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 of 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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