Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict by Norman Finkelstein

Author:Norman Finkelstein
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Verso Books
Published: 2015-09-24T04:30:00+00:00

Deadlock

In the wake of the June war, attention shifted from the battlefield back to the diplomatic arena. The main venue of deliberations was the United Nations and the main outcome was UN Resolution 242. Controversy has swirled around 242 since its adoption principally due to the varying interpretations given the clause that calls for ‘withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict’, in accordance with the principle ‘emphasize[d]’ in the preambular paragraph of the ‘inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war’. In this section, I will review the documentary record on the ‘withdrawal clause’, juxtaposing Israel’s interpretation against the interpretation upheld by the rest of the world.

As the Security Council moved to adopt 242 and in subsequent years, Abba Eban invested considerable effort in elucidating the resolution’s meaning. Chief among his claims have been the following:

1. Withdrawal was not a ‘central and primary’ concern. The resolution’s ‘central and primary affirmation’, according to Eban, was ‘the need for “establishment of a just and lasting peace” based on secure and recognized boundaries’. ‘There is a clear understanding’, he stated, ‘that it is only within the establishment of permanent peace with secure and recognized boundaries that the other principles can be given effect.’61

2. The preambular principle of the ‘inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war’ was ‘not relevant’ to the Middle East. ‘It is not relevant’, Eban informed the Security Council in a disquisition that would surely have resonated with Saddam Hussein, ‘to transfer the territorial doctrines and experiences of another hemisphere to an area in which the only territorial agreements which have ever existed have been based on military considerations alone.’ ‘Regional doctrines’, he cautioned, ‘cannot be transplanted from one continent to another without regard to the different juridical circumstances which prevail. We must work within the law and the necessities which apply to our region.’ In a later elucidation Eban claimed that the ‘inadmissibility’ principle was inserted ‘in deference to Latin American pressure’, yet had no pertinence except in Latin America, which was – Eban further alleged – uniquely prone to ‘chaotic controversy’ when boundaries were ‘not safeguarded against volatile and transient military successes’. Israel’s UN representative in June 1967, Gideon Rafael, maintained that the ‘inadmissibility’ principle referred only to ‘territorial conquests resulting from wars of aggression’ and was incorporated in 242 ‘only for the sake of parliamentary convenience’.62

3. The operative paragraph calling for ‘withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied’ allowed for ‘territorial revision’. Eban contended that 242 left the ‘scope and dimension’ of Israel’s withdrawal ‘vague’. Accordingly, the resolution ‘gave us a chance of territorial revision’. The principle of withdrawal was ‘not applicable to all the territories involved’.63

Not one of Eban’s propositions is sustained by the documentary record.

The Fifth Emergency Special Session of the General Assembly convened in mid-June 1967. It marked the first international effort in the wake of the war to reach consensus on resolving the Arab–Israeli conflict. Summarizing the main point of agreement that emerged from the otherwise contentious

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