The 1949 Armistice Agreements were signed between Israel and Egypt, Lebanon, Transjordan, and Syria. They formally ended the hostilities of the 1948 Palestine War and also demarcated the Green Line, which separated Arab-controlled territory (i.e., the Jordanian-annexed West Bank and the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip) from Israel until the latter's victory in the 1967 Six-Day War.
To monitor the agreed-upon de facto border, the United Nations (UN) established supervising and reporting agencies; discussions related to the ceasefire's enforcement led to the signing of the separate Tripartite Declaration of 1950, in which the United States, the United Kingdom, and France pledged to take action within and outside of the UN in order to prevent violations of the frontiers. It also outlined their commitment to peace and stability in the area, their opposition to the use or threat of force, and reiterated their opposition to the development of an arms race between Arab countries and Israel.
Agreements
With Egypt
On 6 January 1949, Ralph Bunche announced that Egypt had finally consented to start talks with Israel on an armistice. The talks began on the Greek island of Rhodes on 12 January. Shortly after their commencement, Israel agreed to the release of a besieged Egyptian brigade in Faluja, but soon rescinded their agreement. At the end of the month, the talks floundered. Israel demanded that Egypt withdraw all its forces from the former area of Mandate Palestine. Egypt insisted that Arab forces withdraw to the positions which they held on 14 October 1948, as per the Security Council Resolution S/1070 of 4 November 1948, and that the Israeli forces withdraw to positions north of the Majdal–Hebron road.
The deadlock culminated on 12 February 1949 with the murder of Hassan al-Banna, leader of the Islamist group Muslim Brotherhood. Israel threatened to abandon the talks, whereupon the United States appealed to the parties to bring them to a successful conclusion.
On 24 February the Israel–Egypt Armistice Agreement was signed in Rhodes. The main points of the armistice agreement were:
- The Armistice Demarcation Line is not to be construed in any sense as a political or territorial boundary, and is delineated without prejudice to rights, claims and positions of either Party to the Armistice as regards ultimate "settlement of the Palestine question".
- The armistice demarcation line was drawn for the most part along the 1922 international border between Egypt and Mandatory Palestine, except near the Mediterranean Sea, where Egypt remained in control of a strip of land along the coast, which became known as the Gaza Strip.
- The Egyptian forces besieged in the Faluja Pocket were allowed to return to Egypt with their weapons, and the area was handed over to Israeli military control.
- A zone on both sides of the border around 'Uja al-Hafeer was to be demilitarized, and became the seat of the bilateral armistice committee.
With Lebanon
The agreement with Lebanon was signed on 23 March 1949. The main points were:
- The provisions of this agreement being dictated exclusively by military considerations.
- The armistice line ("Green Line", see also Blue Line [Lebanon]) was drawn along the international boundary between Lebanon and Mandatory Palestine.
- Israel withdrew its forces from 13 villages in Lebanese territory, which were occupied during the war.
With Jordan
These armistice talks began on 4 March, and were conducted on Jordanian territory. Despite the insistence by Ralph Bunche that in all four talks, the ceasefire be strictly observed, while negotiating with Jordan Israel engaged in military operations to occupy extensive swathes of territory in both the central and southern Negev desert. It also managed to secure further land by using the threat of military intervention unless some claims were accepted.
The agreement with Jordan was signed on 3 April 1949. The main points:
- No provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims and positions of either Party hereto in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the Palestine question, the provisions of this Agreement being dictated exclusively by military considerations.
- Jordanian forces remained in most positions held by them, particularly East Jerusalem which included the Old City.
- Jordan withdrew its forces from their front posts overlooking the Plain of Sharon. In return, Israel agreed to allow Jordanian forces to take over positions previously held by Iraqi forces.
- Exchange of territorial control: Israel received control in the area known as Wadi Ara and the Little Triangle in exchange for territory in the southern hills of Hebron.
In March 1949 as the Iraqi forces withdrew from Palestine and handed over their positions to the smaller Jordanian legion, 3 Israeli brigades maneuvered into positions of advantage in Operation Shin-Tav-Shin and Operation Uvda. The operations allowed Israel to renegotiate the cease fire line in the southern Negev (giving access to the Red Sea) and the Wadi Ara area in a secret agreement reached on 23 March 1949 and incorporated into the General Armistice Agreement. The Green Line was then redrawn in blue ink on the southern map to give the impression that a shift of the Green Line had been made. The events that led to a change in the Green Line was an exchange of fertile land in the Bethlehem area to Israeli control and the village of Wadi Fukin being given to Jordanian control. On 15 July when the Israeli Army expelled the population of Wadi Fukin after the village had been transferred to the Israeli-occupied area under the terms of the Armistice Agreement concluded between Israel and the Jordan Kingdom the Mixed Armistice Commission decided on 31 August, by a majority vote, that Israel had violated the Armistice Agreement by expelling villagers across the demarcation line and decided that the villagers should be allowed to return to their homes. However, when the villagers returned to Wadi Fukin under the supervision of the United Nations observers on September 6, they found most of their houses destroyed and were again compelled by the Israeli Army to return to Jordanian controlled territory.
The United Nations Chairman of the Mixed Commission, Colonel Garrison B. Coverdale (US), pressed for a solution of this issue to be found in the Mixed Armistice Commission, in an amicable and UN spirit. After some hesitation, this procedure was accepted and finally an agreement was reached whereby the Armistice Demarcation Line was changed to place Wadi Fukin under Jordanian authority who, in turn, agreed to transfer of some uninhabited, but fertile territory south of Bethlehem to Israel control.
With Syria
Armistice talks with Syria started at Gesher B'not Yaacov, on the River Jordan, in April 1949, after the other armistice agreements had been concluded. The agreement with Syria was signed on 20 July 1949.
Syria withdrew its forces from most of the territories it controlled west of the international border, which became demilitarized zones. The territory retained by Syria that lay west of the 1923 Palestinian Mandate border and which had been allocated to the Jewish state under the UN partition plan comprised 66 square kilometers in the Jordan Valley. These territories were designated demilitarized zones (DMZs) and remained under Syrian control. It was emphasised that the armistice line was "not to be interpreted as having any relation whatsoever to ultimate territorial arrangements." (Article V)
Iraq
Iraq, whose forces took an active part in the war (although it has no common border with Israel), withdrew its forces from the region in March 1949. The front occupied by Iraqi forces was covered by the armistice agreement between Israel and Jordan, and there was no separate agreement with Iraq.
Cease-fire line vs permanent border
The new military frontiers for Israel, as set by the agreements, encompassed about 78% of mandatory Palestine as it stood after the independence of Transjordan (now Jordan) in 1946. The Arab populated areas not controlled by Israel prior to 1967 were the Jordanian ruled West Bank and the Egyptian occupied Gaza Strip.
The armistice agreements were intended to serve only as interim agreements until replaced by permanent peace treaties. However, it took three decades to achieve a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, and it took another 15 years after that to achieve a peace treaty between Israel and Jordan. To this day, no peace treaty has been signed between Israel and Lebanon nor between Israel and Syria.
The armistice agreements were clear (at Arab insistence) that they were not creating permanent borders. The Egyptian-Israeli agreement stated "The Armistice Demarcation Line is not to be construed in any sense as a political or territorial boundary, and is delineated without prejudice to rights, claims and positions of either Party to the Armistice as regards ultimate settlement of the Palestine question."
The Jordanian-Israeli agreement stated: "... no provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims, and positions of either Party hereto in the peaceful settlement of the Palestine questions, the provisions of this Agreement being dictated exclusively by military considerations" (Art. II.2), "The Armistice Demarcation Lines defined in articles V and VI of this Agreement are agreed upon by the Parties without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines or to claims of either Party relating thereto." (Art. VI.9)
As the Armistice Demarcation Lines were technically not borders, the Arabs considered that Israel was restricted in its rights to develop the DMZ and exploitation of the water resources. Further that as a state of war still existed with the Arab nations, the Arab League was not hindered in their right to deny Israel the freedom of navigation through the Arab League waters. Also it was argued that the Palestinians had the right of return and that the Israeli use of abandoned property was therefore not legitimate.
In the Knesset then Foreign Minister and future Prime Minister Moshe Sharett called the armistice lines "provisional boundaries" and the old international borders which the armistice lines, except with Jordan, were based on, "natural boundaries". Israel did not lay claim to territory beyond them and proposed them, with minor modifications except at Gaza, as the basis of permanent political frontiers at the Lausanne Conference of 1949.
After the 1967 Six-Day War several Israeli leaders argued against turning the Armistice Demarcation Lines into permanent borders on the grounds of Israeli security:
- Prime Minister Golda Meir said the pre-1967 borders were so dangerous that it "would be treasonable" for an Israeli leader to accept them (The New York Times, December 23, 1969).
- The Foreign Minister Abba Eban said the pre-1967 borders have "a memory of Auschwitz" (Der Spiegel, November 5, 1969).
- Prime Minister Menachem Begin described a proposal for a retreat to the pre-1967 borders as "national suicide for Israel."
The internationally recognized border between Egypt and Israel was eventually demarcated as part of the Egypt–Israel peace treaty. The border between Israel and Jordan (except for Jordan's border with the post-1967 West Bank) was demarcated as part of the Israel–Jordan peace treaty. This occurred after Jordan had recognized Palestine, which had not declared its borders at the time. In its application for membership to the United Nations, Palestine declared its territory to consist of the West Bank and Gaza, implying that some of Jordan's previous border with Israel is now with Palestine.
Violations
In each case Mixed Armistice Commissions (MACs) were formed under the auspices of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization, (UNTSO) which investigated complaints by all parties and made regular reports to the UN Security Council.
As part of its dispute with Syria over use of the Demilitarized Zone created by the Israel-Syria Armistice Agreement, Israel from 1951 refused to attend meetings of the Israel/Syria Mixed Armistice Commission. The U.N. Security Council, in its resolution of 18 May 1951, criticized Israel's refusal to participate in Mixed Armistice Commission meetings as being "inconsistent with the objectives and intent of the Armistice Agreement".
The discussion of complaints by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan/Israel Mixed Armistice Commission during the year 1952 resulted in:
- Jordan being condemned for 19 violations of the General Armistice Agreement;
- Israel being condemned for 12 violations of the General Armistice Agreement;