Security Council Resolution 242 and the Right of Repatriation

Israel takes the position that UN Security Council 242’s call for a “just settlement of the refugee problem” does not require the repatriation of the Arabs displaced from Palestine in 1948. However, the background to the drafting of that phrase, reviewed in this article, suggests that this was in fact the intention of the resolution’s drafters.

John Quigley, President’s Club Professor in Law at Ohio State University, is the author of The Case for Palestine: An International Law Perspective (Duke University Press, 2005), as well as numerous publications on human rights, the United Nations, war and peace, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. This paper was part of the IPS panel at the November 2007 Middle East Studies Association conference.