The West Bank is not illegally occupied
Israel's legal claim to the West Bank is stronger than many suppose
Israel is not illegally occupying the West Bank. The political consensus that it is reflects the world's animosity towards Israel, rather than any legal fact. The territory is disputed, and Israel’s claim to it is strong.
The Israeli Government’s recent decision to appropriate 1,976 acres in the Jordan Valley as state land, and the US’ decision to sanction a handful of Israeli settlers, has put the issue back on the front pages. The mainstream media has again written as though it is a fact that Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian land. This is partisan and lazy.
Separating fact from opinion and propaganda is essential. A little history is helpful. In 1948, about 40,000 Jews lived in the Biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria, then part of British Mandatory Palestine, where Jews have lived for millennia. Then, Arab states attacked the newly declared state of Israel (the 1948 War of Independence or First Arab-Israeli War). During this war, Jordan illegally occupied the region, ethnically cleansed it of Jews through massacre and expulsion, and rebranded it as the West Bank. Israel then took the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War. It is morally revealing that the world considers Jews returning to places from which they were ethnically cleansed as illegal.
There might be political consensus that Israel is an occupying force, but no amount of consensus makes something a fact. The assertion that Israel’s presence in the West Bank is an illegal occupation is highly contestable.
While the word “occupation” has great political capital, it is a legal term that comes from the 1907 Hague Convention, specifically defined in Articles 42 and 43. These articles state that for a territory to be considered occupied, it must have previously been under another state’s sovereign control. A Palestinian state has never existed, let alone held sovereignty over the West Bank.
Jordan’s occupation of the West Bank from 1948-1967 was illegal, as it was gained in an offensive war. Before 1948, the West Bank was part of the British Mandate for Palestine, which had a legal obligation to create a Jewish state in Palestine. The customary international law concept of uti possidetis juris preserves the boundaries of colonies emerging as states. In other words, new states should have the same boundaries as their preceding dependencies. This means Israel has a legal entitlement to all of British Mandatory Palestine, including the West Bank. Uti possidetis juris is the basis of many nations’ borders, including many Arab states, most former Soviet Republics, and Indonesia (which is why East Timor never considered itself part of Indonesia).
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