Jarring Mission

The Jarring Mission refers to efforts undertaken by Gunnar Jarring to achieve a peaceful settlement of the conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors following the Six-Day War in 1967. He was appointed on 23 November 1967 by UN Secretary-General, U Thant, as Special Envoy under the terms of UN Security Council Resolution 242 to negotiate the implementation of the resolution.

The governments of Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon recognized Jarring's appointment and agreed to participate in his shuttle diplomacy, although they differed on key points of interpretation of the resolution. The government of Syria rejected Jarring's mission on grounds that total Israeli withdrawal was a prerequisite for further negotiations. After denouncing it in 1967, Syria "conditionally" accepted the resolution in March 1972.

Jarring's report was presented to the public on 4 January 1971. On 8 February, he submitted to the Egyptian and Israeli governments his most detailed plan for an Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. Egypt responded by stating that it would "only be willing to enter into a peace agreement with Israel" after Israel agreed to a set of 7 terms including the "withdrawal of the Israeli armed forces from all the territories occupied since 5 June 1967." Israel responded that it "views favourably the expression by the UAR of its readiness to enter into a peace agreement with Israel and reiterates that it is prepared for meaningful negotiations on all subjects relevant to a peace agreement between the two countries." Another government statement said "As its condition for peace, Egypt would have Israel restore its past territorial vulnerability. This Israel will never do." Norman Finkelstein writes that Egypt's response was "uniformly interpreted as an affirmative reply to Jarring's aide-mémoire, explicitly stating its readiness" to have a peace agreement with Israel. Israel's refusal to agree to a full withdrawal made, in Finkelstein's view, a diplomatic settlement impossible and war inevitable.

On 28 February 1973, during a visit in Washington, D.C., the then Israeli prime minister Golda Meir agreed with the then U.S. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger's peace proposal based on "security versus sovereignty": Israel would accept Egyptian sovereignty over all Sinai, while Egypt would accept Israeli presence in some of Sinai strategic positions. The talks continued under Jarring's auspices until 1973, but bore no results. After 1973, the Jarring Mission was replaced by bilateral and multilateral peace conferences.

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