The political status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip

The political status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is one of the most violently disputed issues in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Various conferences and negotiations have been conducted to determine the status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip (see “Palestinian territories”).

The Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements (the DOP, better known as the Oslo accords), signed in Washington on 13 September 1993, provided for a transitional period not exceeding five years of Palestinian interim self-government in sections of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Under the DOP, Israel agreed to recognize the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a ‘‘Single Territorial Unit’as well as to transfer certain powers and responsibilities to the Palestinian Authority, which includes the Palestinian Legislative Council elected in January 1996, as part of the interim self-governing arrangements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

A transfer of powers and responsibilities for the Gaza Strip and Jericho took place pursuant to the Israel-PLO 4 May 1994 Cairo Agreement on the Gaza Strip and the Jericho Area. In other areas of the West Bank, transfer of powers took place pursuant to the Israel-PLO 28 September 1995 Interim Agreement, the Israel-PLO 15 January 1997 Protocol Concerning the Redeployment in Hebron, the Israel-PLO 23 October 1998 Wye River Memorandum, and the 4 September 1999 Sharm el-Sheikh Agreement.

Judea and Samaria

Judea and Samaria (Hebrew: יְהוּדָה וְשׁוֹמְרוֹן‎, Yehuda VeShomron, also an acronym יו”ש Yosh or ש”י Shai; Arabic: اليهودية والسامرة‎, al-Yahudiyyah was-Sāmarah) is the official Israeli name of the seventh District of Israel. Jordan occupied the territory and annexed it in 1950. The area was captured from Jordan by Israel in the 1967 Six Day war, and is considered an occupied territory by the International Court of Justice. The United Nations has declared that resolution of the conflict must be based on the withdrawal of Israeli forces from territories it occupied in the war, in conjunction with the termination of all claims or states of belligerency. Sometimes, the term “Judea and Samaria” is employed to distinguish it from the “West Bank”, which also includes East Jerusalem.

Boundaries

The Palestinian territories consist of two (or perhaps three) distinct areas — the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Israel regards East Jerusalem not to be a part of the West Bank, but regards it is as part of a unified Jerusalem, which is Israel’s capital. The eastern limit of the West Bank is the border with Jordan. The Israel-Jordan peace treaty defined that border as the international border, and Jordan renounced all claims to territory west of it. The border segment between Jordan and the West Bank was left undefined pending a definitive agreement on the status of the territory .

The southern limit of the Gaza Strip is the border with Egypt. Egypt renounced all claims to land north of the international border, including the Gaza Strip, in the Israel-Egypt peace treaty. The Palestinians were not parties to either agreement.

In any event, the natural geographic boundaries for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, respectively.

It is now generally accepted, at least as a basis for negotiation between the sides, that the boundaries between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the State of Israel are what has historically been referred to as the Green Line. The Green Line represents the armistice lines under the 1949 Armistice Agreements, which brought an end to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and which were expressly declared in the Agreements to be armistice lines and not international borders.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 242

United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 (S/RES/242), one of the most commonly referenced UN resolutions in Middle Eastern politics, was adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council on November 22, 1967 in the aftermath of the Six Day War. It was adopted under Chapter VI of the United Nations charter, [19] and was reaffirmed by the UN Security Council Resolution 338, adopted after the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

The resolution calls for the “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict” (there has been some Disagreement about whether this means all the territories: see UN Security Council Resolution 242: semantic dispute) and the “[t] ermination Of all claims or states of belligerency “. It also calls for the mutual recognition by the belligerent parties (Israel, Egypt, Syria, Jordan) of each other’s established states and calls for the establishment of secure and recognized boundaries for all parties.

Political status

The political status of these territories has been the subject of negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and of numerous statements and resolutions by the United Nations. See List of United Nations resolutions concerning Israel for further details.

The current and future political status of the territories is highly controversial. Specific issues include the legality of Israeli policies allegedly encouraging settlement, whether it is legitimate for Israel to annex portions of the territories, whether Israel is legally an occupying power according to the Fourth Geneva Convention, and whether an independent Arab state will be created in the territories.

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

Since the Battle of Gaza (2007), the territories have split into two administrative entities, with Hamas leading the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian National Authority (with Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah in leadership) continuing to administer the West Bank despite the election (in January, 2006) of Hamas to the majority of seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council. Neither group recognize the other one as the official Palestinian leadership.

Name

Other terms used to describe these areas collectively are “the disputed territories”, “Israeli-occupied territories”, and “the occupied territories”. Further terms include “Yesha” (Judea-Samaria-Gaza), “liberated territories”, “administered territories”, “Territories of Undetermined Permanent Status”, “1967 territories”, and simply “the territories”.

The United Nations generally uses the term “Occupied Palestinian Territory”, with the “Palestinian” label having gained use since the 1970s. Previous UNSC resolutions (such as 242 and 338) use the term “territories occupied by Israel”, whereas in the UN General Assembly Resolution 181 passed on November 29, 1947, the term “Samaria and Judea” was used.

Many Jews object to the term “Palestinian territories”, and similar descriptions, which they regard as negating what is in their view legitimate Jewish land rights, in accordance with the recorded history of the region, including Greek and Roman writings, the Hebrew Bible and indigenous Jewish history (and current settlements) in the area.

When to Go

When to travel into the Palestinian territories is almost entirely dependent on its level of security. Travellers are advised to check current warnings prior to travel. Weather-wise you could visit the territories anytime, although August can be uncomfortably hot, especially in low-lying areas and Gaza. December and January can be downright chilly.

Name

Other terms used to describe these areas collectively are “the disputed territories”, “Israeli-occupied territories”, and “the occupied territories”. Further terms include “Yesha” (Judea-Samaria-Gaza), “liberated territories”, “Territories of Undetermined Permanent Status”, “1967 territories”, and simply “the territories”.

The United Nations generally uses the term “Occupied Palestinian Territory”, with the “Palestinian” label having gained use since the 1970s. Previous UNSC resolutions (such as 242 and 338) use the term “territories occupied by Israel”, whereas in the UN General Assembly Resolution 181 passed on November 29, 1947, the term “Samaria and Judea” was used. Many Jews object to the term “Palestinian territories”, which they perceive as a rejection of what is in their view legitimate Jewish land according to written history of the Mediterranean including Greek and Roman writings, the Hebrew Bible and indigenous Jewish history (and current settlements) in the area.

The Palestinian territories

The Palestinian territories is one of a number of designations for those portions of the British Mandate of Palestine captured and occupied by Jordan and by Egypt in the late 1940s, and captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Today, the designation typically refers to the territories governed in varying degrees by the Palestinian Authority (42% of the West Bank plus all of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip), or includes all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It does not include the Golan Heights captured from Syria during the Six Day War, or the Sinai Peninsula, captured from Egypt at that time but later returned by Israel to Egypt after a peace accord was signed between the two countries in 1979. Israel does not consider East Jerusalem nor the former Israeli – Jordanian no man’s land (the former annexed in 1980 and the latter in 1967) to be parts of the West Bank. Israel claims that both fall under full Israeli law and jurisdiction as opposed to the 58% of the Israeli-defined West Bank which is ruled by the Israeli ‘Judea and Samaria Civil Administration’, although this has not been recognized by any other country.