Reply #219: About 242

[durutti]

Picking up where I left off...

242 referred to "territories" rather than "the territories" or "all territories" because the UN agreed that there could be mutual land exchanges between Israel and the Arab countries. Israel could have extended its borders into the territories, but it would have to then turn over an equal amount of its land to the Arab countries. This point was emphasized by the British delegate you mention.

Undr 242, Israel cannot expand in area. That's why the resolutions emphasizes the inadmissability of the acquisition of land by force. It doesn't say "by aggression", it says by force -- so even if Israel claims it occupied the territories in self-defense, or even if it really did, it still can't annex them. If such a thing were permitted under international law, states could blatantly use claims of humanitarian intervention and preemptive or preventative self-defense to justify conquest.

The resolutions introduced by the USSR (and in some cases, supported by the U.S.) to introduce more specific language into the resolutions were rejected not for the reasons you claimed, but because some states wanted to make the passage of such a resolution contigent upon the Arab states' recognition of Israel.