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West Bank

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Map of the West Bank.

The West Bank is a landlocked territory not recognized as a de jure part of any sovereign country. The West Bank is considered by the United Nations and most countries as occupied by Israel, though some Israelis and various other groups prefer to refer to it as "disputed" rather than "occupied" territory. Located west and south-west of the Jordan River in the eastern part of the Palestine region in the Middle East, it is bordered by Israel to the west, north, and south, and by Jordan to the east. 40% of the area (including most of the population) is under the limited civilian jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, while Israel maintains overall control (including over Israeli settlements, rural areas, and border regions). The population of the West Bank is predominantly Palestinian (86%) with a significant minority of Israeli settlers.

In Hebrew it is referred to by the Biblical names of Yehuda and Shomron, and some English speakers use the equivalent Judea and Samaria. The name Cisjordan is also used for the region in some languages (e.g. French). Its borders were defined by the 1948 Arab-Israeli War armistice lines after the dissolution of the British mandate of Palestine, when it was captured and annexed by Jordan. It was then captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War, although with the exception of East Jerusalem, it was not annexed.

The status of East Jerusalem is controversial. Israel, having annexed it, no longer considers it part of the West Bank; however, the annexation is not recognized by any other country, nor by the United Nations. In either case, it is often treated as separate from the West Bank due to its importance; for example, the Oslo Peace Accords treat the status of East Jerusalem as a separate matter from the status of the other Palestinian territories, to be resolved at a later undetermined date.

Demographics of the West Bank

Main article: Demographics of the West Bank

The West Bank is inhabited by approximately 2.4 million Palestinians, over 400,000 Israeli settlers (including those in East Jerusalem), and small ethnic groups such as the Samaritans numbering in the hundreds. The Jewish settlers in the West Bank live only in Israeli settlements, and generally do not interact with the local Palestinian population as they form part of Israeli rather than Palestinian society and are Israeli citizens. Approximately 30% of Palestinians living in the West Bank are refugees or their direct descendants, who fled or were expelled from Israel during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War (see Palestinian exodus).[1],[2]

Cities in the West Bank

The most densely populated part of the region is a mountainous spine, running north-south, where the cities of East Jerusalem, Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem, and Hebron are located. Jenin, in the extreme north of the West Bank is on the southern edge of the Jezreel Valley, Qalqilyah and Tulkarm are in the low foothills adjacent to the Israeli coastal plain, and Jericho is situated near the Jordan River, just north of the Dead Sea. Maale Adumim (about 6 km east of Jerusalem) and Ariel (between Nablus and Ramallah) are the largest Israeli settlements in the territory. See also: List of cities in Palestinian Authority areas

Origin of the name

The region did not have a separate existence until 1948–9, when it was defined by the Armistice Agreement between Israel and Jordan. The name "West Bank" was apparently first used by Jordanians at the time of their annexation of the region, and has become the most common name used in English. The name "Cisjordan" or "Cis-jordan" (literally "on this side of the Jordan") is the usual name in French, Spanish, and some other languages, the analogous "Transjordan" having historically been used to designate modern-day Jordan. In English, the name "Cisjordan" is also used to designate the entire region between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, but such usage was extremely rare before the past few decades. The names Judea and Samaria, used by some Israelis, are biblical.

Political terminology

Israelis refer to the region either as a unit: "The West Bank" (Hebrew: "ha-Gada ha-Ma'aravit" "הגדה המערבית"), or as two units: Judea (Hebrew: "Yehuda" "יהודה") and Samaria (Hebrew: "Shomron" "שומרון"), after the two biblical kingdoms (the southern Kingdom of Judah and the northern Kingdom of Israel — the capital of which was, for a time, in the town of Samaria). The border between Judea and Samaria is a belt of territory immediately north of Jerusalem sometimes called the "land of Benjamin". Palestinians strongly object to the terms Judea and Samaria, the use of which they deem to reflect Israeli expansionist aims. Instead, they refer to the area as "Palestine" or "the occupied West Bank," emphasizing that the area is under Israeli military control (see "Palestinian territories").

Status

The future status of the West Bank, together with the Gaza Strip on the Mediterranean shore, has been the subject of negotiation between the Palestinians and Israelis, although the current Road Map for Peace, proposed by the "Quartet" comprising the United States, Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations, envisions an independent Palestinian state in these territories living side by side with Israel (see also proposals for a Palestinian state).

The Palestinian people believe that the West Bank ought to be a part of their sovereign nation, and that the presence of Israeli military control is a violation of their right to self-determination. The United Nations calls the West Bank and Gaza Strip Israeli-occupied (see Occupied territories). The United States generally agrees with this definition. Many Israelis and their supporters prefer the term disputed territories, claiming it comes closer to a neutral point of view; this viewpoint is not accepted by most other countries, which consider "occupied" to be the neutral description of status.

Israel argues that its presence is justified because:

  1. Israel's eastern border has never been defined by anyone;
  2. the disputed territories have not been part of any state (Jordanian annexation was never recognized) since the time of the Ottoman Empire;
  3. according to the Camp David Accords (1978) with Egypt, the 1994 agreement with Jordan and the Oslo Accords with the PLO, the final status of the territories would be fixed only when there was a permanent agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Palestinians public opinion is almost unanimous in opposing Israeli military and settler presence on the West Bank as a violation of their right to statehood and sovereignty. Israeli opinion is split into a number of views:

  • complete or partial withdrawal from the West Bank in hopes of peaceful coexistence in separate states (sometimes called the "land for peace" position);
  • maintenance of a military presence in the West Bank to reduce Palestinian terrorism by deterrence or by armed intervention, while relinquishing some degree of political control;
  • annexation of the West Bank while considering the Palestinian population as (for instance) citizens of Jordan with Israeli residence permit as per the Elon Peace Plan;
  • annexation of the West Bank and assimilation of the Palestinian population to fully fledged Israeli citizens;
  • annexation of the West Bank and transfer of part or all of the Palestinian population (a 2002 poll at the height of the Al Aqsa intifada found 46% of Israelis favoring Palestinian transfer[3]; in 2005 two polls using a different methodology put the number at approximately 30%).[4]

History

Main article: History of the West Bank and Gaza Strip

A part of the pre-1948 Mandatory Palestine, the territories now known as the West Bank were almost entirely reserved by the 1947 UN Partition Plan for an Arab state. According to the plan, the city of Jerusalem and the surrounding towns (including Bethlehem) would be an internationally administered territory, whose future would be determined at a later date. While a Palestinian Arab state failed to materialize, the territory was captured by the neighboring kingdom of Jordan. It was annexed by Jordan in 1950 but this annexation was recognized only by the United Kingdom. (Pakistan is usually, but apparently falsely[5] claimed to have recognized it also.)

The 1949 Armistice Agreements established the "Green Line" separating the territories held by Israel and Jordan. During the 1950s, there was significant influx of Palestinian refugees, and violence together with Israeli reprisal raids across the Green Line. In the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel captured this territory, and in November, 1967 Resolution 242 was unanimously adopted. All parties eventually accepted it and agree in its applicability to the West Bank. In 1988, Jordan withdrew all claims to it.

The 1993 Oslo Accords declared the final status of the West Bank to be subject to a forthcoming settlement between Israel and the Palestinian leadership. Following these interim accords, Israel withdrew its military rule from some parts of West Bank, which was then split into:

  • Palestinian-controlled, Palestinian-administered land (Area A)
  • Israeli-controlled, but Palestinian-administered land (Area B)
  • Israeli-controlled, Israeli-administered land (Area C)

Areas B and C constitute the majority of the territory, comprising the rural areas and the Jordan valley region, while urban areas – where the majority of the Palestinian population resides – are mostly designated Area A.

(See Israeli settlements for a discussion of the legal standing of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.)

Transport and communication

The West Bank has 4,500 km of roads, of which 2,700 km are paved. The Israelis have developed many highways to service their settlements. These highways are inaccessible to Palestinians. The West Bank also has three paved airports which are not for civilian use. There are no railways.

The Israeli company Bezeq and the Palestinian company PalTel are responsible for communication services in the West Bank. The Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation broadcasts from an AM station in Ramallah on 675 kHz; numerous local private stations are also in operation. Most Palestinian households have a radio and TV, and satellite dishes for receiving international coverage are becoming widespread. Recently, PalTel announced and has begun implementing an initiative to provide ADSL broadband internet service to all households and businesses in the Palestinian territories.

See also


Template:Southwest Asia

The next articles focus on the very timely issue of democratization the Middle East. All are available free, online.


  • Thomas Carothers. Aiding Democracy Abroad: The Learning Curve. 1999. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
  • Frederic C. Schaffer. Democracy in Translation: Understanding Politics in an Unfamiliar Culture. 1998. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
  • Fareed Zakaria. The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad. 2003. New York: W.W. Norton.
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