Palestinian Authority | First One Through

Summary: Almost every major media outlet refers to the Gaza Strip and the west bank of the Jordan River as “Palestinian Territories”, when in fact, those areas are actually “Israeli territories” and “Palestinian Authority Territories.”

Most places in the world are part-and-parcel of a country. However, there are situations when a place is administered by a government which has not incorporated the land and assumed full sovereignty.

The United States of America historically had several large territories as the country expanded, including Alaska and Hawaii. Today, the USA continues to have several territories including:

Puerto Rico
US Virgin Islands
Guam
Northern Mariana Islands
American Samoa

These territories have some rights and protections of the US government, but not others such as the right to vote.

Israeli Territories and
Palestinian Authority Territories
1995 to Present

It is easy and obvious to understand that there are no “Palestinian Territories”, because there is no such thing as the State of Palestine (as of this writing, in any event). Most of the area east of the Green Line (EGL/ west bank of the Jordan River, WBJR), is controlled and administered by Israel.

Under the Oslo Accords, EGL was divided into three parts: Areas A, B and C. Area A was handed over to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and it has complete control of that land. Area C is “Israeli Territory” and is completely controlled by Israel. Area B is a hybrid, which is under the civil administration of the Palestinian Authority, but security control of Israel.

Breakdown of Areas A, B and C
on the west bank of the Jordan River

Gaza would ostensibly be called “Palestinian Authority Territory”, however, the PA has no control in the area. The governing party is Hamas, which won elections in 2006 and routed any PA personnel from the region in 2007. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

Israeli Territories
1967 to 1995

The Oslo Accords between the State of Israel and the PLO started the process of breaking the Israeli territories into areas with local Palestinian Arab control. Before the Oslo Accords, all of Gaza and EGL/ west bank of the Jordan River (WBJR) were only Israeli territories.

Israel took control of Gaza from Egypt in June 1967 during the Six Day War. Egypt had amassed a large army and announced its intention of attacking Israel, so Israel preemptively attacked Egypt and seized Gaza. In response to Israel’s preemptive attack on Egypt, Jordan attacked Israel from the EGL/WBJR. Jordan lost the region and gave up all claims to the land in 1988.

Jordan and Egyptian Territory
1949 to 1967

In May 1948, the Palestinian Arabs and five Arabs armies attacked Israel as it declared independence from Great Britain. At the end of the war in 1949, Jordan assumed control of much of Judea and Samaria in an area which became known as the “west bank of the Jordan River (WBJR)” in the United Nations, ultimately shortened to the “West Bank”. Jordan annexed that area in 1950, gave all Arabs living there citizenship and expelled all of the Jews from the area, counter to the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Egypt assumed control of the Gaza Strip, but did not annex the area.

British Territory 1922 to 1948
Ottoman Territory 1517 to 1922

At the end of World War I, the defeated Ottoman Empire was carved up into several areas (including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Jordan) which were administered by the French and British. The lands currently known as WBJR and Gaza were part-and-parcel of the British Mandate and had no unique laws or characteristics. Similarly under Ottoman rule for hundreds of years before the British, those areas were neither divided nor distinct.

As detailed above, there are not, nor have there ever been “Palestinian Territories”. Such terminology inherently upgrades the status of the Palestinian Authority and eliminates the legal role and status that Israel has in Areas B and C.

Related First.One.Through articles

Names and Narrative: The West Bank / Judea and Samaria

Nicholas Kristof’s “Arab Land”

The Subtle Discoloration of History: Shuafat

The Legal Israeli Settlements

On January 1, 2015, the New York Times editorial page led with a piece titled “The Palestinians Desperation Move.” The opinion piece advanced the case that acting Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas must be frustrated in his mission to create a new Palestinian State.

…Creating a State?

Desperate people take what they can. They view their options as limited and prospects as weak. They seize any opportunities to advance their main goal, whatever that might be.

Witness early Zionists agreeing to any size and configuration of a Jewish state, despite their dream for a larger state based on the British Mandate of Palestine in 1922. They voted “yes” to a United Nations partition in 1947. They voted “yes” to greater Jerusalem and greater Bethlehem being international cities.

The Arabs, on the other hand, consistently voted “no” at every juncture.

They launched riots in 1936-9 to stop Jewish immigration and creation of the Jewish state
The Arabs voted no to any partition of the land in 1937
Voted “No” to the 1947 UN Partition plan
Joined a war with five Arab armies to destroy Israel in 1948
Aligned with Arab armies again in 1967 to destroy Israel
Said “No” to recognition of Israel; “No” to peace with Israel; “No” to negotiations with Israel in Khartoum in 1967
“No” to the US President Clinton’s plan to create a Palestinian state in September 2000
Voted for Hamas to 58% of the Palestinian parliament, a group which is rabidly anti-Semitic and calls for the destruction of Israel and a new Palestine over the entire region
Gave no response to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s two-state proposal in 2007
- Israeli Arab MK Ahmed Tibi described “the maximum proposed by Olmert did not approach the minimum acceptable that Abu Mazen needed to reach an agreement.”
An insistence on setting pre-conditions before peace talks would even commence under US President Obama in 2009
Abbas waited nine months into the ten-month settlement freeze to begin negotiations with the Israelis
Advanced a ridiculous narrative that Jews living in the area makes a Palestinian state “non-viable”
Abbas refused to advance talks with Israeli PM Netanyahu in March 2014, and opted to unilaterally join international forums (contrary to the Oslo Accords) and signed a unity pact with Hamas

These are not activities of a people that is “desperate” for a state. These are not actions of leaders who are willing to make compromises to establish a country and move their people forward.

… Maximizing a Jew-free State and/or Destroying the current Jewish State

Palestinian actions have consistently had three main areas of focus:

Creating a new state free of any Jews
Maximize the size of the new Palestinian state: either the entirety of Israel+West Bank+Gaza or using the 1949 Armistice Lines
If there remains a state of Israel, it should be small and not Jewish

A Jew-free Palestinian state: Palestinians have sought to recreate the conditions of the Arab-controlled regions that expelled and barred the Jews from 1949 to 1967. The Palestinian leadership has continually called for preventing any “settlements”, meaning barring any Jewish people from living anywhere in Gaza, the West Bank and the eastern part of Jerusalem that was controlled by Jordan from 1949-1967. Various Palestinian efforts towards peace talks have demanded a pre-condition of Jewish settlement freezes before any peace talks could begin. They have lobbied the United Nations to condemn any and all settlements as illegal (even though Jews always lived in the lands before the illegal Jordanian takeover in 1949).

Palestinian law has repeatedly cemented the position of a Jew-free state. In 1973, it passed legislation that made the sale of any land or home to an Israeli to be a capital offense. The Palestinian Authority announced in 1997 that it would seek the death penalty for anyone selling land to a Jew or Israeli.

Abbas has repeatedly voiced his vision of a Jew-free Palestine, stating that he would not allow the presence of a single Israeli- civilian or soldier – in a new Palestine.

Abbas and other members of the Palestinian Authority have also called on the world to engage in a BDS- Boycott, Divestment and Sanction – of any Israeli company that has a presence in the territories they hope will become a Palestinian state. Their aggressive efforts in advancing BDS further underscores their desire to not only prevent any Jews living in a future state, but even establishing businesses there as well.

Even the Universities on the West Bank have laws that prohibit Jews from stepping foot onto campuses.

In short, Palestinian law and leadership calls for banning Jews from visiting, working, buying land or living in the territories it wants for a future state.

Those are the official positions of the “moderate” acting-president of the Palestinian Authority and the existing Palestinian laws. However, the majority of the Palestinian people are in favor of Hamas and would elect someone from Hamas as president according to every poll over the past few years. The Palestinian public elected Hamas to 58% of the Palestinian parliament in their last election in January 2006. Hamas’s charter and its leaders call for the outright killing of Jews and have specifically identified the Jewish nature of Israel as the root cause of the conflict: “In face of the Jews’ usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised…”

Maximize the size of the Palestinian state. It is not surprising that the Palestinians want to maximize the size of a future state; Israel wants to maximize what it can achieve in negotiations too. However, as detailed here, the working parameters for the Palestinians are to achieve “maximums” and certainly not reflective of a group that is “desperate” and willing to compromise.

Hamas calls for a single Arab Palestine to cover Gaza, the West Bank and all of Israel. They have never backed down or waivered from their 1988 charter in any statement from any leader since that time.

Abbas’ Fatah party has stated that it will “compromise” for a Palestine that follows the “1967 borders.” It states this, despite the fact the 1967 “borders” were not borders but Armistice Lines established in 1949 with Egypt and Jordan. Both of those armistice agreements specifically stated that those lines were not intended to be borders. After repeated invasions and wars by the Palestinians and its Arab allies, Israel has made clear that it will not accept those 1949 Armistice lines as final borders.

“Moderate” Palestinians argue that United Nations Resolution 242 stated that Israel should remove its armed forces from territory acquired during the 1967 war. While the Israelis point out that the language specifically does not state that it must leave “all” of the territory, Abbas is demanding such complete withdrawal; a “maximum” position within the two-state framework.

No recognition of the Jewish State. For much of Israel’s existence, the Arab world refused to recognize Israel in any matter at all and viewed Israel’s entire existence as illegitimate. The Arab world underscored the point with the famous three “no’s” in 1967 including refusing to recognize the basic existence of Israel.

In 1975, Yasser Arafat and the PLO effectively lobbied the United Nations to label the national aspirations of Jews to be a form of racial discrimination. Specifically, Resolution 3379 adopted by the General Assembly referred to the “the racist regime in occupied Palestine” and determined “that zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.” Such efforts have nothing to do with establishing a new country and everything to do with delegitimizing the rights and claims of Jews to their own state.

Today, Palestinian leadership continues on the same path of delegitimizing Israel. Palestinian leadership makes a point of denying Jewish history in the Holy land. Whether addressing the United Nations General Assembly or speaking to reporters, acting Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas denies any connection between Jews and their history in the land. In 2014, Abbas stated that “they [Israel] imagine that by brute force they can invent a history, establish claims and erase solid religious and historical facts.”

Abbas has made very clear that he will never recognize the Jewishness of the state of Israel:

“I’ll never recognize Israel as a Jewish state.” (2014);
“We shall never agree to recognize the Jewish state.” (2013);
“I will never recognize the Jewishness of the state, or a “Jewish state.” (2011)

Underscoring these points is the insistence of a “Right of return” for descendants of pseudo-refugees to the state of Israel. He believes that the 4.6 million SAPs (Stateless Arabs from Palestine) should be entitled to move into Israel as opposed to a new Palestinian state. The entire point of partitioning the land for two peoples and creating a new Palestinian state is to create a home for these Arabs. What is the point of sending the grandchildren of Arabs who left homes in 1948 to a country they despise (Israel) when they are just creating the country they dreamed of (Palestine)?

For almost a century, the Palestinians have tried various paths to achieve their goals: broad regional wars; local wars; intifadas; riots; peace talks and lobbying the United Nations. But what are they hoping to achieve?

If the primary goal of the Palestinian people was a state, would they care if a small number of Jews lived there? Would they so strongly object to recognizing Israel as a Jewish State? Would they insist on an all-or-nothing strategy of getting everything in negotiations?

Are Palestinians truly desperate for a state or are they desperate to deny any rights and legitimacy of Jews to live in the land?