After conquering the Golan Heights (from Syria), the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip (from Egypt), and Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem (from Jordan) in the 1967 Six Day War, Israel allowed Jews to move there and build communities (settlements).
Some were opposed and asked the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for its opinion. Meeting secretly, the ICRC decided that Israel had violated Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (FGC), and declared that Israel had illegally “occupied Palestinian territory” (OPT).
The ICRC, however, ignored the fact that Article 49 (6) refers to areas which legally and legitimately belonged to another country. Since these areas had been part of the British Mandate when they were conquered by Arab states in the 1948 War of Independence, that does not apply to what the IDF conquered in 1967.
Unilaterally, the ICRC turned this into a weapon against Israel. The ICRC did not rely on any legal precedents; it made up “the law.” Acting as judge and jury, its decisions lacked any due process, transparency, or judicial ethics. Moreover, since all decisions and protocols of the ICRC are closed, even the identities of the people involved are secret. And there is no appeal.
The ICRC’s condemnation of Israel became the basis for accusing Israel of “occupying Palestinian land.” Although most of the international community, NGOs, and institutions, such as the International Court of Justice, accept the ICRC’s ruling as binding, that is not true.
Israel’s claim to the territories is based on the UN Charter (Article 80), which states: “...nothing in this Chapter shall be construed in or of itself to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which members of the United Nations may respectively be parties.”
The designation of “Palestine” as a “Jewish National Home” by the League of Nations was incorporated in the British Mandate and international agreements which guarantee Israel’s sovereign rights in this area. All Jewish settlements, therefore, are legal.
From legal debate to political reality
Amidst growing opposition to Israel, the League of Nations and then the UN proposed dividing “Palestine” between Jews and Arabs, albeit changing the terms of the Mandate. Jews accepted it; the Arabs launched a war of extermination in 1948 when Britain ended the Mandate and left.
The armistice in 1949, which Arabs call nakba (tragedy), did not result in a Palestinian state because the Arabs didn’t want it. Arab leaders never accepted Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, and most refuse to do so today.
Pressured by Russia and the Arab states, the Security Council adopted Resolution 242, which spoke of Israel’s military withdrawal from some – not all – of these conquered territories in the context of a final peace agreement. The question of sovereignty remained elusive and problematic.
Israel refrained from asserting full sovereignty over the newly acquired areas, and, in the absence of any reciprocal gestures, agreed to allow Jews to return to Jerusalem’s Old City and Gush Etzion, where a flourishing group of communities had been wiped out in 1947.
Striking a compromise, it allowed the building of Kiryat Arba, near Hebron, where the Jewish community had been wiped out in Arab riots of 1929; Jews were permitted to pray at the Cave of Machpela, an ancient building containing the tombs of Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs, for the first time in 700 years.
Although free to leave UNRWA refugee camps, with new opportunities and generous funding, Palestinians did not call for statehood, or peace with Israel. The PLO, which claims to represent Palestinians, was/is dedicated to terrorism, not peaceful nation-building.
Arab riots in the “first Intifada” (1988) prompted a “moral” issue: Jews should not rule over (“occupy”) others. Therefore, in 1993, Israel withdrew unilaterally from nearly all “Palestinian” cities, towns and villages and turned over vast tracts of land to the PA/PLO as part of the Oslo Accords, and, a few years later, in the Wye and Hebron agreements.
Offers of statehood were rejected, followed by the Second Intifada (2001-2004). When Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, the “Disengagement,” it became a bastion of Hamas. “Land for peace” in reality means “land for terrorism.”
Influenced by these events, incited by Islamists, encouraged by Israeli concessions, and seeking Israel’s destruction, Arabs and Muslims demand an end to “Jewish occupation,” and Israel’s destruction.
Some Israelis contend that Israel’s “Jewish and democratic” nature will be threatened if it continues to include large numbers of Arabs who do not identify with the state. Most “Palestinians” in the territories, however, live under PA/PLO, not under Israeli rule.
The dispute now, therefore, is over territory, not people. The idea of a “two-state solution,” creating another Palestinian state, in addition to Jordan, is not realistic or practical.
Extending Israel’s sovereignty to the territories, and allowing Arab residents civil and humanitarian rights, without full political rights, as exist in most other countries, could be considered in conjunction with resettling Arab “refugees” in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, etc., dismantling UNRWA camps and ending terrorism and incitement against Israel.
An Arab Palestinian state would be an existential threat to Israel, and therefore is not an option.
The writer is a PhD historian, writer, and journalist.