In view of the Israeli government's silence in the face of Arafat's fallaciousness, we think it incumbent upon us to comment. Arafat continually repeats his demand that Israel surrender all territories beyond the "Green Line," namely, the 1949 borders, because this is, according to Arafat, what Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 decree. This also seems to be the premise upon which President Clinton's "alternative-dispute-resolution" proposals are based, and this is why Israel now has to stand at Arafat's doorstep begging for crumbs.At least for now, according to his phased plan, Arafat may be willing throw Israel a few crumbs of land, like a narrow strip to allow access to Ariel, Ma'aleh Adumin and Gush Etzion.
But in return for these "concessions," the American "mediator" offers Arafat the wide expanses of the Halutza dunes, leaving Israel's border with Egypt completely defenseless, and turning Israeli towns in the western Negev into an isolated enclave at Arafat's mercy. Going by this methodology, Israel is to uproot all its towns in the Jordan Valley, so that the future Palestinian state will have uninterrupted sovereignty all the way from Tul Karm to the boundaries of the Jordanian Kingdom.
Lies thus rule the roost, while the voice of truth, for some inexplicable reason, remains unheard. Well, the truth, according to the principles of international law, is as follows:
(a) One of the purposes of Security Council Resolution 242 (and Resolution 338, adopting 242) was to put an end to the belligerency between the sides that fought in the Six-Day War. The applicability of this resolution to the areas of Judea and Samaria that were under Jordanian rule between 1949 and 1967, is a matter of controversy among jurists. In any case, Arafat's PLO terrorist organization, which then started launching its violent activities, had no legal status under that resolution. It is also an established fact that the authentic language of Resolution 242 did not require Israel to withdraw from all the territories over which it had gained control as a result of its defensive efforts in 1967, but only from some of them.
(b) Moreover: Resolution 242 stipulates that "secure and recognized boundaries" must be established in the region. At the time, Israel only had the cease-fire lines (not to be confused with boundaries) which were violated by Arab aggression in June 1967. These lines - dubbed the "Auschwitz borders" by Israel's then foreign minister, Abba Eban - were anything but "secure boundaries."
(c) There is no need to expand on the "creative" ideas for relinquishing sovereignty over Temple Mount, the Mount of Olives and the Old City. No one disputes the fact that the arrangements recommended by the UN General Assembly in 1947, on the eve of Israel's statehood, to turn Jerusalem into a separate entity ("corpus separatum"), were to expire within 10 years, by force of provisions within these arrangements themselves. Today, even the U.S. Congress openly recognizes Jerusalem as the Israeli capital. In the Jerusalem Embassy Relocation Act, Congress ordered the relocation of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. But President Clinton, in a generous farewell gift, once again exercised his veto right and curbed the implementation of this act in the "impartial" spirit of today's American administration.
(d) In order to exert violent pressure on Israel, Arafat lets his people continue with rampant terrorism, while negotiations on "the end of the conflict" go on. This is the place to mention that in his letter to Yitzhak Rabin of September 9, 1993, Arafat had undertaken that any future differences would be resolved in a peaceful manner. Israel's willingness to sign the Declaration of Principles on September 13, 1993 ("Oslo Agreement"), was contingent upon this undertaking.
And yet despite this overwhelming set of facts, neither the negotiators assigned by the Israeli government nor the government's PR mechanism lift a finger to tear down Arafat's web of lies and give truth the credit it deserves. Why?
Moshe Landau is former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Yehuda Blum is a professor of international law at the Hebrew University and formerly served as ambassador and permanent representative of Israel to the United Nations. Meir Rosenne formerly served as ambassador to Paris and to Washington and served as legal adviser for the Foreign Ministry
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