[Politics_CurrentEvents_Group] No Return to the 1967 Borders

No Return to the 1967 Borders

April 29, 2011 | Eli E. Hertz

In an interview with the German news paper Der Spiegel, the late Israeli diplomat Abba Eban, described Israel 's pre-Six-Day War borders as " Auschwitz " lines.

Eban, a lifetime dove, vowed:

"With Syrians on the mountain and we in the valley, with the Jordanian army in sight of the sea, with the Egyptians ... hold[ing] our throat in their hands in Gaza . This is a situation which will never be repeated in history."[emphasis added]

In the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War, after three Arab armies converged on Israel 's nightmarish borders, even the United Nations was forced to recognize that Israel 's pre-1967 Six-Day War borders invited repeated aggression. Thus, UN Resolution 242 - which formed the conceptual foundation for a peace settlement - declares that all states in the region should be guaranteed "safe and secure borders."

President Lyndon B. Johnson, in an address on September 10, 1968, declared:

"We [The United States] are not the ones to say where other nations should draw the lines between them that will assure each the greatest security."

"It is clear, however, that a return to the situation of June 4, 1967, will not bring peace.There must be secure and there must be recognized borders." [emphasis added]

(59 Department of State Bulletin 348 [1968] )