Does Israel Occupy the West Bank?
How many times have you heard that Israel “occupies” the West Bank? But have you ever asked yourself whether that’s true? Or even what it means? Eugene Kontorovich, professor of law at George Mason University, dives into these questions and uncovers some surprising answers.
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Script:
How many times have you heard that Israel “occupies” the West Bank?
Probably more times than you can count.
But have you ever asked yourself whether it’s true? Or even what it means?
Let’s do so now in the most objective way possible; that is, in the way that all territorial questions everywhere else in the world are resolved.
To do this, we must look at the law.
But first, we need a little history.
Up until 100 years ago, the areas now called Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, and all the countries around them—were part of the Ottoman Empire, which ruled over a vast area and many peoples. Neither the Jews nor those Arabs we now call Palestinians had a state, though the Jews had a nationalist movement calling for one.
Everything changed after World War I. The Ottomans fought on the losing side with Germany. By end of the war in 1918, their empire had disintegrated, leaving the British and French in control of much of its territory.
In earlier times, the victors would likely have kept this land as colonies for themselves. But there was a new spirit of democracy in the air. The allies—including the British, French, and Americans—agreed that the former Ottoman lands should be allowed to become independent nation-states.
After the war, the nations of the world created the League of Nations, a precursor to the United Nations. Meeting in San Remo, Italy in 1920, they set up what was known as “the Mandate system.” The colonies of the defeated powers—Germany and the Ottoman Empire—were converted into distinct geopolitical entities, which became the countries now known as Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.
None of this is controversial.
There was one other Mandate issued—the Mandate for Palestine. “Palestine” was merely a geographic label—the name the Romans gave the Jewish Kingdom of Judea after they conquered it. There was nothing exclusively Arab about it.
The Mandate provided that Palestine would become a “national home” for the Jewish people. There was a simple reason for this: the League recognized that Jews were the indigenous people of the area.
All the mandatory territories in the Middle East transitioned to statehood in the 30s and 40s, with Israel the last to do so, declaring independence in May 1948.
So, now we get to the legal stuff.
What were the borders of the State of Israel when it declared independence?
International law has a simple and universally applicable rule for determining borders. It’s called the Uti possidetis juris principle (lawyers love Latin phrases). The rule provides that when a new country is created, its borders match the borders of the previous geopolitical entity in that territory.
For example, the borders of Ukraine, Latvia, and Azerbaijan are exactly what they were when they were parts of the Soviet Union.
Other considerations, such as demographics, are not taken into account—because without a simple, easily-applied rule, a new country’s borders would never be settled—a recipe for permanent conflict.
Applying this rule to Israel means that it had sovereign claims to all of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and Gaza because those were its borders according to the Mandate of Palestine.
To be sure, the United Nations proposed a resolution in 1947 with different borders and a much smaller area for a Jewish state. But that resolution was a non-binding recommendation. Nothing more. It did not have the force of law.
We know what happened next.
Upon declaring independence, Israel was immediately invaded by five Arab armies, seeking to destroy it.
Israel survived, but Jordan managed to seize parts of Jerusalem, as well as Judea and Samaria, which it dubbed “the West Bank.” All the Jews living in these areas were expelled—or, to use a contemporary term, ethnically cleansed.
Here we need to introduce another key principle of international law: a war of aggression cannot be used to change a country’s borders.
For the complete transcript visit: https://www.prageru.com/video/does-israel-occupy-the-west-bank
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Prager u is conservative propaganda funded by fracking billionaires. Look elsewhere for balanced history.
You skipped over 3,800 years of Jewish history.
The name Palestine was not used until AFTER the Jewish revolt in the year 70 AD and the Romans destroyed the Jewish temple in Jerusalem and the Jews left the area. The Romans wanted to erase the Jewish identity.
Then the arab armies from Arabia invaded the land of Israel in the year 636 AD conquered it. The arab armies continued in every direction taking all of Northern Africa, Spain, Sicily, going north to Russia, and east to India. The arabs are the invaders.
As for the mandate, it did absolutely nothing, and the Jews actually began returning to Israel in the late 1800's, long before the 1920 mandate. The Jews who returned to the land of Israel BOUGHT land/homes from the arabs at increased prices. No land was EVER stolen.
Also, the name Judea applies to a specific time when there were actually two Jewish countries, Judea in the south and Israel in the north.
It should. It’s Israel’s land. It is ancient Judea and Samaria. Where do you think the name “Jew” comes from? Judea. It’s their land.
This is the most zionint bigoted racist video I’ve ever seen.
No.
Amazing how an accumulation of little lies will likely convince a lot of uninformed and ignorant people that these half-truths and bad faith delivery are somehow "facts". All I can say to Prager fans is "do your own research" because this video is the geo-political equivalent of a pseudo-science infomercial pushing the latest (take your pick.. skin care/anti-aging/erectile dysfunction, etc.) medication. Eugene Kontorovich keeps harking back to the simplicity of "international law", yet glosses over the fact that the very same laws define what Israel has been doing for 75+ years as apartheid and ethnic cleansing.
Israel, uniquely amongst any country, has never said what it considered it's borders. This video is trying to say that legally Israel is all of Palestine. So what was to happen to the people who were already living there? The vast majority of whom were not Jewish?
So Native Americans have the right to rule america and displace Americans from their homes?
This is embarrassing propaganda. That is purposely misleading.
plasteninans werent offered a state several times. it was only two times. while israel occupying these two regions you claimed are not occupied.
❤❤
This guy looks Jewish. If Israel wants to keep a territory they probably have to give the people who live there their rights.
What cause have we to complain about their fierce hatred to us? For eight years now, they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we turn into our homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived.
Moshe Dayan
Before (the Palestinians) very eyes we are possessing the land and the villages where they and their ancestors have lived We are the generation of colonizers and without the steel helmet and the gun barrel we cannot plant a tree and build a house.
Moshe Dayan
Hasbara nonsense. Read Ilan Pappé. God is not a real estate agent. DNA tests are illegal in Israel because they know Palestinians have more of a genetic claim to the land than some white guy from Brooklyn who found his Jewish identity.
Propaganda. Almost 90% of it is twisted reality. This colonial state lives in its own made up world.
GOEBELS: "A thousand times repeated lie becomes the truth.
Mr. Goebels found talented pupils….
Man how you can be such a liar! What about Jews immigration to Palestine? How many Jews where in Palestine in 1900 , in 1939 and later? It was Jews land 2000 years ago!
There is no difference between Nazi propaganda and Israeli propaganda to promote genocide
What a selective description of history
Anyone informed enough that agrees in the undeniable fact that Israel occupies the West Bank would never be convinced of the opposite with this video. This video is just for the people that do know the undeniable fact that Israel occupies the West Bank, but are not totally comfortable in admitting it, so they lie to themselves because they have some doubts and dilemmas when they support an ethno-nationalist supremacist state built on top of an ethnic cleansing. They would say that they support ""Western Values"" (whatever that means), which in fact is a way to say that they are white supremacists without explicitly saying these words
This video skips a few important facts:
1. The rise of pan-Arab national identity, which started in the mid-1800s.
2. The Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire, supported by the British, which broke out in 1916. The British promised the Arabs to support them in forming a new Arab state from modern day Syria to modern day Yemen.
3. The British betrayal and partitioning the Middle East between the British Empire and France in 1917 — the Sykes-Picot agreement.
4. The fact that at the beginning of the 20th century, the population of Palestine comprised around 700,000 Arabs and 80-90,000 Jews.
5. Today around 3.3M Arabs and only 300,000 Jews live in the West Bank. The Jews have been using brutal intimidation against the Arabs to drive them out of their homes, even killing them with impunity, enjoying the protection of the IDF and the Israeli government.
6. The Oslo accords didn't give the Arabs control over the West Bank. It dividided it into zones A, B, and C. Zone A is governed by the Palestinian Authority, Zone B — jointly by Israel and the PA, Zone C, the largest one, roughly 60% of the West Bank, by Israel. Israel keeps refusing to give permits new homes in Zone C, and when they build them anyway, the Jews send bulldozers and destroy them.
This is such a biased one-sided video. I'm so done with PragerU. Screw this channel.