Monday, August 16, 2010

Arab leaders-stop distorting the facts!

1949 Armistice Line

Daniel Halper
August 16, 2010 12:39 PM

Ambassador Dore Gold corrects the record with respect to "the 1967 borders" -- the one which Palestinian leaders, and even some American leaders, are so keen to suggest will solve years of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. It's worth a read here, in the Washington Examiner: Formally, the 1967 line in the West Bank should properly be called the 1949 Armistice Line. Looking back to that period, on the Egyptian and Syrian fronts there had been a history of international boundaries between British Mandate and its neighbors.

But along the Jordanian front, what created the armistice line was solely where Israeli and Arab forces stopped at the end of the War of Independence, with some added adjustments in certain sectors. As a result, the 1949 line, that came to be known also as the 1967 border, was really only a military line.

In fact, Article II of the Armistice Agreement with the Jordanians explicitly specified that the line that was designated did not compromise any future territorial claims of the two parties, since it had been "dictated by exclusively by military considerations."

In other words, the old Armistice Line was not a recognized international border. It had no finality. As a result, the Jordanians reserved the right after 1949 to demand territories inside Israel, for the Arab side.

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