THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VIII, Issue # 237, December 6, 2006
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
JIMMY CARTER'S PALESTINIAN FANTASY:
UN RESOLUTION NUMBER 242
By Asaf Romirowsky
MIDDLE EAST POLITICS, ARABS, & THE STATE OF ISRAEL: THE ISRAELI-ARAB CONFLICT CONTINUES, WITH
ABSOLUTELY NO POSSIBILITY OF PEACE OBTAINED THROUGH NEGOTIATION & COMPROMISE, DESPITE THE FANTASIES
OF JAMES EARL CARTER -- THE ARABS WILL PERSIST IN WAGING THEIR WAR AGAINST ISRAEL, UNLESS & UNTIL THE
ARABS ACHIEVE TOTAL DESTRUCTION OF ISRAEL OR THE ARABS ARE SUBJECT TO A DECISIVE MILITARY DEFEAT
RENDERING THEM, OVER THE LONGTERM, UNABLE TO CONTINUE RESISTING THE EXISTENCE & OPERATION OF THE
JEWISH STATE -- ISRAEL'S CHOICE: SUBMISSION TO AN ISLAMIC HOLOCAUST, ABANDONMENT OF ISRAEL &
EMIGRATION, OR SUCCESSFUL PROSECUTION OF A THOROUGHGOING WAR OF EXTINCTION AGAINST ISRAEL'S ENEMIES
FULL STORY:
As ex-President James Earl Carter's new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, hits the stores, it's worth looking
into the infamous United Nations Resolution 242 that Carter quotes so frequently.
Reading Carter's words gives no indication that Israel was the party that actually accepted UN Resolution 242 and that
the Arabs and Palestinians were the ones who rejected the resolution.
In fact, after Resolution 242, the Arabs issued the equally infamous three "nos": No peace, no recognition, and no
negotiation.
None of this matters to Carter, who's built his post-Presidency on practicing foreign affairs without an electoral mandate.
Palestinians and Arabs love to quote Resolution 242. It's become the foundation for the land-for-peace formula drafted
after the Six Day War, and a superficial reading seemingly places Palestinian/Arab brokers of peace in a position of
strength. For Arabs, this "legal" prerequisite emphasizes the give and take: If Israel valued peace, it would return land.
If Arabs wanted land, they would give peace.
Arabs also love to quote Resolution 242 because it is a deceptively simple equation. On one hand, it talks about the
exchange of land for peace with Israel, meaning there is room to negotiate. But, although we naively believe it also calls
for recognition of Israel as the Jewish state, that is not the case.
The resolution calls for "Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict." It deliberately
does not call for withdrawal from "all" or "any" because the authors knew that such demands were unreasonable.
As far as "peace" goes, the resolution lays on the bureaucratic boilerplate and calls for "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."
The resolution demands that Israel gives up some land in exchange for some, still unspecified, peace. Israel is still waiting.
As historian Michael Oren explains:
"Israel accepted the resolution, albeit begrudgingly, as did Jordan.
Nasser's response was more equivocal. While endorsing the UN's
decision, he reiterated the three no's to his National Assembly ...
'that which was taken by force will be regained by force,' and told
his generals, 'you don't need to pay attention to anything I may
say in public about a peaceful solution.' "
Decades later, in 2000, Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq Al-Shara illustrated the imaginary land-for-peace fantasy in a speech
regarding peace with Israel. Al-Shara noted again the return of the Golan Heights as a prerequisites for negotiations with
Israel:
"In no way did we agree to discuss any of the elements of peace
before the issue of the full withdrawal is settled. In order for the
withdrawal to be full, it must be ... without leaving any Israelis --
either civilian or military, nor any semi-military or semi-civilian;
also, no ground station and no Israeli in any ground station.
This is what full withdrawal means and we did not give it up."
Any time you raise the notion of "compromise" in the context of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, it is relative to their
fantasy interpretation of Resolution 242. To actually abide by the resolution, would be anathema.
And, in fact, when it came to implementing Resolution 242, Israel did turn over land time and time again -- Sinai, the Oslo
Accords, the withdrawal from Gaza -- in exchange for a cold peace at best and open warfare at worst.
During the Oslo years and the al-Aqsa intifada and today under the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, "land-for-peace"
really translates into "land-for-talk" because, to too many Americans and Europeans, talk -- not peace -- is all that Israel
should expect (and possibly deserve), in exchange for territorial concessions. This is the motivation which drove Hezbollah
to attack Israel this Summer and what continues to fuel Hamas as it rejects Israel's right to exist.
If the Palestinians really want to talk about Resolution 242 as the basis for anything, they should first get their own
territories under control, stop firing rockets at Israeli towns, and start creating a decent civil society.
Until then, no deal! Nothing doing! Israelis have learned a hard lesson, the lesson that, until the other side stops wanting to
wipe Israel off the map, resolutions like 242 really aren't worth the paper they're written on.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Israel -- The Israeli-Arab Conflict
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- Radical Islam & Islamic Terrorism
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Asaf Romirowsky is a Campus Watch associate fellow for the Middle East Forum and the Manager of Israel & Middle
East Affairs for the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia.
The foregoing article by Asaf Romirowsky was originally published in the Philadelphia Daily News, December 6,
2006, and can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East
Forum.
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
December 6, 2006
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