United Nations Security Council Resolution 242

United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 (S/RES/242) was adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council on November 22, 1967 in the aftermath of the Six Day War. It was adopted under Chapter VI of the United Nations Charter .

It calls for the "withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict" (see semantic dispute) and the "[t]ermination of all claims or states of belligerency".

It also calls for the recognition of all established states by belligerent parties (Israel, Egypt, Syria, Jordan) of each other and calls for the establishment of secure and recognized boundaries for all parties.

It is one of the most commonly referenced UN resolutions in Middle Eastern politics. It was reaffirmed and made binding by UN Security Council Resolution 338, adopted after the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Text of Resolution

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:

Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;

Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and 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

For guaranteeing freedom of navigation through international waterways in the area;

For achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem;

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.

Context

The resolution is the formula proposed by the Security Council for the successful resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, in particular, ending the state of belligerency then existing between Israel and Egypt, Jordan and Syria. It insists upon the termination of all states of war in the area; guarantees the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of all Middle Eastern nations; and calls for a "just settlement" of the question of the refugees.

The resolution's most important feature is the "land for peace" formula, calling for Israeli withdrawal from territories it had occupied in 1967 in exchange for peace with its neighbors. This was an important advance at the time, considering the fact that there were no peace treaties between any Arab state and Israel until the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty signed in 1979.

For obvious reasons, the U.N. could not force the relevant parties to make a peace agreement, nor would the rather ambiguous resolution have precedence over bilateral negotiations; however the resolution was the focus of numerous semantic disputes.

"Land for peace" served as the basis of the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty, in which Israel retreated from the Sinai peninsula (Egypt withdrew its claims to the Gaza Strip). Jordan withdrew its claims for the West Bank shortly after the beginning of the First Intifada, and has signed the Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace in 1994, that demarcated the Jordan River as the border line.

Throughout the 1990s, there were Israeli-Syrian negotiations regarding a normalization of relations and an Israeli retreat from the Golan Heights but a peace treaty failed to materialize, mainly due to the Syrian desire to recover and retain 25 square kilometers of Israeli territory in the Jordan River Valley seized in 1948 and occupied until 1967. As the United Nations recognizes only the 1948 borders, there is little support for the Syrian position outside Arab block nor in resolving the Golan Heights issue.

The resolution advocates a "just settlement of the refugee problem" but doesn't specifically mention the Palestinians, who were not represented in the debate. The UN resolution, however, did serve as a basis for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations (Palestinians being represented by the PLO) that led to the Oslo Accords. The Accords' main premise, the eventual creation of Palestinian autonomy in some of the territories captured during the Six-Day War, in return for Palestinian recognition of Israel is obviously reminiscent of the "Land for Peace" principle.

Both Israel and her neighbors accept the legitimacy of 242, although the two sides interpret the resolution to mean quite different things. The two sides also disagree over the implementation of the resolution.

Israel generally focuses on the latter part of the resolution first, which calls for the "termination of all states of belligerency" in the area. Thus, the refusal of the Arab states to end the state of war that exists represents a material and continuing breach of 242, making Israeli security control of the territories a continuing necessity. This continued disagreement continues to be reflected even in Israel's peaceful relations with more "moderate" neighbors such as Egypt and Jordan, and is still a major stumbling block in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians -- the former insisting upon an end to terrorism as a prerequisite to negotiations, the latter claiming Israel's continuing "violations" of 242 as one of the justifications for Palestinian militancy.

After territorial issues, perhaps the most widely disputed element of 242 is the call for "a just settlement of the refugee problem." Israel continues to refuse to consider any large-scale resettlement of Palestinian refugees on Israeli territory, claiming that such a move would undermine the Jewish character of the state of Israel and lead to its collapse. Moreover, Israel points to the continued refusal of the Arab nations to compensate Israeli Jews of Arab origin, many of whom were driven out of their home countries after facing the expropriation of virtually all of their property. Israel's official stand at present is that refugees will be resettled either where they currently live, or in a newly constituted Palestinian state at such a time when it is established.

All Palestinian parties with substantial political power have stated their opposition to any agreement that does not allow for a full return of Palestinian refugees to their places of origin within the former Palestine Mandate, regardless of whether those places are currently in Israel proper. This argument reflects an even older conflict over the meaning of the non binding UN Resolution 194, the first UN resolution to deal with the Palestinian refugees. The refugee issue continues to be one of the most intractable facets of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and continues to hamstring efforts on both sides to implement Resolution 242.

Semantic dispute

The interpretation of the resolution has been controversial, in particular the interpretation of Operative Clause 1(i), in which the Security Council calls for:

Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.

In simple terms, the dispute is about whether the Resolution requires Israel to retreat from all the territories it captured in 1967, or whether it could comply by retreating (perhaps on mutually agreed terms) only from some part or parts of the territories. However, the dispute was rendered immaterial following an International Court of Justice ruling in July 2004 which stated that Israel must fully withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

French version of text

The French version of the clause reads:

Retrait des forces armées israéliennes des territoires occupés lors du récent conflit.

The difference between the two version lies in the absence of a definite article ("the") in the English version (so that it could possibly mean "from some territories"), while a definite article ("de + les" = "des") is present in the French version (so that it can only mean "from the territories"). An alternative formulation "de territoires" would have been equally French.

The absence of the definite article in the English version seems to have been the result of a deliberate amendment made by the US government. The drafting process was made on the English version, the French being a translation of the English final draft.

Only English and French were the Security Council's working languages (Arabic, Russian, Spanish and Chinese were official but not the working languages).

The pro-Israel Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America argues the practice at the UN is that the binding version of any resolution is the one voted upon. In the case of 242 that version was in English, so they assert the English version the only binding one . In contrast, the French representative to the Security Council, in the debate which preceded the vote, asserted:

the French text, which is equally authentic with the English, leaves no room for any ambiguity, since it speaks of withdrawal "des territoires occupés", which indisputably corresponds to the expression "the occupied territories".

This view is in line with Article 33(1) of the 1986 Vienna convention, although this was not in force at the time Resolution 242 was passed.

Opponents of the "all territories" reading remind that the UN Security Council declined to adopt a draft resolution including the definite article way prior to the adoption of Resolution 242. They argue that, in interpreting a resolution of an international organization, one must look to the process of the negotiation and adoption of the text. This would make the text in English, the language of the discussion, take precedence.

It is also commonly suggested that the definite article in the French version is a translation error, and should therefore be ignored in interpreting the document.

Supporters of the "all territories" reading claim that the principle usually applied in international law is to adopt the interpretation which best harmonizes the meaning of the differing language texts. Applying this principle to this resolution, one would come to the interpretation that the resolution requires a full withdrawal is compatible with the English text, and is implied by the French text. By contrast, even if an interpretation requiring only a partial withdrawal is compatible with the English text, it contradicts the French text.

Legal interpretation of English version

Expressio unius est exclusio alterius

The legal principle expressio unius est exclusio alterius (which states that the terms excluded from a law are excluded intentionally) it cited by some as operating against an "all territoires" reading. Others object that the legal principle in question cannot operate so as to create ambiguity. Per Lord Caradon, the chief author of the Resolution:

It was from occupied territories that the Resolution called for withdrawal. The test was which territories were occupied. That was a test not possibly subject to any doubt as a matter of fact...East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan and Sinai were occupied in the 1967 conflict. I[t] was on withdrawal from occupied territories that the Resolution insisted .

Further to this, it is argued that an interpretation of the text which takes the absence of the definite article to mean "some" would run contrary to the legal Golden Rule, in that the outcome would be absurd, particularly since the definite article is absent twice in the clause. Israel would have been required to withdraw only "some" of its military presence from "some" of the territories occupied, and would have been at liberty to choose for itself the extent of withdrawal in each case, which, it is claimed, cannot have been the intention of the Security Council.

"Dogs in the park" analogy

Lawyer John McHugo, of Edinburgh University, draws a comparison to to phrases such as:

Dogs must be kept on the lead near ponds in the park.

In spite of the lack of definite articles, according to McHugo, it clear that such an instruction cannot legitimately be taken to imply that some dogs need not be kept on the lead, or that the rule only applies near some ponds .

Further, McHugo points out a potential consequence of the logic employed by advocates of a "some" reading. Paragraph 2 (a) of the Resolution , which guarantees "freedom of navigation through international waterways in the area", may allow Arab states to interfere with navigation through some international waterways of their choosing.

Presumption against uncertainty

Supporters of a full withdrawal argue that the absence of the words "all" or "the" before territories cannot mean that Israel can retain some of the territories it captured in 1967, because there is a presumption in International Law that a document should be interpreted in order to make its meaning clear, and interpretations that lead to uncertainty should be avoided. The Israeli claim that Resolution 242 requires only a partial withdrawal from territories creates uncertainty as to which territories it could retain and which it could withdraw from, and this cannot have been the intention of the Security Council, according to advocates of a full withdrawal.

The text should be read as a whole

Some claim that Preambulatory Clause 2, "Emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war" implies a total withdrawal, based on a principle of noscitur a sociis under international law on interpretation of treaties . Although preambulatory clauses never include specific directives, they should be used to interpret the operative paragraphs. According to such a view, the withdrawal should be from "all territories".

The drafting process

A key part of the case in favour of a "some territories" reading is the claim that British and American officials involved in the drafting of the Resolution omitted the definite article deliberately in order to make it less demanding on the Israelis. As George Brown, British Foreign Secretary in 1967, commented:

I have been asked over and over again to clarify, modify or improve the wording, but I do not intend to do that. 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.

Lord Caradon, chief author of the resolution, takes a subtly different slant. His focus seems to be that the lack of a definite article is intended to deny permanance to the pre-1967 border, rather than to allow Israel to retain land taken by force. Such a view would appear to allow for the possibility that the borders could be varied through negotiation:

Knowing as I did the unsatisfactory nature of the 1967 line, I wasn’t prepared to use wording in the Resolution that would have made that line permanent. Nonetheless, it is necessary to say again that the overwhelming principle was the ‘inadmissability of the acquisition of territory by war’ and that meant that there could be no justification for the annexation of territory on the Arab side of the 1967 line merely because it had been conquered in the 1967 war. The sensible way to decide permanent ‘secure and recognized’ boundaries would be to set up a Boundary Commission and hear both sides and then to make impartial recommendations for a new frontier line, bearing in mind, of course, the "inadmissibility" principle.

Eugene V Rostow, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs in 1967, draws attention to the fact that the text proposed by the British had succeeded ahead of alternatives (in particular, a more explicit text proposed by the Soviet Union), although it should be noted that none of these included the phrase "the territories":

... paragraph 1 (i) of the Resolution calls for the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces 'from territories occupied in the recent conflict', and not 'from the territories occupied in the recent conflict'. Repeated attempts to amend this sentence by inserting the word 'the' failed in the Security Council. It is, therefore, not legally possible to assert that the provision requires Israeli withdrawal from all the territories now occupied under the cease-fire resolutions to the Armistice Demarcation lines.

The USSR and the Arabs supported a draft demanding a withdrawal to the 1967 Lines. The US, Canada and most of West Europe and Latin America supported the draft which was eventually approved by the UN Security Council.

Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338... rest on two principles, Israel may administer the territory until its Arab neighbors make peace; and when peace is made, Israel should withdraw to 'secure and recognized borders', which need not be the same as the Armistice Demarcation Lines of 1949.

Rostow's President, Lyndon B Johnson, appears to support this last view:

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.

Statements by Security Council representatives

Supporters of an "all territories" reading point out that the intentions and opinions of draftsmen are not normally considered relevant to the interpretation of law, their role being purely administrative. It is claimed that much more weight should be given to opinons expressed on the matter in discussions at the Security Council prior to the adoption of the resolution. The representative for India stated to the Security Council:

It is our understanding that the draft resolution, if approved by the Council, will commit it to the application of the principle of total withdrawal of Israel forces from all the territories - I repeat, all the territories - occupied by Israel as a result of the conflict which began on 5 June 1967.

The representatives from Nigeria, France, USSR, Bulgaria, United Arab Republic (Egypt), Ethiopia, Jordan, Argentina and Mali supported this view, as worded by the representative from Mali: "[Mali] wishes its vote today to be interpreted in the light of the clear and unequivocal interpretation which the representative of India gave of the provisions of the United Kingdom text".

However, such statements make clear that the representatives were well aware of the vagueness of the draft resolution, which was nevertheless unanimously approved. In this light, the above speeches might be seen as evasive requests for exemption of responsibility, irrespective of the interpretations adopted by Israel and the Arab countries.

Israel was the only country represented at the Security Council to express a contrary view, although the USA, United Kingdom, Denmark, China and Japan were (perhaps intentionally) silent on the matter. The Syrian representative was strongly critical of the text's "vague call on Israel to withdraw".

The statement by the Brazillian representative perhaps gives a flavour of the complexities at the heart of the discussions:

I should like to restate...the general principle that no stable international order can be based on the threat or use of force, and that the occupation or acquisition of territories brought about by such means should not be recognized...Its acceptance does not imply that borderlines cannot be rectified as a result of an agreement freely concluded among the interested States. We keep constantly in mind that a just and lasting peace in the Middle East has necessarily to be based on secure permanent boundaries freely agreed upon and negotiated by the neighboring States.

However, the Soviet delegate Vasily Kuznetsov said after the adoption of Resolution 242:" ... phrases such as 'secure and recognized boundaries'. ... 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".

Arthur Goldberg, who represented the US in discussions, later gave his opinion that: "The notable omissions in regard to withdrawal are the word 'the' or 'all' and 'the June 5, 1967 lines' the resolution speaks of withdrawal from occupied territories, without defining the extent of withdrawal" .

Implementation

On November 23, 1967, The Secretary General appointed Gunnar Jarring as Special Envoy to negotiate the implementation of the resolution with the parties, the so-called Jarring Mission. The governments of Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon recognized Jarring's appointment and agreed to participate in his shuttle diplomacy, although they differed on key points of interpretation of the resolution. The government of Syria rejected Jarring's mission on grounds that total Israeli withdrawal was a prerequisite for further negotiations. The talks under Jarring's auspices lasted until 1973, but bore no results. In the meantime, the United States proposed the so-called Rogers plan, which was also rejected by all parties. After 1973, the Jarring mission was replaced by bilateral and multilateral peace conferences.

See also

• Khartoum Resolution
• United Nations

Arab-Israeli peace diplomacy and treaties

• Paris Peace Conference, 1919
• Faisal-Weizmann Agreement (1919)
• 1949 Armistice Agreements
• Camp David Accords (1978)
• Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty (1979)
• Madrid Conference of 1991
• Oslo Accords (1993)
• Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace (1994)
• Camp David 2000 Summit
• Peace process in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• Projects working for peace among Israelis and Arabs
• List of Middle East peace proposals
• International law and the Arab-Israeli conflict

External links

• Original text of UN resolution 242 in English and French (from the UN archives)
• Israeli government article
• UN Security Council discussion prior to res242
• UN Security Council discussion and vote surrounding res242
• Article on PLO website arguing for full withdrawal
• International Court of Justice ruling on the legal consequences of the construction of a wall in the occupied Palestinian Territory

• {http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/UN/meaning_of_242.html Jewish Virtual Library discussion of 242]