Resolution 242 reinterpreted
Henry Siegman
International Herald Tribune
Wednesday, June 12, 2002
New York. Writing in The New York Times (IHT Views, June 10), Ariel Sharon
unveils the fundamental idea that defines his approach to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. It is an approach whose implications should awaken Israelis, and those in the international community who so far haven't
got it, to what Sharon has in mind for his fellow countrymen and for the
Palestinians, not to speak of outside powers with important interests in the
region.
With an audacity that is breathtaking, Sharon offers an entirely new formulation of the keystone of all Middle East peace initiatives since the
1967 war - the UN Security Council's Resolution 242 of 1967. In the face of
the resolution's explicit affirmation of "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war," Sharon proposes that 242 intended to grant Israel rights to the West Bank and Gaza that are equal to the Palestinians' rights formally recognized by the United Nations in 1947.
Resolution 242 affirms Israel's right to "secure and recognized boundaries."
Sharon's unspoken assumption is that it was 242's intention to allow Israel
to construe "secure borders" as applying not to minor adjustments to a
pre-existing border but as giving Israel license to claim large parts of the
West Bank and Gaza, if not all of them, on security grounds. Ergo, Sharon
concludes, the West Bank and Gaza are not territory occupied by Israel's
military but territory whose ownership - in principle, all of it - is "in dispute." Sharon is thus informing the international community that Israel's claim to the West Bank and Gaza is on a par with that of the Palestinians.
The international community had better take heed, for the implications of
this idea are as mind-boggling as they are predictable. Given Israel's
control of all of the territories, and given its overwhelming military
superiority over the Palestinians, there should be little doubt about the
outcome of this contest of Israeli and Palestinian "rights."
One might think that Sharon's notion of the rights conferred by 242 on
Israel is so outlandish, not to say so pernicious in consigning an entire
people to permanent homelessness, that there is little danger that he will
be allowed to act on it.
But that would be a big mistake. Sharon's latest fantasy about 242 is no less absurd than was his proposition that he could get Palestinians to end their violent resistance to Israel's occupation without offering a political framework that holds out the promise of meeting minimal Palestinian national aspirations if they end the violence. Although there are few examples of peace talks that did not take place concurrently with continued fighting between the parties, whether in the Balkans, Ireland or Vietnam, the United States bought into Sharon's idea, to its subsequent chagrin.
Sharon then came up with an equally absurd idea that a peace process with
the Palestinians must await the transformation of the Palestinian Authority
into a democratic, transparent and accountable set of institutions. Of
course, God only knows how long this will take, but Sharon is a patient man.
Not only did Washington embrace this transparent ploy to delay a political
process, but it enlisted Saudi Arabia and Egypt, two paragons of democracy
and transparency, to pressure Yasser Arafat to change his ways.
As director of an international Task Force for Palestinian Institution
Building that is funded by the European Commission and the government of
Norway, by far the largest contributors to Palestinian institutions, I
welcome Washington's belated support for reform of the Palestinian
Authority's institutions. Until recently, Washington could not have been
less interested in the subject. The task force's efforts to mobilize
pressure on Arafat to reform the Palestinian Authority by establishing the
rule of law, respect for human rights and a separation of powers were seen
by many in the previous administration as interfering with efforts to get
Arafat to deal harshly and effectively with the terrorists. A former senior
State Department official recently said: "I don't think we really cared
about due process. Due process often means letting the bad guys go."
Instead, the effectiveness of the Palestinian Authority was measured by the
United States "in terms of whether it increased Israel's sense of its security."
Sharon's interest in the Palestinian Authority is not its democratic character but its effectiveness in eliminating terrorists and terrorism against Israel. The less transparent such efforts, the more effective they are likely to be. For this purpose a Genghis Khan is a far better president of the Palestinian Authority than a Thomas Jefferson.
Yet Sharon had no difficulty getting U.S. and international support for his
idea. There is every reason to believe that he will be equally adept at
getting Washington to buy into his formulation of Resolution 242, a
formulation that, for all practical purposes, erases Palestinian rights to
the West Bank and Gaza.
Sharon's remarkable creativity in producing ever new obstacles to the
initiation of a political process has so far been matched by the international community's gullibility.
Equally remarkable has been his audacity in the way he invokes history in
support of his policies. Considering his opposition to Israel's peace treaty
with Egypt in 1979, insisting that Anwar Sadat's historic visit to Jerusalem
was nothing but a ruse to get Israel to lower its defenses; to the Madrid
peace conference in 1991; to Oslo in 1993, and to the peace treaty with
Jordan in 1995 - preferring a continuation of violence over peace agreements
in every one of those instances (not to speak of the war in Lebanon that he
personally initiated by deceiving his own government and prime minister in
1982) - one would think Sharon would not have the chutzpah to invoke these
milestones to justify his opposition to a peace process with the Palestinians. If he does so anyway, it is because he counts on people's ignorance of history not to ask the obvious question: Where would Israel be today had it followed Sharon's advice in all of these previous instances?
It is a question that one hopes George W. Bush and his advisers will ask
themselves when they consider the contours of a new U.S. peace initiative
that the president has promised to announce.
The writer, a senior fellow on the Middle East at the Council on Foreign
Relations, contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune.
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The Way Forward in the Middle East
By ARIEL SHARON
June 9, 2002
The New York Times
JERUSALEM - Thirty-five years ago, on June 5, 1967, the start of the Six Day
War, Israel faced a threat to its very existence as a coalition of Arab
armies massed their troops along the fragile armistice lines that had
separated Arab and Israeli forces since 1949. Along the hills of the West
Bank, which had been occupied by the Jordanians, armored and infantry units
were deployed, ready to cut Israel's narrow coastal plain, which was only
eight miles wide at Netanya. A third of the Iraqi army was crossing
Jordanian territory, ready to join the coalition against Israel. The declared goal of the attack was Israel's elimination.
Israel entered the West Bank only after its cities and airports had come
under heavy fire. Israeli actions were legal - resulting from a clear-cut
war of self-defense. For that reason, the United Nations Security Council
determined in a historic decision, Resolution 242, that Israel was entitled
to "secure and recognized boundaries" and was not expected to withdraw from
all the territories that its forces had entered - and from which it was attacked - in the Six Day War. In effect, the resolution established that these were disputed territories where Israel had legitimate rights to defensible borders, besides the claims of the Arab parties to the conflict.
Under Resolution 242, which became the cornerstone of peacemaking, Israel
withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula in accordance with the 1979 peace treaty
with Egypt. It was under the principles of Resolution 242 that Israel attended the 1991 Madrid peace conference where President George H. W. Bush
spoke about a "territorial compromise" between the parties. And again in
line with Resolution 242, Israel, operating under the 1993 Oslo agreement,
withdrew its military government over the Palestinian population so that by
1999, 98 percent of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza were under
Palestinian rule.
Nonetheless, the Palestinian leadership decided to initiate the current war
against Israel after the failure of the Camp David summit in July 2000.
Rather than resolve Israeli-Palestinian differences peacefully, it deliberately promoted a wave of terrorist attacks against the people of Israel. It failed to implement its written obligations to dismantle international terrorist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Instead it provided them with sanctuary in the area under its jurisdiction. It also unleashed some of its most loyal forces, like the Tanzim militia of the Fatah movement and the presidential guard, Force 17, against Israeli civilians. Finally, Yasir Arafat's personal financial adviser, Fuad Shubaki, not only paid for many of these attacks, but also organized a consortium of Middle Eastern terrorism built on the Palestinian Authority, Iraq and Iran.
Despite this situation, there is a way forward. First, Israel must defeat
terrorism; it cannot negotiate under fire. Israel has made painful concessions for peace before and will demonstrate diplomatic flexibility to make peace again, but it requires first and foremost a reliable partner for peace.
In 1977, when Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat came to Jerusalem, he
told the people of Israel, "No more wars." From that point onward, the
threat of violence was removed from the Egyptian-Israeli relationship as
both negotiated their 1979 Treaty of Peace. King Hussein of Jordan followed
the same pattern in 1994. This elementary commitment to permanently
renouncing violence in the resolution of political differences has
unfortunately not been kept by the present Palestinian leadership.
Second, when Israel and the Palestinians eventually re-engage in
negotiations, diplomacy must be based on realism. The race to a
permanent-status agreement at Camp David and in talks at Taba, Egypt, in
January 2001 failed because the gaps between the parties were too wide. The only serious option for a successful negotiated settlement is one based on a long-term interim agreement that sets aside for the future issues that
cannot be bridged at present.
In the nearly two years of the Palestinian intifada, the people of Israel have seen Israel's vulnerabilities exploited, its holy sites desecrated and massive weaponry smuggled and used against Israel's cities. For this reason, Israel will not return to the vulnerable 1967 armistice lines, redivide Jerusalem or concede its right to defensible borders under Resolution 242. Movement from a long-term interim agreement to a permanent settlement can only be guided by changes in the reality of Israeli-Palestinian relations on the ground and not by a rigid timetable.
Finally, in order to reach a stable peace there has to be regional scope to
diplomacy. In the Six Day War, Israel faced a coalition of Arab states. It
is logical that Israel cannot reach a permanent peace with the Palestinians
in isolation. Israel needs peace with the entire Arab world. For this reason, Israel has proposed a regional peace conference of like-minded Middle Eastern states that reject terrorism and seek to enhance regional stability. The idea of the conference is based on the principle that eradicating terrorism will set the stage for peacemaking, and not the reverse.
A little over a decade ago, the American victory in the Persian Gulf war
established the necessary conditions for convening the Madrid peace
conference. It was proved then that security is the prerequisite of peace.
Similarly, a victory in the war on terrorism today will provide a new
diplomatic basis for a stable Middle East peace.
Ariel Sharon is the prime minister of Israel.
