Monday, July 25, 2011

Stop Calling Them Occupied Territories!

Every time I hear the West Bank referred to as an "occupied territory," it brings about a great deal of frustration.  This frustration is not simply because it is the MO of the pro-Palestinian side to inaccurately paint Israel as an oppresive, power-hungry, Satanic colonizer.  It's due to the fact that the argument is not based in historical facts and evidence. 

Israel's claim to the land, at least in terms of international law, goes all the way back to the Balfour Declaration after the British took over the Ottoman Empire.  Keep in mind that under the Balfour Declaration, Israel also had the East bank of the Jordan River in addition to the West Bank.  But compromise was something Israel did in order to have a state of their own. 

Both the League of Nations and the United Nations (see UN Resolution 181) have confirmed the legitimacy of Israel's right to statehood.  If the international community has given Israel the permission to have a state of their own, then what's the issue?  During the 1947 War for Israeli Independence, Jordan stepped in and occupied the land, even though nobody recognized the legitimacy of its claim.  After the war, there were armisitice lines that were drawn because the territory of the West Bank was in dispute.  Just to clarify, "pre-1967 borders" is such a misnomer.  Rather than calling the West Bank an "occupied territory," it would be more accurate to call it a "disputed territory," even though the Palestinians have no legal legitimate claim to the land since there was no Arab nation-state called Palestine at the time.

Below is a video by Knesset member Danny Ayalon.  Short from the misspelling of the word "Lebanon," I thought it was a great primer on the issue:





 

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