Get Ready For "Peace Talks" -->UN Resolution 242 For Dummies

The Lid ^ | 6/19/09 | The Lid

[Shellybenoit]

Since we are about to embark on another fruitless peace effort in the Middle East, it probably makes sense to take another look a the UN Resolution we will be hearing a lot about over the next few months, resolution 242.

You will hear politicians and diplomats say that Israel must withdraw to the pre-1967 borders per UN Resolution 242. These people have no Idea what the resolution calls for:

Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;

It all surrounds the use (or non-use) of one simple article "The."

The Arab side and their supporters say that 242 calls for Israel to withdraw from THE territories taken during the Six Day War. What the resolution actually says that Israel should withdraw from territories taken during the war (no article). The difference is that "the" means all territories.

It was no accident that it was left out. Diplomats are very exact in their language. During the negotiations to create resolution 242, Arab governments tried three times to have "THE" inserted in the resolution and their request was rejected. By repeating what they wanted to say the resolution meant the Arabs succeed in convincing many people to accept their distorted interpretation of 242

But if you read the statements of the drafters of the resolution there is NO ambiguity about what they meant:

[DonaldC]

The UN really needs to be abandoned. They are in large part responsible for creating messes around the world and are responsible for prolonging them.

[Publius6961]

With or without the article "the", the resolution is flawed and void, unless the UN has previously passed and enforced resolutions against all countries which expanded their territories as a result of actively aggressive wars. The Soviet Union, China and numerous African countries come to mind.

Of course, it easier to pass resolutions agains responsible, moral countries which have a positive influence on all of humanity.