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Does Israel occupy the West Bank? (Part 1 of 2)

Under #InternationalLaw (the real thing, not what pundits say or talking heads at the #UN like to simply repeat over and over), does #Israel “occupy” the “West Bank?”

The following analysis is based entirely on historically verifiable facts & analysis of international legal principles that provides proper context to this important issue & presents it methodically to be understood by a wide audience. 

Enjoy!

First, it is a tenant of international law that “#occupation” occurs when a country takes over the sovereign territory of another country.

So, first question: from what sovereign country did Israel occupy territory?

Let’s dive in.

Up until a little more than 100 years ago, the areas that now include Israel, the “#WestBank,” and #Gaza were all part of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, which ruled over a vast area of the Middle East (Top Left - map of what remained of the Ottoman Empire just prior to World War I).

During the Ottoman Empire’s rule, neither the #Jews nor the #Arabs had a state; however, the Jews had a national liberation movement called “#Zionism,” which sought a #Jewish sovereign nation in their ancient homeland.

The Ottoman Empire had been in financial collapse for decades (and had severely shrunk) by the time of #WorldWarI.

Parts of its empire, including Eretz Israel, were far from #Constantinople and had been war torn for centuries; thus, the Ottomans severely neglected the region & allowed it to fall into disrepair and ruin while the land became arid, loaded with malarial swamps, and largely unlivable.

Meanwhile, in World War I, the Ottoman Empire teamed up with #Germany, fighting on the side that lost.

In earlier times, there’s little doubt that the victorious #British and #French, for example, would have simply kept the land of the Ottoman Empire as their own #colonies – just as they had done for centuries.

However, this was a time when the West was expressly talking about ridding the world of vast empires and replacing them with individual #democratic nation-states.

So, the intention was to cut up Imperial Germany & the Ottoman Empire into individual trusteeships called “mandates” that would be held in trust for different people until those people and the land were ready for independence.

The mandatory power would stay in place to aide in state-building, and when the native population was ready to take over and declare independence, the mandatory power would leave.

So, after World War I, the nations of the world set up the League of Nations, which was the precursor to the #UnitedNations. 

The League of Nations was created by treaty; and through that treaty, it was permitted certain legal powers.

At a meeting in San Remo in 1920, the League of Nations exercised Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations and officially set up the mandate system & converted the German and Ottoman Empires into distinct geopolitical entities.

The Ottoman Empire was broken up into four mandates.

France was awarded the mandate over Syria and Lebanon; and Britain was awarded the mandate over Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) and Palestine (which initially included modern-day Israel, Gaza, the “West Bank,” and the entire country of #Jordan (which did not yet exist)).

For completeness, the League of Nations also broke up Imperial Germany’s African and Pacific Island Colonies into 11 mandates (see all 15 mandates at the Top Right)

Many of these mandates were just given their European monikers to describe the region.

For example, the Mandate for “Palestine” was nothing more than a geographic label based on the name given to the land by Roman Emperor Hadrian in 135 CE after the Romans defeated the Jews in the Bar Kokhba Revolt and Hadrian: (1) attempted to wipe #Judaism from the Earth by murdering 1 million Jews; (2) outlawed the practice of any Jewish customs or rituals on pain of death; and (3) renamed #Judea “Syria Palestina” after the Jews’ ancient & long-since-extinct enemies – the Aegean “sea people” called the Philistines.

Since it was a widely known fact for thousands of years that the Jews were the #indigenous people to the area now called the “Mandate for Palestine,” the legal mandate awarded to Britian provided that Palestine would become a national home for the Jewish people.

This was not controversial at the time since everyone knew that the Jews were “from there.”

Eretz Israel/Palestine was the birthplace of the Jewish language, Jewish culture, Jewish religion, and the Jews’ status as a people. Plus, there had been a continuous Jewish presence in Eretz Israel for more than 3,000 years.

Thus, the legally binding Mandate for Palestine recognized the Jews were the indigenous people to that area.

Some mandatory authorities were permitted, by express law, to split their mandate in two along specified boundaries.

For example, the Mandate for Palestine expressly permitted Britain to split the mandate along the Jordan River. Britian almost immediately decided to do so to reward the Saudi Hashemites that had aided Britain during the War.

So, despite the Hashemites not being indigenous to the land in any way, shape, or form, Britain simply created a territory that never previously existed on the east bank of the Jordan River, called it “Transjordan,” and handed it over to the Hashemites.

This was the only legally permissible partition of the whole of Mandatory Palestine that was split into one Arab State (Transjordan) and one Jewish State (Palestine) – (see map at Bottom Left)

Each of the 15 total mandates ultimately transitioned into statehood in the 1930s and 1940s with Israel being the last to do so when it declared its independence in 1948.

So, when Israel declared its independence, what were its borders under international law?

Well, there is a clear international law for that, so there is no guessing required, and neither is there any hint of ambiguity.

There is a tenant of international law that always applies whenever a new country is created (something that actually happens quite a lot).

The applicable principle of international law is called uti possidetis juris, which is a fancy Latin phrase that simply provides that all newly-formed sovereign states (of which there have been 136 since Israel gained its independence – making the modern State of Israel among the top 40% oldest countries in the world) shall retain the internal borders that exactly match the borders of the previous geopolitical entity in that territory.

That means that on the day Israel declared its independence, May 14, 1948, its borders under international law were the borders of the British Mandate, which would be the entirety of the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

This legal principle is certainly not applied to Israel-only. It has universal application.

For example, when former Soviet republics, such as #Ukraine, Latvia, and Azerbaijan, declared their independence, the borders of those newly independent countries were the same as they were when they were separate republics of the Soviet Union.

Now, what if those borders are not fair?

Does it matter?

No.

Well, what if we look at demographics and they suggest different borders?

That also does not matter.

Uti possidetis juris applies 100% of the time a new country is formed. It is axiomatic. It is a hard and fast rule without exceptions.

This doctrine is necessary under international law because a clear, unambiguous rule for the borders of a new country simply must exist, otherwise whenever there is a new country, every inch of its borders would be up for dispute based on a variety of considerations (history, topography, ethnic separations, etc.), and it would be recipe for constant war.

In other words, the Mandate for Palestine was not special. It was just one of 15 mandates issued by the League of Nations. And in every case, all 15 mandates left certain people unhappy.

In literally every case, the mandates were met with demands for partition, redivision, or redrawing of the borders because certain people argued the borders of mandate territory were “unfair.”

For example, Syria was unhappy that there was a separate mandate for Lebanon that included several Muslim districts.

The Turks were extremely unhappy that the region of Mosul was included in the mandate for Mesopotamia.

The #Kurds were most certainly unhappy since they had been promised state of their own in northern Iraq and Syria and were given no state at all.

Fair or not, however, on the day the Mandate for Mesopotamia ended, Iraq gained its independence along the exact boundaries of the mandate. The same can be said for Syria, and for every other one of the 15 mandates issued by the League of Nations.

In fact, the entire modern Middle East arose out of the mandate system.

And while wars have been fought because people were unhappy with the mandate borders, the mandate borders have always won out with the support of the international community.

For example, #SaddamHussein was unhappy with the mandatory borders of Iraq. He felt that #Kuwait should not be its own country, but that it was really a part of historical Iraq.

In fact, Hussein was not raising some new gripe.

There had been a longstanding Iraqi objection to their mandatory borders. Hussein simply asked, “Why should Iraq be bound by some arbitrary borders drawn up by some Western government to determine Iraq’s borders?”

Afterall, Kuwait is a country of a comparatively small number of people, and yet Kuwait has around 300 miles of coastline. 

Iraq, on the other hand, has a population of 10s of millions, and has only about 30 miles of coastline (Bottom Right).

Fair or not, however, the mandatory borders were, are, and will always remain the legal borders.

So, when Hussein invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, essentially nobody in the international community backed his land claim, and the First Gulf War was fought to force Hussein out of Kuwait.

Now, some of you may be thinking I missed a step – what about the UN Partition Plan in 1947?

It’s true that UN Resolution 181 recommended the partition of Mandate Palestine into a sort of Swiss cheese amalgamation of two noncontinuous states – one Jewish and one Arab (note: the UN Partition Plan and Resolution 181 refer to an “Arab state,” not a "Palestinian state," since – while many people referred to “Palestinian Jews” prior to 1948 – most Muslim Arabs were not fond of being referred to as “Palestinians” at that time since they saw the term as a Christian name for their “#HolyLand.”)

The Jews were not particularly happy with the Partition Plan because they had already lost nearly 80% of their homeland since Britain carved out of thin air a new Arab country of “Transjordan.”

Now, yet again, the UN was proposing to cut the remaining 20% of the Jewish homeland in half to create yet another Arab state (again out of thin air), thus leaving the Jews with a mere 10% of their promised homeland from the original Mandate for Palestine.

But historical context matters.

This Partition Plan was recommended by the UN only two years after the #Holocaust, and there were literally hundreds of thousands of Jewish #refugees in Europe who had somehow managed to survive #Hitler’s madness and who were now trapped in Displaced Persons Camps – which were often the very same #Nazi #ConcentrationCamps from which they had been liberated, only now their “jailors” were the Allies instead of the #Germans.

In other words, the Jews were desperate for their state, and said OK, and agreed to the UN’s Partition Plan.

However, all Arab countries and Arab representatives from Mandate Palestine rejected the UN Partition Plan in its entirety.

The Arabs made clear that they would not agree to the inclusion of a Jewish state in any borders.

Since both parties did not agree, the UN Partition Plan was shelved entirely (you cannot make a binding agreement if only one party agrees to the terms of that agreement).

Resolution 181 was a non-binding resolution without the force of law.

The only way it could have been implemented is if both parties had agreed to it. 

They did not. 

Thus, the Partition Plan became irrelevant.

This is a good time to note another important tenant of international law: UN General Assembly Resolutions have no legally-binding effect whatsoever.

All the UNGA can do is make “recommendations,” “condemnations,” or “praise.”

The UN General Assembly can condemn countries and call some of the things those countries do “illegal.” 

But the UNGA can do so without ever having to prove the alleged illegality or listen to any challenges to the General Assembly’s claims of illegality.

If you have the votes, you can pass the resolution.

And that passed resolution is nothing more than a piece of paper with no legal backing and no enforcement power whatsoever.

This is one of the reasons the UN is often referred to as a modern day “Tower of Babel.”

Now, at the very same time that Israel first declared its independence, Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, expressly invited the Arabs to remain in their homes and become equal citizens in the new State of Israel.

Specifically, Ben-Gurion said, “In the midst of wanton aggression, we yet call upon the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve the ways of peace and play their part in the development of the State, on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its bodies and institutions … We extend our hand in peace and neighborliness to all the neighboring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all.”

But the Arabs had made up their minds that they would not abide a Jewish state in any borders, and Israel was immediately invaded the day after it declared independence, on May 15, 1948, by the armies of five Arab countries who were expressly seeking to destroy the Jewish state and to push the Jews into the Mediterranean Sea.

The Arabs made clear this would be a war of “extermination” – a word the Jews took very seriously so shortly after the Holocaust.

For example, on May 15, 1948, Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League, proclaimed a full-scale invasion of Israel’s territory by the armies of all Arab States and stated, “This will be a war of extermination and momentous massacre, which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.”

The Arab League also set up the “Salvation” Army (The Arab Liberation Army) with the declared goal of liberating Palestine and “ridding that country of its Jews.”

Now we come to another hard and fast rule under international law: a war of aggression cannot be used to change another country’s borders.

That means, for example, the United States can’t invade a Province of #Canada tomorrow without provocation and then claim the land as its own.

So, when the five Arab armies from neighboring #Egypt, #Jordan, #Iraq, #Syria, and #Lebanon (with forces also provided from #SaudiArabia and #Yemen) invaded Israel, they were invading a land to which they had no sovereign claim.

That means that under international law, the Arab armies started a war of aggression when they invaded the nascent State of Israel, and they could not use their offensive military force to change Israel’s borders and gain any territory.

So, when Egypt invaded and occupied Gaza, Egypt did not legally change the borders, and Egypt illegally occupied that land under international law.

Similarly, when Jordan invaded and occupied Judea, Samaria, and the eastern portions of Jerusalem (including the Old City and the #TempleMount), Jordan was illegally occupying that land, which the Jordanians renamed the “West Bank” (even though it had been known as and had been called “Judea and Samaria” for three millennia).

This term “West Bank” was only born out of Jordan’s aggressive, and therefore illegal, occupation in 1949. Therefore, it really has no business being considered an appropriate term for the land. 

But, since many in the international community insist on calling the land the “West Bank,” I will often use the phrase here to avoid confusion.

Now, the pundits filled the airwaves with grim predictions that Israel had no chance of survival, and the well-equipped regular armies of the Arab states (which had a combined population of nearly 200 million) were expected to carry out a second Holocaust on Israel’s entire Jewish population, which at the start of the war numbered a mere 600,000 men, women, & children with no formal military training.

Some people like to suggest today that Israel only exists or is only as powerful as it has become due to its friendship with the #UnitedStates. Well, that was definitely not true for the first several decades of Israel’s existence.

In fact, the United States enforced an arms embargo against Israel and refused to provide the new country with any military gear or weapons whatsoever.

On the other hand, Britain sided firmly with the Arab states, as Britain was attempting to maintain its Empire, its route through the Suez Canal, its route through the Levant to the “Jewel” of the Empire (#India), and its route to the “liquid gold” (#oil) they knew existed underground in places like Iraq.

So, Britain turned over the most strategic locations directly to the Arab forces, and the British-armed, British-trained, and British-led Arab Legion forces from Jordan were the most effective Arab forces in the 1948 War against Israel.

But a modern miracle occurred, and Israel survived the war. And on May 11, 1949 – after the armistice agreements were signed – Israel was admitted as a full UN member state.

When Israel ultimately signed armistice agreements with Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, these armistice agreements expressly – and at the behest of the Arab countries – said the armistice lines may not be legally construed as “borders” and have no effect on borders whatsoever.

Specifically, the armistice with Jordan on this point read at Article II(2): “the Armistice Demarcation Line is not to be construed in any sense as a political or territorial boundary, and is delineated without prejudice to the rights, claims and positions of either Party to the Armistice as regards ultimate settlement of the Palestine question.”

Of course, “either Party to the Armistice” only included the Israelis and the Jordanians – the only signatories to that armistice.

There was never any “armistice” with any representatives of a separate “Palestinian Arab” people since they had no sovereign state.

The armistice Israel signed with Jordan in 1949 created what some people repeatedly and incorrectly call the “67 borders” because that’s where the armistice lines remained on the eve of the Six Day War in 1967.

In reality, those lines were not “borders,” they were merely armistice lines – the lines signifying where the Israeli and Jordanian troops stopped fighting in 1949 – and they were expressly not to ever be construed as borders.

So, the “67 borders” is not and has never been a real thing.

It is a figment of someone’s imagination that has been repeated so often that many people believe the term to be accurate.

In fact, another term often used for the 1949 armistice lines (other than the misnomer “1967 borders”) is the “Green Line.”

And why is it called the “Green Line?”

Well, as the Israeli War of Independence was winding down in April of 1949, an Israeli colonel met with a Jordanian colonel in neutral hotel and used a green marker to draw the lines of where the Israeli troops and the Jordanian troops had stopped during the ceasefire.

That’s all.

This “Green Line” had no legal force, and it did not create any new or different legal realities on the ground whatsoever.

Meanwhile, we need to acknowledge what Jordan did with the “West Bank” once it occupied that land.

Jordan occupied Judea and Samaria in a war of aggression in 1949. During that war of aggression, Jordan #ethnicallycleansed the Land of all its Jews.

Recall that, after Britain carved out a new state of “Transjordan,” the British Mandate for Palestine included the entire area west of the Jordan River.

Therefore, there were many Jewish towns and villages in Judea and Samaria – some of which had existed for millennia and others of which were built during the Mandate period.

So, when the Jordanians conquered Judea and Samaria, they either drove out, or in some cases (such as at Kfar Etzion) completely massacred Jewish communities in places such as: the ancient community in Shechem (Nablus), Beit Ha’arava, Kalya, the four kibbutzim of the Etzion Bloc, Ein Senya, the ancient Jewish Quarter in Hebron, Atarot, Neve Ya’akov, the ancient Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem, and Tel Or.

For the first time in more than 3,000 years, because of the Jordanian invasion and ethnic cleansing, there were no Jews in Judea, Samaria, and the Old City of Jerusalem (note: similarly, the Egyptians ethnically cleansed the Gaza Strip of its Jews by killing or driving them out of Jewish towns such as Kfar Darom).

Meanwhile, during Jordan’s illegal administration of the so-called “West Bank,” Jordan refused to honor the portion of the armistice agreement that required the Jordanians to provide for free access for Jews to Holy Places and cultural institutions, as well as the use of the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.

In fact, during the 19-year Jordanian occupation, the Jews were barred entirely from the Old City and were denied access to the #WailingWall (which became a slum under Jordanian control) and to the #TempleMount itself – the holiest place in Judaism.

Not only did the Jordanians ethnically cleanse the entire ancient Jewish community from the very cradle of Jewish civilization in Judea, Samaria, and the Old City of Jerusalem, but the Jordanians also callously destroyed all Jewish synagogues as well.

The Jordanians destroyed the entire Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem and razed to the ground its 58 synagogues.

Then, to add insult to injury, the Jordanians went to the ancient Jewish Cemetery on the Mount of Olives where Jews had buried their dead for more than 2,500 years, and ransacked it, desecrated the graves, and smashed thousands of Jewish tombstones to use as building material and even to use as latrines.

The Jordanians also built a hotel directly on top of a Jewish cemetery and demolished Jewish graves to make way for a highway to that hotel.

Meanwhile, during their 19-year illegal occupation, Jordan also refused access to #Christians to their holy sites in Jerusalem.

Additionally, Jordanian snipers remained perched on the walls of the Old City and would frequently shoot at Israelis across the armistice lines.

Jordan did not only illegally occupy the “West Bank” as an aggressor state, however.

Jordan went a step further and illegally annexed the West Bank in April of 1950.

Via a Resolution adopted on April 24, 1950, by the Jordan House of Deputies and the House of Notables, Jordan declared, “Parliament, which represents both sides of the Jordan, resolves this day and declares: First, its support for complete unity between the two sides of the Jordan and their union into one State, which is the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan at whose head reigns King Abdullah Ibn al Husain.”

Notice that nothing was said in this Resolution about any “Palestinian Arab” people or any “Palestinian Arab” state.

In fact, at no time during Jordan’s 19-year rule over the West Bank did any Arab nation make any effort to set up a “Palestinian Arab State.”

Neither did the Egyptians make any attempt to set up a Palestinian Arab State in the Gaza Strip during its own 19-year rule over that area.

Meanwhile, Jordan’s annexation was never recognized by the international community.

And Jordan later gave up any of its alleged legal rights or title to any land in the West Bank or Jerusalem when it signed a Peace Treaty with Israel in 1994.

https://twitter.com/CptAllenHistory/status/1710357411821711559

Does Israel occupy the West Bank? (Part 2 of 2)

Now, we need to talk about the 1967 Six Day War, and the question of: to whom did the land legally belong to when #Israel first “#occupied” it at the end of that war?

First, let’s address the lead-up to the #SixDayWar itself.

I begin with the period of April to early May of 1967.

During those weeks, #Fatah – the #Palestinian #terrorist organization that was headed at the time by Yasser #Arafat and which is now headed by Mahmoud #Abbas – launched more than a dozen attacks on Israel and planted mines and explosives on Israel’s borders with Syria, Jordan, & Lebanon.

Also in May of 1967, and in a move that should be dumbfounding to all considering the holiness with which #Sunni (not #Shia) #Muslims treat the site, #Jordan turned the entire #TempleMount into a military base for the Jordanian National Guard.

Recall that there were only armistice agreements – ceasefires – between Israel & the Arab states.

There were no peace treaties at this point since every Arab state refused to acknowledge the existence of the State of Israel.

Thus, in the years following the end of Israel’s War of Independence, there would be times of armistice violations & saber rattling by Arab leaders.

However, the massive Arab arms build-up supplied by the #SovietUnion, combined with the words and acts of war (particularly on the part of #Egyptian President Gamal Abdel #Nasser), amped up starting in May of 1967 and made war inevitable.

On May 14, 1967, Nasser declared a state of emergency & paraded Egyptian troops through #Cairo on their way into the #Sinai border with Israel.

On May 16, 1967, Nasser ordered the #UN peacekeeping forces (the United Nations Emergency Force, or “UNEF”) to leave the Sinai.

Showing the total cowardice & lack of enforcement power of the UN, the UNEF immediately packed up and left without even bothering to bring the matter to the attention of the General Assembly.

So, UNEF troops left the Sinai the very same day (May 16, 1967), after which the Egyptian government-controlled Voice of the Arabs radio station proclaimed: “As of today, there no longer exists an international emergency force to protect Israel. We shall exercise patience no more. We shall not complain any more to the UN about Israel. The sole method we shall apply against Israel is total war, which will result in the extermination of Zionist existence.”

In the UNEF’s stead, the Egyptians tripled their own troop presence on the Sinai border with Israel by the end of the day on May 16, 1967.

On May 18, 1967, following Nasser’s lead, #Syria massed its troops along the border with Israel in the strategic #GolanHeights.

Also on May 18, 1967, General Murtagi, the Egyptian Commander of forces in the Sinai, declared an Order of the Day, which was broadcasted on Cairo Radio: "The Egyptian forces have taken up positions in accordance with our predetermined plans. The morale of our armed forces is very high, for this is the day they have so long been waiting for, for this holy war."

On the Voice of the Arabs radio station on May 18, 1967, it was also announced that “the sole method we shall apply against Israel is total war, which will result in the extermination of Zionist existence.”

The following day, May 19, 1967, the Voice of the Arabs radio station declared: “This is our chance Arabs, to deal Israel a mortal blow of annihilation, to blot out its entire presence in our holy land.”

Despite the clear threat of annihilation of the Jewish State by the Arab armies (who were funded & armed by the Soviet Union), on May 19, 1967, the #UnitedStates rebuffed Israel’s diplomatic appeals for tanks, jets, and/or for security assurances of any kind.

That same day (May 19, 1967), during an Israel Defense Forces General Staff meeting, Israel’s then Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin spoke of #America’s refusal to help and said, “It’s time we stop deluding ourselves that someone will come to our aid … This is the most grave situation since the War of Independence … [and Israel] should prepare for war.”

Then, on May 20, 1967, Syrian Defense Minister Hafez #Assad announced, “Our forces are now entirely ready not only to repulse the aggression, but to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the #Zionist presence in the Arab homeland. The Syrian army, with its finger on the trigger, is united … I as a military man, believe that the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation.”

Also on May 20, 1967, Israel mobilized many of its reserves, and remained on a knife’s edge for several long and extraordinarily stressful weeks. 

Israel was alone and facing the full might of a Soviet-backed and Soviet-armed Arab coalition.

On May 22, 1967, Nasser announced #Egypt was closing the Straits of Tiran to all Israeli shipping.

Blockading International Waterways is considered an act of war under international law, and Israel had long made clear that blocking the Israeli port of Eilat by closing the Straits of Tiran would be cause for war.

Thus, this move by Nasser was the casus belli for war. And Nasser most certainly knew this was the case, as he ended his announcement by taunting Rabin, saying, “Let him come, I’m waiting.”

Egypt had blockaded Israel’s one southern port in Eilat and the Gulf of Aqaba though which vital cargo, including 80% of Israel’s oil imports and its entire supply route with Asia, traversed.

The same day the #Soviet-backed Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran (May 22, 1967), Cairo radio announced, “The Arab people is firmly resolved to wipe Israel off the map.”

On May 23, 1967, the Syrians blocked UN observers from the border with Israel and meanwhile poured its troops into the strategic Golan Heights.

That same day, May 23, 1967, Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol called up the country’s remaining reservists so that all 80,000 were fully mobilized.

Meanwhile, Nasser was well-aware of the pressure he was exerting to force Israel’s hand, and on May 23, 1967, (the day after he closed the Straits of Tiran), he said defiantly: "The #Jews threaten to make war. I reply: Welcome! We are ready for war."

On May 26, 1967, Mohammed Heikal, Nasser’s closest advisor & the leading journalist in the Arab world, wrote in the Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram: “This week the closure of the Gulf of Aqaba to Israel was an alternative accomplished fact imposed and now being protected by the force of Arab arms. To Israel this is the most dangerous aspect of the current situation … Hence I say that Israel must resort to arms. Therefore I say that an armed clash between the UAR and the Israeli enemy is inevitable.”

On May 27, 1967, Nasser announced, "Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel."

Nasser continued to taunt Israel on May 28, 1967, when he announced, “We will not accept any ... coexistence with Israel. ... Today the issue is not the establishment of peace between the Arab states and Israel .... The war with Israel is in effect since 1948.”

On May 30, 1967, Nasser signed a defense pact with other Arab countries against Israel & announced, “The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and #Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel … to face the challenge, while standing behind us are the armies of #Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation. This act will astound the world. Today they will know that the Arabs are arranged for battle, the critical hour has arrived. We have reached the stage of serious action and not declarations.”

By May 30, 1967, Israel was already surrounded by more than 500,000 Arab troops on its borders, along with more than 5,000 tanks and 1,000 fighter jets. The Arabs had four times as many fighter jets and five times as many tanks as Israel.

On May 31, 1967, Iraqi President Abdel Rahman Aref, who had committed his troops to annihilate Israel as well said, “The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified. This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear – to wipe Israel off the map. We shall, God willing, meet in Tel Aviv and Haifa.”

During these last days of May 1967, the mood in Israel was grim and tense.

Schools and public transportation were suspended.

Teenagers tried to help by filling sandbags.

School buildings were converted to bomb shelters.

Medicine and more than 14,000 hospital beds were prepared.

Parks throughout the whole of Israel were dug up – to be ready for mass graves for the tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers and civilians that would surely die.

All of Israel felt a second #Holocaust was at its doorstep.

As June of 1967 approached, Israel was surrounded by the full might of the Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian militaries on their borders (with a large contingent of Iraqi forces moving into place, along with contingents from other Arab countries as well) (Picture on Left).

Because of its small population, Israel’s combat strength depended on civilian reservists, and with full mobilization (and oil imports largely blocked by Nasser’s illegal closing of the Straits of Tiran) Israel’s economy faced collapse.

As Nasser and Heikal correctly observed, in such a situation, Israel either had to surrender or attack.

On June 1, 1967, #PLO Chairman Ahmad Shukeiri announced, “We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants and as for the survivors – if there are any – the boats are ready to deport them.”

In the days before the Six Day War broke out, the New York Times reported that children in Cairo came home from school singing, “#Palestine… we are your fighters. We have sworn to drive the hated enemy from your soil.”

On June 4, 1967, Israel received official word from France – which had been one of Israel’s only arms suppliers during its first decade plus - that President Charles De Gaulle had issued a complete ban on weapons sales and transfers to Israel.

This was the final blow.

Israel was alone, severely outmanned, & wildly outgunned.

Israel, and its 2.5 million civilians, faced total annihilation.

And so, on June 5, 1967, with Israel’s troops having been mobilized and the entire country being shutdown and placed at a standstill for three weeks, with Isarel’s economy facing total collapse, and with Israel being alone without a friend in the world while facing Soviet-backed and Soviet-armed Arab troops along their entire border to the north, to the east, and to the south that sought to exterminate the Jews, Israel had no choice but to launch an attack.

But Prime Minister Eshkol was strategic in his attack, and he first took action solely against the biggest Arab army – the Egyptians.

Israel completely surprised Egypt by launching an air campaign that came from the west by cutting through the Mediterranean Sea; and in a matter of hours, Israel destroyed nearly the entire Egyptian air force.

The Syrians followed with an air attack, and Israel struck back with a shattering blow to the Syrian air force. By the end of the first day of fighting, at least half of the Syrian air force had also been destroyed.

Israel, however, specifically did not want to go to war with King Hussein of Jordan whom Israel saw as a more “moderate” Arab leader.

Israel was fighting for its survival and did not begin the war with any intention of gaining any land in the “West Bank” or otherwise.

Therefore, immediately after the attack against Egypt started on June 5, 1967, Prime Minister Eshkol sent a message to King Hussein pledging that Israel would not attack any Jordanian positions whatsoever until or unless Jordanian forces initiated hostilities against Israel.

King Hussein did not listen.

He would not “sit out” the “glorious Arab annihilation of the Jewish State.”

Hussein immediately ordered the Jordanian forces to takeover the UN headquarters near Talpiot and to begin shelling western #Jerusalem.

Jordanian snipers shot directly at people inside the King David Hotel while Jordanian mortars struck the Israeli #Knesset (Israeli parliament).

By June 7, 1967, Jordanian forces were firing artillery barrages toward Tel Aviv and western Jerusalem.

Israel miraculously fought back and managed to repel the Jordanian forces, and retake the Old City of Jerusalem, #Judea, and #Samaria within the next two days.

Within the brief span of six days, the #IDF overran the whole Sinai Peninsula (up to the #SuezCanal); retook the Old City of Jerusalem; retook the entire “#WestBank”; and, in the last days, captured a great part of the extremely strategic Golan Heights, including the dominant Mount Hermon - from then on "the eyes and ears of Israel".

After Israel captured the Old City, Israel’s Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan made a speech directly to Arabs indicating Israel’s peaceful intent and its pledge to preserve the religious freedom for all faiths in Jerusalem.

Specifically, Dayan said, “To our Arab neighbors we extend, especially at this hour, the hand of peace. To members of the other religions, Christians and Muslims, I hereby promise faithfully that their full freedom and all their religious rights will be preserved. We did not come to Jerusalem to conquer the Holy Places of others.”

So, at the conclusion of the 1967 Six Day war, what was the status of Judea and Samara (the “West Bank”)?

There are two possibilities.

One, the land was Israel’s under the axiomatic, unflinching international legal rule of uti possidetis juris. If this is the case, then Israel merely “liberated” its own land in 1967, and a state cannot occupy its own land. Therefore, no occupation exists.

Or two, one could argue (though there is no legal precedent for this) that because Israel never “perfected” its sovereign borders initially in 1948-1949, the land was “disputed.”

Regardless, even if the land was “disputed,” Israel had by far the strongest claim to legal title to the land.

Never in the history of planet Earth has there been any territory that contained a sovereign Arab State of Palestine, and the Jordanians – to the extent they ever could have claimed sovereignty in the “West Bank” and the Old City of Jerusalem – expressly waived any claims to those lands through its Peace Treaty with Israel in 1994.

In either scenario, Israel would have the unassailable legal right to establish “settlements” in the “West Bank.”

Mandates had created borders of many countries – all of which are still in force today.

The very existence of Jordan, as well as most of the borders of the Middle East, are based fully on mandatory borders.

Additionally, while many people on television and at the UN like to repeatedly call Israel’s alleged “occupation” an “illegal occupation,” under international law, occupation is, in fact, legal.

It is yet another express & unambiguous tenant of international law that any country is entitled to occupy areas of land won in a defensive war until there is no longer any belligerency.

Since there has been no end to the belligerency, even if Israel is “occupying” the “West Bank,” it is doing so legally (just like the American occupation of #Berlin and #Japan following World War II, which lasted for decades, was considered entirely “legal”).

Since international law applies equally to all countries and is not/cannot be applicable only to Israel, we can look at how international law has treated and/or will certainly treat similar situations.

For example, we almost never hear about “illegal occupations” in any of the following scenarios: 

East Timor is occupied by Indonesia; 

Western Sahara is occupied by Morocco; 

Lebanon is occupied by Syria; 

Cambodia is occupied by Vietnam; 

Azerbaijan is occupied by Armenia; 

Georgia is occupied by Russia; 

Abhazia is occupied by Russia; and 

Crimea (and now other portions of the Ukraine, such as the Donbas Region) is occupied by Russia.

Turkey, for example, occupies Northern Cyprus through an illegal aggressive war of expansion. However, we almost never hear about the Turkish presence in Cyprus; and we certainly don’t hear it being constantly raised on television, in newspapers, or at the UN as being an “illegal occupation.”

#Crimea is another good example.

If Russia continues to occupy Crimea for a period lasting 19 years (as long as Jordan occupied the “West Bank”) would the international community suddenly proclaim that 19 years is long enough, and #Russia is the legal sovereign in Crimea? Of course not.

If #Ukraine manages to retake Crimea from Russia, will the international community suddenly proclaim Ukraine as an “illegal occupier” simply because Russia had been the administrative power in the region for many years? Not a chance.

Why is that?

Is it because the people of Crimea are mostly ethnically Ukrainian?

No, in fact most of the people of Crimea are ethnically Russian.

Is it because the people of Crimea are mostly religiously or culturally tied to Ukraine?

No, in fact most of the people of Crimea are religiously and culturally tied to Russia over Ukraine.

The only reason the entire international community (outside of Russia) recognizes Crimea as being part of Ukraine is because the Kremlin decided in 1954 to redraw the boundaries of the Soviet Union’s Socialist Republics to include Crimea as part of the Ukraine. At the time, it did not really matter since all Soviet Socialist Republics were run by the #Kremlin anyway.

But when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, the borders of the newly independent country of Ukraine, even if they were “not fair,” become the internationally recognized borders of Ukraine because of the unambiguous and universally applied international legal rule of uti possidetis juris, which required that Ukraine retain the borders that exactly matched the borders of the previous geopolitical entity in that territory.

Period.

End of story.

No arguments to be made.

The role of the Oslo Accords

In 1994, the #PalestinianAuthority (“PA”) was established as part of the Oslo Accords.

Israel did not have to agree to the creation of the PA, nor did it have to agree to grant the PA autonomy in certain areas of the West Bank, but it did.

While under international law there remains no independent sovereign state of “Palestine,” the PA does operate independently of Israel.

It is important to note that it is the PA, not Israel, that governs the lives of Palestinians living in the West Bank.

So, when people complain that West Bank Arabs do not get to vote in Israeli elections, that’s just nonsense.

West Bank Arabs get to vote in their own elections for the PA that governs them.

Only, unfortunately for the West Bank Palestinians, the corrupt Mahmoud Abbas is no champion of democracy and is much more interested in stealing hundreds of millions of dollars in money donated for the betterment of the Palestinian people than he is in creating a democratic “State of Palestine.”

Essentially, Abbas has no incentive to call for elections (which polls say he would lose) when he can continue flying around on his $50 million private jet, hold offshore accounts to the tune of more than $1 billion, all while being treated like a “head of state” around the world.

That is why Abbas is presently in the 18th year of his 4-year term as PA President.

Why don’t the Palestinians have an independent state today?

The fact that the #Palestinians still do not have an independent state of their own is entirely the fault of the Palestinian leadership.

Israel has offered the Palestinians a fully independent state on multiple occasions, such as in 2000 (Camp David), 2001 (Taba), and 2008 (PM Olmert’s offer) (Photo on Right); and every time, the PA has rejected the offer.

By the way, the PA (which arose out of the PLO – the Palestine Liberation Movement, which is supposedly a “national liberation movement”) has the mind-boggling “honor” of being the only “national liberation movement” in modern times to ever reject the opportunity to gain a fully independent state. And they’ve done it over, and over, and over, and over.

Moreover, those who care about the conflict tend, by and large, not to understand the core issue.

Far too many people continue to think the conflict is not over because of “occupation,” “settlements,” borders, & Palestinian statehood.

People around the world who continue to, stubbornly and unflinchingly, push for a “two state solution” have simply failed to come to terms with the extent to which the Palestinians are committed to the “Palestine from-the river-to-the-sea” vision.

If that was not their vision, the Palestinians would have had a state long ago – possibly even as far back as 1937 with the recommendation from the Peel Commission or at least with the UN Partition Plan in 1947.

However, the Palestinians’ continued commitment to a so-called “right of return,” and their willingness to walk away from repeated deals without one, illustrates how unwilling Palestinian leadership is and has always been to accept the State of Israel in any borders.

Simply, by demanding the right of millions of Palestinians to “return” to what is now Israel (even though well over 90% of them never lived there a day in their lives) would effectively end the Jewish state. This is no accident.

No Western countries would support the expressly stated idea of a Palestine “from the river to the sea,” so the Palestinians have speciously created the impression that the “#refugees” are a “secondary issue,” and a solvable issue at that – which, by the way, it is not under the Palestinian leadership’s current stance.

Despite both Arafat’s and Abbas’ repeated (over and over and over) stance that there is a legal right of return for millions of Palestinian “refugees” (there is not), and that this must be recognized in any agreement with Israel, much of the international community continues to drown out the express words of the Palestinian leadership and simply ignore the obvious contradiction that occurs between “peace” and the “return” of millions of Palestinian “refugees” to the State of Israel – which would destroy the State of Israel.

Meanwhile, in the event a Palestinian state is ever created in some portion of the “West Bank,” then there is absolutely no reason why the Jewish communities living there should not be permitted to stay.

Jews legally live in Judea and Samaria under international law as stated in the British Mandate for Palestine, and the Jews there built solely on state (not private) land.

In the event a Palestinian leadership ever arises that is interested in making peace with Israel and establishing a state in the “West Bank” (as opposed to making a Palestinian state to replace the entirety of Israel), then the decision of whether to remain in their homes in that new Palestinian state should be left up to the Jews living there.

Just as 20% of Israel today is Arab citizens that enjoy the same rights as all other citizens and enjoy equal protection under the law, there is no reason an even lesser percentage of Jews could not live in a future Palestinian state.

Frankly, it is appalling that the PA has repeatedly stated that any future Palestinian State must not have one single Jew living in it.

How is the international community okay with this?

That is a disgustingly racist point of view with no legal basis or logical reasoning.

And yet, the international community continues to humor Abbas, treat him like a head of state, and push Israel to make concessions for an alleged “two state solution” that the PA has time and again refused to accept.