News and views from an Israeli girl
Understanding 242 - it's not what the Arabs and their allies claim -by Dr. Aaron Lerner-
This week's barefaced Palestinian lie that the September 4, 1999 Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum obligated Israel to release all terrorists held for terror attacks carried out before Oslo served as a reminder of the danger of ignoring ongoing public misrepresentation of such key documents as UNSC 242.
For just as Mahmoud Abbas and Saeb Erekat distort the truth by closing their eyes to the significance of the missing "the" in UNSC 242 (the absence of the "the" makes 242 call for withdrawal but without requiring full
withdrawal) , they implicitly deny the significance of the missing "the" in the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum in the section dealing with the release of prisoners.
Here is the actual wording: "The Government of Israel shall release Palestinian and other prisoners who committed their offences prior to September 13, 1993, and were arrested prior to May 4, 1994."
Not "release the Palestinian and other prisoners".
Not "release all Palestinian and other prisoners".
The meaning: some should be released - not ALL.
To emphasize: this it not a matter of equally valid contending interpretations of the meaning of an English sentence.
Buried to this day on the website of the Israel Foreign Ministry is anexcellent presentation of statements made by officials from various nationsthat UN Security Council Resolution does not, as the Arabs and their allies claim, require a total Israeli withdrawal.
It is noteworthy that these remarks all pre-date the Israeli withdrawal from Sinai - a withdrawal that ceded to the Arabs the overwhelming majority of the land covered by Resolution 242.
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