I'm not ignoring the context.
Hi bluke,
First I can't read English ("...misinterpret what 242 really says..."), now I'm ignoring the context? Interesting debating style you have there. :-)
Yes, there was apparently deliberate phrasing of the text of 242 that way so that it would have support. And it's interesting that each side can have diametrically opposed views of the text - especially those who look at different "identical" translations.
[link|http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH0g9w0|On Multi-Lingual Interpretation]
Security Council resolution 242 (1967), adopted on November 22, 1967, contains the following phrase:
"Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict."
[...]
That phrase has produced considerable controversy inside Israel, but within that controversy a secondary issue has arisen, of some juridical interest, since some of the protagonists of one point of view or another have purported to see a fundamental difference between one or other of these language versions of this phrase.
[...]
The above quoted phrase in resolution 242 (1967) is identical with the draft submitted by the United Kingdom on November 16, 1967, in Security Council document S/8247:
[...]
It is known from an outside source that the sponsors resisted all attempts to insert words such as "all" or "the" in the text of this phrase in the English text of the resolution,9 and it will not be overlooked that when that very word "all" erroneously crept into the Spanish translation of the draft, it was subsequently removed.
[...]
For instance, it is said that the indefinite quality of the English and Russian versions - which was a matter of political determinism-ought to be met by the introduction of a word such as "certains" into the French version (and its equivalent in the Spanish). But in such a context, certains would need some equivalent in English, for instance some, a word which does not appear in the English text and which, moreover, it is unlikely that a draftsman with any command of the English language, from either side of the Atlantic, would have willingly or wittingly inserted. If on this score there is any ambiguity in resolution 242 as it stands (which we do not think to be the case), it is rendered neither greater nor less by comparison of the different language versions, but is inherent in the text as adopted, in all its language versions. In this connection it may be observed that categorical assertions that the resolution obliges Israel completely to withdraw all its armed forces from all the occupied territories are not based on preference for one or other of the language versions of the resolution, but on the resolution in its integrity, in each one of its language versions. That was made clear, by the pro-Arab spokesmen, using the English, French and Russian languages, in the Security Council debate in November 1967. However, the real problem of what the resolution means on this cardinal question, or to put it differently, what the Security Council intended, arises whatever the language in which the resolution be read or a given contention expressed.
I don't contest that there was debate on the language of the resolution, or that the lack of "the" or "all" was important. I still think the resolution is clear, especially given the context of Article 2 of the UN Charter. The UN Security Council wasn't intending to impose a solution on the Middle East. It has no power to do so. It was listing principles that it felt a solution should entail and goals which should be met. That's all it could do (without veto by one member or another. Recall that the UN presence in the Korean War only happened because the USSR boycotted the important meeting.)
Carter, Clinton and others seemed to have views closer to mine than the one you express. Consider this story:
[link|http://www.dawn.com/2000/07/02/int3.htm|US dismisses Israeli view on pullout] from DAWN.com, a Pakistani English-language newspaper:
WASHINGTON, July 1 [2000]: Washington on Friday confirmed that UN Security Council Resolution 242 - which called for Israel to withdraw from land it captured in 1967 - applied to the Israeli-Palestinian talks, dismissing controversial comments by the Israeli attorney general that it did not.
"The resolutions 242 and 338 have been the cornerstone of the US approach to the Middle East for 30 years," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.
Resolution 338, passed in 1973, calls for talks to start "aimed at establishing a just and durable peace in the Middle East."
In an opinion published in the Israeli media on Thursday, Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein said UN Security Council Resolution 242 did not apply to the Palestinians.
He said that Israel was not required to return the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority because the two areas were under Jordanian and Egyptian control when Israel seized them, and not the Palestinian group, which only formed in 1994.
Boucher said the 1967 UN resolution was the "framework that we've always worked in and it's the one we believe we should continue to work in".
"It's our view that all negotiations should be based on Resolutions 242 and 338 - all negotiations between Israel and the Arabs, including the negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians," the spokesman added.
[...]
I'd be happy if some compromise could be reached that each side was happy with. If that involved Israel keeping part of the West Bank and/or Gaza, so be it. IMO, it's not the land which matters, it's the people. But I don't expect any solution will have much success unless Israel withdraws to the pre-1967 borders.
My $0.02. I think I've had my say on this topic.
Cheers,
Scott.
