BEFORE OCTOBER 7: PART THREE, 1967 AND THE OCCUPATION

THE YEARS BETWEEN

For 18 years the West Bank and the Gaza Strip had different rulers. They came under Jordanian and Egyptian control through the 1949 armistice agreements and stayed there until 1967.

In 1956 the line between Egypt and Israel moved. Israeli forces crossed the border on the morning of October 29. Britain and France issued an ultimatum on October 30 and began air attacks on October 31. On November 1, Israel’s ambassador Abba Eban told the General Assembly why. He cited 435 armed incursions, 1,300 armed clashes, and 465 Israelis killed or wounded. He said the raiding units operated from bases in Sinai. He also cited Egypt’s blockade of Israeli shipping and the arms race with Egypt. He invoked the right of self-defense.

The General Assembly adopted Resolution 997 on November 2 by 64 votes to 5, with 6 abstentions. It called for an immediate cease-fire, a withdrawal of all forces behind the armistice lines and the reopening of the Suez Canal. On November 4, Resolution 998 asked the Secretary-General for a plan for a force “to secure and supervise the cessation of hostilities.” The force drew contingents from ten countries. It reached about 6,000 troops by February 1957. Israel withdrew from Sinai in stages. It left Gaza on March 6 and 7 and Sharm el-Sheikh between March 8 and 12. UN troops took positions at both.

The Palestinians organized in this period. At an Arab summit in Cairo in January 1964, Ahmad al-Shuqayri was designated to organize a Palestinian entity. A congress in Jerusalem proclaimed the Palestine Liberation Organization on May 28, 1964. Its 1964 charter said the organization exercised no sovereignty over the West Bank, then under Jordan, or over the Gaza Strip.

Raids across the lines continued. Israel told the Security Council of 71 raids from neighboring Arab states since January 1965. Israel named Syria as the source and training ground of the group El-Fatah. Syria denied responsibility for Palestinian groups.

On November 12, 1966, an Israeli patrol vehicle was blown up by a land mine. On November 13, Israeli forces crossed into Jordan at As-Samu, south of Hebron. Jordan told the Council the force came in brigade strength, with a squadron of Mirage jets, heavy artillery and more than 20 tanks. The UN observer mission counted three civilians and 15 soldiers killed, and 17 civilians and 37 soldiers wounded.

On November 25, the Security Council adopted Resolution 228 by 14 votes to none. New Zealand abstained. The resolution censured Israel for a large-scale military action that violated the UN Charter and the armistice agreement. It said “actions of military reprisal cannot be tolerated.”

The northern front was also unsettled. On April 7, 1967, fighting broke out in the demilitarized zone between Israel and Syria. Israel said Syria fired on Israeli tractors cultivating in the zone. Syria said an Israeli tractor started it. Israeli aircraft silenced Syrian guns and shot down Syrian planes. The Secretary-General said the incident had widened the gap between the parties.

On May 16, 1967, an Egyptian general asked the UN commander to withdraw the Emergency Force from its posts along the border. Secretary-General U Thant decided to comply. He wrote that the force had entered Egypt with its consent and could stay only while that consent continued. His report says Egyptian troops had already made the force’s post at Sharm el-Sheikh ineffective. That post had 32 men. The withdrawal began on May 19. The commander left Gaza on June 17.

U Thant learned of an Egyptian decision to restrict shipping while he was on his way to Cairo. He arrived on May 23. He reports that President Nasser and Foreign Minister Riad told him Egypt would not initiate an attack on Israel. Israel had said closing the strait would be a casus belli and asserted a right of innocent passage. In his report of May 26, the Secretary-General wrote that a clash over the strait “will inevitably set off a general conflict in the Near East.”

Sources: United Nations Peacekeeping: UNEF I Background (1956 timeline, force mandate, size and contributors, Israeli withdrawal dates, observation posts, May 1967 withdrawal dates); Jewish Virtual Library: Ambassador Eban on the Sinai Campaign, November 1, 1956 (Israel’s stated reasons before the General Assembly); Office of the Historian: Foreign Relations of the United States 1964-68, vol. XVIII, document 54 (January 1964 Cairo summit, designation of al-Shuqayri); Jewish Virtual Library: Proclamation of the PLO (May 28, 1964 congress); Jewish Virtual Library: the original Palestine National Charter, 1964 (Article 24, West Bank and Gaza); Office of the Historian: Foreign Relations of the United States 1955-57, vol. XVI, document 467 (Resolution 997 vote and terms); UN Information System on the Question of Palestine: Yearbook of the United Nations 1966, Middle East questions (71 raids, El-Fatah dispute, November 12 mine, As-Samu operation, UN casualty count); UN Information System on the Question of Palestine: Security Council Resolution 228 (1966) (text, vote, warning); UN Information System on the Question of Palestine: Yearbook of the United Nations 1967, Israel-Syria incident of April 7 (positions of the parties, aircraft, Secretary-General’s assessment); UN Information System on the Question of Palestine: Secretary-General’s report on the withdrawal of UNEF, A/6730 (May 16 request, Secretary-General’s decision, Sharm el-Sheikh post, June 17 departure); UN Information System on the Question of Palestine: Secretary-General’s report S/7906, May 26, 1967 (Straits of Tiran, Cairo visit, Israeli position, assessment of risk of war)

THE SIX-DAY WAR

The war began on the morning of June 5, 1967. The Security Council met that day and heard two accounts.

Israel’s representative said Israel was acting in self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter. He said Egypt had massed large armies in Sinai. Egypt’s ambassador, M. A. El Kony, accused Israel of “a cowardly and treacherous aggression.” He said Israeli aircraft had attacked Cairo’s airports.

On June 8, Foreign Minister Abba Eban gave the Council Israel’s case in detail. He cited an Egyptian operation order dated May 27, which he said provided for strikes on Israeli airfields. He called the blockade of the Straits of Tiran a hostile act. He said “Never in history have an illegal blockade and peace coexisted.” Israel also gave its account of the other fronts. It said Jordan had ignored its efforts to keep the conflict from spreading and had opened artillery fire along the whole frontier, including Jerusalem. It said Syria had begun bombing and shelling Israeli villages.

UN observers also reported what they saw. The chief of the UN truce observers reported that firing in Jerusalem began at 11:25 local time. UN observers reported an attack on Damascus airport at 11:10 and air battles between Israeli and Syrian planes from 11:55. The Secretary-General reported that Jordanian soldiers had occupied the garden of Government House, the UN compound in Jerusalem. He said Israeli troops later drove them out and occupied the building. Three Indian peacekeepers were killed in a strafing attack on June 5.

The Council adopted a cease-fire call on June 6. It repeated the call on June 7. Jordan accepted on June 7. Egypt accepted on June 8, on condition that the other side stop firing. Syria accepted on June 9. The Secretary-General reported that Israeli forces nonetheless continued on the Syrian front, with movement and targets engaged as far east as Kuneitra. Israel told the UN observers that about 16 Israeli villages had come under heavy Syrian artillery fire. The Council confirmed its demand for a cease-fire on June 9. A cease-fire took hold on June 10.

When it ended, Israel held the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. That was about 69,000 square kilometers in all. Israel lost about 776 dead and 2,586 wounded. Arab dead are estimates only. They run from 15,000 to 25,000 and combine military and civilian deaths.

The war also displaced people. The Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency reported on September 15, 1967. More than 300,000 people had been made homeless or had left their homes. About 120,000 of them were refugees already registered from 1948. About 200,000 had fled the West Bank for the East Bank of the Jordan. Half of them were registered refugees. More than 115,000 had moved north to Damascus and Dera’a, among them some 16,000 registered refugees. About 35,000 had moved from Sinai to Egypt. On June 13, the agency had reported that its camps near Jericho were almost empty.

On June 14, the Security Council called on Israel to ensure the safety of the inhabitants of areas where fighting had taken place. It asked Israel to facilitate the return of those who had fled. It recommended respect for the Geneva Conventions. The vote was unanimous.

On June 27 and 28, Israel moved on Jerusalem. The Secretary-General’s report of September 12, 1967 describes the measures. A law of June 27 let the government declare that Israeli law, jurisdiction and administration applied to any area it designated. An order of June 28 designated the Old City, Mount Scopus, Sheikh Jarrah, Sur Baher, Kalandia airport and Shuafat. A second law let the Interior Minister enlarge the municipal boundaries to include them. The report says the city grew by more than 60 square kilometers, to a total over 100. It counts about 70,000 residents in the added area, 28,000 of them in the Old City.

Eban told the Secretary-General the measures were administrative integration and not annexation. He said they protected the holy places and extended water, health, welfare and education services across the city. The report notes Israel’s statement that the process was irreversible and not negotiable. On July 4, the General Assembly considered the measures invalid. It called on Israel to rescind them.

242 AND THE LAW OF OCCUPATION

On September 1, 1967, Arab leaders meeting in Khartoum set their position. Their resolution said there would be “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it.” The summit also called for unified diplomatic efforts to secure Israel’s withdrawal from territory occupied since June 5. It insisted on the rights of the Palestinian people.

On November 22, the Security Council adopted Resolution 242 unanimously. Its preamble stressed the inadmissibility of acquiring territory by war. It asked for “Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.” It also asked for an end to all claims and states of belligerency. It asked for respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of every state in the area. It affirmed the need for a just settlement of the refugee problem. It asked the Secretary-General to name a Special Representative to promote agreement.

The Council record shows the parties reading the text differently on the day it passed. Britain’s Lord Caradon said the resolution should be considered as a whole and as it stands. The Soviet representative, Kuznetsov, read it to require withdrawal from “all, and we repeat, all territories” belonging to Arab states. Egypt’s representative, Mahmoud Riad, said the first step toward peace was full withdrawal from all territories occupied on June 5. Jordan’s representative said the same. Israel’s representative, Abba Eban, said Israel would maintain the situation under the cease-fire agreements until peace treaties replaced it. Syria did not make a statement after the vote.

The Secretary-General appointed Gunnar Jarring to carry out the mission. His work stalled in 1971. On February 8, Jarring sent both parties an aide-memoire. It asked Israel to commit to withdraw from occupied Egyptian territory to the former international boundary. It asked Egypt to enter a peace agreement with reciprocal undertakings. Egypt replied on February 15. It said it would accept the commitments requested of it. That was conditional on matching commitments from Israel on withdrawal from Sinai and Gaza and on a just settlement for the refugees.

Israel replied on February 26. It did not give the commitment on the earlier boundary. It offered to withdraw to “secure, recognized and agreed boundaries.” It proposed detailed negotiations without prior conditions. The Secretary-General reported that the talks under Jarring’s auspices had lapsed. Jarring resumed his post as Swedish ambassador on March 25.

A second dispute concerned the law of occupation. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 bars an occupying power from transferring parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies. Israel’s legal position developed in two parts. In 1971, Meir Shamgar, then Israel’s Attorney General, wrote that the Convention did not automatically apply to the territories, because their legal position was unusual. He wrote that Israel had nonetheless “decided to act de facto in accordance with the humanitarian provisions of the Convention.” Israel also argued that Jordan had never held legitimate sovereignty over the West Bank. By that reasoning, Israel said, it “cannot be considered an ‘occupying Power’” under the Convention. The Commission on Human Rights and the General Assembly took the opposite view. In December 1978 the General Assembly reaffirmed that the Convention applies to all Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967. In 2004 the International Court of Justice ruled on the question. It held that the Convention applies in the territories east of the Green Line that Israel occupied in 1967, because Israel and Jordan were both parties to it when the war broke out. It found that the settlements, including those in East Jerusalem, were established in breach of Article 49, paragraph 6.

Sources: UN Information System on the Question of Palestine: League of Arab States, Khartoum Resolution, September 1, 1967 (positions of the Arab summit); UN Information System on the Question of Palestine: Security Council Resolution 242 (1967) (text, vote, Special Representative); UN Information System on the Question of Palestine: Security Council verbatim record, S/RES/242, November 22, 1967 (statements of Caradon, Kuznetsov, Riad, Jordan, Eban, Syria’s absence); UN Information System on the Question of Palestine: Yearbook of the United Nations 1971 (excerpts) (Jarring aide-memoire, replies of Egypt and Israel, lapse of talks); UN Information System on the Question of Palestine: The Question of the Observance of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 in Gaza and the West Bank Including Jerusalem Occupied by Israel in June 1967, UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, 1979 (Israel’s sovereignty argument, Commission and Assembly positions, Convention’s transfer prohibition); International Committee of the Red Cross Casebook: Israel, Occupation of Palestinian Territories, Israeli Yearbook on Human Rights, vol. 1 (1971) (Shamgar’s position on the Fourth Convention); UN Information System on the Question of Palestine: International Court of Justice, Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall, July 9, 2004 (paragraphs 101 and 120)

SETTLEMENTS AND THE SECURITY COUNCIL

Israel began building civilian settlements within months of the war. In July 1967, Yigal Allon proposed settlements in the Jordan Valley and the southern desert areas of the West Bank. In September 1967, Kfar Etzion became the first West Bank settlement. The settler population, not counting East Jerusalem, grew from none in 1967 to about 1,500 in 1972 and 4,400 in 1977.

Israel’s own legal adviser had warned against it. On September 14, 1967, Theodor Meron sent the Foreign Minister a memorandum. Meron wrote that civilian settlement in the administered territories contravened the Fourth Geneva Convention. He advised that if the government went ahead, military rather than civilian bodies should carry it out. The settlements should look temporary. The memo was later published by the political scientist Alan Dowty.

The Likud government took office in 1977. By 1980 the settler population had reached about 12,500. That September, Matityahu Drobles set out a settlement plan that was later sent to the UN. It called for 12 to 15 new settlements a year for five years. It aimed at a Jewish population of 120,000 to 150,000. It said there must be no doubt of Israel’s intention “to keep the territories of Judea and Samaria for good.”

On March 22, 1979, the Security Council adopted Resolution 446. The vote was 12 to none. Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States abstained. The resolution held that Israel’s settlement policy had “no legal validity.” It called on Israel not to transfer parts of its civilian population into occupied territory. It created a commission of three members to examine the settlements.

On March 1, 1980, the Council unanimously adopted Resolution 465. It called on Israel to dismantle the existing settlements. The commission had reported that Israel was engaged in a “wilful, systematic and large-scale process of establishing settlements.” It recommended that Israel cease building and planning them at once.

Israel refused to cooperate. The commission’s report of July 12, 1979 records Israel’s reply of May 17. The government had rejected the resolution in its entirety. An Israeli representative told the commission that Israel had nothing to hide about its actions in the territories. He said impartial observers had freely examined the situation.

The commission took figures from Jordan. On May 21, Jordan’s Minister of Information, Adnan Abu Odeh, told it the West Bank had 78 settlements on about 370,000 dunums. He said that was part of 1.5 million dunums Israel had taken, or 27 percent of the West Bank. These are Jordan’s figures, not the commission’s own count. The report records its own finding for the Jewish Quarter. Israel had built 320 housing units on 116 dunums there for a settler population of 1,300. The report also says the Convention applies to the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem.

Jerusalem followed. On July 30, 1980, the Knesset passed the Basic Law on Jerusalem. Its first section reads “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel.” On August 20, the Security Council adopted Resolution 478 by 14 votes to none. The United States abstained. The Council censured the law in the strongest terms. It declared the measures altering the status of the city null and void. It called on states with diplomatic missions in Jerusalem to withdraw them.

The Golan came next. On December 14, 1981, the Knesset voted 63 to 21 for a law extending Israeli law, jurisdiction and administration to the Golan Heights. Prime Minister Menachem Begin gave three reasons. Syria had shelled Israeli civilians from the heights. Syria had refused peace talks for 15 years. The Golan had been part of the French Mandate and not the British one. He said the law did not breach the Camp David Accords. On December 17, the Security Council adopted Resolution 497. It decided the Israeli decision was “null and void and without international legal effect.” It demanded that Israel rescind it. It determined that the Fourth Geneva Convention continued to apply to the Syrian territory. The Council adopted it unanimously.

Sources: Institute for Palestine Studies: Journal of Palestine Studies (Allon Plan, July 1967); Peace Now: Kfar Etzion (first West Bank settlement, September 1967); Peace Now: Settlement Watch Data Charts (settler population 1967 to 1980, excluding East Jerusalem); Alan Dowty: The Meron Memo, Substack (September 14, 1967 memorandum, Article 49, military-not-civilian advice, temporary character); United Nations: Letter of June 19, 1981 transmitting the Drobles plan (September 1980 plan, annual targets, population target); UN Information System on the Question of Palestine: Security Council Resolution 465 (1980) (March 1, 1980 text, unanimous vote); Jewish Virtual Library: The Golan Heights Law (text, 63 to 21 vote, December 14, 1981); UN Information System on the Question of Palestine: Security Council Resolution 446 (1979) (March 22, 1979 text, vote, commission); UN Information System on the Question of Palestine: Report of the Security Council Commission Established under Resolution 446 (1979), July 12, 1979 (Israel’s reply, Jordanian Minister’s figures, Jewish Quarter figures, applicability of the Convention, findings on settlement policy); Boston University, Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel (1980) (text and date); UN Information System on the Question of Palestine: Security Council Resolution 478 (1980) (August 20, 1980 text and vote); Begin Center: The Golan Heights Law (December 14, 1981 text and Begin’s reasons); UN Information System on the Question of Palestine: Security Council Resolution 497 (1981) (December 17, 1981 text); UN Digital Library: Security Council resolution 497 (1981) (December 17, 1981, 15 votes in favor)

RESISTANCE AND WARS

The Palestine Liberation Organization wrote its aims into a charter in July 1968. The Palestine National Council adopted it. Article 9 says “Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine.” Article 20 declares the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate null and void. Article 21 rejects every solution short of the total liberation of Palestine.

Armed raids from Jordan drew Israeli force. Israel told the Security Council that sabotage from across the Jordan had spread. It counted 37 acts of sabotage in recent months, with six civilians and soldiers killed. It said a school bus hit a mine near Be’er Ora on March 18, 1968. On March 21, Israeli forces attacked the Jordanian town of Karameh. Israel counted 28 of its own dead and 90 wounded. Palestinian and Jordanian accounts claimed 200 to 500 Israeli dead or casualties. Estimates of Jordanian dead run from 20 to 100. Jordan told the UN that 56 soldiers and civilians were killed. Israel said 170 militants were killed. On March 24, the Security Council adopted Resolution 248 unanimously. It condemned the military action Israel had launched, as a violation of the Charter and the cease-fire resolutions.

In September 1970 the conflict moved inside Jordan. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked four airplanes between September 6 and 9. It forced three to land at Dawson’s Field. Passengers and crews were held for three days and then released. The guerrillas destroyed the planes. On September 17, King Hussein ordered his army against the Palestinian fighters in the country. Syria intervened. A cease-fire was signed in Cairo on September 27. Estimates of the dead across the months of fighting range from 2,000 to 30,000. By the summer of 1971, Palestinian forces had been driven out of Jordan and had moved to Lebanon. The suppression of the guerrillas gave rise to a group called Black September. In November 1971, four of its members assassinated Jordan’s prime minister, Wasfi al-Tal, in Cairo.

On September 5, 1972, Black September took eleven Israeli athletes hostage at the Olympic Games in Munich. All of the hostages died, as did a German police officer and five of the attackers.

The 1973 war began on October 6. Egyptian forces crossed the Suez Canal at five points. Syrian forces crossed near Quneitra. Israel said Egypt and Syria had launched a sudden, unprovoked attack across the cease-fire lines. Egypt said Israel had started the fighting. On October 22, the Council adopted Resolution 338 by 14 votes to none. China did not participate. It called for a cease-fire and for implementation of Resolution 242. It also called for negotiations toward a just and durable peace. The Council added observers on October 23 and an emergency force on October 25.

On May 15, 1974, three members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine entered Israel from Lebanon. They took hostages at a school in Ma’alot. Twenty-five hostages were killed, 22 of them children. Israel bombed Democratic Front and Popular Front offices and bases the next day.

On November 13, 1974, PLO chairman Yasser Arafat addressed the General Assembly. He said he had come with “an olive branch and a freedom-fighter’s gun.” He said the PLO distinguished between Judaism and Zionism. He called for one democratic state where Christians, Jews and Muslims lived together. He said that vision included Jews now living in Palestine who chose to stay.

On March 11, 1978, eleven PLO militants seized a bus near Tel Aviv. The Israel Defense Forces say 35 civilians were killed, 13 of them children, and 71 wounded. On March 14, Israeli forces launched an operation in southern Lebanon to destroy PLO bases south of the Litani River. The IDF says about 300 militants were killed and 18 of its soldiers died. On March 19 the Council adopted Resolution 425 by 12 votes to none. Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union abstained. China did not participate. The resolution called on Israel to cease its military action and withdraw from all Lebanese territory. It created the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon.

On September 17, 1978, Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Menachem Begin signed the Camp David framework with President Jimmy Carter as witness. It set a transitional period for the West Bank and Gaza of no more than five years. Egypt, Israel and Jordan would arrange an elected self-governing authority. Final status talks were to start no later than the third year. The text names Egypt, Israel and Jordan as parties. It lets the Egyptian and Jordanian delegations include Palestinians. The Knesset approved the framework on September 28 by 84 votes to 19, with 17 abstentions. It approved the Egypt-Israel peace treaty on March 22, 1979, by 95 votes to 18, with 2 abstentions. The treaty was signed on March 26. It left the status of the Gaza Strip open.

Israel invaded Lebanon in June 1982. Palestinian gunmen shot Israel’s ambassador in London, Shlomo Argov, on June 3. Katyusha rockets then fell on northern Israel. On June 6, Begin told President Ronald Reagan that the army had orders to push the militants back forty kilometers. He wrote, “We do not covet one inch of Lebanese territory.” The same day the Council unanimously adopted Resolution 509. It demanded that Israel withdraw to Lebanon’s internationally recognized boundaries and that all sides stop fighting. Israel’s army counted 446 soldiers killed and 2,383 wounded between June 4 and November 19. Lebanese police counted 19,085 people killed and 30,302 wounded by August 31. They counted 6,775 dead in Beirut alone, 84 percent of them civilians. Under an evacuation completed on August 31, 14,737 Palestinian and Syrian fighters left Beirut.

In September, a massacre struck the Sabra and Shatila camps in Beirut. The Council adopted Resolution 521 unanimously on September 19. The General Assembly’s resolution of September 24 condemned “the criminal massacre of Palestinian and other civilians in Beirut.” Israel’s Kahan Commission reported on February 8, 1983. It found that a Phalangist unit carried out the killings acting on its own. It found Israel bore indirect responsibility because the Israeli army held the area and knew the Phalangists were entering. It found Defense Minister Ariel Sharon responsible for ignoring the danger of bloodshed. It recommended that he resign. The death toll is disputed. The commission cited Israeli military intelligence at 700 to 800. It noted that Red Cross representatives had counted 328 bodies. Lebanese authorities said they recovered 762. The Palestinian historian Bayan al-Hout later compiled 906 names. Human Rights Watch has said the precise toll will probably never be known.

The first intifada began on December 9, 1987, in Gaza, a day after an Israeli truck crashed into a car carrying Palestinian workers. B’Tselem counts 1,087 Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces and 75 by Israeli civilians from then to September 13, 1993. It counts 100 Israeli civilians and 60 members of Israeli security forces killed by Palestinians. Israel told the Security Council the disorder could not be tolerated. It said it regretted the civilian casualties. On December 22, the Council adopted Resolution 605. The vote was 14 to none, with the United States abstaining. The resolution deplored Israeli army fire that killed and wounded Palestinian civilians. It said the Fourth Geneva Convention applied to the occupied territories. It asked the Secretary-General for recommendations by January 20, 1988. On November 3, 1988, the General Assembly adopted Resolution 43/21 on the uprising. The vote was 130 to 2, with 16 abstentions. Israel and the United States voted no.

Days later, the Palestine National Council met in Algiers. The Council proclaimed a Palestinian state on November 15. It named Resolution 181 as a basis for the proclamation. Its political communique named Resolutions 242 and 338 as the basis for Israeli withdrawal. The Council also cited General Assembly Resolution 40/61, which condemns terrorism and affirms the right to resist foreign occupation. On December 14, in Geneva, Arafat said the PLO renounced “all forms of terrorism.” He accepted Resolutions 242 and 338. That day Secretary of State George Shultz said the United States was prepared for a substantive dialogue with PLO representatives.

“Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” — Thomas Jefferson, 1789