The Jewish Story: Six Day War, part VII - On the Seventh Day

the character of human life says theologian Paul Tillich liked the character of the human condition like the character of all life is ambiguity the inseparable mixture of good and evil the true in Falls the creative and destructive forces both individual and social well trust me when I tell you that I am clear on the ambiguous cuz I'm Rob Mike Feuer and this is the Jewish story episode 33 six-day war part 7 the seventh day well so so if we finally made it to the end and in fact we've made it to the day after and what I really want to think about together here today is what that means how do you relate to an event so foundational as the Six Day War once it's actually over but before we get that I also want to say that there's something else which is coming to end here and that's season 3 for all you folks out there who've stuck it out and who have been such lively contributors with your thoughts or comments your questions and of course your financial support thank you very much and I want to take this moment to invite those of you who are still sitting on the fence to put your money where your ears are if you'd like to do a story and you feel that it brings a multi-faceted perspective and helps to integrate both the traditional narrative and the critical eye and really gives the context or a new way to understand our world well this stuff doesn't happen on its own I invite you to go to my website Jewish story dot Co or to send me an email Rob Mike Feuer at gmail.com you can also find me on Facebook and send me a little bit of personal message I'm happy to share with you the details of how we can give a little bit of per podcast support or you can dedicate a show also I want to say that now is the time to get your questions in before we start season four I'm gonna be taking a break but I'll send out a little message about that later so right now please take seriously the fact that this is the end of a season and an opportunity to really invest in what is yet to come so that being said we're also at the end of the war you know the Six Day War begs the question of what happened on the seventh day and if you're a Jew like me the relationship between six and seven is far from neutral and of course brings to mind this notion of Shabbat the seventh day that brings sanctity meaning brings rest into the activity of creation that relationship between six in seven isn't just between sort of doing and being the six days of work in the seventh day of rest although we shouldn't miss that it is also an opportunity to understand the nature of what's called an emergent property there's something which you can only know once the structure is in place there's some aspect of an event which you can only understand once it's over and we can truly begin to consider the meaning which emerges now that we have its wholeness in place now at meeting of course it's always going to be defined and derived in the present right and in the present we're gonna look back on an event like the Six Day War and we're gonna understand it and in turn how we understand it now will cause us to interpret the events of the past and since all meaning is future driven we all have a vision of where we're trying to get to that deeply colors who we are right now which in turn is the lens through which we see what has come before well then that means in our case the best place to start with the framing of the massive victory in the 26th of ER to the second of seven or as we say in the non Jewish calendar June 5th to 10th is with its name now good tradition has it that defense minister Moshe Dayan was the first to actually label Israel's victory as the Six Day War and it's no secret that the name was a deliberate echo of the six days of creation like I said his hope and the hope of so many of his peers was that indeed everything was now different that the war had created a whole new world and of course what one believed that that new world looks like or at least ought to look like is going to depend much on how they understood the old one and so if you're that part of the Zionist story the Jewish story which sees Israel as a safe haven well then here on the seventh day the day after you might be filled with an overwhelming sense of simple relief I mean it hard to grasp but try to imagine the sort of giddy sense of physical safety which filled the streets of Tel Aviv only days before they've been preparing graveyards for nask casualties and now they had the enemy on the run in six different directions don't forget to add to that delirium the fact that a small but significant percentage of the country are still whole cost survivors at this point and for them to have envisioned genocide was not exactly a dark fantasy now if one's aspirations for Israel went beyond safe haven and were more about the national project of political independence especially if that independence was envisioned on the greater homeland well then Israel is now on the map in a way which it hasn't been since the heyday of the Hasmonean and the Herodian kingdoms the expansion of the six-day war has created a reality which cannot be ignored so we've got the safe haven and we've got the national political independence but if you're pursuing the messianic future hahaha well the six-day war has once again brought us into possession of our biblical heartland the Temple Mount all of you shall I'm the tomb of the mothers and fathers in Cameroon the Judean Hills Beit el scrams Shomron and what could be more miraculous than that so no matter how Israelis envisioned in this new world dawning by all accounts the national delirium in the days and weeks after the war made it all but impossible for most to think logically about the long-term consequences of what it really meant to retain the territory they they had just conquered in such a stunning fashion as the national poet nothing ultimen put it the people are drunk with joy but of course it's not only Israel that needs to label this war the Arab nations of course had no interest at all in any of the new worlds I just defined and they certainly weren't going to use a name that celebrated their defeat they don't call it the six-day war and so to the catastrophe of 1948 al Nava as it's known in Arabic was now join on NASA now first of all just for the sake of full disclosure I understand why the Arabs labeled the events around our national rebirth as catastrophic it certainly was for them and I'd also like to say that so long as the name contains a recognition right that it passes judgment on the foolhardy attempt they made to destroy us well that's a fairly honest perspective so now that was 48 in 67 we're going to add a NASA which actually means the setback now you have to hear the sense of shame that that name conveys because the rejoicing that filled Israel's streets was matched by an utter humiliation among the Arab government and their armies and don't ever underestimate the desire to erase shame and the power it wields within the blood and honor cultures of the Middle East it was a powerful factor in the lead-up to 67 and it will define the approached the Yom Kippur War of 73 and so if the Arab leaders spoke of their defeat at all it was only as a setback never as a failure and certainly not as a whole new world to be accepted and worked with so that's Israel and the Arab world the nations of the world are also going to have to frame our victory by large United States will accept and even embrace the story of the six-day war certainly it will have a transformative effect on American Jewry and cause real shifts in US government policy the fact that Israel in general and the status of lands conquered in 1967 is in our day a definitive and divisive issue in American politics and Jewish culture has its origins in just how profound an impact the six-day war made on America will pursue much of that story next season so many other countries around the world recognize that these six days had shaped a new Middle East and in becoming a battleground in the east-west struggle to a certain extent a whole new Cold War world by and large outside of America the frame of the war will be we need to roll back the Jews and it's the International politics how that's going to happen that I really want to discuss today but first before we get to that a word from the victors after all traditionally they do get to tell the story I regard myself at this time as the representative of thousands of commanders and tens of thousands of soldiers who brought the State of Israel its victory in the six-day war as a representative of the entire IDF these are the words with with chief of staff chief Tucker being opened his acceptance speech upon receiving an honorary PhD from the Hebrew University lasts than three weeks after the war's end it may be asked why the university saw fit to grant the title of honorary dr. philosophy to a soldier in recognition of his martial activities what is there in common between military activity and the academic world which represents civilization and culture what is there in common between those whose profession is violence and spiritual values now that's actually an important question but in this context it's a particularly telling one you know we've traced a bit of a beings backstory and if you've been paying attention then you know he really represents the essence of the sabra the native-born is really raised to love and defend the land to cherish his right to make it grow through labor and to revere it as a vessel for our national life in as a representative of the self-consciously secular if not downright anti religious strain of Sabah culture Rabine has the essential flaw which separates matter from spirit built into the base of his worldview nevertheless even he can't help but sense the spiritual significance of the massive violence of which he's just presided he continues today however the university has conferred this honorary title upon us in recognition of the IBF superiority of spirit and morals as was revealed in the heat of war we are standing in this place by virtue of a heavy battle which though forced upon us was forged into a victory that is already cold miraculous did you hear his awareness of the National framing which had begun quote already called miraculous and add to it remains intimate knowledge of what war actually is war he says is intrinsically harsh and cruel bloody and tear-stained but this one in particular which we have just undergone brought forth rare and magnificent instances of heroism and courage together with humane expressions of brotherhood comradeship and spiritual greatness now you can go back to episodes I think was - to get my take on the meaning of miraculous but one thing is clear anything which points toward a larger world to world of mission and morals demands a response and in my humble opinion the failure to respond to the miraculous particularly when it comes at such a heavy cost is a moral breakdown and a recipe for disaster the paratroopers who conquered the Wailing Wall leaned against its stoned and wept such phrases and cliches are not generally used in the idea but this site on the Temple Mount beyond the power of words revealed as though by a flash of lightning a deep truth now I certainly agree but I can't help but wonder what exactly was that truth for the chief of staff now certainly practically speaking he supported moshe dayan retreat from the Temple Mount and it's an important question to clarify what he perceived the truth to be because political Zionism has potentially achieved its purpose in this war if we define its goal as the National reembarked of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel and even the attainment of a safe and stable political entity well then the victory of the six-day war has produced in a big way and that in turn begs the question with their Israeli society now how the various elements of Israel will answer that question in the coming decades is going to often revolve around what truth exactly was it which ravine saw revealed in that flash of lightning on the Temple Mount so the chief of staff goes on in his speech and you should all by the way it's a highly worthwhile he goes on to speak of the joy of triumph which sees the entire nation in the wake of their victory but he also sounds a more complex note we find he says increasing a strange phenomenon amongst our fighters their joy is not total and more than a little sorrow shock permeates their celebration there are those who do not celebrate at all the Warriors in the front lines witness not only the glory of victory but also its price their comrades who fell beside them bleeding and I know that the terrible price paid by our enemies also touched the hearts of many of our men it may be that the Jewish people never learned never custom themselves to experience the thrill of conquest and victory and so we receive it with mixed feelings now there's a deep truth and an important one to this statement but it's a truth that was more or less lost in the ecstasy of the times well I say loss but truth is it was preserved there was a series of interviews which were done with frontline soldiers recorded immediately after the war they were suppressed by the military censor now maybe they did this because they felt there was no need to spoil the joy of victory with the trauma of wars especially for those who had been blessed to avoid it or maybe they didn't want to dishonor the sacrifice of the wounded and fallen by lifting the veil on the brutality of what they did and was done to them but certainly the majority sentiment simply swept aside the ugly details in order to make way for a glorious story of a whole new world now not surprisingly the voices of these men has been or have been I should say resurrected in our day sadly they've become part of the whole deconstructive narrative which is taking aim at the Six Day War part of the ongoing project of those opposed to the existence of Israel altogether I say sadly because their voices are real and in my eyes should simply be honored as the sound of the horror of war and the truth of what the chief of staff said we never cussin ourselves to the thrill of conquest in victory and we receive it with mixed feelings being ended on a note of spirit it all starts and ends with the spirit he says our soldiers prevailed not by the weapons but by their awareness of their supreme mission by their awareness of the righteousness of their cause by their deep love for their homeland and by the recognition of the difficult task laid upon them to ensure the existence of our people in our homeland this army which I had the privilege of commanding during this war came from the people and returns to the people to the people who rise in their hour of crisis to overcome all enemies by virtue of their moral stature and spiritual readiness in the hour of need so there's the framing of the June victory in name meaning plugging it into some narrative about the world and then there's its framing in law and when we want to look at the latter then the United Nations is going to be the context at this point in history I mean that's true at least clapping hoots as we say when we look externally the internal legal perspective on the status of the spoils of war and how to frame our acquisition of them is a story unto itself now don't get nervous I'm not about to weigh in right now on the annexation anxieties and the sovereign dreams roiling I'm Israel these days but please don't miss the fact that the very difference in language between annexation and sovereignty represents an almost complete divergence in narrative and I don't mean simply whether you think God gave us this land is our kingdom or not even in the question of law the language splits into two stories you annex something which wasn't yours in an attempt to add it on to what already is but you assert sovereignty over that which was always yours whether you ruled it previously or not but like I said that's largely an internal debate rooted in the ambivalence which will come to grip Israeli society and the decades ahead over whether these lands are the bargaining chip with which we'll finally be able to buy acceptance from the air world or a gift from God forbidden to be squandered but for right now for the purposes of our immediate story in the aftermath of the six-day war the nations the world were either interested in using this victory as a means to peace or in minimizing its political impact and oddly enough in both cases the means to the ends was rolling back the achievements Israel had made on the battlefield for those in pursuit of a just and lasting peace Israel clearly now held the upper hand and as the victor was in the position to be magnanimous and perhaps once the Arab states got back what they had lost in war then they would recognize the reality of Jewish political independence and of course those who simply wanted to minimize Israel's new stature and the importance of the victory they sought to roll the clock back the status quo ante bellum as we say to the situation before the war it's much like the aftermath of 1948 the no-fault conflict it tried to destroy you fail and then you try to get back what it was you lost in the process so intense efforts toward a political solution in the Middle East took off immediately in the wake of the June 10th ceasefire but right away the cross currents of the Cold War made progress seem unlikely the Security Council was divided as ever and so in what they claimed to be an effort to move peace along the Soviet Union requested an emergency special session of the General Assembly on 17th of June now the General Assembly was also split by the east-west divide but it included the non-aligned movement and the post-colonial perspective was strongly on the rise amongst the states of South America Asia and Africa and seeing as the Soviets never missed a chance to condemn American imperialism and we're currently pouring money and arms into every nationalist liberation movement they could find in the developing world they hoped that the General Assembly would prove a more malleable context for their plans now part of the whole Soviet narrative war had been to label Israel as a tool of Western imperialism for more than a decade maybe recall the words of premier Nikolai Bulganin when he sent a warning letter to ben-gurion at the close of the 56 Suez campaign he said the government of Israel acting as a tool of foreign imperialist powers continues the foolhardy adventure challenging all the peoples of the East who are waging a struggle against colonialism for their freedom and independence all the peace-loving people of the world and that campaign to label Israel and control how she was perceived in the developing world was quite successful and I have to say that our behavior in many ways made it easy to do and it will culminate or at least reach an interim peak in the famous Zionism is racism resolution of 1975 but that once again is something which lies ahead in season 4 for now Israel along with her allies in Washington and London saw the ussr's moved toward the GA like I said as simply an attempt to find a forum which would be more sympathetic to the position of the Arab states now fortunately the General Assembly is classically all bark and no bite and we got to hear a bit of Israeli Foreign Minister Albie evens denouncement of Soviet hypocrisy in that very meeting last episode the next point in the political process came on June 21st once again in the General Assembly this time it was a speech by British Foreign Secretary George Brown and though as I said the words spoken in that former non-binding brown touched on two points which will become central for the argument around Israel's victory in the decades to come and neither of them was welcomed to the Israeli government the first was about the inadmissibility under the UN Charter of territorial gains main in war for many the move away from victory as a justification to the victor go the spoils was itself the primary purpose for which the UN had come into being as Brown said I see no two ways about this and I state our position very clearly in my view from the words in the UN Charter war should not lead to territorial aggrandizement only a British politician would use that board Brown's second point dealt with the status of Jerusalem and here he was just as clear I say very to the government of Israel that if they purport to annex the old city or legislate for its annexation they will be taking a step which will not only isolate them from the world opinion but will also lose them the sympathy that they have now the Israeli government at least fortune for them was not the only player to whom such definitive statements were unwelcome the Johnson administration was soon to unveil its own five-point policy approach to the post-war Middle East reality and though it indeed include a commitment to the quote importance of respect for political independence and territorial integrity of all the states of the area it also called for quote recognized boundaries in other arrangements that will give them security against terror destruction in war on the following day at a foreign policy conference at the State Department the president offered his formula for lasting peace in the Middle East and in the world the Middle East is rich in history rich in its people and its resources it has no need to live in permanent civil war it has the power to build its own life as one of the prosperous regions of the world in which we live and if the nations of the Middle East will turn toward the works of peace they can count with confidence upon the friendship and the help of all the people of the United States of America our country is committed and we here reiterate that commitment today to a peace that is based on five principles first the recognized right of national life second justice for the refugees third innocent maritime passage fourth limits on the wasteful and destructive arms race and fifth political independence and territorial integrity for all put together this means that ultimately the supreme concern was security and not the sanctity of the armistice lines which in any way only been where the fighting of their last round in 1948 had ended now there was a widespread recognition in many elements of the US government that 1948 borders were basically an invitation to attack because of the very vulnerability foreign minister Abba Eban said it best in his famous 1969 interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel we've openly said that the map will never again be the same as on June 4th 1967 the Jew map is for us equivalent to insecurity and danger I do not exaggerate when I say that it has for us something of a memory of Auschwitz and remember he's speaking to a German magazine we shudder when we think of what would avoid us in the circumstances of June 1967 if we'd been defeated with Syrians on the mountains and we in the valley with the Jordanian army inside of the sea with the Egyptians who hold our throat in their hands in Gaza this is a situation which will never be repeated in history now that's a determined statement and the reality is the American team which would lead the coming negotiations definitely empathize with that position and they were also significantly closer to the Israeli position on Jerusalem Johnston's plan just noted that there had to be adequate recognition of the so-called special interest of the three great religions in the holy places of Jerusalem it didn't speak at all about sovereignty so in a sense that June 21st meeting of the General Assembly in particular foreign secretary Browns speech laid out the points of argument which have been going on ever since is this land indeed ours or simply the spoils of war and do we actually belong in Jerusalem but still there was no action to be taken in the GA no action but always a little bit of drama as Secretary Brown left the assembly by chance who she meet in the lobby but the Israeli delegation and for just a moment he came face-to-face with Golda Meir now they were old friends having met many times at meetings of the socialist international both representatives of the Labour Party within their government without a moment's hesitation Brown leaned over to kiss Golda on the cheek in greeting there's an act of courage considering what he just said on the floor and only his closest aide was near enough to hear the one word she whispered in his ear Judas what needs to be stated for the purpose of the bill which I am now introducing is that the Israel Defense Forces have liberated from foreign yoke considerable areas of the Land of Israel it is the view of the government and this viewing is in conformity with the requirements of international law that in addition to the control by the IDF of these territories there is required also an open act of sovereignty on the part of Israel to make Israeli law applicable to them now believe it or not I didn't pull those words from today's newspapers it's just that apparently something's never change this quote is actually from Justice Minister Yakko Shapiro as he introduced a bill that would begin the process of extending Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem On June 27th less than three weeks after the war in the end there are actually three separate bill which once passed in the law established the effective unification of Jerusalem and sanctioned the application of Israeli law to the entire area of the city those bills also vastly altered Jerusalem's boundaries it increased their area from 38,000 dunams to 110,000 that's almost three fold and the bills dealt with the preservation of the holy sites in the city while also granting Arab residents of East Jerusalem permanent resident status that allowed them to vote in municipal elections but denied them a vote in the national parliament now it's true that Israel's unequivocal legal claim to Jerusalem would actually be staked by Menachem Bagan with the passes of the Basic Law Jerusalem in 1980 but practically speaking this moment June 27 1967 was a powerful legal and political assertion of a reality that had been created by the military on the ground Moshe Dayan might have lowered the Israeli flag off the Temple Mount but there was to be no retreat from Jerusalem and to say that the nations of the world didn't receive this well would be a gross understatement the law has triggered an immediate series of resolutions in the General Assembly condemning Israel for this unilateral action in calling for all parties to return to their pre-war positions right again that's the theme the victor instead of to the victor go the spoils so the victor goes the responsibility to back off in addition to rallying the developing world behind the position of the Arab states these resolutions also further expose the cracks in the United Front that West was attempting to present after Foreign Secretary Browns words that I quoted above it should come as no surprise that the United Kingdom joined in condemning Israel for daring to claim that Jerusalem belonged to the Jews but the Americans declined to follow suit now their position had many causes but in essence it was driven by domestic political considerations when it came to US policy on post-war negotiations everybody had an opinion the State Department the defense establishment Congress you name it but practically speaking there were two key players the president lyndon b johnson and UN Ambassador Arthur Goldberg and even though Johnson was up to his ears in the Vietnam War at this point he'd always been unashamedly sympathetic to Israel as he himself said I've always had a deep feeling of sympathy for Israel and its people gallantly building and defending a modern nation against great odds and the Israeli government certainly looked to Johnson's personal feelings as a source of support in the challenging days ahead but really really it was Arthur Goldberg who was driving the process for the u.s. not only because the negotiations on post-war political reality were taking place in his home turf in the UN as opposed to a foreign capital but also because he had intensely strong feelings on the matter and thus seized the rings of policy every opportunity that he could find now we heard Goldberg's backstory in episode 28 and go back and listen again for now just recall that Judge Goldberg as you'd like to be known was a leading member of the American Jewish community and a lifelong Zionist and just as critically Johnson himself described Goldberg as an old and trusted friend who would always have direct and ready access to the President or has Goldberg put it to Jack O'Connell the CIA officer assigned to his staff to handle the private negotiation with King Hussein of Jordan well O'Connell as you see I have a blank check from the president I also have a blank check for the American Jewish community they will buy whatever I decide upon your King and the other Arabs should know that I hold the key he didn't just hold the key wasn't afraid to use it because when the resolutions began to roll out of the GA in response to Israel's legal actions Goldberg made it clear to his British counterpart that any resolution which condemned Israel should be ruled out from the beginning and his reason as I mentioned was domestic in Goldbergs judgment the Jewish community would be up in arms if US switched sides so to speak and as the 60s really took off the administration needed the sport of the established community more than ever now such a stance was clearly unlikely to engender a sense of trust among the delegates from the Arab nations and indeed one member of the British delegation noted that quote in spite of ambassador Goldberg's best efforts obviously the Arabs distrust him with a passion or as British Foreign Secretary Brown put it the Arab attitude toward mr. Goldberg is disturbing if not surprising it cannot be to the advantage of the United States or strengthen their influence that he should appear to them to be arm-twisting to such an extent at Israeli behest now there are reams of analysis on the u.s. role in the coming resolution and on why Goldberg managed to drive the bus they range from nuanced assessments of the complex interaction between domestic and foreign policy to downright anti-semitic conspiracy theories about the Zionist tako of America but one thing was fully clear the Arab governments the US had taken sides and that perception actually built upon something that we never spoke about when we talked about the war itself it's known as the big lie in the history books I hope you remember operation bokade that massive initial area that gave Israel not just initiative but the advantage for the rest of the war well when it became clear to President Nasser of Egypt the wholesale destruction of his air force in such a lightning strike he refused to believe that Israel was capable of doing it and instead he insisted the King Hussein of Jordan and frankly to anyone who would listen that it was actually American fighters staging off the carriers of the sixth fleet then steaming and Mediterranean who destroyed Egypt's might and that was a story which spread like wildfire in the first days of the war fed by a mix of the Arabs need to believe they were stronger than Israel and Soviet rumor-mongering meant to undermine the American position in the Middle East and even though King Hussein actually came on to American television only weeks after the war and retracted the claim the damage had already been done Arab public opinion and frankly a number of the leaders held firm to the fact that the US had waged war against them in service of Israel and perhaps these factors could together consist some degree explain what appeared to be the death knell of political negotiations which sounded at the end of the summer from August 29 to September first eight Arab heads of state attended a summit conference in Khartoum Sudan now there were quite a number of major items on their agenda including bringing the warned Yemen to an end the creation of a fund to assist the economies of Egypt and Jordan shattered by the war and even an agreement to lift the oil boycott that Arab producers had placed on the West with the outbreak of war but it's the third paragraph of the resolution adopted at the end of the conference which had the most lasting impact on our story the Arab heads of state have agreed to unite their political efforts at the international and diplomatic level to limb the effects of the aggression and to ensure the withdrawal of the aggressive Israeli forces from Arab lands occupied since the aggression of June fit this will be done within the framework of the main principles by which the Arab states of I namely no peace with Israel no recognition of Israel no negotiations with it and the insistence on the rights of the Palestinian people in their own country these are the famous three knows no peace no negotiation no recognition along with that insistence on the rights of the Palestinians in their own countries the phrase whose ambiguity I'm gonna touch again before the end now these three noes are seen in standard historiography as foundational to the Arab rejection that stance that will define the next 50 years of conflict you know Israeli intelligence managed to attain the protocols of the conference and they contain much discussion about the necessity for rearming for another round of war as Golda Meir wrote in her autobiography the Khartoum conference was a further call quote to destroy Israel even within her previous borders and as far as the Arabs were concerned nothing had changed defense minister Moshe Dayan came to a similar conclusion declaring in a cabinet meeting that the Khartoum decisions closed every opening for peace even veteran Egyptian historian Abbott al Azim Ramadan stated that the Khartoum decisions had shut the door on any possibility of a peaceful settlement and left only one option war now it's also true that history is never that monochromatic the revisionist perspective has demonstrated fairly well that the conference wasn't as universally rejectionists as is commonly portrayed certainly King Hussein of Jordan was actively engaged in his own attempts to achieve a bilateral peace with Israel attempts which by the way apparently Israel was none too interested in but no matter how much nuance I could add even 20/20 hindsight can't change the bare reality of how Khartoum was perceived by Israel only months after the war as Prime Minister lady s Cole said in a policy speech before the Knesset I have learned from a source on which I no reason to cast doubt that Egypt's president said in the cartoon conference you must again be able not only to defend our country but also as soon as possible prepare army to attack Israel with the assurance of victory and so this is the perception within which the political solution began to emerge now there are many many more steps that we could detail on the road toward what's known as UN resolution 242 but quite frankly I don't think there's such a need as summer turned toward fall more and more draft resolutions were crafted in General Assembly and then sent on to the Security Council for consideration the Soviets continued to blame Israel for the war and their drafts reflected their stance condemning the Jewish state calling for a complete withdrawal unconditionally from all territories conquered but the truth is the Russian views never really gained traction maybe everyone just knew including the Arab states who'd paid the highest price that the role the USSR had really played was in fomenting war to begin with Americans of course also had their resolution ready to go but as I said Arthur Goldberg's perceived defense of Israeli interests essentially undermined his ability to achieve agreement between all the parties even the Latin American members of the Security Council Argentina and Brazil offered their own draft it was seen by the Arabs as much more sympathetic to their position certainly than that of the Americans it's actually a recipe for gridlock it's an invitation to endless handling over clauses questions where does the comma go and so in the end it was going to take all the finesse of an old British colonial hand to craft the resolution to which all parties could agree you foot was a career diplomat he'd served as the assistant district commander for an Annapolis region in mandatory Palestine as colonial secretary of Cyprus and then Jamaica ultimately he returned to Cyprus as the last colonial government commander-in-chief until in 1960 the island gained its independence and you know what's a colonial officer to do in the post-colonial era well in 1961 foot was appointed British ambassador to the United Nations only a few years before he was granted a life peerage and became Baron keratin that sink clear in the county of Cornwall now that's more than a biographical sketch I hope you hear it as a personal saga which parallels a global shift granted that the Cold War will continue to shore up the role that the old imperial powers play in the world order but the field of play is no longer colonial now or in a world of international give-and-take and the UN will be its context so through the summer and on into the fall the British held their Cold War role of staunch ally watching as each draft that Arthur Goldberg put forward was shot down but the British determination to reach a compromise was actually greater than their commitment to towing the American line I mean after all everybody has their interests I doubt there was even one messianic voice in the UN at this point one person who was genuinely interested in realizing the words of Isaiah engraved at the entrance to the whole nation shall not lift up sword against nation nor shall man learn war any more they were interested in no one lifting up swords against them and knowing complaining when they lifted up against their enemies and I already noted the personal sympathies that ran through the key members of the Johnson administration right as well as the elements of domestic political landscape that gave them a greater empathy toward Israeli interests well the truth is the opposite was the case on the British side the economic threat posed by the closure of the Suez Canal and the British interests in accessing Gulf oil supplies meant that key officials tended to give greater weight to Arab positions ultimately when the resolution passes it's going to come at a key juncture in the history of the post-colonial era right between the announcement of the devaluation of the pound sterling which comes on the 18th of November 1967 and effectively undermine Britain's status as a global financial power and the British cabinets final decision in the beginning of 1968 to withdraw its Armed Forces from east of Suez giving up on their role as a world military power this is the new post-colonial reality the British recognise that from now on they're going to have to bargain for what they used to take and of course if you're going to bargain it's always best done with somebody else's assets and so on November 10th Lord Carrington submitted a resolution which differed in small but significant ways from the American position the first was that he separated the withdrawal provision from the peace provision within the American text meaning the form was no longer dependent upon the latter there could be withdrawal without peace of course there's not going to be any peace without withdrawal in the interested parties Minds the other change was the addition of the words occupied in the recent conflict to specify from which territories withdrawal should take place now these may seem like minor differences but take it from me as somebody who teaches texts they proved quite fundamental and seeing as it was in the end the British draft which carry the day we need to understand them the Security Council expressing its continuing concern with the grave situation in the Middle East emphasizing 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 affirmed that the fulfillment of charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East which could include the application of both the following principle withdrawal of Israeli Armed Forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for an acknowledgement of the sovereignty territorial integrity and political independence of every state in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats before the essence of the British position was really quite simple as Lord Kerrigan later expressed it in the resolution which I proposed in the Security Council we were dealing with the necessity for an Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories on the basis the clear basis of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war that's all it's just echoing foreign secretary brown's point that their only issue is that no one should gain from war he went so far as say I'll say it again it was not intended as a final settlement of the Middle East situation meaning despite the subsequent narrative resolution 242 was never meant to be about land for peace it was about the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war this of course ignored the reality that Jordan had conquered you Don John Rowan in 1948 and they were now asking to get it back while Egypt had seized Gaza I'm just talking about simple fairness here I'll leave the question of who could rightly claim sovereignty to those land to the legal scholars so also critical was karynda's declaration that 242 was never intended as a final settlement in an interview given much later in his life keratin was asked whether the resolution address itself for the potential for a Palestinian state something today which many claim is the keystone to peace in the Middle East now remember that that Khartoum declaration had also insisted quote on the rights of the Palestinian people in their own country once again a little bit of hypocrisy because they insisted on that right despite the fact that the so-called West Bank and Gaza Strip had been under Arab rule for nearly 22 years two decades is plenty of time to grant the Palestinians some rights so when he was asked about his intent or the intent of the resolution keraton said the answer is no there was no suggestion or provision at the time in the discussions of the United Nations about the establishment of a Palestinian state no one had proposed it it had not been brought forth by the Palestinians themselves at that stage we said that there should be withdrawal of Israeli forces from the occupied territories that was it I was there and I was in touch with all the air Bassitt is concerned and with the Palestinians of course now this raises a question which I just want to put on the board we'll have to discuss it in full next season and that is when and how did the idea of a Palestinian state emerge and how did it become the centerpiece of policy in the Middle East what's its actual goal as I said in the end it was the British draft which passed through the Security Council by November 16th Arthur Goldberg realized his draft was dead on arrival and that the danger was the Latin American resolution would pass which was definitely against his interests and so he shifted gears to actively encouraging keraton to bring forward the British resolution and he even promised the Americans would give all the help they could including putting pressure on the Israelis it took a few more days in some heroic efforts of diplomacy but on November 22nd resolution 242 was passed by unanimous vote of the Security Council a rare event in the Cold War reality now many have called the text a study and ambiguity not only does it state separately the need for Israeli withdrawal and the call for termination of all states of belligerency but most famously the withdrawal Clause Riis withdrawal of Israeli Armed Forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict and it does not read from the territories occupied in the recent conflict now tradition has it that it was Arthur Goldberg who pulled that word the out of the mix that he fought for its removal and in so doing cemented not only u.s. relationship for decades to come but put into the text the very ambiguity which characterizes Israel's relationship to the lands won in the six-day war down to this very day and I think that that lands us with all the unanswered questions and ambiguity which remain at the end of our story for now I just want to thank a few people want to thank all the folks that give their hard-earned money to help make the show happen to keep it free and widely available I want to urge you to join them you can go right now to my website Jewish story dot Co the upper right hand corner you'll see a button there that says be a patron you can click on it to get a little bit of per pod cast support I also want to thank the Land of Israel Network that's the Land of Israel calm for creating a platform that allows me to reach so many amazing people I want to thank the partes Institute PA our DES org dot IL for creating an educational institution that gives me the privilege of teaching somebody one of