Land for Peace

“Land for peace” is shorthand for a negotiated relationship between territorial withdrawal by Israel and reciprocal steps toward peace: ending claims or states of belligerency, recognizing states’ sovereignty, and enabling them to live within secure and recognized boundaries. The expression is commonly associated with the diplomatic framework of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, though the phrase itself does not appear in Resolution 242; the resolution sets out related principles rather than using that label.[1][2]

The formula is not simply an exchange of territory for a declaration. Resolution 242’s account of a just and lasting peace also addresses freedom of navigation in international waterways, a just settlement of the refugee problem, and measures to guarantee territorial inviolability and political independence. Its language places withdrawal alongside reciprocal obligations and security arrangements, rather than describing withdrawal as a standalone requirement.[2][5]

The phrase’s meaning in practice has depended on negotiations between the parties. The resolution does not set a specific amount of territory to be withdrawn from, a precise final boundary, or a sequence in which withdrawal and recognition must occur. One interpretation is that the extent of withdrawal and the boundaries are matters for agreement; the differing views on the text have made the principle a framework for negotiation rather than a complete territorial settlement.[4][3]

The concept became a touchstone in Arab-Israeli diplomacy after the 1967 war. It was applied through the return of Sinai to Egypt in exchange for peace and normalization, invoked in the framework for the Israel-Jordan treaty, and incorporated into later processes concerning Palestinians.[3][6] Those applications had different outcomes: the Egypt treaty settled a defined border and withdrawal timetable, while negotiations concerning the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — and Gaza left major territorial and political questions unresolved.[7][6]

The diplomatic framework took shape after the 1967 war, when the Security Council adopted Resolution 242 unanimously on November 22, 1967. The resolution’s preamble refers to the inadmissibility of acquiring territory by war and calls for a just and lasting peace. Its operative provisions connect the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces “from territories occupied in the recent conflict” with termination of claims or states of belligerency and respect for states’ sovereignty, territorial integrity, and political independence.[2][5]

Resolution 242 also calls for states in the region to live in peace within “secure and recognized boundaries.” It addresses freedom of navigation through international waterways, a just settlement of the refugee problem, and measures to guarantee territorial inviolability and political independence. Its provisions thus combine territorial and security questions with other elements of a regional settlement.[2][5] Israeli ambassador Abba Eban stated less than a year after its adoption that Israel accepted the resolution as a means of promoting agreement on a just and lasting peace and was willing to seek agreement with each Arab state on the matters it covered.[4]

The resolution does not explicitly mention Palestinians or Palestine; it refers instead to “the refugee problem.” Its original text speaks of states in the region, and its later application to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations arose through subsequent agreements rather than an explicit reference to Palestinians in the 1967 text.[4][3] The resolution also does not use the phrase “land for peace.” That label is a later shorthand for the relationship between its withdrawal clause and its provisions on peace, recognition, and security.[2]

Resolution 338 followed the October 1973 war. Adopted on October 22, 1973, it called on the parties to cease firing and end military activity, begin implementing Resolution 242 in all its parts, and start negotiations aimed at a just and durable peace.[8] Rather than prescribing a separate territorial formula, Resolution 338 made negotiations and implementation of 242 explicit components of the postwar ceasefire framework, reinforcing 242’s role as a reference point.[8][3]

Resolution 242 emerged from Security Council discussions held between November 9 and November 22, 1967, and the adopted British draft was described as a compromise among proposals before the Council. The text’s wording therefore became central to subsequent discussions over which territories Israel was required to leave and how withdrawal related to the establishment of peace.[9][10]

The clearest implementation of the formula in the supplied material was the Israel-Egypt peace process and the return of Sinai. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s November 1977 visit to Israel, where he addressed the Knesset and called for reconciliation and peace, preceded the Camp David negotiations.[11] The 1978 Camp David Accords, based on Resolutions 242 and 338, established a framework for peace between Egypt and Israel and also set out a broader framework for neighbors willing to negotiate.[11]

Under the Israel-Egypt treaty signed on March 26, 1979, Israel agreed to withdraw its armed forces and civilians from the Sinai Peninsula behind the international boundary, and Egypt was to resume full sovereignty there. The treaty ended the state of war, established an international boundary, committed both parties to respect one another’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and provided for diplomatic relations and security arrangements.[7] The withdrawal was phased: an interim withdrawal was to occur within nine months of the exchange of ratifications, with completion no later than three years after that exchange.[7]

The treaty’s military arrangements included agreed security zones and United Nations forces and observers. It set the permanent boundary at the recognized international boundary between Egypt and the former Mandate territory of Palestine, while stating that this did not prejudice the status of the Gaza Strip.[7] The treaty also provided for normalization measures, including diplomatic, economic, and cultural relations, and for restrictions on forces in areas on both sides of the boundary.[12]

The Camp David negotiations were not a simple or uncontested application of a general rule. Egypt sought Israeli withdrawal to the June 4, 1967 lines in exchange for security arrangements and minor border modifications; Israel rejected that demand, particularly as it related to the West Bank and Gaza, and proposed Palestinian autonomy during an interim period. The parties disagreed about applying Resolution 242 to those territories and about the status of Israeli settlements.[13]

The accords produced a framework for a bilateral treaty and Palestinian self-government, but did not settle the Palestinian-territory issues. A separate Camp David framework proposed five years of full autonomy for Arab inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza, with final-status negotiations due to begin no later than the third year. Jordan and Palestinian representatives did not participate in the Egypt-Israel autonomy negotiations held from 1979 to 1982, and those negotiations did not produce an agreement.[3][3]

The Sinai withdrawal involved incremental steps as well as the treaty’s final timetable. Under a September 1975 interim agreement, Israel withdrew to the eastern ends of the Mitla and Gidi Passes and from the Abu Rudeis and Ras Sudar oil fields. The agreement established a United Nations-monitored buffer zone and provided for the opening of the Suez Canal to Israeli non-military cargo ships.[14] Israel completed its three-stage withdrawal from Sinai in 1982; the final withdrawal included the evacuation of Israeli settlements, including Yamit, described in one historical account as a major domestic controversy.[15][16]

The Israel-Jordan peace treaty, signed on October 26, 1994, expressly described its aim as a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace based on Resolutions 242 and 338. It defined a permanent, secure, and recognized international boundary with reference to the boundary under the British Mandate, while reserving the status of territories that came under Israeli military government control in 1967. It also established arrangements concerning shared water resources.[17] The treaty thus invoked the resolutions as a peace framework while distinguishing the agreed international boundary from unresolved territorial questions.[17]

The Madrid conference in October 1991 opened direct bilateral talks between Israel and its neighbors, followed by multilateral working groups on regional issues. Resolution 242 was identified as a foundation for the talks, though land, peace, and security remained points of contention and legal readings of the withdrawal and boundary provisions differed.[18][3] The conference was also part of the diplomatic context preceding the Israel-Jordan treaty.[15]

The 1993 Israel-PLO process placed the framework in Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy. Following secret negotiations in Norway, the parties exchanged letters and signed a Declaration of Principles for interim self-government. The declaration provided for staged transfers of powers accompanied by Israeli military withdrawal and redeployment, and made Resolutions 242 and 338 a basis for permanent-status negotiations.[6][6] Issues including Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, security, and borders were reserved for those talks, so the interim arrangement did not itself determine final territorial terms.[6]

The diplomatic steps leading to the Oslo process included Yasser Arafat’s December 1988 initiative to open dialogue with the United States by renouncing violence, promising to recognize Israel’s right to exist, and accepting the land-for-peace principle embodied in Resolution 242. The PLO recognized Israel’s right to exist in 1993 when it signed the Declaration of Principles with Israel; these steps linked acceptance of the resolution to diplomacy without resolving disputes over borders or final status.[19] The resolution’s application to Palestinian negotiations was therefore a later agreed use of the framework, not wording that expressly named Palestinians in 1967.[19]

The formula was also invoked in the March 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which referred to Resolutions 242 and 338. The initiative called for full Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights to the June 4, 1967 lines and remaining occupied Lebanese territory, as well as an agreed just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem and an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital. In return, Arab states said they would consider the conflict ended, enter a peace agreement, and establish normal relations with Israel.[20]

A 2003 Quartet Roadmap described a negotiated settlement as based on the Madrid process, the principle of land for peace, Resolutions 242, 338, and 1397, prior agreements, and the Saudi initiative endorsed by the Beirut Arab League Summit. It envisaged a negotiated final-status agreement on borders, Jerusalem, refugees, and settlements, with Israel and a sovereign, independent, democratic, and viable Palestine living side by side in peace and security.[21] These later uses demonstrate the formula’s continuing role as an organizing principle for diplomacy, while leaving the terms of a final settlement to negotiation.

The formula’s significance rests on its pairing of territorial questions with reciprocal peace and security commitments. Resolution 242’s demand for secure and recognized boundaries is linked to the right of states to live in peace, while Resolution 338 makes negotiation and implementation of 242 part of the post-1973 framework.[2][8] In this structure, the land component and the peace component are connected, but the resolutions do not supply a detailed map or a universal timetable for completing the exchange.[9]

The Egypt treaty demonstrates how the framework could lead to a concrete settlement: a phased Israeli withdrawal from Sinai, return of Egyptian sovereignty, a recognized international boundary, an end to the state of war, diplomatic relations, and security arrangements.[7] The Jordan treaty similarly grounded peace in Resolutions 242 and 338 and established a permanent boundary, while expressly reserving the status of other territories.[17] The two cases show that the resolutions could provide a shared diplomatic basis even where each treaty specified different territorial and security arrangements.[18][3]

In the Israeli-Palestinian context, the framework served a different role. The Oslo Declaration of Principles connected interim self-government and staged redeployment with a permanent settlement based on Resolutions 242 and 338, but deferred borders and other major issues to future talks.[6] The accords therefore incorporated the land-for-peace framework into a process without settling the extent of withdrawal, the final political arrangement, or the status of the disputed issues.[6][6]

The concept has also been used in wider regional proposals. The Arab Peace Initiative tied a proposed full withdrawal from territories occupied since 1967 to an end of the conflict and normal relations, while the Quartet Roadmap placed land for peace alongside earlier resolutions, agreements, and regional initiatives as the basis for negotiated final-status talks.[20][21] In these proposals, the formula functions as a framework linking territorial terms to reciprocal political commitments, rather than as a single settled interpretation of the 1967 resolution.

A central dispute concerns how much withdrawal Resolution 242 requires. Its English text calls for withdrawal “from territories occupied in the recent conflict” and does not explicitly say “all the territories.” The French version uses wording often translated as “from the territories,” which has been cited as pointing toward a different scope. The resolution does not specify the amount of territory to be withdrawn from, and accounts of the drafting record note that proposals to insert “all” or “the” before “territories” were rejected.[4][3]

One reading, associated in the sources with Arab positions, holds that Israel was required to withdraw from all territory occupied in 1967. Another, associated with Israeli and U.S. interpretations and with the resolution’s drafters as cited in the sources, holds that the English text permits withdrawal from some territory and that the final boundaries were to be established by agreement. The ADL reports that the drafters it cites did not intend a return to the June 5, 1967 lines, and describes the Israeli and U.S. interpretation as permitting withdrawal from areas of the West Bank and Gaza consistent with security needs and a peace agreement, rather than requiring withdrawal from every territory.[3][1]

The wording is also understood through the relationship between withdrawal and “secure and recognized boundaries.” Israel’s position, as summarized by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, connects the withdrawal requirement to boundaries established by agreement; the Arab position described there calls for complete withdrawal from all territories occupied in 1967. The competing arguments draw on different elements of the text, including the preamble’s statement about the inadmissibility of acquiring territory by war, the English and French clauses, and the resolution’s boundary provisions.[3]

Resolution 242 does not state whether withdrawal must precede Arab recognition or whether recognition and the termination of belligerency must come first.[4] The parties’ obligations are linked in the resolution, but the text does not establish a sequence for carrying them out. This omission is one reason the resolution is treated as a framework for negotiation rather than as a complete implementation plan.[9]

A further issue concerns the resolution’s treatment of refugees and its later application to Palestinians. The text refers to a “just settlement of the refugee problem” but does not expressly identify Palestinians or Palestine. Palestinian leadership initially rejected the resolution, with the cited account relating that position to the absence of explicit references to Palestinians; the PLO accepted its legitimacy in 1988, after which it served as a basis for later initiatives.[4] The 1993 Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles subsequently made the 242-and-338 framework relevant to permanent-status negotiations, including issues that the original resolution did not expressly enumerate as Palestinian claims.[19][6]

The Sinai precedent has also been interpreted in competing ways. Some regard Israel’s complete withdrawal from Sinai under the 1979 treaty as a precedent for full withdrawal on other fronts; others argue that withdrawals from Sinai and Gaza fulfilled the withdrawal requirement. The cited academic discussion concludes that the resolution calls for negotiated agreement on withdrawal and boundaries without specifying their extent or location.[3]

The application of the framework to the West Bank and Gaza remained particularly contested in the Camp David and Oslo processes. At Camp David, the parties disagreed about the resolution’s application to those areas, settlements, and the proposed autonomy framework; the accords did not resolve the final territorial questions.[13][3] Oslo similarly reserved borders, settlements, security, Jerusalem, and refugees for permanent-status negotiations.[6] These disputes reflect the difference between agreement to use Resolutions 242 and 338 as a basis for talks and agreement on the eventual terms of a settlement.