The English text of UN Security Council Resolution 242 (November 22, 1967) demands Israel’s withdrawal "from territories occupied in the recent conflict," namely the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and the West Bank including East Jerusalem.
The pro-Israel lobby often claims that the omission of "the" before "territories" means that the resolution does not call on Israel to withdraw fully from those Arab lands. This is, of course, a myth.
One need only glance at the second sentence of the resolution: "Emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war."
Furthermore, the French text of the resolution demands Israel’s withdrawal from "des territoires," the word "des" being derived from "de les," which means "of the."
The English and French versions of the resolution can be viewed here.
The resolution emphasises that UN member states "have undertaken a commitment to act in accordance with Article 2 of the Charter." However, Israel’s military aggression and occupation in 1967 violated Article 2, which can be viewed here.
It states that "all Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered." Israel chose to settle its dispute with its neighbours by war, and in so doing undermined "peace, security, and justice."
Article 2 also states that "all Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations." Israel used massive force against the territorial integrity of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and the Palestinians, thus quadrupling its size in just six days.
The reality of the demands of Resolution 242 seem to be recognised even by Israel’s staunchest ally, the U.S.
"Internal documents and the rare public pronouncement…make it clear that, although U.S. policymakers never definitively spelled out the exact boundary envisioned between Israel and any Arab entity, the basic assumption of successive administrations was that Israel would not keep the occupied territories," wrote Kathleen Christison, a former CIA political analyst, in June 2002.
Indeed, former US President Lyndon Johnson said publicly in 1968 that whatever borders were finally agreed to "should not reflect the weight of conquest."
"The U.S. envisioned a virtually full withdrawal on all fronts, excepting only some possible ‘minor border adjustments’ in the 1967 lines to straighten and rationalize boundaries," Christison wrote.
It is ironic that the pro-Israel lobby should water down the true intent of Resolution 242, because under the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, the former withdrew totally from the occupied Sinai Peninsula. This was, Christison wrote, "a point not lost on other Arabs still negotiating their own agreements."
She says: "With respect specifically to the occupied West Bank, U.S. policymakers gained Jordan's acceptance of Resolution 242 on the promise that the U.S. would seek an Israeli withdrawal from the entire territory except for minor border changes."
It was under this assumption that the Palestine Liberation Organisation in November 1988 formally relinquished all Palestinian claims to territory inside Israel's 1967 borders, which constituted almost 80% of the Palestinians’ homeland.
"The United States, through six administrations from Johnson to George H. W. Bush, consistently adhered to Resolution 242, explicitly endorsed its central land-for-peace thesis, and therefore explicitly led the PLO to believe that Palestinian adherence to the resolution and an expressed willingness to live in peace with Israel would bring U.S. support for the other half of the deal--land for the Palestinians, in the form of an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza, with a capital in Jerusalem, following a virtually complete Israeli withdrawal," wrote Christison.
During the first Bush administration, policymakers regularly reaffirmed Resolution 242 as the basis for a peace settlement and specified U.S. support for an end to Israel's occupation. In an official letter of assurance given to the Palestinians in advance of the 1991 Madrid peace conference, Secretary of State James Baker asserted the U.S. belief that "a comprehensive peace must be grounded in" Resolution 242 and "the principle of territory for peace". Baker further pledged that "the United States believes that there should be an end to the Israeli occupation". Bush senior himself affirmed in 1990 that the U.S. did not support the establishment of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.
"After being beaten about the head and shoulders for years about the need to accept the UN resolution and recognize Israel's right to exist, Palestinians had every reason to expect that the U.S. would follow through with its part of the bargain when they did finally accede to these demands--first in 1988, then again in 1991 when they accepted the terms for entering peace talks at Madrid, and yet again in 1993 when they negotiated and signed on to the Oslo accords."
In fact, the Oslo agreement specified that negotiations would "lead to the implementation of" Resolution 242.
Even prior to the Oslo agreement, the U.S. drafted a proposed Israeli-Palestinian declaration of principles in mid-1993, stating as one of its fundamental points that "the two sides concur that the agreement reached between them on permanent status will constitute the implementation" of Resolution 242 in all its aspects.
"When U.S. officials began to say, in the run-up to Camp David, that neither side could expect to get 100 percent of its demands, should (Yasser) Arafat have reminded those officials, and Israel, that the Palestinians had already formally compromised 78 percent of their demands by repeatedly recognizing Israel's right to exist and that compromise on the remaining 22 percent would necessarily be minimal? The answer is yes," Christison concluded.
Christison’s full article can be viewed here.