Summary Overview

In June, 1967, with tension rising in the Middle East, and Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian military forces being mobilized and stationed along their borders with Israel, Israel mobilized its forces and attacked these three nations, winning a decisive military victory in six days. Israel occupied territory belonging to these three nations when a cease-fire was signed. A solution was needed to ease, or perhaps end, the tensions between the Arabs and the Israelis. The U.N. resolution reprinted here was designed to address that situation.

Resolution 242 addressed both a basic problem from before the war (the existence of Israel) and a major problem as a result of the war (Israel occupying non-Israeli territory). The compromise offered through this resolution was that Israel would return the lands it had conquered in exchange for the Arab states recognizing Israel and its right to exist. Although this compromise would not have solved all the tensions that had arisen in the region since World War II, the full implementation of the resolution would have peacefully resolved major disputes that these nations were facing.

Defining Moment

One reason the United Nations was founded, as stated in its charter, was to settle “international disputes by peaceful means.” Resolution 242 was one attempt to implement this aspect of the charter; in this instance by settling the dispute between Israel and its neighbors, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. When the British had announced that they were giving up their protectorate of Palestine during 1948, the existing Arab countries in that region had desired the creation of one new state in that area, Palestine. If this had been done it would have been a majority Arab/Muslim state, with a significant Jewish minority. However, Jewish settlers in that area, and Jews around the world, advocated for the creation of a Jewish state in those sections of the protectorate in which Jews were the majority. A two-state division of the area was recommended by the United Nations, and Jewish leaders declared the creation of Israel in 1948. After repelling Arab troops, Israel was established with most of the area that was to have been a Palestinian state incorporated into Egypt and Jordan.

During the spring of 1967, increased violence was directed toward Israel, in the form of both guerilla raids by Palestinians and larger efforts such as Syria’s artillery bombardment of northern Israel. Egypt closed Israel’s access to the Red Sea. By early June, when the Israeli leadership believed (as did most other global leaders) that the Arab states were about to attack Israel (reinforcements were on the way to Jordan from Iraq), Israel made a pre-emptive attack against them destroying their air forces and many of their tanks and other mechanized forces. Once the Israelis had advanced far enough to secure defensible physical borders, they accepted a cease-fire, ending the fighting but not ending the hostility between the two sides. As the organization that had brokered the cease-fire on June 11, the United Nations, and its leaders sought to find a way to create a more stable situation for Israel and its neighbors. After five months of discussion, debate, and negotiations, the fifteen members of the Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 242 at the 1382^nd meeting of the Security Council.

The resolution was directed toward the nations of the Middle East, where it received a cool reception. Although it contained points that each side could accept, those that were acceptable to the Israelis seemed to be unacceptable to the Arabs, and vice versa. As such, although it did contain a potential path toward long-term peace and stability, the resolution produced no great progress. However, the basic premise of the resolution, land for peace, was the foundation for later agreements that Israel made with individual Arab states. As such, it was a seed that eventually did bear fruit, even if not in the form that had been articulated by the Security Council.

Author Biographies

Hugh M. Foot (1907-1990) was a British diplomat who grew up in a liberal, politically active family. (His father and three brothers were all, at various times, members of Parliament.) He was an administrator in British Palestine and during World War II served as a military administrator in the Mediterranean. Except for a short time when he resigned over the British policy in Rhodesia, he served as a representative for the United Kingdom from 1961 to 1970. In 1964, he was made a life peer.

Arthur Goldberg (1908-1990) was the American ambassador to the United Nations. He grew up in a family of modest means but eventually earned a law degree. Prior to his work at the U.N., he had been a labor lawyer and Secretary of Labor, and had served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. After his time at the U.N., Goldberg tried, and failed, to win elective office, subsequently returning to private practice.

Eugene Rostow (1913-2002) was from a socialist family but became a conservative Democrat and supported a number of unpopular causes. He became a law professor at Yale, and in 1945, as an advisor to the State Department, published an article against Japanese-American internment. He eventually became Dean of the Yale Law School, serving there until 1965. During the Johnson administration he was an under-secretary of state and a strong defender of U.S. actions in the Vietnam War. It was in this capacity, as under-secretary, that he became involved in the U.N. action regarding the Six Day War in the Middle East. Rostow later led the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.

Document Analysis

The Security Council of the United Nations sought to end the tension in the Middle East caused by the withdrawal of the British from Palestine without the status of the territory, and borders of any new states, having been agreed to by all interested parties. In 1948, when the Jewish leaders announced the creation of the state of Israel within borders recommended by a 1947 U.N. resolution, there was not a comparable Arab/Palestinian organization ready to establish a government within the remaining territory, nor were the Arab Palestinians ready to accept the proposed arrangement. The resulting turmoil and new borders led to twenty years of ongoing tension between Israel and its neighbors. The members of the Security Council rightly understood that unless this underlying tension was resolved, the pressures that had brought about the Six Day War would result in future wars. Thus, the Council not only called for a “just and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in security,” but tried to provide a foundation on which this might occur. Without mandating a timeline or other specifics, the resolution proposed that a long-term peace would be attained through the resolution of basic four issues. These would be the withdrawal from occupied territory (Israel), mutual recognition of states and previous boundaries (all participants, but especially the Arab states), following agreements regarding international waterways (Egypt), and a solution to the refugee crisis resulting from the displacement of many Palestinians (mainly Jordan and Israel). While no specific temporal order was assigned to resolving these issues, it was understood that these were not totally independent concerns and certain solutions might have to be implemented simultaneously.

The creators of this resolution understood that the goal of peace was not simple, or it would have already been accomplished. However, with the Six Day War ceasefire a new opportunity presented itself. Both sides in the conflict had something the other wanted. The Arab states wanted their lands back, or at least for Israel not to have it, while Israel wanted diplomatic recognition and the ability to undertake normal economic endeavors. Those opposing Israel looked at the first major point in the introduction and the first clause, which stated that Israel should withdraw from “territories occupied in the recent conflict.” The initial thought was that this was a first step, to be followed by other actions. These leaders demanded that Israel take the first step. Israel’s response was to point to the next clause, which mandated that everyone in the Middle East should make an “acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State” within the region. Israel countered, then, that the first step should be the implementation of the second clause declaring that secure national borders must be established along with the acceptance of Israel’s right to exist. Israel’s position was that the Arab states’ rejection of Israel had been the source of tension prior to the war. The Security Council, however, believed that with each side having something to trade, Israel should be able to obtain diplomatic recognition in exchange for giving up the occupied territory.

It was assumed that if the border issue were resolved, then opening the Straits of Tiran (connecting the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea) would be assured, as was the case when Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in 1978. (Since Israel held the Sinai Peninsula after the Six Day War, this was temporarily not an issue.) The first three clauses laying out issues to be settled were all important to Israel—and to at least one of the Arab states. However, the fourth issue, “the refugee problem,” was not a top concern for any national leader at the time. Israel seemed to think that the refugees could transform into residents in whatever nation they found themselves. The Arab nations believed that, while some refugees might meld into their populations, most would return to Palestine (the Gaza Strip or the West Bank) and become part of the new Palestinian state, whenever that was created. Thus, all of the leaders considered the refugees as someone else’s problem, and therefore they took few steps to try to solve this issue.

Although a Special Representative was to be appointed to assist with any negotiations, and a report submitted to the Security Council, those measures were not expected to resolve any serious issues not otherwise addressed. Officials were sent and offers to mediate were made, but none of these efforts were eagerly received by the nations in the conflict. In addition, the exact meaning of this fairly simple resolution was debated. For example, a dispute over the exact meaning of the clause instructing Israel to withdraw seems to have been present from the start. Israel and Arthur Goldberg, one of the authors, interpreted this statement as meaning that Israel should withdraw from some of, but not necessarily all, the territory. On the other side, the Arab nations and Eugene Rostow, another author, believed that to fulfill the resolution Israel had to withdraw from all territory acquired during the 1967 war. While there are no modifiers on the term “withdrawal” in the resolution, those supporting a partial withdrawal pointed to the fact that the Security Council had voted against a Soviet Union proposal that had included the word “total” as a modifier to “withdrawal,” instead adopting the British proposal without that modifier. The resolution was not complex, and clearly related to Article 2 Clause 3 of the U.N. Charter, which affirmed that settlement of disputes should be “by peaceful means,” and Clause 4’s affirmation of “territorial integrity.” Nevertheless, exactly how the resolution was to be implemented to achieve this goal was not a matter of settled opinion.

Essential Themes

At the heart of Resolution 242 was the proposal to end the conflict by means of what has been called a “land for peace” deal. Israel held territory that had been part of, or was claimed by, the three major belligerents on the Arab side. Although none of the four active participants in the war responded to the resolution by giving it a wholehearted endorsement, Israel, Egypt, and Jordan were inclined to see it as a positive proposal and something that might work. Syria was adamant that it would not consider discussing other issues while Israel held Syrian territory. Although Resolution 242 initially received a tepid reception, it did play an important role in future talks and treaties.

The 1979 peace treaty signed by Egyptian and Israeli leaders reflected the core of Resolution 242. While additional issues and safeguards were included in the later agreement, Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt and Egypt recognized Israel and its right to exist. The Gaza Strip, which had been governed by Egypt from 1948 to 1967, was left in Israel’s control, to become a future Palestinian state. Although Jordan had annexed the West Bank after the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict, in 1988 it officially renounced this annexation, turning over the territory to the Palestinian people, even though at that time it was under Israel’s control. Thus, the Jordanian-Israeli treaty, signed in 1994, returned only a small amount of territory to Jordan in exchange for its recognition of Israel and normalization of economic and political relations between the two states. Syria and Israel have never signed a peace treaty, although they did have an agreement leading to military “disengagement” along their border. The Syrian leadership has always demanded that Israel withdraw from all occupied territory before they would consider further discussions regarding a peace treaty. Still, even aspects of the “disengagement” plan echoed Resolution 242, in that Israel partially withdrew in return for a small move toward more peaceful relations between the two nations.

The final issue that Resolution 242 sought to advance was the “refugee problem.” While Jordan had the largest group of displaced Palestinians within its borders, once Israel had taken control of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank it acquired not only this territory and the original inhabitants, but thousands of refugees as well. As illustrated by the situation more than fifty years later, the refugee issue was not then at the forefront of matters requiring a quick solution. Yet, on this issue, and on the related issue of a Palestinian state, Resolution 242 established the pattern for what was to be accomplished. The Palestinian slogan of the “right to return” was not in the resolution, nor was any specific reference to Palestinians. But under the 1993 Oslo Accords, Israel gave the Palestinian National Authority control over much of the occupied territory, and in exchange the PLO and the Palestinian National Authority recognized the right of Israel to exist. Thus, although no nation that participated in the Six Day War received Resolution 242 with enthusiasm, it has ended up playing a role in a variety of later events and agreements.

Bibliography and Additional Reading