Tag Archives: West Bank

Two Things To Do Now To Prevent October 7 From the West Bank

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For twenty years, Israel relied on a security barrier to prevent the suicide bombings and shootings of the Second Intifada. It worked. While ninety percent of that barrier was not a concrete wall, but a high-tech fence—cameras, sensors, patrol roads, and layered detection system – it still reduced terror attacks from the West Bank by over 90 percent. Israelis and the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) rebuilt their lives believing that a fence, not a fortress, was enough.

Then came October 7.

SAPs crashing through the fence between Gaza and Israel on October 7, 2023

Hamas gunmen bulldozed, exploded, and burned their way through what was—on paper—one of the most advanced border fences in the world. They murdered, raped, tortured, and kidnapped civilians in a genocidal assault that shattered the central premise of Israel’s security doctrine: that a fence and technology could stop an army of terrorists long enough for the IDF to respond.

That assumption is gone.

If a similar surprise assault were launched from the West Bank near the country’s major population centers—Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, the coastal cities—the casualties could be catastrophic. Israel is nine miles wide at its narrowest point. One breach is not a tactical event. It is an existential one.

The Barrier Must Change Because the Threat Has Changed

A fence can be cut, rammed, or climbed. A reinforced, multi-layered wall—physical, electronic, aerial, and subterranean—is a different proposition. The lesson of Gaza is not to abandon the idea of separation, but to upgrade it to match the enemy’s capabilities and intentions.

Israel does not have the luxury of guessing whether future attackers will try to slaughter dozens or thousands. The security architecture must assume the worst case—because the worst case already happened.

In Hashmonaim, Israeli backyards are a stone’s through away from the Security Barrier (photo: First One Through)

Disarming Militias Is Not Just for Gaza

The world is focused on disarming Hamas in Gaza. It must also confront a parallel obligation: militant groups in the West Bank cannot remain armed if there is to be any political horizon, for Palestinian Arabs or Israelis.

If Gaza is demilitarized but the West Bank is not, the threat simply shifts geography. The barrier is not a substitute for disarmament. It is a second line of defense, not the first.

Lasting security requires:

1️⃣ Complete disarmament of organized militant groups seeking Israel’s destruction.
2️⃣ Security control capable of preventing re-armament.
3️⃣ A barrier strong enough to make a surprise attack militarily unachievable.

Without those three components, diplomatic talk of a “future Palestinian state” is not a peace process—it is a gamble with tens of thousands of civilian lives.

A wall is not a symbol of failure. It is the price of survival when the alternative is the erasure of towns near the 1949 Armistice Lines with Jordan.

A move towards coexistence between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs cannot be limited to the threat from Gazans but from West Bank Arabs as well. Disarmament of West Bank Arabs and an upgrade of the security fence must happen now as well.

Peace requires trust. Trust requires time. Time requires security that cannot be breached in seven minutes by men with bulldozers and grenades and genocidal jihadi rage.

Until a day comes when coexistence is real—not chanted, not theorized, not negotiated—Israel must ensure that no armed faction can cross its border. The time to implement that plan is now.

Turkey Seems Ready To Recognize Legality Of Jews In The “West Bank”

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On July 20, 2025, Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan made a remarkable statement, considering his years of rebuke for Israel in the area east of the 1949 Armistice Lines with Jordan (E49AL/ the “West Bank’). He said that “it is time for the international community to come to terms with the facts on the ground” – in regards to Turkey’s presence in northern Cyprus.

Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974 and maintains 35,000 troops on the island to protect roughly 200,000 Turkish Cypriots. During the invasion, roughly 60,000 Turkish Cypriots moved to the northern Turkish section, while an estimated 150,000 Greek Cypriots moved south. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) declared itself independent in 1983, in an action the entire international community still considers illegal. Turkey has continued to illegally move parts of its population into TRNC, also illegal.

Turkey’s Erdogan stresses “facts on the ground”… for Cyprus

The Turkish Cyprus dynamic is much more severe than between the oft-discussed Israel- West Bank situation.

Ethnic Cleansing

Islamic Turkey ethnically cleansed Orthodox Greeks from northern Cyprus when it invaded. It echoed the actions of 1923 when Turkey and Greece exchanged their religious and ethnic populations, as though Cyprus wasn’t a distinct entity. More harshly, the Arab Muslim Jordanian kingdom ethnically cleansed all Jews from the land of Israel it illegally seized in 1949 and banned Jewish citizenship in 1954. However, in sharp contrast, when Israel took back the West Bank from Jordan in a defensive war in 1967, it did not remove any Arabs from the region.

Colonization

Further, Turkey already had an enormous country. Its colonial arm seizing northern Cyprus was seemingly to make up for the shame of losing the vast Ottoman Empire. That is completely dissimilar to the West Bank which has always been an integral part of the Jewish homeland, and was part of the British Mandate in 1922. Yet people have come up with a distinct term for Israeli Jews in the West Bank, “settlers,” even if they live in established cities (not new settlements).

Legality

No country recognizes Turkey’s illegal seizure of northern Cyprus. Yet several countries recognize Israel’s capital of Jerusalem and consider the West Bank to only be disputed land, especially as many western countries do not recognize a State of Palestine and Jordan abandoned all claims to the land in 1988.

Population and troops

The Arab population in the West Bank has increased dramatically since Israel retook the land in 1967. Israel granted the vast majority of Arabs self determination as part of the Oslo Accords, specifically in Areas A and B of the West Bank. However, there aren’t even any Greeks in TRNC to consider.

Israel has roughly 10,000 troops in the West Bank protecting 450,000 Israelis, in normal circumstances. During periods of conflict, the number of soldiers can double. That ratio is roughly 45 civilians to 1 Israeli soldier, quite different than the one soldier per 5 civilians in TRNC. TRNC is essentially a fort.

Conclusion

While both cases involve territorial disputes and ethnic tensions, the moral, legal, and historical justifications differ greatly. The Turkish occupation of Northern Cyprus is a blatant violation of international law, resulting in displacement and ethnic separation. The Jewish presence in E49AL/ the “West Bank” reflects a historic Jewish return, legal ambiguity, and an attempt at coexistence under a negotiated peace process.

Denying Jews the right to live in their ancestral homeland while excusing Erdoğan’s illegal occupation of Cyprus highlights a dangerous double standard: these disputes are really not about land or international law, but appeasing Islamic authoritarianism and ratifying antisemitism.

Related:

Importing Peaceful Ideas to the West Bank (February 2021)

Turkey’s Hajj of Hypocrisy (October 2019)

The Long History of Dictating Where Jews Can Live Continues (December 2015)

Obama’s Friendly Pass to Turkey’s Erdogan (June 2015)

Van Hollen Is Grossly Ignorant About Zionism And The Indignity Of UNSC 2334

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Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) aged 66, questioned a young Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), aged 40, during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee vetting process for the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. It’s a short five-minute video and worth watching the entire exchange.

At 1:07, Van Hollen pointed his questions to adhering to UN Security Council resolutions and tied it to the Israeli-Arab conflict. Van Hollen said “long term peace must include security, self-determination and dignity for Israelis and Palestinian alike,” and added that “we should stand up and protect universal human rights and self-determination for all people, including both Israelis and Palestinians.”

He questioned Stefanik’s contention that Jews have a “Biblical right” to the land of Israel, and concluded his remarks at 4:59 by mansplaining that “when it comes to this very difficult issue [Jews living and praying in the West Bank and the Old City of Jerusalem], if the president is going to succeed at bringing peace and stability to the Middle East, we’re going to have to look at the UN Security Council resolutions – not just the ones on Lebanon, which we should enforce – but other UN Security Council resolutions [implying UNSC 2334], and it’s going to be very difficult to achieve that if you continue to hold the view that you just expressed [that Jews have a right to live and pray in Jerusalem and the West Bank], which is a view that was not held by the founders of the State of Israel who were secular Zionists, not religious Zionists.”

Some education is in order for this senator who airs his ignorance and Palestinian Arabs’ false propaganda so publicly:

  • David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister and secular Zionist said to the British authorities in January 1937 before the Peel Commission which discussed limiting Jews to certain areas of Palestine that “Our right to the Land of Israel does not stem from the Mandate and the Balfour Declaration. It precedes those. The Bible is our mandate… I can state in the name of the Jewish People: The Bible is our mandate, the Bible that was written by us in our Hebrew language, and in this land itself, is our mandate. Our historical right has existed since our beginnings as the Jewish People, and the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate recognize and confirm that right.” The secular Zionist Ben Gurion explicitly tied the right of Jews in the land to the Bible.
  • Ben Gurion referenced the original Hebrew language of the Bible, which became and remains the official language of the Jewish State, the only country which speaks in the biblical tongue.
  • When Ben Gurion read Israel’s Declaration of Independence on May 14, 1948 which he helped draft, the first lines were “ERETZ-ISRAEL [(Hebrew) – The Land of Israel] was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.” The “land of Israel” encompasses the entire Jewish Promised Land, not new borders concocted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1947.
David Ben Gurion declaring the State of Israel on May 14, 1948

Further, Van Hollen fails to comprehend that his various statements do not complement each other but CONTRADICT each other. One cannot adhere to every UN Security Council resolution and simultaneously respect the dignity and human rights of Jews.

UNSC 2334, which passed in the waning days of the Obama administration, tramples on basic human rights and dignity of Jews by denying their right to live and pray in their holiest location in the Old City of Jerusalem.

There is NO “inalienable right” for Palestinians to have a state, only self determination, and there IS an “inalienable right” for Jews to pray on the Jewish Temple Mount. Yet the United Nations and Van Hollen pretend otherwise.

If the basic parameters of Palestinian dignity is to deny Jewish dignity, then there is no scenario in which there is “dignity for Israelis and Palestinians alike” which Van Hollen ignores.

The United Nations is deeply broken and amoral, yet Senator Van Hollen seeks to prop it up as something holy, a pagan temple amongst the socialist-jihadi alliance. Rep. Elise Stefanik intends to act like the Jewish patriarch Abraham when she enters the United Nations, who shattered the false idols in his father’s store. She is poised to enter that dark chamber and shed light on its systemic depravity.

Representative Elise Stefanik at her Senate confirmation hearing. (Photo: Tom Brenner for The New York Times)

Abraham’s actions 3,700 years ago launched monotheism. Perhaps the end of the United Nations’ sacred cows will usher in a period when Jews and Judaism will be openly and widely recognized on the Temple Mount and throughout Jerusalem.

ACTION ITEM

Contact Sen. Van Hollen’s office and let him know what you think of his comments. Feel free to send this article. DC phone: (202) 224-4654. Contact your representatives as well.

Related articles:

NO Country Has A Right To Exist. Israel SHOULD Exist (January 2024)

The Green Line Through Jerusalem (May 2020)

Tolerance at the Temple Mount (November 2014)

Comparing Coverage Of Golan Heights and “West Bank”

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The media has begun paying more attention to Syria as the country’s 54-year old regime has fallen to insurgents tied to ISIS and Turkey. As part of its coverage, it has marked the Golan Heights on its maps. It makes this an opportune time to review the very different coverage of two contested areas – Golan Heights and West Bank – between Israel and its neighbors.

In the Media

The Guardian’s map of the Golan Heights in December 2024

The Guardian presented a map of the Golan Heights calling the separation between Israel and Syria as the “1949 Armistice line.” It also noted that the Heights were “captured by Israel from Syria during the 1967 Six-day war.” Both of these statements are factually correct.

And completely divorced from how the media describes the “West Bank.”

Rather than use the term “1949 Armistice line”, the press calls it the “1967 border” even though it was never a border nor meant to be a border. As described in the 1949 Israel-Jordan Armistice Agreement in Article VI, “The Armistice Demarcation Lines defined in articles V and VI of this Agreement are agreed upon by the Parties without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines or to claims of either Party relating thereto.” In other words, the lines were simply set to separate the warring parties but political negotiations would craft the contours of the land in the future.

In regards to the phrase “from Syria,” the media never notes that Israel didn’t capture the “West Bank” land from Palestine but from Jordan, as Palestine did not exist.

The media – and the United Nations – mislead people that Israel took the West Bank from Palestine in an aggressive war. That is completely untrue, and obfuscated by terminology.

Geography

The Golan Heights are an actual topographical piece of earth. The large hills and mountains shoot up from the Sea of Galilee and beyond from volcanic activity.

Not so for the “West Bank.” It has no geographical or historical significance, other than being east of the 1949 Armistice line. It wasn’t even called the “West Bank” until after the 1967 Six-day war, as Jordan had illegally annexed it in 1950 and the UN just called it part of Jordan.

Arab States Breaking the Armistice Agreements

The Israel-Syria and Israel-Jordan Armistice Agreements specifically called on all parties to not take military action against the other. Both Arab states violated those agreements.

Syria shelled the farmlands of Israel’s Galilee for years, forcing Israel to defend itself and take the Golan Heights to keep Syria from repeating the attacks. Similarly, Jordan attacked Israel in June 1967 and Israel captured the region in a defensive action during the Six-day war.

Internationally Defined Borders

International powers created the various lines for Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Palestine after World War I. Each region slowly declared independence but not without difficulties. Each has gone through several wars, including civil wars. A populace more comfortable with tribes and clans operating under the umbrella of the Ottoman Empire for centuries were thrust into statehood. While modern academics blame the regional powers for “colonialization” and “imperialism” which left the locals bereft of natural resources, it was actually the imposition of statehood that has confounded much of the Middle East. Syria, Iraq and Lebanon are perfect examples of the internal strife which has killed millions over the decades.

“Palestine” was similarly crafted by world powers, and then quickly divided further by chopping off the region east of the Jordan River for the Hashemite Kingdom to rule. The balance of the land (which most people think of as pre-1948 Palestine) was designed to be “a national home for the Jewish people,” in the Palestine Mandate as adopted by the League of Nations. While the Golan Heights was marked by the powers to be part of Syria, those same powers marked the “West Bank” to be part of the Jewish homeland.

On one hand, Israel captured the Golan Heights after Syria broke the Armistice Agreement, and on the other, Israel RECAPTURED the West Bank/ area east of the 1949 Armistice Lines, in 1967 after Jordan broke its Armistice Agreement.

Names

Republicans in the United States are putting forward resolutions to stop calling the land “West Bank” and instead refer to it as “Judea and Samaria.” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) said in introducing the resolution that “The Jewish people’s legal and historic rights to Judea and Samaria goes back thousands of years. The U.S. should stop using the politically charged term West Bank to refer to the biblical heartland of Israel.” That is partially true.

Judea and Samaria have historical context and are much bigger contours than the “West Bank.” The West Bank is an artifice of war; it is just the land the the Jordanians took in the 1948-9 war in which they attempted to destroy the nascent Jewish State. The more accurate term for political purposes would be to call it E49JAL, for the area east of the 1949 Jordanian Armistice Lines.

Conclusion

The media is correctly referring to the Golan Heights, an actual region with topographical significance, as having an Israeli side captured FROM SYRIA, across the “1949 Armistice line.” It should similarly stop using the terms “borders,” “West Bank” and “from Palestine” which are all factually incorrect and attempt to frame the conflict with the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) in a duplicitous manner that portrays Israel as the aggressor.

Iranian Proxies In The West Bank?

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The Islamic Republic of Iran has many proxies surrounding Israel: Hamas which controls Gaza; Hezbollah which controls Lebanon; Syria; and farther away, the Houthis in Yemen.

Does it also have cells in the West Bank?

As Iran sent over 180 missiles into Israel on October 1, 2024, two Palestinian Arabs from Hebron shot and killed seven people in Tel Aviv and injured many others. The timing was minutes apart.

This was the first time that Palestinian Arabs shot up Tel Aviv streets during the year long war against Palestinian terrorists. Is it a coincidence that Palestinian Arabs decided to blast Tel Aviv just as Iranian missiles showered from above?

West Bank Arabs have been much more supportive of the October 7 attacks and commitment to destroying Israel than their counterparts in Gaza according to Palestinian polls. Israeli activity likely prevented a two-front war on October 7, which would have resulted in thousands of additional Israeli deaths in cities like Kfar Saba and Ra’anana which are very close to the 1949 Armistice Lines.

While the world is focused on the violent storm between Israel and Iran, Israel’s security will need to investigate how deeply Iran has integrated with the newer terrorist groups in the West Bank like Jenin Battalion, Lions’ Den and Tulkarm Brigades, to clamp down on yet another front of jihadi terrorism.

ACTION ITEM

Write White House and pro-Israel members of Congress like Ritchie Torres, Mike Lawler and Josh Gottheimer or your local representative to get the State Department to label the Jenin Battalion, Lion’s Den and the branches of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade as US designated foreign terrorist organizations.

Related articles:

Note To Kamala: Vast Majority Of West Bank Arabs Are Terrorist Supporters (July 2024)

The Gaza Red Herring Covering Iran’s Nuclear Breakout (January 2024)

How Many Terrorists To Target? Between 1,500 and 1.5 Million (October 2023)

UNRWA’s West Bank Terrorists (July 2023)

Majority of Palestinians Believe Israel Will Soon Cease to Exist (June 2023)

Letter to Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) On Conditioning Aid To Israel (March 2023)

Biden To Push Coexistence Agenda To Palestinian Arabs Not Interested (July 2022)

The Distant Fantasy Of Two States Living Side By Side In Today’s Reality

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Israel and its supporters have long desired to see a Jewish State existing peacefully in the broader Arab Middle East since before the modern State of Israel was founded, while Arab states and pro-Palestinians have refused the formulation. The two most notable examples were Zionists’ acceptance of the United Nations General Assembly 1947 Partition Plan which was met with Arab refusal and launching a war to destroy Israel, and Israel’s refusal to annex Gaza and the land East of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49/”West Bank”) after the 1967 Six Day War in the hopes of trading land-for-peace, which was met by the infamous Khartoum Resolution of “Three No’s” from the Arab world.

The world has now cast a narrative that the situation is inverted, and that Israel refuses the two-state formula for two-states coexisting in peace while the Arab world embraces it. On its face, it seems accurate but is actually far from it.

On July 17, 2024, the Israeli Knesset overwhelmingly voted to reject a resolution for the establishment of a Palestinian state by a vote of 68-9, with many members of the 120-member parliament not voting. The vote seemingly confirmed the world’s portrayal of Israel stifling Palestinian independence and sovereignty to enable a peaceful two-state solution.

The United Nations Secretary General lambasted Israel in January 2024 – before the vote – that the Jewish State’s rejection of a two state solution was “unacceptable” and that “this refusal, and the denial of the right to statehood to the Palestinian people, would indefinitely prolong a conflict that has become a major threat to global peace and security.”

Lost in the charge is that the U.N. refuses to acknowledge current reality and prefers the fantasy. Its formula for two states living in peace includes a new Jew-free Palestinian State with a fully functioning military, and millions of antisemitic Arabs moving into Israel.

Anyone observing the region knows that the U.N. formula is the opposite of two-states living in peace but a direct call for the annihilation of the only Jewish state.

Hamas’s brutal attack on Israelis on October 7 was supported by 75% of Palestinian Arabs. In July 2024, support for Hamas still remained at twice the level of the relatively more moderate Fatah. Palestinians voted Hamas to 58% of parliament with the most antisemitic genocidal charter ever written. The leader of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority continues to state that Israel has no right to exist, and 93% of Palestinian Arabs are antisemitic.

Masses of Palestinians beat a dead Jewish Israeli woman who was hauled into Gaza, October 2023

Recognizing the impasse that Palestinians still want to destroy the Jewish State, several Democratic senators tried to advance a “compromise” of sorts, in which a demilitarized Palestine could be established next to Israel. The hope is that while the Palestinians would still want to destroy Israel, they would be unable to achieve their goals.

Palestinians haul Israeli women into Gaza, October 2023

That vision was expressed in a March 2024 letter from several Democratic senators to Democratic President Joe Biden “to publicly outline a path for the United States to recognize a nonmilitarized Palestinian state.” That letter was signed by  Sens. Tom Carper (D-DE),Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Chris Coons (D-DE), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ed Ma1aheen (D-NH), Tina Smith (D-MN), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Elizabeth Warren (-D-MA), Peter Welch (D-VT) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).

Palestinian terrorist in Israel, October 2023

The mainstream media lies that regular Palestinian Arabs hate Hamas to make the genocidal maniacs appear like an imposed fringe group rather than representing the mainstream. The U.N. lies that Palestinians favor a two state solution when they reject it in every poll.

Home in Israel torched by Palestinian terrorists, October 2023

Today, as in the past, Israel hopes for a two-state solution, as laid out by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2009. However, the reality of the current “deformity of Palestinian political culture,” as so labeled by Palestinian activist James Zogby, prevents such action today.

Destroyed and bloody home in Israeli kibbutz after being attacked by Palestinian terrorists in October 2023

Pushing for a Palestinian state in the shadow of the Palestinian military butchering innocent Israelis is either harmful whitewashing of Arab genocidal intent or a vicious call for the ethnic cleansing of Jews. Adorning the violent charge with decorative language of “coexistence” and “living side-by-side in peace” will do nothing to protect Jews from being slaughtered again.

Israelis do not have the luxury of surrendering to the fantasy of peaceful coexistence when the counterparty celebrates butchering women and children.

Perhaps in forty years. Perhaps sooner, after the militants are vanquished and the toxic Palestinian culture is reoriented towards respecting the humanity of Jews and rights to live in their ancestral holy land.

Related articles:

The Three “Two-State Solution”s (December 2023)

The Failed Palestinian State (December 2023)

What Palestinians Talk About When They Talk About Hamas (October 2023)

“Two States For Two People” And An Arab “Right Of Return” Are Mutually Exclusive (September 2023)

UN Lies About Palestinians Favoring Two States (December 2022)

The Debate About Two States is Between Arabs Themselves and Jews Themselves (April 2019)

The Left-Wing’s Two State Solution: 1.5 States for Arabs, 0.5 for Jews (January 2016)

Considering a Failed Palestinian State (July 2015)

The ICJ Ruled That Jordan Is Palestine

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The top court of the United Nations, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s presence in territories it captured in the June 1967 Six Day War is illegal. Specifically, it decided that “Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory unlawful.” ICJ’s President Nawaf Salam said that “Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the regime associated with them, have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law.”

To arrive at such conclusion, the ICJ must believe that Jordan is Palestine.

The “West Bank and East Jerusalem” were captured in a defensive war that Israel fought after Jordan (Transjordan at the time) attacked it from those lands in 1967. TransJordan had annexed those lands in April 1950 after it fought a war to destroy the nascent Jewish State. Only Britain, Pakistan and Iraq recognized that annexation.

It would appear that the ICJ has now recognized that annexation as well.

The San Remo Conference of April 1920 set the outline for carving up the defeated Ottoman Empire into a number of mandates, including the Mandate of Palestine which covered today’s Israel, Gaza, West Bank and Jordan. According to the British Mandate which took effect in July 1922, Britain had the right to separate Mandate Palestine into two areas: one for the Jews west of the Jordan River and one area east of the river, according to Article 25. It did so on May 23, 1925 in the area that became Trans-Jordan. Trans-jordan declared its independence on May 25, 1946.

Britain was having difficulty dealing with the eastern Palestinian Mandate and turned to the United Nations for assistance. In November 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition the remaining eastern Palestine into a Jewish State and and Arab State, with the area of Greater Jerusalem and Greater Bethlehem to be held by the United Nations in a Corpus Separatum, an international zone.

UN’s plan for an internationally-controlled “Corpus Separatum” including Greater Bethlehem and Jerusalem

The UNGA and the Jews accepted the planned division but the Arabs rejected it. When Britain left the region in May 1948 and the Jews declared a new State of Israel, the Arab world attacked. At the end of the war, Transjordan seized the area that became known as the “West Bank”, the eastern part of Jerusalem and all of greater Bethlehem. Israel took the western part of Jerusalem. Transjordan ethnically cleansed its annexed lands of all Jews and gave citizenship to everyone who lived in those lands in 1954, except if they were Jews (Article 3).

“Corpus Separatum” in purple as divided between Israel (shaded grey) and Trans-Jordan (in white)

Palestine did not exist as a distinct country pre-1948, but was a subset of Greater Syria as part of the Ottoman Empire until 1917, and then under British rule. Under the British, the land was separated into a portion west of the Jordan River set up to be a reestablished Jewish homeland, and east of Jordan River to be Transjordan. After the Israeli war of independence, there was still no “Palestine” but an expanded Jordan which seized the western shores of the Jordan River which were to be part of the Jewish homeland, and eastern Jerusalem which was designated to be an international city.

Whether during the Ottoman Empire, British Mandate, or during Israeli and Jordanian rule, there was never a country called Palestine. Further, “East Jerusalem” a fragment of the city which existed only during 18 years from 1949-1967 under Jordanian rule, was never contemplated to be part of Palestine in any formulation.

Israel fought a defensive war with Transjordan in 1948-9 and then again in 1967 in land that was specifically designated in the San Remo Conference and the British Mandate to be an integral part of the Jewish homeland. In order to consider the “West Bank and East Jerusalem” to be “occupied” and “illegal”, one would have to declare that:

  • the British mandate to have been illegal
  • the annexation of the seized land west of the Jordan River by Transjordan in 1949 to be legal
  • Jordan’s ethnic cleansing of Jews from those lands and barring them from citizenship to be legal
  • Jordan to be Palestine

In no other configuration could the ICJ conclude that Israeli Jews living in eastern Jerusalem is illegal and should be expelled.

The ICJ ruling is revisionist history and deeply antisemitic. It shows the moral rot of the United Nations which still has “Zionism is racism” in its lifeblood.

Related articles:

Jordan’s Deep Hypocrisy and Stupidity About Jerusalem (September 2023)

The Flawed and Inconsistent U.S. Position On Israelis Living In The West Bank (May 2023)

The U.N. Openly Declares Opposition To Jews in Jerusalem (February 2023)

Hey Beinart! Arabs In Jerusalem Can Apply For Israeli Citizenship (May 2022)

Eight Attestations On Jerusalem (December 2021)

The Obama Administration Weaponized the Jerusalem Consulate (October 2021)

Evicting 70,000 Dead Settlers From Jerusalem (August 2021)

The UN on the Status of Jerusalem (June 2021)

Jerusalem Population Facts (May 2021)

NY Times Manufactures “Palestinian East Jerusalem” Narrative (April 2021)

Will the UN Demand a Halt to Arabs Moving to Jerusalem? (December 2020)

Trump’s “eastern Jerusalem” and Biden’s “East Jerusalem” (May 2020)

The 1967 War Created Both the “West Bank” and the Notion of a Palestinian State (May 2020)

The Green Line Through Jerusalem (May 2020)

American Leaders Always Planned on Israel Absorbing Much of the West Bank (January 2020)

“Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem” (November 2019)

Considering Carter’s 1978 Letter Claiming Settlements Are Illegal (November 2019)

Abbas’s Harmful East Jerusalem Fantasy (September 2018)

I call BS: You Never Recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital (April 2018)

The New York Times Inverts the History of Jerusalem (December 2017)

Corpus Separatum Ended Forever in 1995 (December 2017)

“Settlements” Crossing the Line (November 2016)

“East Jerusalem” – the 0.5% Molehill (July 2014)

Dangerous NY Times Lies Cleansing Palestinians’ Preference For Violence

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Palestinians conducted a poll about reactions to Gaza’s October 7 massacre that killed 1,200 people in Israel, injured thousands and took 240 hostages. The results showed West Bank Arabs (83.1%) much more in favor of the butchering of Jews than Gazans (63.6%). The popularity of Hamas was much higher in the West Bank (87.7%) than in Gaza (59.6%).

It also showed that West Bank Arabs being more committed to destroying Israel and retaking all of “historical Palestine.”

This poll was conducted specifically about the massacre, and before a single Arab prisoner had been released from Israeli jails.

The New York Times decided to sanitize the Palestinian Arabs’ celebration of the raping of women and deliberate mutilation and killing of children and the elderly. It ran a headline that West Bank Arabs prefer Hamas over Fatah which runs the Palestinian Authority because the political-terrorist groups was able to free prisoners. #AlternativeFacts with a sick #AlternativeNarrative.

New York Times article with headline that lies about motivation of West Bank Arabs joy about the murder of Jews (November 29, 2023)

Since late 2021, several new West Bank terrorist groups emerged which have killed dozens in Israel and Area C of the West Bank, the Lions’ Den and Jenin Brigades being the two most popular. Many have members affiliated with Hamas who may have been planning a similar October 7 attack in the densely populated areas in Israel which could have killed 10,000 people. Israel’s raids to capture and kill these cells over the past 18 months likely averted an even worse massacre.

Over the past two years, West Bank Arab attacks have been more numerous and more lethal than attacks from Jews, even according to United Nations reports. In the recent reporting period before October 7, West Bank Arabs killed five times as many Jews (10) than West Bank Arabs killed by Jews (2).

But that narrative of fact was dead-and-buried in the Times. In their article whitewashing Arab violence in the West Bank, it wrote about two young Arabs who threw stones at Israeli soldiers who were freed from prison.

The New York Times is trying to paint West Bank Arabs as peaceful people “resisting” the Israeli army, “resorting” to violent groups like Hamas because they successfully free Arabs unjustly incarcerated. It is the language of socialists and anti-colonialists, meant to inflame hatred for the Jewish State as a falsely-labeled “European colonial state,” as preached in universities. It is a script and rallying cry of the alt-left, which wants to “normalize and globalize Hamas” to “globalize the intifada” in order to destroy other countries like the United States and Australia.

Over the past two years, West Bank Arabs launched several new terrorist groups, attacked and murdered Jews at a pace which dwarves attacks by Israeli “settlers”, and just now celebrated the heinous slaughter of civilians in Israel on October 7. The West Bankers have come to have “a greater confidence in the efficacy of armed struggle,” as described in a December 2022 poll, and believe that Israel will soon cease to exist.

Those plain truths are at odds with the socialist Times which prefers to paint West Bank Arabs as a small biblical David to Israel’s Goliath, scrapping by throwing stones at soldiers, rather than reveal the sickening bloodlust.

On June 27, 2023, months before the October 7 massacre, James Zogby, President of the Arab American Institute spoke to the United Nations Security Council and said “that a recent poll shows a majority of Palestinians rejecting moderate leadership, despairing of peaceful change and now favoring armed struggle. That tragic deformity in Palestinian political culture is the result of the continued brutality of the occupation.” That sentiment came from a staunchly pro-Palestinian pollster BEFORE October 7 to the jaundiced United Nations, where rarely a criticism of Palestinians can be heard.

There is a deep “tragic deformity” in Palestinian society that celebrates the mutilation and slaughter of Jews, and a vile deformity in socialist media which sanitizes Palestinian Arabs’ violence to prop them as ready for a state. It may be a symptom of a post-factual world which prefers narratives about underdogs or simply outright antisemitism. Perhaps both.

Either way, it is definitely coming for the Jewish State and diaspora Jews.

Related articles:

Speaking Honestly About Lies In The Israel-Palestinian Conflict

Palestinian Arabs Are Fighting For All of Israel, Not A New State In West Bank and Gaza

The Reasons Behind The Spike In Palestinian Terrorism

Terrifying Trifecta Of Anti-Zionism

A Unique Evil: Jenin And Holocaust Remembrance Day

Importing Peaceful Ideas to the West Bank

The Only Way The Conflict Can End

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Many people wonder what will happen after the end of the 2023 Gaza War. Will the Palestinian Authority take administrative control of the area with Israel serving a military function, much like Area B in the West Bank? Will Hamas 2.0 rise from the ashes, the way Queen Rania of Jordan (herself of Palestinian descent) predicts, which will be a “new generation of resistance that is fiercer and more violent.”

There is a better way. To end Palestinian atrocities and the horrible death on both sides, one needs to speak a plain truth at the core of the conflict to understand how to end it.

The United Nations and Saudi Arabia must state clearly that there is no ‘right of return’ for Palestinian Arabs to go to Israel. The Arabs’ future lies in Gaza or parts of the West Bank that will be under the Palestinian Authority, or another country that welcomes them, should they decide to leave the region.

Palestinians have been lied to by the United Nations for 75 years that they will get to return to homes where grandparents once lived. The United Nations continues to call many Palestinians “refugees” and places keys atop UNRWA “refugee” camps to tell them that the UN is much more than a services agency: they are the gateway to returning to Israel.

Portal to UNRWA Aida “refugee” camp near Bethlehem

The UN maintains refugee camps inside Gaza and the West Bank to tell Palestinian Arabs that the land they stand on – which was part of Palestine in 1947 – is just a waiting zone. They will get to move to Israel someday.

So the Arabs have grown very frustrated. Rather than make a life in Gaza and the West Bank, they covet the first world country next door that it really belongs to them. Palestinians vote for invasion rather than investment.

Approximately 81.2% of UNRWA wards reside in what was the British Mandate in 1922 or what was annexed by Jordan with Arabs given citizenship. Almost all of them have self-determination, either as citizens of Jordan or under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza. There are really only Syrian and Lebanese “refugee” descendants which need to be addressed.

And those in Syria and Lebanon should move to a new Palestinian State.

Before Israel left Gaza in 2005, U.S. President George W. Bush sent Israeli Prime Minister a letter in April 2004 to encourage the Israeli action: “It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair, and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel.”

The Democratic Party long held the same notion in its platform stating “The creation of a Palestinian state through final status negotiations, together with an international compensation mechanism, should resolve the issue of Palestinian refugees by allowing them to settle there, rather than in Israel.” The Obama/ Biden Administration had that statement removed in 2012, stoking Palestinian anger/hope which bubbled into 2014, 2021 and 2023 wars from Gaza against Israel, each under either President Obama or President Biden.

The United Nations and Saudi Arabia need to deliver the message ending the ‘right of return’ so that Palestinians know these intifadas to destroy Israel are over. It is time for Palestinian Arabs to focus energies on building institutions, economy and society, and abandon the genocidal efforts to destroy the Jewish State.

UNRWA should announce a wind down of all camps in Gaza, the West Bank and Jordan, and funnel those monies to actual refugees who really need the services, fleeing their homeland to faraway countries where they are strangers not knowing the language, people or land. Saudi Arabia should play a role in rebuilding the Gaza infrastructure together with Israel, and push the Iran-Hamas alliance into the dustbin of infamy.

The future for coexistence relies on terminating the ongoing failed policy promoted by the United Nations for 75 years, and a new Saudi-Israeli alliance might be the pathway to broader peace.

Related articles:

Shut UNRWA in Gaza Immediately

“Two States For Two People” And An Arab “Right Of Return” Are Mutually Exclusive

Speaking Honestly About Lies In The Israel-Palestinian Conflict

UNRWA’s West Bank Terrorists

UNRWA Is A Prison

A Tale of Three Palestinian Refugees, With and Without UNRWA

There Is No Backing For A Palestinian “Right Of Return”

The Fourth ‘No’ of the Khartoum Resolution: No Return of Palestinian Refugees

Does the UN Only Grant Inalienable Rights to Palestinians?

Comparing Gaza And Egypt Shows The Failure Of Embracing Hamas

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To listen to the media, would would imagine that Gaza is the worst place to live, much worse than neighboring Egypt for example, which controlled the Strip from 1949 to 1967.

Here are the statistics as reported by the World Bank.

Table 1: Life statistics in Gaza and Egypt

The average life expectancy in Gaza is 74 years, about 1.5 years longer than in Egypt. There are roughly 2.5 fewer deaths per 1,000 people in Gaza than in Egypt, with death rates of 3.8 and 6.3, respectively.

The medical care in Gaza is quite good and has extended the lives of Gazans beyond those found in neighboring Arab Egypt. The United Nations providing healthcare to its adopted wards similarly helped the young Gazans.

Table 2: Infant mortality rates per 1,000 live births in Gaza and Egypt

As seen in Table 2, babies born in Palestinian territories do significantly better than they do in Egypt. This is primarily driven by free healthcare services provided by the United Nations to Palestinian Arabs but not to Egyptians.

The United Nations also provides free education to Palestinian Arabs but not to Egyptians.

Table 3: Literacy rates for Palestinian Arabs and Egyptians

The gap in literacy scores between Palestinian Arabs and Egyptians is staggering. According to the World Bank, Palestinian literacy rate is 96.2%, while it is a terrible 67.4% for Egyptians. The Palestinian literacy rate is slightly higher than Saudi Arabia and is only surpassed by Jordan among Arab countries in the region.

Despite the better education and healthcare, Palestinian Arabs have a weaker economy, especially in Gaza.

Table 4: Wealth and poverty in Gaza and Egypt

Gaza is much poorer than the West Bank or Egypt. Until roughly 2017, the poverty rate between the two Palestinian territories were somewhat in line. Those trends broke and now the poverty rate for Arabs in the West Bank was 13.9% while it was 53% in Gaza in 2019. This can be seen in the workforce rate where unemployment in Gaza in 2023 was 45.3% and 13.1% in the West Bank. The unemployment rate in Egypt is much better at 6.96%, while GDP per capita is much higher than in Gaza. The latest poverty rates for Egypt are 27.3%, close to that in the West Bank.

Gaza’s economy is much weaker than in Egypt or the West Bank as the territory is ruled by the Hamas political-terrorist group. Israel and Egypt have a blockade around the area to stop the flow of weapons into the strip which has launched five wars against Israel since it seized the area. Many countries won’t trade with the region because of its violent jihadi leadership which pours its resources into waging war rather than to develop society.

Local Gazans often incorrectly attribute “social services” to Hamas, when the healthcare and education are principally provided by the United Nations. The similarity in healthcare and educational statistics in Gaza and the West Bank prove this out.

Despite Hamas failing Gazans, it remains extremely popular. According to a September 2023 poll, Palestinians would elect the leader of Hamas (58%) over Fatah (37%) to the presidency. Much of that is because 53% of Palestinian believe that the pathway to end the “struggle” against Israel is via violence (as pushed by Hamas), while only 20% support negotiations (as voiced by Fatah).

The United Nations has given Gazans the very best healthcare and education among the region’s Arab nations, all for free. Despite the better education and physical health, Gazans focus their efforts on destroying Israel and in the process, their own economy, and now, their infrastructure.

Related articles:

Mad World of Palestinian Quality of Life Statistics

An Inconvenient Truth: Population Statistics in Israel/Palestine

The Populations statistics in Israel/Palestine do not support the Arab narrative

A Review Of Homicides In Israel

The Reasons Behind The Spike In Palestinian Terrorism