Sunday, May 01, 2011

No Return to the 1967 Borders


Eli E. Hertz

In an interview with the German news paper Der Spiegel, the late Israeli diplomat Abba Eban, described Israel's pre-Six-Day War borders as "Auschwitz" lines.

Eban, a lifetime dove, vowed:

"With Syrians on the mountain and we in the valley, with the Jordanian army in sight of the sea, with the Egyptians ... hold[ing] our throat in their hands in Gaza. This is a situation which will never be repeated in history." [emphasis added] In the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War, after three Arab armies converged on Israel's nightmarish borders, even the United Nations was forced to recognize that Israel's pre-1967 Six-Day War borders invited repeated aggression. Thus, UN Resolution 242 - which formed the conceptual foundation for a peace settlement - declares that all states in the region should be guaranteed "safe and secure borders."

President Lyndon B. Johnson, in an address on September 10, 1968, declared:

"We [The United States] are not the ones to say where other nations should draw the lines between them that will assure each the greatest security."

"It is clear, however, that a return to the situation of June 4, 1967, will not bring peace. There must be secure and there must be recognized borders." [emphasis added]

(59 Department of State Bulletin 348 [1968] )

Comment: Of course there are no 1967 borders even though the media, some in academia and our enemy choose to intentionally misrepresent the legal facts.

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