Occupied Palestinian territories

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The Palestinian territories are geographic areas in the Middle East captured by Israel from Egypt and Jordan in the Six-day War of 1967 and held afterward, excluding the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula. The term is generally used to describe the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, in the context of a Palestinian perspective, although East Jerusalem was annexed by Israel in 1980. The territories are also known as 'the Occupied Territories', 'occupied Palestinian territories', 'Israeli-occupied territories', 'Judea and Samaria and Gaza' (or 'Yesha'), or 'disputed territories' although 'Palestinian' is not applied to the Golan Heights or the Sinai Peninsula. The United Nations generally uses the term 'the Occupied Palestinian Territory', but in the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 passed on November 29, 1947, the term "Samaria and Judea" was used.

The current and future political status of the territories is very controversial. Specific issues include the legality of Israeli's policy of 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 Palestinian state will be created in the territories.

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.

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 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).

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.

See related article Status of territories captured by Israel.

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 . 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."

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 , the rest of the Arab bloc, the UK , the EU, (usually) the USA (, ), 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.

The Palestinian territories have been assigned a country code of PS in ISO 3166-1, and accordingly, the Palestinian Authority was granted control of the corresponding Internet country code top-level domain .ps.

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