Why does virtually the whole international community say the West Bank is occupied territory?

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M.E.D

Simply because it is a Palestinian territory that Israel has taken by force and is illegally building settlements there.

@Shay p:

Please enough with the propaganda you are circulating here. The whole world didn't recognize Jordon's annexation of the West Bank except Britain, so Jordon did not officially own the WB in the first place, so they can't GIVE IT TO ISRAEL as you claim.

@dandyl:

So you deny that the west bank is occupied and claim that it is disputed, because you are better versed in international laws than the UN Security Council, UN General Assembly, the International Court and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

dandyl

In politics words matter and, unfortunately, the misuse of words applying to the Arab-Israeli conflict has shaped perceptions to Israel's disadvantage. As in the case of the term â€œWest Bank,â€ the word â€œoccupationâ€ has been hijacked by those who wish to paint Israel in the harshest possible light. It also gives apologists a way to try to explain away terrorism as â€œresistance to occupation,â€ as if the women and children killed by suicide bombers in buses, pizzerias, and shopping malls were responsible for the plight of the Arabs.

Given the negative connotation of an â€œoccupier,â€ it is not surprising that Arab spokespersons use the word, or some variation, as many times as possible when interviewed by the press. The more accurate description of the territories in Judea and Samaria, however, is â€œdisputedâ€ territories.

Medium Dave

Hmm. It's been under Israeli military occupation since the Six Day War, hasn't it?

Who was to blame for that, again...?

Oh, that's right. The Arabs.

If you go to war, you risk your territory - simple. America, the UK, and practically every other country in existence have gained territory in exactly the same manner. The only difference is that they won.

Shay p

The west bank was taken by Jordan during Israels war of Independence (no one bothered to call it occupied territory then) in 1967 during the 6 day war Israel took it from Jordan.

In 1987 Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Shimon Peres and King Hussein tried to secretly promote a peace agreement in which Israel would concede control over the West Bank to Jordan. The two signed an agreement defining a framework for a Middle Eastern peace conference, however the proposal was not consummated due to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamirâ€™s objection. The following year Jordan abandoned its claim for the West Bank in favor of a peaceful resolution between Israel and the PLO.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel-Jordan_Treaty_of_Peace

So basically Jordan GAVE IT TO ISRAEL !!!!!

WERE were all these fine organizations when Gaza was under Egyptian rule and the west bank was under Jordanian rule.

A Palsetinian country (or two) could have erupted right after 1948 !!!!!!!!

Clyde

The Israelis themselves do NOT claim ownership-matter of fact, they have made several illegal UNILATERAL attempts to annex Arab East Jerusalem-the UN has VETOED it EVERY time. The Palestinians OWN the land that Israel STEALS from them by MURDER, than have the audacity to call them terrorists for attempting to protect their land and lives against the Israeli invaders.This exact reason is why we Americans have the "RIGHT to bear arms" and we used it on the British aggressors- guess the Israelis would call the Americans, TERRORISTS.The British occupiers treated the Americans far better than the Israeli occupiers have treated the Palestinians. Israel, by the way, ceded these territories to the Palestinians back in 2005 so why are they, there, and, why are they refusing the two-state proposal-because they wish to annex the West Bank and Gaza strips through ethnic cleansing(killing) and land theft for building and expanding ILLEGAL(International Law) JEWISH ONLY settlements and buffer zones on land they stole by murder.Jordan NEVER gave the West Bank and Gaza strips to the Israelies-they stole the land, killing the Arabs to OCCUPY(like the Ottomans, NOT own-only true if they annex them-THEY HAVE NOT ANNEXED THEM< BUT THAT IS THEIR GOAL).NOW they are building a wall on top of this insult, yet they want the world to see how moral they are. Well, if they get ANY more moral-they will steal all the Arab land and kill all the Palestinians. They are resorting to their old tactic the Nazis used on them, and, in which they used on the Arab Palestinians of 1948-LEAVE OR BE KILLED. One hitch, this time the Palestinians are staying and fighting for their lives and property.They must reduce the Arab population so they can annex the West Bank and Gaza strips without becoming a MAJORITY Arab country instantly, instaed of this happening in 20-25 years.

The British Mandate NEVER specified a divided Arab Palestine, ONLY political borders separarting Arabs from Jews.The Jews interpeted these borders as their land under the British Mandate-in reality, they stole even more land than covered by the POLITICAL, NOT, Land divisions.READ THE BRITISH MANDATE closely.

As an example, lets say a murderous group comes into your home WITHOUT permission, brutalizes and kills some members of YOUR family and refuse to leave. Are you saying this group OWNS your home, or, occupies your home-that is the true situation in the West Bank and Gaza strips-if you haven't figured out the parties-the invaders, are the Israelies and the homeowners are the Palestinians-Israel would call the homeowners terrorists for defending their lives and properties.

What would Americans do in this situation-you got it-the invaders(aka- the Israelies would be high tailing it out of their pronto).

Boomerang

By strictly technical terms, it is an occupied territory.
Israel has never annexed it, so formally it's occupied.
However, things gets more complicated, because Jordan (who previously annexed it) has withdrawn its demands over the territory, and Israel gave the Palestinian Authority civilian and partial security control over it.
The term is often misused to insinuate that "Israel has occupied Palestine" or something of this sort, when "Palestine" has never been a political entity.

Muse is Palestinian

Because it is Palestinian terrority and land that has undoubtedly been OCCUPIED. DISPOSSESSED. TAKEN AWAY.

The occupation has displaced millions upon millions of Palestinians, the way the Jews were displaced in the Holocaust.

If the word OCCUPIED bothers you, find a thesaurus and use another word. It all leads to stolen land per se.

Simple Simon

Because Arabs renamed the land .
People outside Israel don't know that real name of this land is Judea.
And about UN agencies, this quite clear, it should be called United Muslim Nations.

PaperbackWriter JPA

One of the most misused, misapplied, and misunderstood definitions in the dictionary of the Arab-Israeli conflict is the term "occupied territories." The vast majority of people simply do not know the facts or misinterpret them, thus completely distorting the real picture of the land distribution between the Arabs and the Jews.

The truth of the matter is that, according to international law, the Jews have the complete and unquestionable right to settle the territories of Judea, Samaria and Gaza (collectively known as Yesha). Not a single enforceable international document exists that forbids them from settling the lands of Yesha.

On the contrary, the only existing enforceable document actually encourages Jewish settlement.

This document was created on April 24, 1920 at the San Remo Conference when the Principal Allied Powers agreed to assign the Mandate for the territory of Palestine to Great Britain.

By doing so the League of Nations "recognized the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine" and established "grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country." Article 6 of the Mandate "encouraged ... close settlement by Jews on the land," including the lands of Judea, Samaria and Gaza (Yesha).

There is nothing whatsoever in the Mandate that separates Yesha from the rest of the mandated territory. That means that the right of the Jews to settle the land spreads to the whole of Palestine. As a side note it is worth mentioning that the 76% of the territory of Mandated Palestine known today as Jordan, were not permanently exempt from settlement by the Jews either. Article 25 only allowed to "postpone or withhold application of [this] provision."

With the disbanding of the League of Nations, the rights of the Jews to settle the territories of Palestine, including Yesha, were not hurt. When in 1946 the United Nations was created in place of the League of Nations, its Charter included Article 80 specifically to allow the continuation of existing Mandates (including the British Mandate).

Article 80 stated that "nothing ... shall be construed in or of itself to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever ... of any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may respectively be parties."

Then in November 1947 came time for Resolution 181, which recommended the Partition of Palestine. Like all UN Resolutions pertaining to the Jewish-Arab conflict it was not enforceable. It was simply a recommendation, and the Arab countries rejected it. As the Syrian representative in the General Assembly stated:

"In the first place the recommendations of the General Asembly are not imperative on those to whom they are addressed... . The General Assembly only gives advice and the parties to whom advice is addressed accept it when it is rightful and just and when it does not impair their fundamental rights" (1).

If the resolution had been implemented maybe it would be possible to argue that it replaced the San Remo Conference resolution, which had legitimized the rights of the Jews to settle in any place in Palestine.

However, it was not only rejected by the Arabs, but in violation of the UN Charter they launched a military aggression against the newly reborn Jewish state thus invalidating the resolution. By the time of the cease-fire at the end of the War of Independence there was still no other enforceable document pertaining to the rights of the Jews to settle Eretz Yisrael - they remained intact.

Now we approach the most misunderstood aspect of the scope and application of international documents. In order to resolve the puzzle of the "occupied" territories, one must clearly distinguish between the different types of resolutions passed by the United Nations.

Misconceptions about the issue led to the question of a double standard that was constantly raised by the Arabs after the Persian Gulf War. The Arabs were unable to understand why from Iraq the UN demanded compliance with the decisions of the international body, while Israel was not forced to comply with UN resolutions.

On April 3, 1998 Swedish Foreign Minister Lena Hjelm-Wallen, well known for championing the Arabs' position, in an interview with the London al-Quds al-'Arabi, gave an explanation of this "paradox." She was asked, "What about the double standards that the United States and Europe adopt when it comes to Arab issues?"

She answered,

"I understand this view, which is common in many Arab countries. Nevertheless, the UN resolutions passed on Iraq are different, because they are binding for all nations according to Article 7 of the UN Charter. Meanwhile, the resolutions passed against Israel are not subject to Article 7 of the Charter."

To better understand the way UN resolutions work, it is worth reading an open letter by Uri Lubrani, coordinator of Israeli activities in Lebanon, ad

tambovi

Because Israel got the territories of Judea and Samaria(West Bank,as Jordans called them after they lost the war of 1967) in the course of the Six-Days war.Technically,Israel occupied this land.I see nothing bad in the word "occupation" when the attacked country-Israel-beats up the aggressors and takes a part of their land(pity that Israel could not take more,America ran to the rescue of arabs).And the fact that this land was occupied does not mean that Israel has any obligation to give it back to arabs.
Aggressor must pay the price for his aggression.

Joschkins

*sighs at the racism*

It's 'Occupied Territory' because according to legal documents (that most people reject) it is part of the Palastine country, but is in large parts...OCCUPIED by Israel's military.

aprilisnewlife

It's not occupied territory. It's not in the country of palestine because there is no such country. Accept your fate palestinians, your nation is Israel now. It has been that way for many years already. If you don't like it, then I'm sure one of the arab nations will take you.

Aussie

Official answer.....they are all wrong & Israel is right ! Just ask them...

Silver Canary Speaks.

Because the Arab moslems have all of the oil.
Check the boundaries of Israel during the reign of King David and King Solomon, it was huge.

Israeli government considers it occupied too so what's your point?

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