Occupied Palestinian territories

The Palestinian territories are geographic areas in the Middle East captured by Israel in the Six-day War of 1967 whose status is pending the conclusion of negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The term is generally used to describe the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in the context of a Palestinian perspective. The territories are also referred to as occupied Palestinian territories, Judea and Samaria and Gaza (or Yesha), or disputed territories. The United Nations generally uses the term the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

The boundaries between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the State of Israel, known as the Green Line, are a result of the 1949 Armistice Agreements after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, while their boundaries with Jordan and Egypt follow the international border between the former British Mandate of Palestine and those states. The natural geographic boundaries for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, respectively.

The political status and future of the territories is a matter of considerable controversy. The Palestinian people seek to found an independent Palestinian state in the territories; negotiations between Palestinian and Israeli delegations have failed to achieve a final settlement on this issue, and since early 2001 no official negotiations have taken place.

Between 1949 and 1967, these territories were occupied by Jordan and Egypt respectively, but the term "Palestinian territories" or "Occupied Palestinian Territories" gained wide usage after Israel's victory in the 1967 Six-Day War. Since then, the United Nations and most foreign governments regard the territories as being under Israeli military occupation.

Since 1994, the autonomous Palestinian Authority has exercised various degrees of control in large parts of the territories, pursuant to the Oslo Accords.

Historical status of West Bank and Gaza Strip

In 1922 after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire that ruled the region of Palestine for four centuries (1517-1917), the British Mandate of Palestine was established. The future of Palestine was hotly disputed between Palestinian Arabs and the Zionist movement. In 1947, the United Nations Partition Plan proposed a division of the mandated territory between an Arab and a Jewish state, with Jerusalem and the surrounding area to be a corpus separatum under a special international regime. The regions allotted to the proposed Arab state included what would become the Gaza Strip and almost all of what would become the West Bank, as well as other areas. Jewish groups (notably the Jewish Agency) generally supported the partition plan. Arab groups (all Arab countries in the U.N. voted against it) generally rejected the partition plan. After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Israel controlled of many of the areas designated for the Arab state and the negotiated agreements established Armistice Demarcation Lines (ADLs), which did not have the status of recognised international borders. Thus the areas held by Jordanian and Iraqi forces (with minor adjustments) came under Jordanian control, and became known as the West Bank (of the Jordan river, by contrast with the East Bank, or Jordan proper); the area held by Egyptian forces, along the Mediterranean coast in the vicinity of the city of Gaza and south to the international border, remained under Egyptian control and became known as the Gaza Strip.

For nineteen years following the 1949 Armistice Agreements until the 1967 Six Day War, Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip and Jordan occupied the West Bank, and no Palestinian state was created. In 1950, Jordan annexed the territories it occupied; this annexation was not officially recognized by other countries, with the sole exception of the United Kingdom (but not, as is often said, Pakistan).

The Article 24 of the Palestinian National Charter of 1964 [1] stated: "This Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah Area."

Israel captured both territories in the 1967 Six-Day War; since then they have been under Israeli control. After the war, UN Security Council Resolution 242 introduced the "Land for Peace" formula for normalizing relations between Israel and its neighbors.

The Oslo Accords of the early 1990's between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority. This was an interim organization created to administer a limited form of Palestinian self-governance in the territories for a period of five years during which final-status negotiations would take place. The Palestinian Authority carried civil responsibility in some rural areas, as well as security responsibility in the major cities of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Although the five-year interim period expired in 1999, the final status agreement has yet to be concluded despite attempts such as the 2000 Camp David Summit, the Taba summit, and the unofficial Geneva Accords.

In 2005 Israeli forces withdrew from the Gaza Strip, ceding full effective internal control of the territory to the Palestinian Authority.

Terminology

Because nearly all Palestinians (along with the bulk of the nations in the United Nations) consider these territories to be under occupation, they frequently refer to them as the occupied Palestinian territories, or, simply, Occupied Territories.

This term is seen by supporters of Israel as connoting much more than a definition, but a host of related propositions that amount to a preventive political argument about the disposition and status of the land:

that these territories are under the military control of a nation that does not have sovereignty over them;

that the nation in control of these territories, i.e., Israel, is thus obliged (as a matter of right as well as by international law) to return these territories to their rightful owners; and

that these territories belong by right to the Palestinians, i.e., the stateless indigenous Arabs of Palestine.

This term is often (erroneously) used interchangeably with the term Occupied Territories. This latter term, when used in the context of the region, actually refers to an inclusive set of both the Palestinian territories and the Golan Heights. The Golan is not settled by Palestinians nor claimed by them, but rather by Syria (except for the tiny Shebaa Farms area which are claimed by Lebanon). The confusion stems from the fact that all these territories were captured by Israel during the 1967 Six Day War and are similarly considered as occupied territories by most world nations.

For Israel, which holds these territories, they are not considered "Palestinian" but rather "disputed territories", until a permanent settlement is achieved.

The United Nations uses the term Occupied Palestinian Territory as a single geo-political entity (composed of two physically separate territories).

See Arab-Israeli conflict.

Meanings of the term

Not all uses of the term intend to convey the same meaning, which can lead to confusion. The term "Palestinian territory" is often avoided for political reasons by supporters of Israel and other Zionists — centrally that Israel naturally does not want to unilaterally compromise its own interests by politically legitimizing any Palestinian claims to land within the boundaries of Israel. At times, the term "Israeli territory" will include the very land where Palestinian refugees currently live. Thus, not all users of the term intend to convey the same meaning, which can lead to confusion:

Many advocates use the term "Palestinian territories" to imply that these ought to belong to the Palestinians — or that they already do, either by right or by international law. In particular, the Palestine Liberation Organization has declared the West Bank and Gaza Strip as such territories, following the Oslo Accords.
Some journalists use the term merely to indicate lands where Palestinian Arabs dwell, outside the Green Line, or the 1949 Armistice lines considered a de facto border by many.
Some Palestinian nationalists consider the land within Israel's de facto boundaries to be de jure part of a Palestinian state. Some advocates have claimed that maps used in schools under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority depict this state as consisting of all the territory between the Mediterranean Sea, Lebanon, Syria, the Jordan River and Egypt - including Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip - though it has been argued that the maps referred to are geological and historical maps (which show regions and geographical features), rather than political maps (which show countries).

Claims

Bi-national claims to the same lands have been made, based on exacerbated political and ethnic distinctions. While a neutral observer may view these distinctions as minor, the conflict is in fact an ethnic one, with claims to sovereignty and divinity embellishing the underlying political and territorial issues. This article discusses both Israeli and Arab claims.

Israeli claims

Israeli claims to the territories are based primarily on four arguments (though there are others). The first is that the territory historically belonged to the Jewish people first. The Arabs and their western supporters dismiss this claim as irrelevant, since Jews, having been mostly driven out by Rome in the years 70 CE and 135 CE, did not control the land at the time the Arabs arrived. This is a complicated issue, with few precedents to draw upon elsewhere in history, since Israel's having thrice returned to the same land from exile is very unusual.

Second, many Israeli (and other) Jews, many Christians, and even some Muslims [2] hold that the land was promised to the people of Israel by God. The Jewish and Christian claim is based largely on God's promise to Abraham in Genesis chapter 15, and its reiteration to Abraham's sons Isaac and Jacob and descendent Moses in later chapters of the Hebrew Bible; the Muslim belief that the land was promised to the Israelites at one point is based in various verses in the Qur'an that generally concur with Genesis chapter 15. Westerners sympathetic to the Palestinians often dismiss these claims as religious and therefore without force in a modern international dispute. Palestinian (and other) Muslims counter it in a variety of ways, such as by claiming that, according to their religious beliefs, God sent Islam to replace older religions as the final Word thus replacing previous covenants, or sometimes claiming that since Ishmael was firstborn, he should inherit the promise together with Isaac. Palestinian Christians generally do not recognize the validity of theological arguments supporting exclusive Jewish claims to the land, and many subscribe to the belief that, with the coming of Jesus, the covenants of the Old Testament were concluded, and therefore the new promise that now applies to the followers of Jesus is that of the Kingdom of Heaven and not material possessions on earth (see also Supersessionism). [3],[4],[5],[6],[7],[8].

The third Israeli claim is based on their current control of the territories. ("Possession is nine-tenths of the law") The Palestinians counter this claim by saying that Israel is controlling the territories unjustly by denying its residents the right to self-determination, and some deny the validity of the Israeli nation entirely.

The fourth Israeli claim is based on precedents regarding the possession of land taken from an attacking country, as is the case of the 1948 war and the 1967 war, both initiated by Arab countries. In fact, these two regions have no direct conection with the 1947 UN decision, but rather to the 1948 and 1967 wars. Thus, according to that claim, any agreement to a Palestinian state has no obligation to the exact size and borders of the contested territories, though there is a vast consent that at least some of these territories should be used for that purpose.

Palestinian claims

The Palestinian claims are in some ways similar, despite being diametrically opposed to Israel's claims. First, they claim that they have continuously lived in the area longer than anyone else, making their current stay in the land (and therefore their current claim to it) the most longstanding. Israelis counter this by pointing out that they had occupied the land previously for at least 1500 years, before being driven out by Rome, and that in any event some Jews have lived there continuously since Roman times.

Secondly, the Palestinians point out that they are the largest demographic group in the contested regions right now. The land therefore belongs to them because they currently occupy and possess it. Israel disputes their independence, since Israel has some level of control over the territories, and since they are adjacent to and dependent upon Israel. They also dispute that Palestinian Arabs constitute a separate nation from other ethnic Arabs.

Third, the Palestinians argue that their claims to the land would be much more amenable were it not for Israel's establishing of "facts on the ground" since 1967, which included land confiscation and building of Jewish settlements or separation barriers on land previously owned by Palestinians and making these lands off-limits to them. By reducing the size of the land where Palestinians are allowed to live, they claim that it is easier for the Israelis to argue that the land is uninhabited and prime for development by Israel. Israelis counter that Jewish settlements in the West Bank must gradually expand because of natural population growth, and that many areas are off-limits to Palestinians because of security reasons.

Points not in dispute

It is not the facts, then, that are the crux of the dispute; it is the interpretation and implications of the facts that are the focus of all the turmoil in the region. The following points are (at least for the most part) not in dispute:

Large numbers of Jews began moving to the region as a result of the Zionist movement in the late-19th to mid-20th century.
Israel currently exercises overall control, but the Palestinians have some measure of autonomy.
Palestinian Arabs are the largest demographic currently living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip regions.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs who lived within the current borders of Israel before 1948 were not allowed to continue to live there after the 1948-1949 war ended, and most of these Palestinians and their descendents came to reside in the current Palestinian territories or other countries.
Israel does not grant citizenship or any representation in the Israeli parliament to the Palestinians in the territories (apart from registered East Jerusalem residents, though very few of them have applied for Israeli citizenship and even fewer have had their applications approved [9],[10]).
According to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, both the Jews and the Arabs are descended from patriarch Abraham: Jews are the descendants of Isaac through Jacob and Arabs are the descendants of Ishmael.

All of this, however, leaves both sides adamant that their claims on the territories are the stronger or more important claims.

Legal Status of the territories

See related article International law and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

See related article Political status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The final status of the Palestinian territories as becoming (wholly or largely) an independent state for the Palestinian people is supported by the countries that back the road map. The government of Israel also accepted the road map but with 14 reservations [11]. Although Israeli settlements were not part of the Oslo Accord negotiations, the Palestinian position is that the creation and the presence of Israeli settlements in those areas is a violation of international law. This has also been affirmed by a majority of members of the Geneva convention: "12. The participating High Contracting Parties call upon the Occupying Power to fully and effectively respect the Fourth Geneva Convention in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and to refrain from perpetrating any violation of the Convention. They reaffirm the illegality of the settlements in the said territories and of the extension thereof. They recall the need to safeguard and guarantee the rights and access of all inhabitants to the Holy Places." [12]

East Jerusalem, captured in 1967, was unilaterally annexed by Israel. The UN Security Council Resolution 478 condemned the Jerusalem Law as "a violation of international law". This annexation has not been recognized by other nations, although the United States Congress has declared its intention to recognize the annexation (a proposal that has been condemned by other states and organizations). Because of the question of Jerusalem's status, some states refuse to accept Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and treat Tel Aviv as the capital, basing their diplomatic missions there. Israel asserts that these territories are not currently claimed by any other state, and that Israel has the right to control them.

Israel's position has not been officially accepted by most countries and international bodies. The West Bank, and the Gaza Strip have been referred to as occupied territories (with Israel as the occupying power) by Palestinian Arabs [13], the rest of the Arab bloc, the UK [14], the EU, (usually) the USA ([15], [16]), both the General Assembly and the Security Council of the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, and the Israeli Supreme Court (see Israeli West Bank barrier).

The United Nations did not declare any change in the status of the territories as of the creation of the Palestinian Authority between 1993 and 2000. Although a 1999 U.N. document (see the link above) implied that the chance for a change in that status was slim at that period, most observers agreed that the Palestinian territories' classification as occupied was losing substantiality, and would be withdrawn after the signing of a permanent peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians (see also Proposals for a Palestinian state).

During the period between the 1993 Oslo Accords and the Second Intifada beginning in 2000, Israeli officials claimed that the term "occupation" did not accurately reflect the state of affairs in the territories. During this time, the Palestinian population in large parts of the territories had a large degree of autonomy and only limited exposure to the IDF except when seeking to move between different areas. Following the events of the Second Intifada, and in particular, Operation Defensive Shield, most territories, including Palestinian cities (Area A), are back under effective Israeli military control, so the discussion along those lines is largely moot.

In summer 2005, Israel has performed the "Gaza Pullout": about 8000 Israeli citizens living in the Gaza Strip were evacuated from the territory and received alternative homes and a sum of money. The Israeli Defence Forces are no longer present in the Gaza Strip.

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