The 1967 Israeli border doesn’t exist, and never has

During his negotiations to restart talks, Secretary of State Kerry reiterated President Obama’s position that Israel should begin negotiations by agreeing to return to the pre-1967 borders (they didn’t). Afterwards they criticized Israel’s move to build additional homes in existing communities.

Put aside for a moment that Judea/Samaria is the only place in the world where the President of the United States believes people of a certain religion (Jews) are not allowed to live. What the President and the Secretary of State won’t admit to is, there is no such thing as pre-1967 borders. That imaginary “green line” running through the West Bank is the 1949 Armistice Line. But even the armistice lines were never meant to be a “border.”

The armistice line was created solely because that’s where Israeli and Arab forces stopped fighting at the end of the War of Independence (with some added adjustments in certain sectors).

Therefore, that 1949 line that people call the 1967 border is really only a military line.

Article II of the 1949 Armistice Agreement with the Jordanians explicitly specified that the line that was designated did not compromise any future territorial claims of the two parties, since it had been “dictated exclusively by military considerations.” Of course the Jordanian rationale for that clause is to allow them to claim territory inside the armistice line for their very own.

Even the “famous” UN Resolution 242 passed by the UN Security Council five months after the Six-Day War recognized that the 1949 Armistice line was not supposed to designate final Israeli borders.

Anti-Israel forces changed the meaning of 242 by adding one simple article to the resolution: “the.” They claim that 242 calls for Israel to withdraw from “the” territories taken during the Six-Day War. The resolution actually says that “Israel should withdraw from territories” taken during the war (no article). Adding the article changes the meaning from withdrawing from some to all territories.