The aftermath of the June war
When the fighting of the Six-Day War ended on 10 June 1967, Israel held Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. The question was what would happen to them. The Arab states wanted withdrawal first, with no recognition or talks, and a position along those lines was reportedly adopted at the Khartoum summit in late summer. Israel said it would not leave without a peace settlement, and the great powers had their own preferences.
An emergency session of the General Assembly in the summer failed to produce an agreed text. The Security Council then took up the matter in the autumn, and months of negotiation followed behind the scenes, with the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and various non-aligned states pressing different formulas.
The drafting
Several drafts were submitted. In the end the text adopted was a British draft, steered by Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations, Lord Caradon (Hugh Foot). It was chosen because it was thought to be acceptable to the main parties at least as a starting point, partly because it was deliberately balanced and general.
The Council adopted it unanimously on 22 November 1967. This was days after Britain’s pound devaluation and just before its final departure from Aden, a period when the British government was reassessing its role abroad, though the drafting itself was driven by the conflict.
What the resolution says
Resolution 242 is a short text. Its key elements are these.
- A principle in the preamble. It stresses the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war” and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every state in the area can live in security.
- Withdrawal. It calls for the “withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict”.
- Ending belligerency. It calls for the termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every state in the area, and its right to live in peace within secure and recognised boundaries.
- Practical provisions. It affirms the need for freedom of navigation through international waterways in the area, for a just settlement of the refugee problem, and for guaranteeing the inviolability of every state, including through demilitarised zones.
- A mediator. It asks the Secretary-General to appoint a special representative to promote agreement. The Swedish diplomat Gunnar Jarring was named.
The argument over wording
The most debated phrase is the one on withdrawal. The English text refers to withdrawal “from territories”, with no “the” or “all” before the word. The French text of the resolution refers to “des territoires occupés”, which is commonly read as more definite. Both English and French are working languages of the Council and both are authoritative.
The difference mattered to the parties. Arab governments, and many other states, read the resolution as requiring withdrawal from all the territories taken in 1967, together with the stated principle about acquiring territory by war. Israel, and the United States and Britain in their public explanations, stressed that the text did not say “all” and that the withdrawal was linked to the creation of secure and recognised boundaries, which could in principle mean some adjustment. Caradon was reportedly clear in later statements about his own view, while other participants stressed the deliberate flexibility. Readers should be wary of any account that claims a single obvious meaning.
The resolution is often summed up as “land for peace”, though this phrase does not appear in the text. It is better seen as a package in which withdrawal and peace are connected.
Acceptance and limits
Egypt and Jordan accepted the resolution, and Israel accepted it too, though with its own interpretation. Syria took longer, with a conditional acceptance later. The Palestinians were not named as a political party: the refugee problem was mentioned, but the text did not refer to a Palestinian state or people by name. The Palestine Liberation Organization rejected the resolution for years and accepted it in the late 1980s as part of a changed position.
The resolution was not passed under the enforcement chapter of the UN Charter, and nothing in it set a timetable. Jarring’s missions in the following years made limited progress, and the situation remained tense, with fighting along the Suez Canal in the War of Attrition and then the 1973 war.
A reference point for later diplomacy
After the 1973 war the Council passed Resolution 338, which called for a ceasefire and for implementation of 242 in all its parts. Resolution 242 became the reference text for the Camp David agreements, the 1979 treaty between Egypt and Israel and the 1994 treaty between Israel and Jordan. It was cited in the Madrid conference of 1991 and the Oslo process of the 1990s.
It remains central because it provided a shared text that both sides could cite, even though they disagreed about its meaning. In that sense it shows the strengths and limits of a UN compromise: it created a framework for decades, but did not itself settle the questions raised by the war.