Israel Matzav: Back to 242?

Back to 242?

Reuters reports that the United States and Israel are on the verge of reaching an agreement to resume negotiations with the 'Palestinians' on the basis of UN Security Council Resolution 242, which was passed in the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War.

Under the prospective deal the negotiations could be held on the basis of two decades-old U.N. Security Council resolutions, 242 and 338, another official said.

Such a formula could be acceptable to Israel since it interprets those resolutions as falling short of a demand to withdraw from all of the West Bank, territory it captured in a 1967 war.

Palestinians, who seek a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, hold that the resolutions, which call for "withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict," obliges Israel to return to pre-1967 lines.

Washington apparently hopes to persuade Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to return to peace talks based on the resolutions, enabling each side to cleave to its own interpretation and avoid conceding diplomatic ground on borders before negotiations resume.

However, Abbas has given no sign he has dropped a main Palestinian condition for a resumption of negotiations -- an Israeli settlement freeze in the West Bank in accordance with a 2003 U.S.-backed peace "road map" that charts a path to a Palestinian state.

If this were to actually happen it would be good news - there is plenty of contemporaneous evidence that shows that Resolution 242 was specifically not intended to force Israel back to the pre-1967 borders. Moreover, no one was even thinking about a 'Palestinian state' at that time.

Of course, the 'Palestinians' will never agree to negotiations on that basis. That means that the negotiations will (hopefully) be quietly taken off the table for the balance of Obama's term.

Heh.

Israel Matzav: Back to 242?