Israeli building on the West Bank and in parts of Jerusalem has become an accepted mantra to excuse terrorism against Israel. Repeated so often its accuracy is rarely questioned. But there are many, many questions one could ask.
1) Do the Israelis have the right to settle in the West Bank?
According to Eugene V. Rostow, Fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace, senior research scholar at Yale University and former U.S. under secretary of state:
“… Legally the Jewish right of settlement in the West Bank was never restricted and survives today as a right surviving from the Mandate. Such rights are especially protected by Article 80 of the U.N. Charter. … Israel is occupying the administered areas not only as the victor in the defensive wars of 1967 and 1973, but pursuant to a legally binding decision of the Security Council, embodied in resolutions 242 and 338, that Israel should remain in occupation of these territories until the states in the area make a just and lasting peace with Israel …
“…That peace rests on two principles – Israeli withdrawal from some, but not necessarily all, the territories occupied in the Six Day War, on the one had, and to the other, recognition by the Arab States of Israel’s right to live in peace with secure and recognized boundaries, free from threats and acts of force. …”
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2) Why should the Arab Palestinian State be Judenrein (without any Jews)?
This is a question that even those who disregard or deny the answers to questions 1) and 3), ask themselves. If the Palestinians really want to live in peace side by side with Israel why is it assumed that there can be no Jews in their state? In Israel 18% of the population is Arab, mainly Moslem. Although exempt from the army they vote in elections and there are Arab Political parties and Arabs serve as Members of the Israeli Knesset.
The evacuation of all Israelis from the Gaza Strip and the destruction by the Arabs themselves of the agricultural infrastructure left for their use, not to mention the use of schools as bases for training terrorists, has highlighted this question. What sort of peace do the Arabs really want if all Jews are to be forcibly removed without the option to remain under Palestinian rule if they so desire?
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3) To whom does the West Bank belong?
Believe it or not, not to the Palestinians who are today claiming it.
Prior to the end of WWI Palestine was but one administrative area of the Turkish Ottoman Empire which encompassed most of the Middle East. At the end of WWI Britain and France, as the victors, divided the spoils of war. In 1920 the League of Nations granted France the mandate over newly created Lebanon and Syria. Lebanon was granted independence in 1945 and Syria in 1944.
Britain received the mandate over newly created Hashemite kingdom of Iraq and appointed Feisal, formerly ruler of Mecca and Medina as the king. (Arabia now came under the rule of the rival Saud clan and Arabia became Saudi Arabia). This Mandate was terminated in 1932 although British military bases remained throughout WWII. Britain also received the mandate over Palestine which was promised to the Jewish people as a homeland. This promise was ratified by the League of Nations (precursor to the U.N.)
Originally Palestine included both banks of the Jordan river but in 1923 Britain created the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan on the eastern bank and crowned Abdullah, brother of Feisal of Iraq, as the king. The western bank continued to be known as Palestine and both the Arab and the Jewish population were known as Palestinians, an appellation the Arabs vociferously rejected while the Jews serving in the British forces proudly wore their Palestinian insignia during WWII.
In 1947 Britain returned the mandate to the UN and in November 1947 the members of the UN voted to divide Palestine between the Arabs and Jews living there. UN resolution 181 granted the Arabs the areas in which they were the majority and the Jews the areas in which they were the majority. When deciding on the fate of Jerusalem, possibly because there were 100,000 Jews and only 20,000 Arabs it was decided that the status of Jerusalem would be defined as ‘international’.
The Jews of Palestine and of the world rejoiced. Finally there would be a place to bring the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust languishing in displaced persons camps throughout Europe and interned by the British in Cyprus. The Arabs of Palestine and throughout the world rejected this resolution without reserve. Without a doubt, this rejection was the real Nakb’a (disaster) and not the events of 1948, about which more later.
In May 1948, as the last British troops left Palestine the State of Israel was born. The Jews and Arabs became Israeli citizens. Because there was no such a thing as an Arab Palestinian nation or people or country, there was no movement by the local Arab population or the Arab world to create a parallel Arab State in the areas not under Israeli control. King Abdullah of Transjordan exploited the vacuum and annexed those areas on the western bank of the Jordan river which were not under Israeli control.
The only country to recognize this annexation was Pakistan and despite the opposition of the entire Arab world,. the Kingdom of Transjordan now became the Kingdom of Jordan. Which really means that the West Bank was illegally occupied by Jordan and never legally belonged to Jordan. Technically the population should all have become Jordanian citizens, just as the Arab population in Israel became Israelis
A different fate awaited the Gaza Strip. There Egypt impose military rule and sealed it from any contact with the outside world not even allowing residents of the Gaza Strip into Egypt to study or for medical treatment.
In June 1967, despite an Israeli request to Jordan not to join the U.A.R. alliance between Egypt and Syria, all along the border between Israel and the Jordanian controlled West Bank Jordan began to shell Israel. At the end of the Six Day War Israel had conquered the entire West Bank.
Cognizant that the Six Day War was imposed on Israel by her neighbours and recognizing Israel’s need for secure, internationally recognized borders UN Resolution 242 deliberately did not call for the withdrawal from all territories acquired by Israel as a result of the war. Furthermore, there was no reference to any form of Palestinian entity as no such an entity existed in 1967 and its establishment was not on any agenda – not of the Arab League of Nations, not of the Arab or Moslem world, not of the world powers that be and definitely not of the Palestinians of Jordan, including the West Bank.
At the Khartoum conference the Arab world confirmed the three Noes: no recognition of Israel, no stopping the war with Israel and no direct negotiations with Israel.
If this is the legal status of the West bank why are so many throughout the world not only insisting on the establishment of a Palestinian state but demanding the demise of the Jewish State of Israel?
