The United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 in the context of the Middle East peace process

United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 was adopted by unanimous vote on November 22, 1967, in order to settle problems in the aftermath of the Fourth Middle East War (the so-called Six Day War) in which Israeli armed forces occupied vast areas of Arab territory-the West Bank of the Jordan River and the Gaza Strip in Palestine, the Golan Heights in Syria, and the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. The historic U. N. resolution, stressing 'inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war' and 'the need to work for just and lasting peace' in the Middle East, called for withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from occupied territories and the tacit recognition of the State of Israel by the Arab states which had advocated the eradication of the Zionist state from the political map since the First Middle East War of 1948. Resolution 242 has long been regarded as a starting point for the peaceful settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflicts. In the prolonged process of seeking peace in the region, the spirit of the 1967 international accord was partially fruitful when Egypt and Israel concluded a peace treaty in 1979. Occupied land on the Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egypt. However, the Israelis have never yielded an inch regarding other occupied territories. The Golan Heights was annexed in December 1981 and Arab Palestine has continued under Israeli rule for nearly a quarter of a century. Toward the end of 1987, a Palestinian national revolt (intifada in Arabic) against the agelong occupation erupted in the Gaza Strip and spread quickly over the whole of occupied Palestine. In spite of suppressive measures taken by Israeli authorities, the resistance has not ceased even today, claiming a death toll of nearly a thousand over the last three years. The Iraqi conquest of Kuwait in early August 1990 stirred the frustrations of Palestinians. The U. N. Security Council adopted Resolution 630, calling for immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Iraq's invading forces from the soil of Kuwait on August 2. It also adopted Res