Carter Misrepresents Longstanding U.S. Policy, U.N. Resolution 242

Tamar Sternthal
CAMERA
Middle East Issues
30 May '11

Not for the first time, former President Jimmy Carter misrepresents the contents of U.N. Resolution 242, passed in the wake of the 1967 Six Day War. In an Op-Ed last week in the International Herald Tribune, Carter recycles falsehoods from his book and deceives readers ("The unchanged path to Mideast peace," May 26, 2011):

U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 of Nov. 22, 1967, concluded the war of that year and has been widely acknowledged by all parties to be the basis for a peace agreement. Its key phrases are, “Emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war,” and “Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.” These included the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, plus lands belonging to Lebanon, Egypt and Syria. . . .

Significantly, Carter does not quote the "key phrase" of the resolution calling for the withdrawal of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, because the resolution does not even mention them. Those were the President's own additions. Given that the drafters of U.N. Resolution 242 did not intend for Israel to withdraw to its pre-1967 boundaries, the resolution very deliberately refers to withdrawal from "territories," and not "the territories." Indeed, the fact that U.N. Resolution 242 does not call for withdrawal from the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem was made clear in a series of correction published in 2000 by the New York Times, which owns and publishes the International Herald Tribune. The three corrections follow:

(Read full "Carter Misrepresents Longstanding U.S. Policy, U.N. Resolution 242")

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