The Real UN Resolution 242

By Sammy Benoit, AT:

Since we are about to embark on another fruitless peace effort in the Middle East, it probably makes sense to take another look at the UN Resolution we will be hearing a lot about over the next few months, UN Resolution 242.

You will hear politicians and diplomats claim that Israel must withdraw to the pre-1967 borders per UN Resolution 242. These people have no Idea what the resolution calls for, which is

“…withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;”

It all surrounds the use (or non-use) of one simple article “the.”

The Arabs and their supporters say that 242 calls for Israel to withdraw from “the” territories taken during the Six Day War. The resolution actually says that ‘Israel should withdraw from territories’ taken during the war (no article). If include that “the” would mean all territories.

It was no accident “the” was left out. Diplomats are very exact in their language. During the negotiations to create resolution 242, Arab governments tried three times to have “the” inserted into the resolution and their request was rejected. But, by repeating what they wanted the resolution to say all these years, the Arabs succeed in convincing many people to accept their distorted interpretation of 242.

But, if you read the statements of the drafters of the resolution there is no ambiguity about what they meant. Below are those statements by country and participant:

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