West Bank - Misplaced Pages

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The West Bank is a region of the former British Mandate of Palestine controlled by Jordan from 1949 to 1967 and by Israel from 1967 to the present. Its boundaries are the result solely of the armistice lines reached during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War that led to Israel's independence.

According to official United Nations and U.S. policy the "West Bank and Gaza Strip are Israeli-occupied" and the U.S. adds "with current status subject to the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement - permanent status to be determined through further negotiation".

The only real geographical border of the West Bank is the Jordan River, from which the area now derives its name -- to the east of the Jordan River is the Kingdom of Jordan (once Transjordan). The most densely populated part of the region is a mountainous spine, running north-south, where the cities of Nablus, Ramallah, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Hebron are located. Jenin, in the extreme north of the West Bank is on the southern edge of the Jezreel Valley, Qalqilya 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.

Name

Palestinians refer to the area as "the occupied West Bank of the Jordan River", emphasizing that the area is West of the Jordan river, under Israeli military control and overall under the jurisdiction of the Israeli Department of Defense. They refer to Gaza and the West Bank together as "the occupied Palestinian territories".

Israelis may refer to the region either as "The West Bank" ("ha-gada ha-maa'ravit") or as two distinct geographical units, Judea ("yehuda") and Samaria ("shomron"), after the two biblical kingdoms, (the southern Judah and the Northern Kingdom of Israel -- the capital of which was, for a time, in the town of Samaria). The border between the two regions (consisting of a strip of territory immediately north of Jerusalem) is sometimes called the land of Benjamin. Palestinans strongly object to these names, which they consider, reflect Israelli expansionist aims.

The Misplaced Pages simply calls the area the "West Bank" because editorial policy forbids it to take sides in controversies (see neutral point of view).

Political situation

I propose that we move all of this materials to Proposals for a Palestinian state --Uri

The status of the West Bank, together with the Gaza Strip on the Mediterreanean shore, is currently disputed, though almost everyone agrees that the area is heading for statehood (see proposals for a Palestinian state.

Generally, the Arab World considers the West Bank the rightful property of its Arab residents and regards the Israeli presence as an occupation force. Supporters of this view commonly refer to the West Bank and Gaza as the "occupied territories." Some official Arab maps show the West Bank, Gaza, and the rest of the territory bounded by Egypt, the Jordan River, Syria, Lebanon and the Mediterrenean Sea as "Palestine", reflecting a non-recognition of Israel as a state. Saudi-Arabia recently proposed that Israel should completely withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza in exchange for a total recognition of Israel by the Arab world. The vast majority of Palestinians feels that the West Bank ought to be a part of their sovereign nation, and that the presence of Israeli military forces is a violation of that sovereignty.

This is much too oversimplified. Israeli opinion is split into those who advocate, variously:

abandoning the West Bank entirely in hopes of ending Arab attacks on Israel (sometimes called the "land for peace" position)
maintaining a military presence in the West Bank to deter surprise attack, while relinquishing some degree of political control
annexing the West Bank (sometimes called an "extremist" position)

History

Note: this history should start much further back.

A part of the pre-1948 Mandatory Palestine, the territories now known as West Bank were mostly part of the territory reserved by the 1947 Partition Plan (UN General Assembly Resolution 181) for an Arab state. According to the plan, the city of Jerusalem and the surrounding towns (including Bethlehem and Ramallah) would be an internationally adminsitered 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. This occupation was not recognized by the UN or by the international community.

The boundry line between Israel proper and the West Bank was determined by the cease-fire talks in 1949 and is often called the "Green Line". During the 1950s, there was a signiciant phenomenon of Palestinian refugee infiltration through the Green Line. In the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel captured this territory, but the U.N. did not recognize it either and asked for Israel's withdrawal in Resolution 242. In 1988, Jordan withdrew all claims to it.

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

Palestine-controlled, Palestinian-administered land(Area A)
Israeli-controlled, but Palestinian-administred land (Area B)
Israeli-controlled, Israeli-adminstered land (Area C)

Areas B and C constitute the majority of the territory, made up out of the rural areas, while urban areas per se are mostly Area A.

Israel has been criticized for construction of numerous settlements in the West Bank by supporters of the Palestinian cause. See Israeli settlements for a discussion of this question.