Description
The existing literature on territorial conflict frequently frames the withdrawal of a challenger state as a necessary condition for conflict resolution. Similarly, international norms and praxis, including United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, advocate ‘land for peace’ to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. By examining Israel’s past operationalisations of Resolution 242, this paper challenges this orthodoxy. It examines Israel’s withdrawals from the Sinai Peninsula (1975-1982), southern Lebanon (2000) and the Gaza Strip (2005) and illustrates that, in each case, rather than implement a comprehensive land for peace deal with its Arab rivals, Israel employed territorial withdrawal as part of a broader grand strategy of territorial consolidation. Israel withdrew from a disputed territory with relatively little perceived value, in order to lessen internal and external pressure to enact a more comprehensive withdrawal elsewhere. This paper therefore identifies the potential negative aspects of territorial withdrawal when a challenger state is involved in multiple territorial disputes. It introduces a new framing of territorial withdrawal as territorial consolidation that is pertinent for scholarly framings of territorial disputes and illustrates how territorial withdrawal - usually considered a positive step towards conflict resolution and peace - can in fact prolong and entrench one conflict, even if it resolves another.
