the transfer of that sovereignty to the pals. Further there is no evidence of Israel accepting the pals as the recipient of any claims or rights from Jordan. This is further proven by next years Israel Jordan treaty which clearly makes no mention of any transfer of rights, obligation of Israel to accept the pals as a substitute for Jordan in negotiating those rights, etc etc etc. The most glaring proof that no transfer of rights was made is the Israel Jordan treaty.
Another issue is that even if Oslo is based on the referred to 242 this does not substitute the pals into the performance and resolution of 242 with regard to the land issues, only the refugee issues. 242 land issue of west bank is ONLY between Jordan and Israel and the Jordan Israel treaty clearly legally ends any west bank land and border dispute between the parties to 242. Basing Oslo on 242, even if it referred to land issues, would only bring Oslo into violation and NOT 242. Therefore, wrt land on the west bank it is incorrect to mention violations of 242 as that land claim was resolved between the only relevant parties to 242. Oslo is not a final treaty but an agreement to a process that will hopefully lead to peace. that process is already breached and the term of five years is over.
Ted Belman Said:
Israel is only bound to 242 to withdraw from land but NOT to cede that land to sovereignty of pals as the pals were not a party to 242 and did not assume any binding legal status under 242 subsequently from the kings declaration of severance. What they are bound to is the Oslo agreement, which is a process to peace which in the principles does not mention questions of sovereignty over land… only administration and gov authority. E. G. Jordan has an authority over the Mount which was granted in treaty by Israel… but this is not state sovereignty over the land.
Ted Belman Said:
why would they mention something that upon inspection would prove them wrong? They also dont mention LON mandate, san remo, etc.
Ted Belman Said:
to whom are they calling for those “rights”? Israel already has recognized defensible borders with Jordan on the Jordan and Yarmouk rivers. It appears that the rights they are calling for are future rights in a scenario where Israel must first grant sovereignty to the PLO over the west bank. Right now they have the rights and the defensible borders and they only have the right to give those defensible borders away.
Ted Belman Said:
but on what is your lack of doubt based and what is the “it”. There is no participation of the PLO wrt land in 242 hence you can only be referring to Oslo, which is actually a dying process… Israel and the PLO, together,are only bound to Oslo, not 242 wrt the west bank. Without Oslo, the pals have NO legal land claim basis other than a general claim to self determination, like the basques.
Note that you were still unable to find any document that you could examine as to what its legal effect is on Israel, that is telling. Also note that subsequent action by Jordan wrt israel, demonstrates NO recognition of any “transfer” of land rights. As a lawyer you cannot rely on news accounts upon which to base assumptions of legal transfer, what would a judge say when there are no details or subsequent action demonstrating anything more than a severance between Jordan and the Pals?
Defensible borders need Golan and Judah/Samaria.
The NYT reported on July 31/88
You argue that this is not sufficient without a document which effects the same thing. For you this proclamation is not enough. As a matter of law, it may be enough.
But more to the point, since then the monarchy has acted like it was a done deal. Ergo, its a done deal.
Israel accepted this transfer by inviting the PLO to sign the Declaration of Principles in 1993 providing it agreed to be bound by the terms of R 242. I have no doubt that both Israel and the PLO are bound by it. The PLO never mentions it neither does Obama.
But Israel continues to call for defensible borders pursuant to her rights in R 242.
Since Jordan was illegally occupying Judah and Samaria it had no legal right to transfer it to the PLO.
This is internal Arab politics. The Jordanians wanted less Palestinians because they were a danger to them.
They needed to stabilize things with Israel because going to war them repeatedly was a losing proposition.
Ted Belman Said:
evidence please, not 3rd party mentions. Jordan relinquished its claim, PLO has no standing of a LAND interest under 242 except in references from Oslo. Show the evidence, as an attorney.
Ted Belman Said:
We went through that narrative before but you never answered my rebuttal. I never found any legal document that shows that “transfer of rights” from Jordan to the PLO All I could find were announcements that they were going to do it… but announcements are not legal or binding on anyone. An announcement is only for PR. If Jordan had intended to actually go through with that transfer it would have mentioned that transfer, and protected that transfer, in its subsequent peace treaty with Israel because without the agreement of Israel to such a transfer it has no binding legal effect on Israel.
I can find official documents for balfour declaration, san remo,LON mandate, 181, 242, and the Israel Jordan treaty… but I have not been able to locate this fabled document to which everyone refers…. I can only locate announcements that they were going to do it. Therefore, it is meaningless due to its actual non existence or meaningless because it has no legal effect.
Once again, I ask you to show the actual document that we may read it to see if it actually exists, if it actually says what others purport or if it has any binding legal effect on Israel. The fact that everyone merely casually refers to it without anyone showing it is in itself questinable. The most glairing fact is that there is nothing in the Israel Jordan treaty BUT what there is … is a recognized boundary between Israel and Jordan at the river…. Jordan made no recognized boundary with the PLO.
As an attorney you know that legal documents are not replaced by hearsay, public announcement or consensus…. Therefore show us the actual fabled document… I cant find one.
@ bernard ross:
You are missing something. Before Jordan entered into a peace agreement with Israel, it transferred any right it may of had in the Westbank to the PLO so it stands in its shoes with respect to such land and R242 applies.
I will leave it to you to google for the details.
the best way for Israel to mitigate the arab war against Israel is to seek the destruction and endangerment of their oil supplies and income. If Israel were a real threat to the oil fields there would be a propensity on their part for a peace in order to be secure and stable. Fear and threat are much more efficacious than cooperation with them. It is their fear and the threat of Iran which prompts them into minor cooperation with Israel.. but if they were aware that their fields could all be destroyed in a couple of days they would be more motivated to make a public jump.
wrt the Golan and syria… it would be best for Israel to shepherd the disintegration of the state of syria… a non state who has no contiguous boundary with israel can no longer claim the golan. Therefore, Israel DOES have a dog in the fight over Syria. The continuance of the syrian state is NOT positive for Israel.
242 defensible borders wrt the west bank were ONLY between Israel and Jordan and those were resolved, agreed and recognized at the Jordan river. The current scenario is only related to the Oslo accords and its referrals to 242. Only Oslo binds Israel. 242 only remains relevant wrt Syria. What really obtains is that Israel controls a land area where some of the residents seek a state based on self determination and guided by Oslo. Its time to forget about 242 except related to Syria. The only mention of the pals in 242 is as a refugee problem NOT as an interested party or signatory to 242.
all of this is interesting but one must never forget that Israel has satisfied 242 in securing recognized boundaries with the ONLY state party mentioned in 242 which had an interest in the west bank. That recognized boundary is the Jordan river. the only relevance of 242 to the current scenario which still assumes a withdrawal of the state of Israel from occupied territories is based ONLY on the concept of the legality of taking territory as a result of war. the pals, the PLO have absolutely NOT ONE legal shred of an interest in the west bank land DERIVING from 242. The recognized boundaries of the warring parties of 242 wrt the west bank has been resolved and superseded by the Israel Jordan treaty. That which 242 was meant to achieve has already been achieved with the other party: Jordan.
I see nothing, other than the will of Israel, which legally prevents Israel from claiming any or all of the west bank. It is not a legal issue of occupation but Israel not wanting more arab citizens. This should not be solved by giving away land.
The PLO can only seek to claim a self determination like the basques. 242 has legal weight not due to being UNSC resolution but due to the agreement of the parties including Israel. The PLO was NOT a party to 242. Lawyers and diplomats appear to keep confusing the pals left behind with the state of Jordan.
The legal basis of demanding withdrawal is based on the principle of acquiring territory through war, NOT 242, which has already resolved the boundary dispute between Israel and Jordan. Even diplomats are legally confused. I have asked many times but have yet to see a lawyer or international law expert deal with my argument satisfactorily. One cannot assume that the PLO has any LAND sovereignty rights through 242 simply because they are there,left behind by Jordan when Jordan relinquished any claims to west bank land. Frankly, the arguments on this issue are very sloppy, legally.