UN Security Council Resolution 242 on the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

Resolution 242 is a relatively brief and simple document. The preamble acknowledges the “grave situation in the Middle East.” It goes on to note the “inadmissibility” of seizing territory by war—an allusion to Israel's occupation of the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and the Gaza Strip as a result of the war—and the need for all nations in the region to live in security. The preamble concludes by stating that all member states of the United Nations are obligated to act in accordance with Article 2 of the UN Charter. This article states, among other provisions, that the United Nations “is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members” and that all members “shall fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter”; “shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered”; and “shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”

The core of the resolution is contained in clause 1, which states that a “just and lasting peace” in the region is predicated on withdrawal of Israeli military forces from areas occupied during the war. This provision was the subject of intense negotiation and the need for later clarification. It was pointed out that the resolution does not specifically call for Israel to withdraw to the armistice lines established after the 1948 conflict. And much was made of the fact that it asks for Israeli withdrawal “from territories” recently occupied—not “the territories” or “all the territories” in the English version, although the French version does contain the definite article. (English and French were the two working languages of the United Nations at the time, and it was the English version on which the Security Council voted.) When questioned about this parsing of the grammar of the statement in an interview for the Journal of Palestine Studies, Lord Caradon, the resolution's principal drafter, responded,

We could have said: well, you go back to the 1967 line. But I know the 1967 line, and it's a rotten line. You couldn't have a worse line for a permanent international boundary. It's where the troops happened to be on a certain night in 1948. It's got no relation to the needs of the situation. (qtd. at The Six-Day War)

In defending the wording of subclause 1(i), the drafters of the resolution pointed to subclause 1(ii), which calls for “respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence” of all nations in the region. The key phrase from the drafters' point of view is the reference to “secure and recognized boundaries.” In interpreting that phrase, the drafters appealed to the armistice agreement that followed the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Article V, clause 2, of that agreement states, “The Armistice Demarcation Line is not to be construed in any sense as a political or territorial boundary, and is delineated without prejudice to rights, claims and positions of either Party to the Armistice as regards ultimate settlement of the Palestine question” (Egyptian-Israeli General Armistice Agreement). In other words, Resolution 242 does not insist that Israel withdraw to the position it held as of June 4, 1967, nor does it suggest that the armistice lines from the 1948 war constituted permanent national boundaries. In effect, the resolution neglects to address the extent to which Israel should withdraw, as the drafters believed that negotiations would later determine precisely where the boundaries of Israel should lie.

Clause 2 of the resolution takes up ancillary matters. The first subclause relates to maritime law and calls for freedom of navigation in the region's waters. This is a clear reference to Egypt's blockade of Israeli shipping through the Straits of Tiran, both in 1956 and in 1967. The straits are a narrow sea passage between the Sinai and Arabian peninsulas, connecting the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea. They were important to Israel because they provided access to shipping from the Indian Ocean through the Israeli port of Eilat. Reference is made in subclause 2(b) to the problem of refugees. In 1948 some seven hundred thousand Arabs fled Palestine to in effect give Arab forces a free-fire zone. Large numbers of those Palestinian Arabs did not return, and the number of refugees increased by about a quarter million as a result of the 1967 war. Virtually all of the refugees wound up in refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, on the West Bank, and in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan; ironically, Egypt, which provoked the 1948 war, refused to accept refugees. These refugees and their descendants now number about 4.25 million of about 10.6 million Palestinian Arabs, a state of affairs that continues to fuel tensions between Israel and the Arab world. Finally, subclause 2(c) calls for “territorial inviolability and political independence” through the creation of demilitarized zones. Chief among these zones have been various areas of the Sinai Peninsula.

Clauses 3 and 4 are more administrative in nature. Clause 3 instructs the UN secretary general, who at the time was U Thant, to send a special representative to the region to find ways to enforce the resolution. The following day, the secretary general appointed Gunnar Jarring, the Swedish ambassador to the Soviet Union, to the post. The so-called Jarring Mission, marked by shuttle diplomacy among the parties to the war, lasted until 1971, when it was clear that no permanent peace agreement would be reached.