In a speech given on May 19, 2011, President Barack Obama mentioned as one proposed condition of reaching a settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis that “The dream of a Jewish and democratic state cannot be fulfilled with permanent occupation.” Peace requires two separate states with borders "based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed [land] swaps” to allow for any necessary deviations.
But what are the 1967 lines? How did they come into being, and why were they changed?
Origins of the Jewish State of Israel
The origins of modern Israel lay in the events of two world wars. Before the First World War, Jewish organizations founded a Zionist movement in Europe to press for the creation of a Jewish home in Palestine. This accorded with the theme of return in Jewish tradition, and it also offered a solution to two problems Jews were facing in Europe, loss of adherents to assimilation and anti-Semitic persecution.
During the First World War, the British and French governments expanded their control into the lands previously part of the Ottoman Empire. In 1916, Britain and France signed the Sykes–Picot Agreement to divide the area into spheres of influence, and Palestine fell into the British sphere. Forced to search for support for their expansionist goal wherever they could find it, in 1917 the British sought support from Jews through the Balfour Declaration of British support for a Jewish national home.
However, at the same time the British were making another territorial promise covering the same land in exchange for aid. "Lawrence of Arabia," Lt. Col. T. E. Lawrence, told Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, that he could depend on British support for independence for an Arab state covering most of the Arab Middle East. Both Jews and Arabs were destined to be disappointed by British duplicitousness.
Interwar Period
In the years immediately following the First World War, the new Leaque of Nations confirmed Britain control of a mandate to rule in Palestine at the San Remo Conference under Article 22 of the League of Nations Covenant. The League Assembly approved the mandate in June 1922, and the British assumed authority in the area on 29 September 1923.
Various attempts to reconcile Jewish and Arab differences continued unsuccessfully between the world wars. Anti-Semitic policies in Germany and the coming of war in Europe brought greatly increased pressure on the British to allow more Jewish immigrants into Palestine.
The British resisted the effort, seeing it as likely to promote Arab reaction, which already favored the Axis powers, and threaten their control of the region. Since the strategic route to India ran through the Suez Canal, continued control of the Middle East was essential to the British war effort and Jewish immigrants could not be allowed.
Postwar and the UN
After the war British power was so strained that it could no longer maintain effective control of the Palestinian Mandate, and Britain announced that it would give up control in 1948. It did not help that the British had faced an uprising and ongoing civil war in the area beginning in November 1947 as Jews fought Arabs and both clashed with British soldiers.
The civil war transitioned to a war between nations on May 15, 1948, ten days after the British terminated their presence, when the state of Israel declared its independent existence. At that point the conflict became a war between the new state and its Arab neighbors.
In spite of an advantage in numbers, the Arabs armies were unable to defeat the Israelis. Beginning with Egypt in February, followed by Lebanon in March, Jordan in April, and Syria in July, Israel signed separate armistice agreements to secure a peace along a demarcation line afterwards known as the Green Line.
The Green Line was not an international border - it was nothing more than the recognition of conditions in existence at the end of the fighting.
At the end of the war Gaza was occupied by Egypt and the West Bank by Jordan. The United Nations monitored ceasefires and supervised the armistice agreements.
The 1967 War
This situation and the Green Line boundary lasted until the Six-Day War, 5-10 June 1967.
After decades of minor skirmishes the Arabs began to mass armies on the Israeli borders with Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. Israel, with about one half the number of troops as its opponents, also readied for a fight.
Israeli opened the war with a surprise massed air attack against the Egyptian air force that it repeated against the other Arab air forces, largely destroying them and giving Israel air superiority for the duration of the war. At the same time the Israeli Army drove into the Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank including East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights, pushing their enemies out of those territories.
The war ended with a ceasefire on June 11. Again, there was no recognition of a permanent international boundary.
Aftermath
From subsequent events (page 243) it is apparent that Israel did not intend to hold the captured territory in perpetuity. On June 19, 1967, a few days after the fighting ended, the government of Israel unanimously voted to return the Sinai to Egypt and a demilitarized Golan Heights to Syria in return for peace agreements.
The exchange with Egypt would eventually be secured but only after another war in 1973. The exchange with Syria has not occurred. At the same time, Israel planned to open negotiations with Jordan to settle the border with that nation, presumably also meaning to exchange land for peace, but that too has yet to occur.
The conclusion that can be drawn from this is that there has never been a recognized international border, with an exception in Sinai, between Israel, Jordan, and Syria.
The Green Line, or 1967 border, has no particular legitimacy since no one recognized it at the time as anything other than a temporary armistice line drawn to separate warring parties. In fact, that line encompasses more territory into Israel than the original UN plan. Why not go back to that plan?
In the end, insistence on one line or another is not the issue. The issue is whether or not Israel has a right to exist behind any line drawn in Palestine. That is the real question.
Sources
- Mitchell G. Bard. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Middle East Conflict. New York: Alpha books, 2002, 2008.
- Martin Gilbert. Israel – A History. New York: Harper Perennial, 1998, 2008.
- Avi Shlaim, Avner Yaniv. "Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy in Israel." International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-) 56: 2 (Spring, 1980), 242-262.
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