Sources
- “United Nations Security Council Resolution 242” Wikipedia. Accessed April 26th, 2024.
Parties
Location
Vote
| Subject | Territories occupied after the Six Day War |
|---|---|
| Date | November 22nd, 1967 |
| Meeting Number | 1,382 |
| Code | S/RES/242(1967) |
| Voting | — |
| For | 15 |
| Against | 0 |
| Abstained | 0 |
| Result | Adopted under Chapter VI |
| Permanent members | China, France, United Kingdom, United States, Soviet Union |
| Non-Permanent members | Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Ethiopia, India, Japan, Mali, Nigeria |
Causes
Facts
Ben-Ami, Shlomo. Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy. (p. 128)
And it was only when this euphemism was embedded in the language of a UN Security Council Resolution that Israel was ready to endorse it. The constructive ambiguity of the November 1967 Security Council Resolution Number 242, which called for peace based on the restitution of ‘territories’ instead of ‘the territories’, allowed Israel to claim that the borders would have to be modified on all fronts as a condition for peace and gave manoeuvring space to her post-war diplomacy. Resolution 242 was the result of the need to find a formula that would reconcile Israel’s unrealistic expectation to have full peace for less than all the territories, and the Arabs’ drive for a full restitution of land in exchange for a watered-down state of non-belligerency.
Ben-Ami, Shlomo. Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy. (p. 129)
Neither of the parties to the conflict was especially happy with Resolution 242’s oblique and foggy formulas, least of all the Palestinians, whose problem was reduced in the Resolution to that of the humanitarian plight of refugees. The PLO’s outright rejection of 242 was an additional manifestation by the Palestinians that their struggle would from now on be independent of the Arabs’ diplomatic strategy. The Palestinians were about to disengage from the status of a tool in the hands of the Arab states to that of an independent subject in the history of the Middle East. As from the Palestinian débâcle of 1936–9 and later the 1948 Naqbah, the Palestinians had lost their independence as a national movement. They disappeared from the regional arena as autonomous players. The 1967 war, the defeat of the Arab armies with their consequent loss of a credible military option in the foreseeable future, and the relegation by Resolution 242 of the Palestinian problem to the margins of peacemaking in the region, signalled the beginning of a new phase in the history of Palestinian nationalism.
Outcome
Important Notes
- The ambiguity of 242 is intentional and allowed Israel to claim they needn’t give back “all” of the occupied territories, just some of them, in order to fulfil their obligations under this Resolution.
- The Palestinians felt excluded from the language of this Resolution, leading to their outright rejection of 242.