James Lewis has a piece on AT about the World Council of Churches passing a resolution that Israel's actions toward the Palestinians 'cannot be justified....'

This facile attitude seems so widespread that it would appear many people are unaware of a very important piece of history after the 6—Day War in 1967.  That war was opened by Egypt's closing of the Straits of Tiran (the straits at the bottom of the Gulf of Aqaba, Israel's opening on the Red Sea).  This was accompanied by a campaign of threats and vilification where Nasser, the leader of Egypt, declared his intention of wiping out the Jewish state.

Well, we all know how that war came out — with a crushing defeat of the Arab armies in June 1967 from Egypt, Syria and Jordan.  What seems to be less well known is that the Arab League held a post—war summit in Khartoum in August 1967.  At that meeting, it passed the resolution of the 'three noes:'

no peace with Israel;

no negotiation with Israel;

no recognition of Israel.

This resolution has never been withdrawn, although it was ultimately overlooked by Sadat when Eqypt did make peace with Israel in 1979 and got back the Sinai Peninsula.

But the larger point is that with the 'three noes' resolution as the guiding policy of the Arab countries, Israel had nowhere to go in terms of a settlement after the 6—Day War.  The Palestinians are still living with the result of that — with Israel (a) continuing to occupy the territory it conquered in that war and (b) creating settlements to establish 'facts on the ground' so that the Arabs would be paying some price for not coming to the conference table.

Greg Richards    5 23 06