The Occupied Territories
The West Bank and the Gaza Strip
became distinct geographical units as a
result of the 1949 armistice that divided
the new Jewish state of Israel from other
parts of Mandate Palestine. From
1948-67, the West Bank, including East
Jerusalem, was ruled by Jordan, which
annexed the area in 1950 and extended
citizenship to Palestinians living there.
During this period, the Gaza Strip was
under Egyptian military administration. In
the 1967 war, Israel captured and
occupied these areas, along with the
Sinai Peninsula (from Egypt) and the
Golan Heights (from Syria).
Israel established a military
administration to govern the Palestinian
residents of the occupied West Bank and
Gaza. Under this arrangement,
Palestinians were denied many basic
political rights and civil liberties, including
freedom of expression, freedom of the
press and freedom of political
association. Palestinian nationalism was
criminalized as a threat to Israeli
security, which meant that even
displaying the Palestinian national colors
was a punishable act. All aspects of
Palestinian life were regulated, and often
severely restricted by the Israeli military
administration. For example, Israel
forbade the gathering wild thyme
(za`tar), a basic element of Palestinian
cuisine.
Israeli policies and practices in the West Bank and
Gaza have included extensive use of
collective punishments such as curfews, house
demolitions and closure of roads, schools and
community institutions. Hundreds of Palestinian
political activists have been deported to Jordan
or Lebanon, tens of thousands of acres of
Palestinian land have been confiscated, and
thousands of trees have been uprooted. Since 1967,
over 300,000 Palestinians have been
imprisoned without trial, and over half a million
have been tried in the Israeli military court
system. Torture of Palestinian prisoners has been a
common practice since at least 1971, and
dozens of people have died in detention from abuse
or neglect. Israeli officials have claimed that
harsh measures and high rates of imprisonment are
necessary to thwart terrorism. According to
Israel, Palestinian terrorism includes all forms of
opposition to the occupation (including
non-violence).
Israel has built hundreds of
settlements and permitted
hundreds of thousands of its
own Jewish citizens to move
to the West Bank and Gaza,
despite that this constitutes a
breach of international law.
Israel has justified the
violation of the Fourth Geneva
Convention and other
international laws governing
military occupation of foreign
territory on the grounds that
the West Bank and the Gaza
Strip are not technically
"occupied" because they were
never part of the sovereign
territory of any state.
Therefore, according to this
interpretation, Israel is not a
foreign "occupier" but a legal
"administrator" of territory
whose status remains to be determined. The
international community has rejected the Israeli
official position that the West Bank and Gaza are
not occupied, and has maintained that
international law should apply there. But little
effort has been mounted to enforce international
law or hold Israel accountable for the numerous
violations it has engaged in since 1967.
Jerusalem
The UN partition plan
advocated that Jerusalem
become an international
zone, independent of both
the proposed Jewish and
Palestinian Arab states. In
the 1948 Arab-Israeli War,
Israel took control of the
western part of Jerusalem,
while Jordan took the
eastern part, including the
old walled city containing
important Jewish, Muslim
and Christian religious sites.
The 1949 armistice line cut
the city in two. In June
1967, Israel captured East
Jerusalem from Jordan and
almost immediately annexed
it. It reaffirmed its annexation in 1981.
Israel regards Jerusalem as its "eternal capital."
Arabs consider East Jerusalem part of the
occupied West Bank and want it to be the capital of
a Palestinian state.
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