A Strategy Based on UN Resolution 242
We agree up front that we have sung this song before, but nothing that happened in the last ugly week changes our view that the core of the problem lies in the continuing failure of the Arab states to accept the legitimacy of Israel.
If the Mitchell Plan isn’t a strategy, and it isn’t, what is? It would be hubris to say we know, but we’re willing to allow that the UN once had a good idea.
We agree up front that we have sung this song before, but nothing that happened in the last ugly week changes our view that the core of the problem lies in the continuing failure of the Arab states to accept the legitimacy of Israel.
If the Mitchell Plan isn’t a strategy, and it isn’t, what is? It would be hubris to say we know, but we’re willing to allow that the UN once had a good idea.
(The Security Council) 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.
In 1967, Israel acquired the disputed territory in a war of self-defense, and returning Arab territory for vague promises of improved Arab behavior was understood as insufficient to produce real security. The UN saw its obligation as finding a way to ensure the security of Israel – a UN Member State. So it created obligations for others.
Justice demands recognition that Israel has met its obligations. It maintains no state of war. It has withdrawn from more than 90% of the territory – and offered large chunks of the rest to Arafat, which he declined. Israel, in fact, went far beyond Res. 242 and “acknowledged the sovereignty” of the Palestinians in some not-yet-established area.
The obligation accruing to the Arab were, first of all, rhetorical and political in the proper belief that words could set the stage for action. The Arabs were required to make a declaration, an acknowledgement of the legitimacy of Israeli sovereignty. They did not.
Instead, with the active American connivance, the Arabs, and later the Palestinians, changed the focus from the legitimate security requirements of Israel, a Member State of the United Nations, to a series of obligations and “risks for peace” required of Israel to “solve” the Palestinian problem in order to “earn” the right to exist – a right that accrues by Charter to every other UN member.
American political priorities must now be restored to their proper state.
It won’t be easy to ignore the DoP, Gaza Jericho, the Transfer of Powers Agreement, the Interim Agreement, the Sharm el-Sheikh Agreement, the Hebron Protocol, the Wye River Memorandum, the Trilateral Statement, the Sharm el-Sheikh Factfinding Committee Report and the Tenet Plan. So many lovely words.
But we must. The issue is NOT what Israel must offer the Arabs to obtain sufferance for its existence. The issue is how the US demands that the Arabs, including the Palestinans, meet the obligations of Res. 242 to recognize the legitimacy of Israel.