Calls for Israel to “return to the 1967 borders” are common, but the people making that demand, unsurprisingly, don’t have a grasp of what it means. Because those borders don’t represent a Palestinian state, and they most certainly never represented peace.
As Prime Minister Golda Meir once asked, “If the 1967 borders are so holy, why was there a war in 1967?” At that time, Israel’s neighbors weren’t fighting for Palestinian independence — they were fighting to eliminate Israel altogether.
Before 1967, there was no “Israeli occupation” of Gaza, the West Bank, or the Golan Heights. Gaza was controlled by Egypt, the West Bank by Jordan, and the Golan Heights by Syria. The Palestinians had no sovereignty over these territories, and none of these Arab states sought to create a Palestinian state.
The concept of a distinct Palestinian national identity only took political shape in the 1960s, fueled by Yasser Arafat and solidified after Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War, a war Israel fought defensively after years of Arab aggression.
When Israel later attempted “land for peace,” it worked. Through the 1978 Camp David Accords, Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt and even offered to return Gaza, but Egypt refused to take back the enclave. Jordan, too, declined the West Bank, and renounced its claim on the territory in 1988.
The 1967 borders didn’t mean peace back then; so why would redrawing create peace now?
© Divuach Ne’eman R”A, 2025
