Articles
November/December 1993, Page 83
Middle East History: It Happened In November
The Passage of U.N. Resolution 242
By Donald Neff
It was 26 years ago, on Nov. 22, 1967, that landmark Resolution 242 was unanimously passed by the United Nations Security Council. The resolution was deceptively simple and brief, a mere 292 words. Since then it has been repeatedly cited by all parties to the Middle East conflict as the basic building block for peace.
The text of the resolution is worth recounting in full:
The Security Council, Expressing its continuing concern with the grave situation in the Middle East, Emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every state in the area can live in security, Emphasizing further that all Member States in their acceptance of the Charter of the United Nations have undertaken a commitment to act in accordance with Article 2 of the Charter,
- Affirms that the fulfillment of Charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East which should include the application of both the following principles: (i) Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories* occupied in the recent conflict; (ii) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for an acknowledgement 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;
- Affirms further the necessity (a) For guaranteeing freedom of navigation through international waterways in the area; (b) For achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem; (c) For guaranteeing the territorial inviolability and political independence of every State in the area, through measures including the establishment of demilitarized zones;
- Requests the secretary-general to designate a Special Representative to proceed to the Middle East to establish and maintain contacts with the States concerned in order to promote agreement and assist efforts to achieve a peaceful and accepted settlement in accordance with the provisions and principles in this resolution;
- Requests the secretary-general to report to the Security Council on the progress of the efforts of the Special Representative as soon as possible.'
*The French version said "des territoires occupes" [from the territories].
The failure to call for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from "the" or "all" territories occupied in the June 1967 war was considered at the time as an exercise in creative ambiguity. As later events proved, it was a failure of U.S. statesmanship and a triumph of Israeli strategy. The failure to call for total withdrawal, which came at Israel's urgings, has since become the focal point of endless bickering over just what the council meant about the expected extent of withdrawal by Israeli forces. It has also become a classic example of how Israel successfully manipulates U.S. policy to its own ends.
Originally, the justification behind the construction "withdrawal. . . from territories" was to leave room for Israel and its Arab neighbors to adjust the impractical 1949 armistice lines left over from the 1948 war. Although most council members wanted to demand Israel's total withdrawal, it did seem an eminently practical idea to allow for changes, since there were zigs and zags in the 1948 lines that were potential friction points. Ideally, the post-war period was a time when they could be straightened out to both sides' advantage under a U.S. formula of "minor" and "reciprocal" changes.
One such minor frontier rectification envisioned was the Latrun Salient, a small protrusion of land held by Jordan in the Latrun Plain that blocked direct motoring between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Top U.S. officials mentioned the Latrun Salient to Arab officials as an example of the type of minor change in the frontier they envisioned under 242—and of the reciprocity they expected for this concession. For instance, on Nov. 6, less than three weeks before the passage of 242, Secretary of State Dean Rusk privately assured King Hussein of Jordan in a Washington meeting that if Jordan gave up the Latrun Salient, "the United States would then use its diplomatic and political influence to obtain in compensation access for Jordan to a Mediterranean port in Israel. " Arthur J. Goldberg, America's ambassador to the U.N., gave Hussein similar assurances at the same time, also citing Latrun as the kind of minor change contemplated.2 When Hussein met on Nov. 8 with President Lyndon Johnson, who had been briefed by Rusk on the U.S. interpretation, the Jordanian monarch asked how soon Israeli troops would withdraw from most of the occupied land. The president replied: "In six months."3
After these assurances from the top echelon of the government, King Hussein pronounced himself "extremely satisfied" with the U.S. interpretation of withdrawal by Israeli forces.4
Less Than Candid Tactics
Although Israel would later hotly argue that it did not have to withdraw at all from Arab Jerusalem or the West Bank, it gave every indication in 1967 that it agreed with the U.S. interpretation while it sought America's aid in fashioning a resolution with an undefined withdrawal clause. Israel's less than candid tactics become clear from a study of the U.S. record of conversations, reports and other contemporaneous documents. The State Department conducted such a study in 1978 and concluded:
"At no time did Israel object to this U.S. position. . . Support for the concept of total withdrawal was widespread in the Security Council, and it was only through intensive American efforts that a resolution was adopted which employed indefinite language in the withdrawal clause. In the process of obtaining this result, the United States made clear to the Arab states and several other members of the Security Council that the United States envisioned only insubstantial revisions of the 1949 armistice lines. Israel did not protest this approach. "5
While Israel did not immediately challenge Washington's interpretation in public, it lost n~ time in acting contrary to the assurances America was giving to the Arabs. It embarked on a stealthy program of establishing settlements. By the end of 1967 Israel had begun settlements in all of the occupied territories, including Arab Jerusalem.
At this point Washington made its second big mistake. Although it was the U.S. that made possible passage of a resolution with reference to an indefinite withdrawal, Washington then declined to go public with the assurances it had given in private to the Arabs. There is no official explanation for this reluctance to go public beyond the fact that the Johnson administration, and especially Ambassador Goldberg, an avowed Zionist, were among the most proIsrael up to that time.
Later Goldberg even claimed that he and other officials had never supported the idea of minor and reciprocal changes.6 He made this claim despite evidence of the 1978 State Department study and the assertion by no less a friend of Israel's than Henry Kissinger. Kissinger wrote in his memoirs: "Jordan's acquiescence in Resolution 242 had been obtained in 1967 by the promise of our United Nations Ambassador Arthur Goldberg that under its terms we would work for the return of the West Bank to Jordan with minor boundary rectifications and that we were prepared to use our influence to obtain a role for Jordan in Jerusalem."' Similarly, Rusk, the secretary of state at the time who personally negotiated with King Hussein, has written: "Resolution 242 never contemplated the movement of any significant territories to Israel."6
Secretary of State William Rogers, who was notably evenhanded on the conflict, acknowledged the U.S. interpretation in 1969. On Dec. 9, he remarked that "any changes in the pre-existing lines should be confined to insubstantial alterations required for mutual security. We do not support expansionism."9 Similarly, Jimmy Carter in the first months of his presidency spoke openly of "minor" border changes. But then he foolishly acceded to a personal request from new Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to stop referring to the U.S. interpretation in public.”
Israel then went further in offering a unique interpretation of 242. The ultranationalist government of Begin insisted Israel was under no obligation to withdraw from all three fronts of the Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and West Bank. In fact, the existence of Israel's numerous settlements—around 90 in the West Bank, Golan Heights and Gaza Strip in 1977, when Begin came to power"—was eloquent testimony of its claim to the occupied territories. On the issue of whether withdrawal had to occur on all fronts the U.S. has remained steadfast. Successive administrations—at least up to Clinton—have declared in public that Israel must withdraw from all fronts.
However, no president or secretary of state since Carter has repeated in public the original U.S. interpretation—which is what won Arab agreement on the resolution in
