"Jews have the same right to settle there as they have to settle in Haifa"

 

 by Jock L. Falkson

 

Israel's victory in the Six Days War (June 1967) left her in charge of all the territory previously annexed by Jordan which they referred to as their West Bank, and the land of Sinai, previously held by Egypt.

 

Israel was prepared to return some of the conquered territories in the peace agreement she expected to sign. But while most wars end in a peace agreement, Egypt, Jordan and the other warring Arab nations had not the slightest intention of making peace though they had clearly been defeated by the infidel Jews they were so confident of conquering and annihilating.

 

 So all Israel got were the Three Noes of Khartoum. No peace, no recognition, no negotiations. This was the unanimous decision of the Arab Summit Conference held that August.

 

 The disposition of the territories which Israel had conquered in 1967 was framed by the United Nations. On 22 November 1967 the Security Council's Resolution 242 was passed. Since then the Palestinians and their friends have tried to change the meaning the resolution to grant them what it had not offered.

 

Here are some of the responses of major political figures who were involved in the phrasing of 242.

 

 

JUSTICE ARTHUR GOLDBERG, FORMER US

AMBASSADOR . . . key author of 242.

 

 "The notable omissions in regard to withdrawal. are the words 'all', 'the' and 'the June 5, 1967 lines'.There is lacking a declaration requiring Israel to withdraw from all of the territories occupied by it on, and after, June 5, 1967."

 

 ". The efforts of the Arab States, strongly supported by the USSR, for a condemnation of Israel as the aggressor and for its withdrawal to the June 5, 1967 lines, failed to command the requisite support."

(Columbia Journal of International Law, Vol 12 no 2, 1973).

 

"UN Security Council Resolution 242 calls on Israel to withdraw only from territories occupied in the course of the Six Day War - that is, not from 'all' the territories or even from 'the' territories. Ingeniously drafted resolutions calling for withdrawal from 'all' the territory were defeated in the Security Council and the General Assembly one after another. Speaker after speaker made it explicit that Israel was not to be forced back to the 'fragile and vulnerable' [1949/1967] Armistice Demarcation Lines." christianactionforisrael.org/un/242a.html

 

"Does Resolution 242 as unanimously adopted by the UN Security Council require the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from all of the territories occupied by Israel during the 1967 war? The answer is no. In the resolution, the words the and all are omitted."

 

"Resolution 242 calls for the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the 1967 conflict, without specifying the extent of the withdrawal. The resolution, therefore, neither commands nor prohibits total withdrawal."

 

"If the resolution is ambiguous, and purposely so, on this crucial issue, how is the withdrawal issue to be settled? By direct negotiations between the concerned parties. Resolution 242 calls for agreement between them to achieve a peaceful and accepted settlement. Agreement and acceptance necessarily require negotiations". (American Foreign Policy Interests, 1988)

 

 

MICHAEL STEWART, SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

 

"As I have explained before . . . the omission of the word 'all' before the word 'territories' is deliberate." Motions to require the withdrawal of Israel from 'the' territories or 'all the territories' . . . were put forward many times with great linguistic ingenuity.

 

"They were all defeated both in the General Assembly and in the Security Council.

 

"The phrasing of the Resolution was very carefully worked out, and it was a difficult and complicated exercise to get it accepted by the UN Security Council. I formulated the Security Council Resolution. Before we submitted it to the Council, we showed it to Arab leaders. The proposal said 'Israel will withdraw from territories that were occupied', and not from 'the' territories, which means that Israel will not withdraw from all the territories." (In Parliament, 19 December 1969)

 

The United Nations could not have conceived that this resolution would not have been implemented 42 years later. However, this did not prevent innumerable attempts to alter its meaning in favor of the Palestinians who, at the time, never even whispered (let alone clamored) for the West Bank to become a Palestinian state. For they were not even a nation in the making.

 

In response to the ongoing debate on "settlements" it is appropriate to recall some of the comments and clarifications offered by Presidents and other high ranking politicos. was Here are a few of the citations of one of the more important of these, namely . . .

 

 

BRITISH AMBASSADOR, LORD CARADON (Hugh Foot) a key drafter of Resolution 242

 

". . . withdrawal should take place to secure and recognized boundaries, and these words were very carefully chosen: they have to be secure and they have to be recognized. . . It was not for us to lay down exactly where the border should be. I know the 1967 border very well. It is not a satisfactory border, it is where troops had to stop in 1948, just where they happened to be that night, that is not a permanent boundary . . ." (Interviewed on Kol Israel in February 1973)

 

 

FORMER UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE EUGENE W. ROSTOW, key author of 242.

 

"The heated question of Israel's settlements in the West Bank during the occupation period should be viewed in this perspective. The British Mandate recognized the right of the Jewish people to close settlement in the whole of the Mandated territory.

 

". . . the Jewish right of settlement in Palestine west of the Jordan river, that is, in Israel, the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, was made unassailable. That right has never been terminated and cannot be terminated except by a recognized peace between Israel and its neighbors. And perhaps not even then. . .

 

"Some governments have taken the view that under the Geneva Convention of 1949 Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal, on the ground that the Convention prohibits an occupying power from flooding the occupied territory with its own citizens. President Carter supported this view, but President Reagan reversed him, specifically saying that the settlements are legal but that further settlements should be deferred since they pose a psychological obstacle to the peace process."

 

". . .the Jews have the same right to settle there as they have to settle in Haifa."

(The New Republic, October 21, 1991)

 

 

FORMER PRESIDENT LYNDON JOHNSON

 

"There are some who have urged, as a single, simple solution, an immediate return to the situation as it was on June 4. As our distinguished and able Ambassador, Mr. Arthur Goldberg, has already said, this is not a prescription for peace but for renewed hostilities." (Address June 19, 1967)*

 

"It is clear however, that a return to the situation of June 4, 1967, will not bring peace. There must be secure and there must be recognized borders." (Address, Sept. 10, 1968) "Israel should not have to withdraw its forces to the pre-June 5 armistice lines. This is not a prescription for peace, but for a renewal of hostilities."(Address, June 19, 1967)

 

"We are not the ones to say where other nations should draw lines between them that will assure each the greatest security. It is clear, however, that a return to the situation of June 4, 1967 will not bring peace." (Front Page Magazine, August 2, 2006.)

 

 

FORMER PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN:

 

"While the Carter administration did deem "settlements" illegal, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush did not. Neither did President Reagan, who said: "As to the West Bank, I believe the settlements there - I disagreed when the previous Administration referred to them as illegal, they're not illegal."

(New York Times, Feb. 3, 1981)

 

"U.N. Resolution 242 remains wholly valid as the foundation-stone of America's Middle East peace effort." "Israel exists; it has a right to exist in peace behind secure and defensible borders, and it has a right to demand of its neighbors that they recognize those facts."

 

"In the pre-1967 borders Israel was barely 10 miles wide at its narrowest point. The bulk of Israel's population lived within artillery range of hostile Arab armies. I am not about to ask Israel to live that way again." (Address to the Nation, September 1, 1982).

 

 

FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE, GEORGE SCHULTZ, to President Reagan

 

"Israel will never negotiate from, or return to, the lines of partition or to the 1967 borders." (Address to the Washington Institute For Near East Policy, Sept. 16, 1988).

 

 

FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE McNAMARA

 

". . . has said that if he were the Israel's Minister of Defense, he would never agree to giving up the Golan Heights.UNSC 242 does not require the Israelis to transfer to the Arabs all, most, or indeed any of the occupied territories."

 

"A few days before the UNSC vote on 242, President Johnson summoned UN Ambassador Arthur Goldberg and Undersecretary Eugene Rostow to formulate the US position on the issue of 'secure boundaries' for Israel. They were presented with the Pentagon Map, which had been prepared by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Earle Wheeler. The map displayed the "minimum territory needed by Israel for defensive purposes," which included the entire Golan Heights and the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria. The participants . . . agreed that the Pentagon Map fulfilled the requirements of 242 for 'secure borders."

 

(Prof. Ezra Zohar, A Concubine in the Middle East, Geffen Publishing, p. 39)

 

 

JAMES BAKER, FORMER US SECRETARY OF STATE

 

"At the Middle East Insight Symposium in Washington on May 4, 1998. Hoda Tawfik, from the newspaper Al Ahram asked James Baker, former US Secretary of State, "What do you think is right? That these are occupied Arab territories and not disputed territories?" Baker replied, "They're clearly disputed territories. That's what Resolutions 242 and 338 are all about. They are clearly disputed territories."

( Washington, May 4, 1998.)

 

 

JOSEPH SISCO, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE

 

"That Resolution did not say 'withdrawal to the pre-June 5 lines'. The Resolution said that the parties must negotiate to achieve agreement on the so-called final secure and recognized borders. In other words, the question of the final borders is a matter of negotiations between the parties."

 

 

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION

 

"In 1991, the Bush administration assured Prime Minister Shamir that the ´´United States does not intend to issue a call for a return to the 1967 borders or for only cosmetic changes in these borders." (Wikipedia)

 

 

GEORGE SHULTZ, SECRETARY OF STATE

 

"Israel will never negotiate from, or return to, the lines of partition or to the 1967 borders. So the state of Israel cannot agree to anything other than its own secure, defensible, and internationally recognized borders." (Address to the Washington Institute For Near East Policy, Sept. 16, 1988).

 

 

VASILY KUZNETSOV, USSR AMBASSADOR TO UN

 

"There is certainly much leeway for different interpretations which retain for Israel the right to establish new boundaries and to withdraw its troops only as far as the lines which it judges convenient."

(S/PV. 1373, p. 112, of 9.11.67)

 

And now comes the sea change bringer of American politics who has not the slightest respect for the views and decisions of his predecessors, great presidents and administration leaders. He has the nerve to tell us that only he and Carter are right. That all previous clarifications from legal eagles who are certainly the more legally knowledgeable than he, are nitwits who do not compare with his regal wisdom.

 

"The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop." Thus Obama.

 

Hillary Clifton echoes her master's voice: "The president was very clear when Prime Minister Netanyahu was here. He wants to see a stop to "settlements" - not some "settlements", not outposts, not natural growth exceptions."

 

Thus he commands Israelis living in West Bank "settlements" that they have no right to build additions to their homes, or new ones to house their newly marrieds. Nor for the new generation born in Yesha!

 

Israel must not give up the rights of Yesha's citizens because their right of settlement was and is unassailable. We must, if necessary, sit this Pharaoh out. The Palestinians have shown us the power of patience. Let us wait for a successor who will reverse Obama.

 

Meanwhile we must ratchet up our puerile public relations to win public opinion. For the Palestinians have beaten us hollow by the power of their public relations. Their narrative has beaten ours. Our governments have misjudged the power of public relations ever since the day Ben Gurion famously said "it matters not what the goyim say but what we do." Then how come it does not matter what the Palestinians do - but what they say?

 

 

Jock (Joshua) L. Falkson

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.