The international community saw Israel's war of 1967 as a war of self defense. And Israel was actually supported very strongly in the international community in the waging of its war against the Arabs in June of 1967. And because this war was seen as a war of self-defense, the resolution passed in the United Nations Security Council in November 1967, Resolution 242, that resolution setting the Arab-Israeli peace process in motion after 1967. Was a resolution that was very understanding of Israeli needs. Looking at the key parts of UN Security Council resolution 242 of November 1967, it is very important to emphasize that the understanding of the reasons for the war by the international community were such that Israel was not required by the Security Council to immediately withdraw its forces from the territories it had occupied unconditionally. On the contrary, Israel is required to withdraw but only on condition that the Arab states make peace with Israel. And thus, if we look at the text of the Resolution, or the main parts of it, it begins with emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war, that is Israel should withdraw. But that is linked immediately to the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every State in the area, that is Israel too, can live in security. The resolution also affirmed that the fulfillment of the UN Charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East which should include the application of both of the following principles. One was indeed the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories. Interesting, from territories, not from the territories, not from all the territories. But from territories occupied in the recent conflict. And the second was the termination of all claims or states of belligerency. And respect for, and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and politically independence of every state in the area. And their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries, free from threats or acts of force. Thus the resolution took Israeli security considerations very much into account. And it made the fulfillment of peace with Israel a condition for Israel's withdrawal from the territories that were taken in that war. Thus we have the birth of the land for peace formula. Israel should give back territory. But only in exchange for peace. For the Palestinians, Resolution 242 was woefully insu, insufficient. Resolution 242 written in November 1967 long before the Palestinians through the PLO and the other Palestinian organizations had made their new mark on middle Eastern politics. Resolution 242 doesn't even mention the Palestinians by name. And therefore Resolution 242 was actually the basis for an agreement between Israel and the neighboring Arab states, that is Israel and Jordan, if we're talking about the West Bank, not the Palestinians, who were not part of this resolution. And therefore, for the Palestinians, Resolution 242 was always seen as insufficient and indeed, hardly desirable. The war of 1967 had huge psychological impact on the Israelis. The Israelis who had gone into the war in 1967 with a great deal of trepidation and fear. Fear maybe even of possible defeat and destruction. The Israelis were overcome after the war. With what one could call the Huberous of Victory. And there were even religious interpretations on what could be seen as heavenly deliverance of the Israelis from their enemies and this also resulted in the most significant conquest of the Jewish holy places in Jerusalem. And in the conquest of biblical Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, which was the core of biblical Israel. These new conquests for Israel had huge historical symbolic significance. And while Israel immediately after the war was willing to think of parting with the territories that it, it had taken from Syria and Egypt. It was not nearly as enthusiastic about withdrawing from the West Bank and from Gaza. And now in the Israeli Domestic Debate, people were divided along new lines that didn't even exist before 1967. That is those who believed in rational security arguments about the drawing of the borders of Israel versus those who spoke in terms of religious belief and god-given rights. This was a contest of values taking place within Israel. Essentially what one could call the domestic fight over Israel's soul. Was Israel governed by secular humanist values or religio-nationalist ones? What is the struggle all about? Is it classical Zionism and Jewish self determination that is a secular concept of Jewish nationalism. Or is it about the liberation of the historical homeland in the name of God and religious deliverance. With this kind of internal Israeli debate, Israeli government successively for more than 30 years, 40 years have come to the decision not to decide. Not to decide what it is that will be the ultimate fate of the West Bank and Gaza. In the meantime, there was the beginning of settlement activity in the West Bank, some with government approval and some without. And this, too, was the beginnings of indecision and legal ambiguity of settlements in the West Bank established illegally, but then in the end tolerated by the various Israeli Governments. So looking at the post 67 era, some key points of summation. The 67 war had extensive unprecedented regional impact. It had deflated Pan-Arabism as a force in the region. If the 1950s and the 1960s were the years of Abdel Nasser's great, charismatic, messianic leadership of the Arabs, Pan-Arabism was crushed in 1967 as a force that seemed to be an empty vessel. If in the 1950s and the 1960s, the revolutionaries, that is the officer regimes and the republics were arrayed in a domestic Arab debate against the so called reactionaries, the monarchies and the pro Western regimes. Nothing was left of this after 1967. The Revolutionaries and the Reactionaries had been defeated by Israel just as easily and there was no more reason for the sharp distinctions between them. Jordan which had been in control of the West Bank since 1948 now lost the West Bank to Israel. The process whereby the Jordanians were Jordanizing the Palestinians was now arrested. It came to an end. The Jordanians without the control of the West Bank could no longer manipulate Palestinian politics as they could before. And as a result the Palestinians now emerged in the post 67 era with the West Bank under Israeli occupation, as autonomous players as they had not been since 1948. The Israelis were governed to a large degree by a euphoric sense of invincibility. And this was going to take its revenge on Israel in a few years later with the 1973 war that cost the Israelis dearly. It is important to emphasis what the resolution 242 actually said. First of all that the conditionality, that is Israel should withdraw from territories occupied but only in exchange for peace. And the fact that Arab states like Egypt and Jordan accepted Resolution 242, which included the requirement of making peace with Israel, was a very important departure of the Arab states in their attitude towards Israel. Here was the beginning, the very beginning, of the willingness coming from countries like Egypt to make their peace with Israel. Then of course the Israeli indecision after 1967, except for the decision to unify Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, that is to annex the Arab part of Jerusalem and not to withdraw from it. But for the rest of the territories, the West Bank and Gaza, the decision was neither to annex and nor to withdraw. And lastly, the domestic fight over Israel's soul, what is Zionism really all about? And it is that debate within Israel that 46 years after the war, is still raging with a great deal of passion.
