The misconception that is the 1967 line that divided Israel and the West Bank - by Shlomo Slonim

In short, the June lines were killed by Nasser and buried by the adoption of 242. The effort to resuscitate the June 5 lines must be acknowledged to have been aborted. Israel is acting in accordance with international and UN law in rejecting any such abortive effort.

Shlomo Slonim..
JPost/Opinion..
17 July '20..
Link: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/the-fallacy-that-are-the-1967-lines-that-divided-israel-and-the-west-bank-635359

In their inveterate drive to confer self-determination upon the Palestinians, European governmental officials invariably cite the line of June 5, 1967, as the dividing line between Israel and the proposed Palestinian entity. It is as if this line was sanctified in Holy Writ and is binding upon all concerned as the starting point for any negotiations between the parties.

However, the lines that separated Israel from the Arabs in June 1967 were shattered by one man several weeks before that date. On May 20, 1967, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran and proclaimed, contrary to the UN agreement, “These waters are ours... the Israeli flag shall not go through the Gulf of Aqaba ... we are ready for war.”

With that proclamation Nasser nullified the June 5 lines. The finishing touch was delivered when Jordan opened fire on Israel in Jerusalem on June 5. Earlier that day, Israel had offered to preserve matters intact between the two countries if Jordan refrained from hostility, but Jordan replied with a barrage, destroying the last vestige of the June lines.

This is not theoretical analysis; it is confirmed fully by the subsequent negotiations that ensued between the powers, and at the United Nations.

In the immediate aftermath of the Six Day War, the same Nasser demanded that Israel immediately withdraw from all territories it had occupied. Notwithstanding his belligerency, he charged Israel with aggression, something that would stamp Israel’s presence in the territories as a violation of international law.

The Soviet Union, smarting from the defeat of its weaponry, took up this refrain before the UN, but failed to secure the required majority in both the Security Council and the General Assembly that would charge Israel with aggression. Thereupon, Moscow dispatched its president, Alexei Kosygin, to the United States, in an effort to convince president Lyndon Johnson to join in pushing Israel back to the former lines. Johnson categorically rejected the Soviet proposal.

The president had earlier declared, “The nations of the region have had only fragile and violated truce lines for 20 years. What they now need are recognized boundaries and other arrangements that will give them security against terror, destruction, and war.”

IN REJECTING Kosygin’s suggestion, Johnson said, “This is not a prescription for peace but for renewed hostilities.” Moreover, “the parties to the conflict must be the parties to the peace.”

Can You Imagine? BBC Deceives on Bethlehem Again - by Ricki Hollander

The BBC, however, has no interest in exploring Palestinian responsibility for any problems in any sector of the Palestinian community– whether due to its leaders’ corruption and political ploys, or whether due to the terrorism and violence they encourage that impacts tourism and prompts Israeli security measures.

Ricki Hollander..
CAMERA..
27 December '19..

If anyone was in doubt about whether the BBC still engages in agenda-driven reporting, the recent broadcasts from Bethelehem would put any such doubt to rest.

Barbara Plett Usher, notorious for her tearful eulogy of arch-terrorist Yasir Arafat and her participation in BBC’s longtime campaign to delegtimize Israel, was sent to Bethlehem to report about Christmas there.

There is an inverse relationship between the extent of Palestinian violence and the amount of tourism in Bethlehem. In 2015-6, at the height of the so-called Palestinian knife intifada, tourism plummeted. In the years since, violent attacks have decreased and tourism has picked up tremendously. For the past few years, there has been a steady rise in the numbers of tourists visiting Bethlehem, with this year topping even last year’s record high. The city is bustling with tourists and good cheer.

Plett forces the story into an artificial one about Palestinian suffering under Israel.

This, however, was not the story the BBC wanted to convey. The media network instead delivered a fairy tale about a Bethlehem diminished by an evil Israeli occupation. Barbara Plett Usher attempted to fit her Bethlehem 2019 tale into a rigid template of Palestinians suffering under “occupation” – even when the interviewees did not provide the answers she sought.

(Continue to Full Post)

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The Diktat of the Line That Was Never a Line by Sarah Honing

...In fact, the truth is remarkably unwanted in this context lest it expose the entire fable as fake. No one wants to know that there never-ever was a Palestinian state – not in the entire annals of mankind. There are advantages to deception, especially when it yields realpolitik perks. Thus the dysfunctional family of nations is more than happy to clasp to its selectively loving bosom another fabricated Arab addition.

Lord Caradon: “We didn’t
say there should be a
withdrawal to the ’67 line.”

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
01 May '14..

On the eve of our Independence Day, an ultra-antagonistic independence – one that manifestly threatens to replace ours – is fast gaining ground. Many Israelis are appalled to see the Ramallah and Gaza splinters officially welcomed in UN-affiliated forums as the State of Palestine. However, given relentless global trends, this travesty was all but inevitable.

“Palestinian independence” had already been declared in Algiers on November 15, 1988 and within mere months the utterly fictional entity was recognized by 134 of the UN’s 193 then-members. All this transpired before Oslo proved how a previously bad situation could be made disastrously worse.

By now, of course, few abroad challenge the popular axiom that a Palestinian state had existed in this country from time immemorial and that it was cruelly overrun in an act of unprovoked aggression by Israel on June 5, 1967.

Even since, it’s alleged, the state of Palestine had been under occupation. In other words, Israel had violently extinguished Palestine’s flourishing sovereignty. This is today’s self-evident, universally worshiped gospel. No substantiation thereof is necessary and any deviation therefrom is sacrilege.

In fact, the truth is remarkably unwanted in this context lest it expose the entire fable as fake. No one wants to know that there never-ever was a Palestinian state – not in the entire annals of mankind. There are advantages to deception, especially when it yields realpolitik perks. Thus the dysfunctional family of nations is more than happy to clasp to its selectively loving bosom another fabricated Arab addition.

The corollary to the much-censured Israeli conquest of an independent Palestine is that independent Palestine had thrived in all the territory that Israel took after June 4, 1967. The demand that Israel retreat to the June 4 lines is, consequently, endowed with moral authority.

Each time the Ramallah honchos and their Jihadist partners in Gaza repeat the 1967-borders mantra, it packs greater punch. It matters little to cynical propagandists, sanctimonious fellow-travelers, gullible do-gooders and know-nothing dupes that there never were 1967 borders (but only 1949 armistice lines, which don’t remotely resemble fixed borders).

The current bogus standard for elementary justice is that these 1967 borders (that never-were) must form the basis for any deal between Israel and the callously conquered Palestinian state (that never was).

This is now the bedrock dictum. Zealous enforcers and sanctifiers of dogmas suffer no skepticism. Whatever they promote as incontrovertible principles must be accepted as incontrovertibly unassailable. Whatever serves their interests and/or belief system cannot be challenged – otherwise it might undermine the paradigm of whatever they present as an absolute.

And so we’re left with an assertion that a preexisting Palestinian state is oppressed by Israel and that to redress this injustice Israel must withdraw to the June 4, 1967 lines. This, we’re told, has been the position of the whole international community from the outset and this position had already been enshrined in UN Security Council Resolution 242 (adopted unanimously on November 22, 1967).

The UN is worthless - Reason #82,654

Elder of Ziyon..
23 January '13..

Mahmoud Abbas will tell anyone who listens to him that the UN General Assembly recognizes the State of Palestine within the "1967 borders."

Just today, his spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said "We will deal with any Israeli government that is committed to the decision of the General Assembly of the UN for a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital."

(By the way, the UN did not declare Jerusalem to be the capital of "Palestine" in the relevant, operative part of resolution.)

I looked again at how the resolution referred to borders.

Here is the only part of the operative section that mentions it:

4. Affirms its determination to contribute to the achievement of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and the attainment of a peaceful settlement in the Middle East that ends the occupation that began in 1967 and fulfils the vision of two States: an independent, sovereign, democratic, contiguous and viable State of Palestine living side by side in peace and security with Israel on the basis of the pre-1967 borders

There is only one problem. There are no such things as "pre-1967 borders." The Green Line was never accepted by either the Arabs, Israel or the international community to be the legal borders of Israel.

(Continue)

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What is the 1967 Border Line and Why? Israel Straight Talk

Avi Abelow
Israel Straight Talk
IST #64
22 May '11


Did you know that the 1967 border is really a ceasefire line that delineated the seperation of forces between the occupying forces of Jordan and the Soveriegn State of Israel? Did you know that it is also called the green line because a green marker was used to draw the line on a map according to the location of the forces?



Share this video post to support PM Netanyahu in standing firm to President Obama in not allowing this indefensible and non-legally binding green line to determine Israel's borders! Any comments or questions join us on http://www.facebook.com/israelstraighttalk

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67 Lines

Yarden Frankl
Crossing the Yarden
22 May '11

http://www.crossingtheyarden.com/2011/05/67-lines/


If you think about it, there is nothing all that surprising about President Obama’s speech where he said that the “1967 borders” should be the basis of a peace agreement between Israel and the new state of Palestine. The vast majority of the world has bought on to this concept that the Jewish history of Jerusalem and what is popularly referred to as the “West Bank” only began in 1967.

While anyone who has really looked into the history of the region will know that this conception is a big fat lie, that’s just the point. We live in an age where people want their information in tiny, bite size, entertaining bits. When even a five minute video on YouTube is too long for the average person’s attention span — it is no wonder that the simple lie is winning more adherents than the more complicated truth.

Consider references that appear every day in the media:

“Arab East Jerusalem, which Israel conquered in 1967 but the Palestinians view as their future capital….”

“The West Bank, occupied by Israel as a result of the Six Day War….”

“Settlements are illegal under international law, but Israel disputes this….”

Appearing again and again in almost every major media publication, these phrases are now accepted as fact. So much so that a U.S. President sees nothing wrong with calling for a peace agreement based on the 1967 lines. Why not, if Israel stole this land from Palestine, we need to give it back, right?

But wait the pro-Israel side cries out. Gives us a chance to trot out our historians and international law experts. Let them discuss how the Geneva Convention was never intended to apply to territory taken in a defensive war. Let them explain how in 1948, everyone involved agreed that the “green line” would never be an international border. Let them dissect the Oslo Accords and the Road Map and explain how Israel is in compliance and the Palestinians are not.

Sorry, but while the Hasbara experts are doing all that, the world moves on. We live in the Facebook era. If you can’t reduce your message to a Facebook status update or a Twitter post no one’s listening anymore. Having the facts on your side is no longer enough (was it ever?)

Facebook recently changed the way you post comments. You now no longer have to click on the post button. Just press return and your comment goes up. Why did they make this change? Because the extra half second it took people to click on “post” took too long. Do you really think we can keep answering Israel’s critics with a response that can’t be read from an iPhone while grocery shopping?

So what should be the short to the point message? How can we change the debate so that Israel is not always on the defensive?

By talking like this…

“Jerusalem — which Israel reunited in 1967…”

“Eastern Jerusalem, where the Jordanian Legion expelled Jewish residents in 1948…”

“What is now called the West Bank, which is home to many of the most historically significant Jewish areas”

“…parts of the West Bank that were liberated by the Israeli Army in 1967.

“The West Bank, that was occupied by the Jordanian Legion for nineteen years…”

“Jerusalem, which was only divided for nineteen years out of its 3,000 plus year history….

I could go on but I think you get the point.

Our message is simple:

The history of Israel did not begin in 1967.

Until we can make this clear in every possible forum, we will keep hearing of “peace plans” that are based on the assumption that the Israeli presence in the disputed territory is illegitimate and must be ended.

Yarden Frankl is an avid blogger, biker and runner, though not necessarily at the same time or in that order. He produces short films, long-term media analyses, and other efforts related to media bias for HonestReporting as their Special Media Projects Manager. Yarden’s blog, Crossing The Yarden, can be read at http://www.crossingtheyarden.com. He currently lives in Neve Daniel, Israel with his family, bikes, and dog.

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Tough Takes on Obama

Daphne Anson
22 May '11


Addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) today, President Obama clarified his position on the 1967 lines:



Notwithstanding periodic outbursts of applause, as Jennifer Rubin explains in "Obama double downs at AIPAC," her astute Washington Post article on the speech, its reception, and its deficiencies, there were, very significantly, boos at a particular juncture.

She points out:

'It is not “well known” what the deal will be because the right of return, the demand to flood Israel with the children and grandchildren of Arabs who fled during the war of aggression on the infant Jewish state, and the security arrangements are the core of the matter. Moreover, Obama misquoted himself by insisting he said the parties “will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967.” No, he said it was U.S. policy that the deal would stem from the 1967 lines.


He then disingenuously said he’d always meant “it is the right and responsibility of the Israeli government to make the hard choices that are necessary to protect a Jewish and democratic state for which so many generations have sacrifice.” And there was some pablum about the current situation not being sustainable, the U.S. commitment to Israel and Obama’s fondness for the nation whose bargaining position he has undermined.


The problems in the speech include: 1) Obama made it clear the United States is willing to give away Israel’s bargaining position for nothing in return; 2) Obama never even mentioned the right of return; 3) He did not reiterate specifically the necessity of a military presence in the Jordan Valley. You see, only Israel’s expected concessions are “well known”; 4) Israel can’t be expected to negotiate with those who want to destroy it, but negotiations need to resume; and 5) if anything Obama underscored that the United States has differences with Israel — but it’s between “friends.”'

Read all of her piece here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/obama-double-downs-at-aipac/2011/03/29/AFhx9C9G_blog.html

The following article, entitled Palestine - Obama sinks America's Integrity and Reputation, is by the always incisive David Singer, a Sydney lawyer and founder of the International Analysts' Network. It comes via the antipodean J-Wire service. I've posted the video at the end before, but it's as well to remind people again how narrow and vulnerable Israel was prior to its stunning victory in the Six Day War; not for nothing did Abba Eban term its pre-war boundaries the "Auschwitz borders".

Writes David Singer:

'Remarks made by President Obama at the State Department in Washington on 19 May indicate he is prepared to honour some – but not all – commitments made to Israel by former American President George W Bush in his letter to Israeli Prime Minister Sharon on 14 April 2004 (the Bush Letter).

Language Matters in the Middle East

Michael Rubin
Commentary/Contentions
22 May '11

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/05/22/language-matters-in-the-middle-east/

One of the more irresponsible press habits during the Iraq war was the inconsistent use of the passive voice. Americans might kill five Iraqis in an operation gone awry, but when a bomb went off in a school yard, the major networks and newspapers would passively report, “20 children killed in Iraq.” Never would they say, “Terrorists killed 20 children in Iraq.” Over time, the message of the language matters: When people talk about the tens of thousands of civilians killed after Saddam’s fall, they ironically assumed American responsibility rather than realize that it was the terrorists killing Iraqis whom the Americans and Iraqi government jointly were fighting. To abandon Iraq amidst the terrorist insurgency would not (and will not) bring peace and security, but would be the equivalent of handing Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge.

In the Arab-Israeli conflict language also matters. Israel’s borders today are the 1967 borders, modified only by the annexation of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights and some minor arbitrated settlements with Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon. Why do we talk about President Obama demanding that Israel go back to the 1967 borders when he technically means withdrawal from the West Bank and portions of Jerusalem to return to the pre-1967 border, i.e., the 1949 Armistice Lines?

Technically, the West Bank is disputed territory, not occupied territory. There was no independent Palestine in 1967 before the Six-Day War. The status of the territory was just as unresolved before 1967 as it was after. If the Israelis “occupy” the portions of the West Bank unresolved under Oslo and subsequent accords then the Palestinian Authority also “occupies” those areas. To resolve the dispute takes negotiations and compromise, not mob rule or executive fiat. Make no mistake: I personally favor a two-state solution and believe that Israel will not ultimately possess the entirety—or even the majority of the West Bank—but I also believe that after so many wars launched from the West Bank, peace requires defensible borders, not an advanced front line for Arab, Iranian, and perhaps Turkish rejectionists bent on Israel’s annihilation.

Along the same lines, the term settlement shows tremendous bias. If portions of Jerusalem are unresolved, then new Palestinian construction on disputed lands are as much “settlements” as new Israeli construction. To speak of Palestinian civilians and Israeli settlers is to accept a false narrative and a dehumanizing one.

It behooves those who believe that Israel matters and its security and Jewish identity are important to be accurate with language. Otherwise, they simply cede points in negotiations and risk putting Israel in an even more precarious position as diplomacy continues.

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The Core Fallacies

Emmanuel Navon
For the Sake of Zion
26 December '10

Most diplomats and journalists repeat at will that Israel and the Palestinians need to address the “core issues” such as borders and refugees in order to make peace. Yet on both issues, historical and legal fallacies have become the conventional wisdom.

On borders, the conventional wisdom is that Israel must “return to the 1967 borders.” Indeed, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is asking the world to recognize a Palestinian state “within the 1967 borders.” But such “borders” never existed. The 1949 Rhodes Agreements established an armistice line between Israel and Jordan, a line that was defined as “temporary” upon Jordan’s insistence, and that had no political or legal significance so as not to prejudice future negotiations on final borders. The armistice demarcation line represented nothing more than the lines of deployment of the forces involved in the conflict on the day a ceasefire was declared. The line was demarcated on the map attached to the Rhodes Agreements with a green marker pen and hence received the name "Green Line."

UN Security Council Resolution 62 (November 16, 1948) stressed the temporary nature of the armistice lines that were to be maintained “during the transition to permanent peace in Palestine.” This meant, and still means, that future permanent borders would be negotiated in the framework of a peace agreement, and that those borders would be different from the temporary armistice lines. As Judge Steven Schwebel (former President of the International Court of Justice) explained: "The armistice agreements of 1949 expressly preserved the territorial claims of all parties and did not purport to establish definitive boundaries between them." This is why UN Security Council Resolution 242 (November 22, 1967) calls for Israel’s withdrawal “from territories” to agreed-upon and defensible boundaries –not to the temporary and indefensible armistice lines of 1949.

(Read full "The Core Fallacies")

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Tell me what your heritage sites are...

Israel Harel
Haaretz
04 March '10

(You'll have to read the full piece to get to the punch line, but it's got punch. Y.)

Everyone expected Benjamin Netanyahu to surprise us once again by distancing himself from the Likud platform, just as he did when he adopted the two-state "vision" in his speech at Bar-Ilan University. But at last month's Herzliya Conference, the prime minister surprised us from a different direction. Israel's existence, he declared, "depends first and foremost ... on our ability to explain the justness of our path and demonstrate our affinity for our land. ... If our feeling of serving a higher purpose dissipates, if our sources of spiritual strength grow weak, then - as Yigal Allon said - our future will also be opaque."

Less than a month after that speech, the cabinet members went to Tel Hai, a foundational site in the pioneering Zionist ethos, and decided during a festive meeting to "rehabilitate and strengthen the infrastructure of our national heritage, which expresses the national heritage of the nation of Israel in its land." In accordance with this decision, two maps will be "branded and rooted" in the public consciousness: "the map of the historical Jewish story" and "the map of the Israeli-Zionist experience."

The map of the "historical story" will include foundational sites such as Al-Kanatir, Dir Aziz, Hamam Midya, El-Umdan, Qeiyafa, Anim and Madras. It will not include - doubtless because they truly are the "historical Jewish story" - the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, Rachel's Tomb, Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, Tel Shilo (which was the capital of the ancient Israelite polity for 300 years before it moved to Hebron), Givon, Tel Jericho, the ancient Shema Yisrael mosaic in Jericho, or many other sites located in the heart of the land of the Bible.

Heletz, Beit Haya'aran and the Timna mines are three sites on the second map, that of the "Israeli-Zionist experience." And they, no less than the sites chosen for the map of the "historical Jewish story in the Land of Israel," faithfully reflect the best of the Zionist experience, as chosen by a task force comprising more than 100 people, led by Cabinet Secretary Zvi Hauser. According to the task force's concluding report, the choices were "based on criteria that reflect our vision."

(Read full article)
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Why Israel Is Free to Set Its Own Borders

Michael I. Krauss/J. Peter Pham
Commentary Magazine
July/August 2006

(I've introduced this article from the 4th paragraph, as this is relevant to the discussion of what may constitute the rightful borders of Israel in international law. Excellent article, worth reading in whole. Y.)

.... Other elements of the international community, however, have wasted no time in decrying Israel's effort formally to incorporate small parts of the West Bank. Speaking to the European Parliament in April, Javier Solana, the European Union's top foreign-policy official, lamented the “lack of dialogue with the Palestinian people in determining Israel's borders.” Not to be outdone, former President Jimmy Carter, writing in USA Today, condemned Kadima's program as a naked “land grab,” a violation of international law that no “objective member of the international community could accept.” On May 25, the New York Times chimed in, denouncing the idea of Israel's setting its own borders and lumping together Hamas, the government of Israel, and Bush as “two culprits and an enabler.”

In the view of Solana, Carter, the Times editorial board, and many other “objective” observers, the boundary between Israel and its Arab neighbors that prevailed between 1949 and 1967 is not just a historical baseline; it is a legitimate and well-established international border, one that the Jewish state has now ignored for nearly four decades. Such borders cannot be altered by force. As these critics see it, the Six-Day war of 1967 resulted in Israel's “occupation” of the West Bank (as well as of the Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem). Much as that action might have been required by the exigencies of the time, it gives Israel no ongoing title to those lands. Indeed, in the view of the critics, it makes Israel's long-term presence there nothing less than an ongoing crime.

But are these claims supported by the history of Israel's conflict with its Arab neighbors, to say nothing of the standards of international law? In the West Bank, is Israel, in fact, an “occupier”?

(Read full article)
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