TJS S3E33 Six Day War part VII On the Seventh Day

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The character of human life, says theologian Paul Tillich, like the character of the human condition, like the character of all life, is ambiguity. The inseparable mixture of good and evil, the true and false, the creative and destructive forces, both individual and social. Well, trust me when I tell you that I am clear on the ambiguous, because I'm Rav Mike Foyer, and this is The Jewish Story. Episode 33, Six-Day War Part 7, The Seventh Day. Well, sof sof, we've 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, your 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 like the Jewish story and you feel that it brings a multifaceted perspective and helps to integrate both the traditional narrative and the critical eye and really gives the context for a new way to understand our world, well, this stuff doesn't happen on its own.

I invite you to go to my website, jewishstory.co, or to send me an email, ravmikefoyer 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 you 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 4. I'm going to 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. 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. It, 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 and seven isn't just between sort of doing and being, the six days of work and 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, that meaning, of course, is always going to be defined and derived in the present. And in the present, we're going to look back on an event like the Six-Day War, and we're going to 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 Iyar to the 2nd of Sivan, 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's 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'd been preparing graveyards for mass 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 Holocaust 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, well, the Six-Day War has once again brought us into possession of our biblical heartland, the Temple Mount, all of Yerushalayim, the Tomb of the Mothers and Fathers in Hevron, the Judean Hills, Beit El, Shechem, Shomron, and what could be more miraculous than that? So, no matter how Israelis envisioned 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 that they had just conquered in such a stunning fashion.

As the national poet, Nathan Ulteman, 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-Nahba, as it's known in Arabic, was now joined al-Nakasa. 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 An-Nahsa, 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 approach to 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 and large, the 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 U.S. government policy. The fact that Israel in general and the status of the 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. We'll pursue much of that story next season. So many other countries around the world recognized 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 around 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 which Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin opened his acceptance speech. upon receiving an honorary PhD from the Hebrew University less than three weeks after the war's end.

It may be asked why the university saw fit to grant the title of honorary doctor 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 Rabin's backstory, and if you've been paying attention, then you know he really represents the essence of the Sabra, the native-born Israeli, 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.

And, as a representative of the self-consciously secular, if not downright anti-religious strain of Sabra culture, Rabin 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 over which he's just presided. He continues, Today, however, the university has conferred this honorary title upon us, in recognition of the IDF's superiority of spirit and morals, as was revealed in the heat of war for 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 called miraculous did you hear his awareness of the national framing which had begun already called miraculous and add to it Rabin's intimate knowledge of what war actually is war, he says, is intrinsically harsh and cruel bloody and tear stained But this war 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 two episodes, I think it was two, to get my take on the meaning of miraculous. But one thing is clear. Anything which points toward a larger world, to a 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 it, stoned, and wept. Such phrases and clichés are not generally used in the IDF, but this sight 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 help but wonder what exactly was that truth for the chief of staff Now certainly, practically speaking, he supported Moshe Dayan's 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 re-embodiment 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, wither 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 read it all, by the way, it's highly worthwhile.

He goes on to speak of the joy of triumph, which seized the entire nation in the wake of their victory. But he also sounds a more complex note. We find, he says, increasingly 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 accustomed 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 lost but truth is it was preserved there was a series of interviews which were done with front line 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 have been 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 posed 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 accustom ourselves to the thrill of conquest in victory, and we receive it with mixed feelings. so Rabin ended on a note of spirit it all starts and ends with the spirit he says, our soldiers prevailed not by their 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 their 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, 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 Am Yisrael 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 as 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 in the decades ahead, over whether these lands are the bargaining chip with which we'll finally be able to buy acceptance from the Arab 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 of 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. hand, and as the victor was in the position to be magnanimous. And perhaps once the Arab states got back what they'd 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 to status quo antebellum, as we say, to the situation before the war. It's much like the aftermath of 1948, the no-fault conflict. You try 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 were 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 you recall the words of Premier Nikolai Bulganin when he sent a warning letter to Ben-Gurion at the close of the 56th 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. Now that campaign to label Israel and to 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 move 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 Abba Ibn's 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 form are 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 welcome to the Israeli government. The first was about the inadmissibility under the UN Charter of Territorial Gains made 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 word.

Brown's second point dealt with the status of Jerusalem, and here he was just as clear. I say very solemnly 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 fortunate 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 included 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 and other arrangements that will give them security against terror, destruction, and 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 had anyway only been where the fighting of the last round in 1948 had ended. Now, there was a widespread recognition in many elements of the U.S. government that 1948 borders were basically an invitation to attack because of their very vulnerability.

Foreign Minister Abba even 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 have waited 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 in sight 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. Johnson'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 Brown's 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 should he 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 Labor Party within their government. Without a moment's hesitation, Brown leaned over to kiss Golda on the cheek in greeting. It was 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 some things never change. This quote is actually from Justice Minister Yaakov Shapira. 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 were actually three separate bills, which once passed into 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 threefold. 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 Begin with the passage of the Basic Law of Jerusalem in 1980 but practically speaking, this moment June 27th, 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 and 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 to the victor goes the responsibility to back off and in addition to rallying the developing world behind the position of the Arab states, these resolutions also further exposed the cracks in the United Front that West was attempting to present. After Foreign Secretary Brown's 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 U.S. 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 U.N. 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, the U.N., as opposed to a foreign capital, but also because he had intensely strong feelings on the matter and thus seize the reins of policy in every opportunity that he could find.

Now, we heard Goldberg's backstory in episode 28. You can go back and listen again. For now, just recall that Judge Goldberg, as he'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, as Goldberg put it to Jack O'Connell, the CIA officer assigned to his staff to handle the private negotiations 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 from 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, he 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 reasoning, as I mentioned, was domestic. In Goldberg's judgment, the Jewish community would be up in arms if the U.S. switched sides, so to speak. And as the 60s really took off, the administration needed the support 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, 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 takeover of America. But one thing was fully clear at the Arab governments. the U.S. 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 Mokade, that massive initial air raid 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 to 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 in 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 onto 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 U.S. had waged war against them in service of Israel. And perhaps these factors together can to some degree explain what appeared to be the death knell of political negotiations, which sounded at the end of the summer. From August 29th to September 1st, 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 war in 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 in 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 eliminate the effects of the aggression and to ensure the withdrawal of the aggressive Israeli forces from Arab lands occupied since the aggression of June 5th. This will be done within the framework of the main principles by which the Arab states abide, 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 no's. No peace, no negotiation, no recognition.

along with that insistence on the rights of the Palestinians in their own countries. It's a phrase whose ambiguity I'm going to touch again before the end. Now, these three no's 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 contained 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 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 Abed Al 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's perspective has demonstrated fairly well that the conference wasn't as universally rejectionist 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 2020 hindsight can't change the bare reality of how Khartoum was perceived by Israel only months after the war.

As Prime Minister Levi-Escol said in a policy speech before the Knesset, I have learned from a source on which I have no reason to cast doubt that Egypt's president said in the Khartoum conference, we must again be able not only to defend our country, but also, as soon as possible, prepare our 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 the 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 and 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. The 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 a resolution to which all parties could agree. Hugh Foote was a career diplomat. He'd served as the assistant district commander for the Annapolis region in Mandatory Palestine, as colonial secretary of Cyprus and then Jamaica. Ultimately, he returned to Cyprus as the last colonial governor and 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, Foote was appointed British ambassador to the United Nations only a few years before he was granted a life peerage and became Baron Carradine of St. Clear in the county of Cornwall. Now that's more than a biographic 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 we're 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 hall, nation shall not lift up sword against nation, nor shall man learn war anymore. They were interested in no one lifting up swords against them and no one complaining when they lifted up against their enemies. Now, I already noted the personal sympathies that ran through the key members of the Johnson administration, as well as the elements of domestic political land state 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 interest 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 undermined Britain's status as a global financial power and the British cabinet's 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 recognize 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 Carradine 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 former 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 party's 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 carried 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, affirms that the fulfillment of charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East which should include the application of both the following principles. Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict, termination of all claims or states of belligerency, and respect for and 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 or acts of force.

The essence of the British position was really quite simple, as Lord Carradine 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 was that no one should gain from war. He went so far as to 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 Uda and Shomron 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 lands to the legal scholars. So also critical was Carentin's declaration that 242 was never intended as a final settlement. In an interview given much later in his life, Karadhan was asked whether the resolution addressed 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 20 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, Caridan 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 Arab ambassadors 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 Carradine 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 and some heroic efforts of diplomacy, But on November 22nd, Resolution 242 was passed by a unanimous vote of the Security Council, a rare event in the Cold War reality. Now, many have called the text a study in 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 reads, 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 and he fought for its removal and in so doing cemented not only the 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. I 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, jewishstory.co. In the upper right-hand corner, you'll see a button there that says Be a Patron. You can click on it to give a little bit of per-podcast support. I also want to thank the Land of Israel Network.

That's thelandofisrael.com, for creating a platform that allows me to reach so many amazing people. I want to thank the Pardes Institute, pardes.org.il, for creating an educational institution that gives me the privilege of teaching so many wonderful Jews. And I want to thank you for listening. I'm Rav Mike Foyer, and this is The Jewish Story.