John Haines responded to Weiss’s post the other day on the Lebanese border incident ("That Tree Was In Israeli Territory") with this statement:
Border? What Border? You can see in in this video that the Israelis are using a cherry-picker to reach over the fence, which, if it marks the border – and why else would it be there – means clearly that they were in Lebanese territory.
Israel insists the fence is not the exact border. But as Israel has no official border, this claim would seem to be a(nother) red herring. Anyway, Israel violates the border almost daily with drone and aircraft flights so the issue is academic. As for your wish that the conflict be contained, history (see David Hirst, "Beware of Small States") would suggest that if the Israelis are going to attack, they will attack, no matter what the Lebanese govt does or doesn’t do. If there is no provocation the Israelis will invent a provocation.
Weiss asked Haines for evidence that Israel has no official borders in Lebanon, as opposed, say, to the wandering border in the West Bank. He wrote to his friend Virginia Tilley, author of The One State Solution, who wrote the following:
Well, one can’t say precisely that Israel has no "recognised" borders. It certainly has recognised borders in the sense that lines are mutually understood by relevant governments as authorising one governmental authority on one side and another on the other. The cease-fire or armistice lines of 1949 have constituted Israel "borders" as recognised in international diplomacy and are quite salient, reocognised and enforced regarding Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt — as we see in the recent dispute about the tree. These same borders are understood in international law to define the occupied Palestinian territories.
But you’re not wrong, nonetheless.
UN General Assembly resolution 273 (III) of 11 May 1949, in which the GA established the terms by which it admitted Israel to the United Nations, refers to "declarations and explanations made by the representative of the Government of Israel " which constitute terms or understandings by which admission was made. These statements were made by Abba Eban on 5 May 1949 (recorded in A/AC.24/SR.45 of 5 May 1949 if anyone cares) and included a passage in which Eban makes clear that Israel’s borders are not established in 1949 but would be finalised through negotiation with the Arab states. Here are the relevant paragraphs:
"Mr. Eban then stated the views of his Government on the boundary question, remarking that they did not seem to constitute a major obstacle on the road to a settlement. The fact that an Arab State had not arisen in the part of Palestine envisaged by the resolution of 29 November 1947, as well as the circumstances of war and military occupation, rendered essential a process of peaceful adjustment of the territorial provisions laid down in that resolution. The General Assembly itself had twice endorsed the need of such a peaceful adjustment and its representatives had even from time to time made proposals for effecting changes in the territorial dispositions of that resolution. The view expounded by the Israeli Government during the first part of the third session was that the adjustment should be made not by arbitrary changes imposed from outside, but through agreements freely negotiated by the Governments concerned. That principle had commended itself to the overwhelming majority of the General Assembly which had declined to endorse any specific territorial changes and had dealt with the problem in paragraph 5 of resolution 194 (III) which called upon Governments and authorities concerned to extend the scope of the negotiations provided for in the Security Council resolution of 16 November 1948 and to seek agreement by negotiations conducted either with the Conciliation Commission or directly with a view to a final settlement of all questions outstanding between them.
"Israel interpreted that resolution as a directive to the Governments concerned to settle their territorial and other differences and claims by a process of negotiation. It was understood that the Conciliation Commission shared that interpretation and had indicated its willingness to commence boundary discussions at an early stage of the meetings in Lausanne. In that connexion Israel drew encouragement from the success of the armistice negotiations which had led to the establishment of agreed demarcation lines between the military forces of the Governments concerned. Those agreements had been reached through free discussion and reciprocal concession. The United Nations mediating agencies had attempted to lay down no fixed principles but to leave the parties to a process of unfettered negotiation, having in mind the general interest of peace and stability rather than the absolute assertion of unilateral claims. It was to be presumed that the same process would be followed by the parties in the forthcoming boundary discussion.
"Mr. Eban thought that the General Assembly would rejoice in any territorial dispositions which rested upon the agreement and consent of the parties concerned. Membership in the United Nations and the consequent protection of the Charter would enable the Government of Israel to see its prospects of territorial security in a more hopeful light and would thus contribute to the rapid conclusion of agreements. The Commission’s view that a settlement of the question of boundaries was essential for a permanent solution of the refugee question reinforced the need for the urgent institution of peace discussions."
I’ve been struck, myself, that Israel was admitted to the UN before its borders were set. But it’s not unknown to have states recognised with blurry borders. Every now and then some clash erupts somewhere about the question — Ecuador-Peru, for example.
The relevance here, however, is that Israel is expanding into areas that are not within its borders as understood by the international community, yet denies that this can be categorised and denounced as colonialism or illegal occupation because the occupied Palestinian territories are only "disputed" and its own final borders remain the subject of negotiation. This assertion takes us back to 1949, where the question was indeed left open. So you do have a sound point here. Israel’s borders are not "official" in the sense of "final" because no explicit international accord has ever set them. UNSC 242 is often interpreted as confirming Israel’s official borders by calling for Israel to withdraw from "territories occupied" in the 1967 war, but this language didn’t actually say anything about final borders. The only explicit statement about Israel’s borders in international law was by the International Court of Justice in its advisory opinion on the Wall, because establishing the status of the Wall required clarifying where the laws of belligerent occupation pertain and so where Israel’s borders are. But Israel doesn’t recognise the legitimacy of this decision so this hasn’t had an effect on Israel’s views. Diplomacy in the "peace process" does suggest Israel’s acceptance of the armistice lines as official borders in its language about "border swaps". But this language still doesn’t affirm that Israel has any final borders, only that the armistice line remains the basis for determining what they are.
