ABSTRACT
This chapter starts with the General Armistice Agreements signed between Israel and each of her four Arab neighbours in 1949. Consequently the Israelis approached the Arabs with the emphasis on strength rather than on conciliation, on the probability of war rather than of peace, and on the dangers of offering concessions to an enemy who would only come back and demand more until there was nothing left to give. The doubling of the population, the extension of border settlements and the country's stability and military superiority seemed to preclude the need for concessions: political sacrifices were ‘not only unnecessary but dangerous’. The Arabs opposed the draft resolution because it called for direct negotiations and included no specific reference to repatriation or to the 1947 Partition Plan. The Russians, who had abstained in the First Committee, came out against the resolution.
