Why pre 1967? Is there a special holy divination with the 1967 borders? The UN resolutions, including 242 require Israel return "territories" in exchange of a peace treaty and recognitions of negotiated secure borders by all involved in the conflict. Mind you, nowhere, does it says "all" the territories. Israel already returned more than 95% of those territories and is still waiting and on an off negotiating the rest of the borders. The longer the other side takes, the less they will have. It is not even a question of morality, ot is a question of realism which Arafat has difficulties recognizing.
When borders (particularly "secure borders") are negotiated, it is always understood that changes from prior status will occur, that is the essence of negotiations. Barak offered Arafat a small chunk of currently sovereign Israeli soil in his agreement in order to straighten borders else where, that is how negotiations go, give and take.
Last, what is the "moral directive" in giving the Arabs everything they lost in the 1967 war, where is the incentive for them not to start another round after they get back those territories. After all, Israel gave back Sinai once before to Egypt, just to have Nasser kick out unilaterally the UN from the Sinai and in 1967, engaging in another round of hostilities in which he and Assad (and I might add, Hussein) were hoping to get some if not all sovereign Israeli territories. An aggressor should know that if he intends to take by force his neighbor's territory and loses the gambit, he may lose some of its own territories (Germany and Japan learned that lesson). Israel was magnanimous and returned to Egypt all the Sinai for a piece of paper promising full peace and full normalization of the relationships between the countries. Israel is still waiting for the normalization part of the agreement. Instead, it gets the government owned and financed propaganda tools of Egypt spewing hate and incitement against Israel. Figure the response of France and England if Germany's officials were calling for reconquering France and England.
There is no moral requirement to return "all" the territories nor such a UN dictum, there is even a moral requirement to keep some, and put a sign on the border, if you try again like in 67 and the the Yom Kippur 1973 attack, you will have to pay with additional territorial losses. If not, what incentive to the Arabs have to stop the violence? They always get back everything they lose in their offensives, they are prevented from suffering a complete defeat ending with an unconditional surrender by the UN and their allies (including once, a nuclear black mail by the Soviets).
If I was at the negotiating table with the Palestinians, I would offer a map like the one offered by Barak, with the stipulation of secondary borders, namely every terrorist attack on Israel post a final agreement results in penalties, the permanent loss of land to the Israeli (and counter penalties if the Israeli do not keep their side of the bargain). Agreement should have "teeth" in them.
Zeev
AI
