Where did it the “1967 borders” come from? Part 1.

Ok,  that probably has a rhetorical ring to it, and I already know the answer to that question. The real question is why does everyone, except the Likud Yisrael Beiteinu party and its coalition partners Hatnua, Yesh Atid, and Habayit Hayehudi, keep harping on the ’67 lines and the two State solution?

I am not in Israel, and worship a Jew who died some 1980 years ago, on hill just outside Jerusalem, called Golgotha. So my observations and questions run along the lines what will protect the Jewish State of Israel, what will be best for its long term protection. One could obviously write a volume of books on the subject, and still have angry Arabs screaming about 1967 lines, 2 States, 1949 Armistice lines and any obfuscation they can come up with, to complicate a process that even they don’t see a solution to.

So I am going to lay out the documents that seem to have relevance to the much debated borders issue. I’m not really concerned with the Gaza border as Israel have effectively walked away from that strip of hatred, with its only interactions being to try keep weapons from entering, and hammering the terrorists when they drizzle their rockets onto Israel. The UN resolution 181 passed on 20 November 1947, was optimistically called “The 1947 Partition Plan”, and was non-binding.

Borders envisages by the failed UN Resolution 181 of 1947.

When the vote came, 33 voted for, 13 voted against ,10 abstained

The 10 who voted against were  Afghanistan,  India,  Afghanistan,  Iran,  Iraq,  Lebanon,  Pakistan,  Saudi Arabia,  Syria,  Turkey,  Yemen. You will be forgiven for noting that these were Muslim countries, with India having a significant Muslim minority in 1947.

The Partition Plan was met not only by verbal rejection on the Arab/Muslim side but also by concrete, aggressive steps, to block its implementation and destroy the Jewish state by force of arms, a goal the Arabs/Muslims publicly declared even before Resolution 181 was brought to a vote.

Arabs not only rejected the compromise and took direct action to prevent establishment of a Jewish state but also blocked establishment of an Arab state under the partition plan not only before the Israel War of Independence, but also after the war when they themselves controlled the West Bank (1948 – 1967), rendering the recommendation “a still birth.‟

It must be noted that Resolution 181 has no legal status on any boundaries. As a direct result the Arab countries invasion against Israel in 1948, the Plan was never implemented, and although the UN consensus by majority vote was that the State of Israel should be formed, it was not UN 181 that formed the State of Israel.

The tension between the Arabs in the region, and the Jewish inhabitants, flared on 30 November 1947 into civil war, in direct response to the UN Partition Plan. On 15 May 1948 the ongoing civil war entered a new phase, a change that rendered UN 181 of 1947 moot. Forces from Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, together with Iraqi forces, entered the region  – Jordan having declared privately to Yishuv emissaries less than 2 weeks before, on May 2, it would not attack the Jewish state.

War raged for 10 months until an armistice was agreed and the armistice lines were agreed upon, with numerous provisions, including one that read  “The Armistice Demarcation Line is not to be construed in any sense as a political or territorial boundary, and is delineated without prejudice to rights, claims and positions of either Party to the Armistice as regards ultimate settlement of the Palestine question”

In Part 2, I will be looking at the 1949-1967 period, from the ’49 Armistice, upto and including the 1967 cease-fire and the Khartoum Resolution.

In closing, I pray that HaShem spread his protection and grace across the people of Israel, that peace and quiet be maintained, and that his comfort be with those who lost loved ones during the past two months.