The Peace FAQ:
The Occupied Territories
Frequently Asked Questions:
What do people mean when they refer to 'The Occupied Territories' of the Middle East?
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The 'Occupied Territories' refers to land lost by Israel's Arab neighbors, and gained by Israel, in the Six-Day War of 1967. They include Judaea and Samaria (previously occupied by Jordan, and now known as the 'West Bank'), the Golan Heights (previously occupied by Syria), and the Gaza Strip (previously occupied by Egypt). Interestingly, while these territories were conquered by Jordan, Syria and Egypt in 1948 to the time they were gained by Israel, the territories were not refered to as 'occupied' by the international community. Furthermore, the people living in those territories before 1967 were not called 'Palestinians' as they are today; they were called Jordanians and Egyptians. How things change...
Are these territories really 'occuppied'?
- "Yesha [the "West Bank"] is not an 'occupied Arab land' but in fact an
area of the Mandate which are to be dealt with in accordance with the
terms of the Mandate." [That means that according to International law
all Jewish settlements are legal as they are built according to
Mandate's provision of "encouraging the close settlement in these areas
by the Jews."]
"The Mandate does not provide for a separate Arab state to be created in Yesha." [Israel has much more right to Yesha than anybody else, according to International law, since Jordan, which captured Yesha in 1948 in an aggressive war against the young Jewish state, officially renounced all claims to Judea and Samaria in 1988].
- Australian lawyer David Singer, in his article "A Mandate for Peace," dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the promulgation by the League of Nations of the Mandate for Palestine,
- In November of 1947, UN General Assembly resolution 181 was issued, recommending a "Plan of Partition" of Palestine. The Arabs rejected the resolution outright and Azzam Pasha, secretary-general of the Arab League, proclaimed that "the partition line shall be nothing but a line of fire and blood." The terrorist operations that began against Jewish targets on the day after the UN vote escalated into a full scale aggressive war against the newborn state. It was Jordan, and not Israel, that occupied the land of Judea and Samaria as a result of this war. Like the Romans, who changed the name Eretz Israel to Palestine in order to obliterate the name of the Jewish state from the memory of mankind, the Jordanians introduced the term "West Bank" trying to convince the world that they had always owned both banks of the Jordan river. When Israel liberated Judea and Samaria in 1967 justice was restored -- the only lawful owner of the land regained possession of it. It is ridiculous to say that Judea, Samaria and Gaza are "occupied territories" as these areas are, in fact, areas of the Mandate, where the Jews were and are encouraged to settle.
How did the phrase 'Occupied Territories' come into popular usage?
- Legal scholars have debated for years whether the Fourth Geneva
Convention even applies to the West Bank and Gaza. In fact, Arab
diplomats have boasted that one of their key objectives immediately
after the Six-Day War was to make the term "occupied territories" the
standard nomenclature to describe these lands...
- John R. Bolton, Senior Vice President, American Enterprise Institute, July 14, 1999
- RELATED SECTIONS:
The West Bank, The Golan Heights, Jewish Settlers, Arab East Jerusalem, The Six Day War, The Yom Kippur War, Security, Expansionism, Arabs, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Media Bias, War, Peace, Land-for-Peace, Oslo, Camp David, Demographics
- WWW RESOURCES:
- BOOKS & PRINTED MATERIAL:
- The Case for Israel, by Alan Dershowitz
[VIEW BOOK HERE] - From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine, by Joan Peters
[VIEW BOOK HERE] - Reply, by Eli E. Hertz
[VIEW BOOK HERE] - Aftershock, by David Matas
[VIEW BOOK HERE] - The complete idiot's guide to Middle East conflict, by Mitchell G. Bard
[VIEW BOOK HERE] - Battleground: Fact & Fantasy in Palestine, by Samuel Katz
[VIEW BOOK HERE] - The Israel-Arab Reader: Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict 6TH rev Updated Edition, by Walter Laqueur, Barry Rubin
[VIEW BOOK HERE] - Routledge Atlas of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, by Martin Gilbert
[VIEW BOOK HERE] - Myths and Facts: A Guide to the Arab-Israel Conflict, Second Edition, by Mitchell Geoffrey Bard
[VIEW BOOK HERE] - The Siege: The Saga of Israel and Zionism, by Conor Cruise O'Brien
[VIEW BOOK HERE] - A Durable Peace: Israel and Its Place Among the Nations, by Benjamin Netanyahu
[VIEW BOOK HERE] - The UN Gang: A Memoir of Incompetence, Corruption, Espionage, Anti-Semitism and Islamic Extremism at the UN Secretariat, by Pedro Sanjuan
[VIEW BOOK HERE] - Jewish Continuous Presence in the Land of Israel and The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, by Harold J. Margolis
[VIEW BOOK HERE]
- The Case for Israel, by Alan Dershowitz
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