And if my interpretation is wrong it does not cost them anything to recognize Israel as a Jewish state permanently entitled to the pre-1967 borders.

They have used language which seems to imply that they have done so, but I don't think they have done so. And they are relying on expansive western interpretations of what is meant by recognizing Israel's to exist to put international pressure on Israel. And it seems to being have some effect as shown by the recent anti-semitism in Europe as a result of what happened in Gaza.

freeman3 wrote:As you can see, the major concern is that Palestinians will obtain political control of Israel through Right of Return (or any other method) The issue of Arabs in Israel is ultimately a side issue and in case Israel is not going to accept the Palestinians reserving the right to intervene in their internal affairs.

If the Palestinians give up their dream of getting the land back, they will have their own state. If they don't, they won't .

bbauska wrote:Not really following the thread all that closely, but interested if the Israelis have the right to enter Gaza. If Palestinians want to right to be in Israel, is the same right afforded Israelis?

danivon wrote:

bbauska wrote:Not really following the thread all that closely, but interested if the Israelis have the right to enter Gaza. If Palestinians want to right to be in Israel, is the same right afforded Israelis?

it is a bit different...

The Palestinians who want the right to return to Israel are those who were living in what they claim to be ancestral lands and left during the 1947-8 war and their descendants. Many abandoned their homes to escape the violence and have not been compensated for what they lost, including land and property that was appropriated. To have them all go back, with the descendants, would drastically alter Israeli demographics. However, there have been proposals to allow limited number back, and to compensate the rest.

The Israeli citizens who left Gaza a few years ago were relatively recent settlers who were compensated when the Israeli government made them leave.

At the moment, as the 'occupying power' Israel exercises the right to enter Gaza with military force. So far as I am aware, we are not talking about a reciprocal arrangement for Palestine (if anything, the end to the occupation that means Israel is actually always 'in' Gaza and the West Bank).

And if 'the Israelis' give up their dream of a true Zionist 'Eretz Israel', they'll have peace.

danivon wrote:

danivon wrote:Well, some Palestinians have already expressed that they do support the 1967 borders. In fact, a major point of contention is that the Israeli government does not:

And looking at some history (but not as far back as pre-47), we find that UN resolution 242 gets quite a lot of focus. The premise of 242 was 'land for peace' - Israel pulls back to the pre 1967 borders (the "Green Line"), and the opposition agrees not to continue war. Since 1993, the PLO has signed up to the use of resolution 242 as the basis for negotiations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nat ... lution_242

Israel pulls back to the pre 1967 borders

George A. Brown, who served as British Foreign Secretary from 1966 to 1968, and helped draft Resolution 242, said:

“The phrasing of the Resolution was very carefully worked out, and it was a difficult and complicated exercise to get it accepted by the UN Security Council. I formulated the Security Council Resolution. Before we submitted it to the Council, we showed it to Arab leaders. The proposal said ‘Israel will withdraw from territories that were occupied,’ and not from ‘the’ territories, which means that Israel will not withdraw from all the territories.”

Lord Caradon, who was the permanent representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations from 1964-1970, and was the chief drafter of Resolution 242, said:


"It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of 4 June 1967 because those positions were undesirable and artificial. After all, they were just the places the soldiers of each side happened to be the day the fighting stopped in 1948. They were just armistice lines. That's why we didn't demand that the Israelis return to them and I think we were right not to ..."

Eugene Rostow was a former dean of Yale Law School who served as U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs from 1966-1969, and helped draft Resolution 242. He said:


“Five-and-a-half months of vehement public diplomacy in 1967 made it perfectly clear what the missing definite article in Resolution 242 means. Ingeniously drafted resolutions calling for withdrawals from ‘all’ the territories were defeated in the Security Council and the General Assembly. Speaker after speaker made it explicit that Israel was not to be forced back to the ‘fragile’ and ‘vulnerable’ Armistice Demarcation Lines, but should retire once peace was made to what Resolution 242 called ‘secure and recognized’ boundaries, agreed to by the parties. In negotiating such agreements, the parties should take into account, among other factors, security considerations, access to the international waterways of the region, and, of course, their respective legal claims.”

Arthur J. Goldberg was the U.S. representative to the United Nations from 1965-1968, and before that was a Supreme Court Justice. He too helped draft Resolution 242 and said::


"The resolution does not explicitly require that Israel withdraw to the lines that it occupied on June 5, 1967, before the outbreak of the war. The Arab states urged such language; the Soviet Union proposed such a resolution to the Security Council in June 1967, and Yugoslavia and other nations made a similar proposal to the special session of the General Assembly that followed the adjournment of the Security Council. But those views were rejected. Instead, Resolution 242 endorses the principle of the ‘withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict’ and juxtaposes the principle that every state in the area is entitled to live in peace within 'secure and recognized boundaries.'"

Ray Jay wrote:If you change Brad's question from Gaza to West Bank it does show an asymmetry as it relates to a 2 state solution. Namely, it is likely that there will be no Jews living in the West Bank but Israel will continue to have Palestinians. Perhaps more than now depending upon extent of right of return.

So the Palestinians would have 2 states to live in: Israel and West Bank whereas all Jews will be in Israel.

An Israeli government would probably choose to not leave Jews behind in the new West Bank state out of fear they would be massacred; for the same reason Israel forced Jews to move out of Gaza when they withdrew. You may say that is the fault of the Israeli government for forcing its own people to move back to Israel proper, however, that policy seems very rational to me based on history.

Ray Jay wrote:

danivon wrote:

danivon wrote:Well, some Palestinians have already expressed that they do support the 1967 borders. In fact, a major point of contention is that the Israeli government does not:

And looking at some history (but not as far back as pre-47), we find that UN resolution 242 gets quite a lot of focus. The premise of 242 was 'land for peace' - Israel pulls back to the pre 1967 borders (the "Green Line"), and the opposition agrees not to continue war. Since 1993, the PLO has signed up to the use of resolution 242 as the basis for negotiations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nat ... lution_242

Just on Resolution 242, I don't agree with this part of your interpretation:

Israel pulls back to the pre 1967 borders

That's not exactly correct.

I didn't think the Arabs in Israel were 'Palestinians', they are 'Israeli Arabs' :-)

So the Palestinians would have 2 states to live in: Israel and West Bank whereas all Jews will be in Israel.

Last I checked, Jews lived elsewhere in the world. I don't want to confine them to Israel, that's for sure

Clearly, as we have seen, Israel (and it seems many Israelis) would not accept a return to 67 borders, or to use them as the starting point of an equitable land-swap.

Both sides look back into history and see injustice by the other, that they can then use to justify revenge or violence or chauvanism or prejudice. And that just piles up more justifications.