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Palestinian territories

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Countries; Middle Eastern
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   Map of the West Bank.
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   Map of the Gaza Strip.

   The Palestinian territories is one of a number of designations for
   those portions of the British Mandate of Palestine captured and
   militarily occupied by Egypt and Jordan, and later, in the Six-Day War,
   by Israel.

   The designation refers to the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem,
   but does not include the Golan Heights or the Sinai Peninsula, which
   were also captured by Israel in 1967, although the Sinai Peninsula was
   later returned to Egypt.

Name

   Other terms used to describe these areas together are "occupied
   Palestinian territories", " Israeli-occupied territories", though all
   of these are, in context, simply referred to as "the occupied
   territories." More terms include "disputed territories", " Judea and
   Samaria, and Gaza", " Yesha", "liberated territories", "1967
   territories", and simply "the territories".

   The United Nations generally uses the term "Occupied Palestinian
   Territory," with the "Palestinian" label having gained use since the
   1970s. Previous UNSC resolutions (such as 242 and 338) use the term
   "Territories occupied by Israel", whereas in the UN General Assembly
   Resolution 181 passed on November 29, 1947, the term "Samaria and
   Judea" was used. Some Jews and Christians object to the term
   "Palestinian territories", which they perceive as a rejection of what
   is in their view legitimate Jewish land.

Political status

   The political status of these territories has been the subject of
   negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization
   (PLO) and of numerous statements and resolutions by the United Nations.
   See List of UN resolutions against Israel for further details.

   The current and future political status of the territories is highly
   controversial. Specific issues include the legality of Israeli's policy
   of encouraging settlement, whether it is legitimate for Israel to annex
   portions of the territories, whether Israel is legally an occupying
   power according to the Fourth Geneva Convention, and whether an
   independent Arab state will be created in the territories (see
   Proposals for a Palestinian state).

   Since 1994, the autonomous Palestinian Authority has exercised various
   degrees of control in large parts of the territories, pursuant to the
   Oslo Accords.

   The Israeli government's position remains to be defined, following that
   country's 2006 legislative elections, but it appears that the new
   government will pursue a policy of partial withdrawal (if necessary,
   unilaterally) from the West Bank, an initiative known as the
   Realignment plan, while aiming to retain all of East Jerusalem and some
   other areas, including major West Bank settlement blocks.

Boundaries

   The boundaries between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the State
   of Israel, known as the Green Line, are a result of the 1949 Armistice
   Agreements after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, while their boundaries with
   Jordan and Egypt follow the international border between the former
   Mandate for Palestine and those states. The natural geographic
   boundaries for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are the Jordan River
   and the Mediterranean Sea, respectively.

   Between 1949 and 1967, these territories were occupied by Jordan and
   Egypt respectively, but the term "Palestinian territories" or "Occupied
   Palestinian Territories" gained wide usage after Israel's victory in
   the 1967 Six-Day War, about the same time as the term "Palestinian"
   first started to be used exclusively in respect to Arab population of
   Palestine. Since then, the United Nations and most foreign governments
   regard the territories as being under Israeli military occupation.

   Since 1994, the autonomous Palestinian Authority has exercised various
   degrees of control in large parts of the territories, pursuant to the
   Oslo Accords.

The term "Palestinian territories"

   Generally, the term "Palestinian territories" is used by:
     * journalists to indicate lands where Palestinian people dwell,
       outside the Green Line, or the 1949 Armistice lines;
     * some Arab nationalists, who consider the land within Israel's de
       facto boundaries to be de jure part of a "Palestinian state." Some
       advocates have claimed that maps used in schools under the
       jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority depict this state as
       consisting of all the territory between the Mediterranean Sea,
       Lebanon, Syria, the Jordan River and Egypt — including Israel, the
       West Bank and Gaza Strip.

   The term is often used interchangeably with the term Occupied
   territories, although the latter refers to an inclusive set of both the
   "Palestinian territories" and the Golan Heights. The Golan is not
   settled by "Palestinians" nor claimed by them, but rather by Syria,
   though the tiny Shebaa Farms area is also claimed by Lebanon. The
   confusion stems from the fact that all these territories were captured
   by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War and are regarded by the United
   Nations as being under military occupation.

   Shmuel Katz and other right-wing sectors of Israeli society assert that
   the term "occupied Palestinian lands" is "the common language of Arab
   anti-Israel propaganda, a part of the Arabs' fictional history, which
   it has succeeded in disseminating throughout the whole wide world".
   According to Katz, impartial groups should "not be blind to the fact
   that there are two sides to the dispute in Palestine, and that Israel
   rejects absolutely the notion that it is illegally holding 'Palestinian
   lands'."

History

   Palestinians
                Israeli-Palestinian conflict

   Timeline · Peace process
   Balfour Declaration · UN Partition · British Mandate
   Transjordan · Israel
   Palestinian exodus
   Jordanian control (West Bank)
   Egyptian control (Gaza Strip)
   1st Intifada · Oslo Accords · 2nd Intifada
   West Bank barrier
               Palestinian National Authority

   Geography of the West Bank and Gaza Strip
   Palestinian territories
   List of Arab localities in Palestine 1948
   West Bank · Gaza Strip
   Districts · Cities · East Jerusalem
   Refugee camps
   Biodiversity
                          Politics

   PLO · PNA · PNC · PLO EC · PLC
   Political Parties
   National Covenant · Foreign Relations
                        Demographics

   Demographics of the West Bank
   People
                          Economy

   Economy of the West Bank
                 Religion & Religious Sites

   Palestinian Jew · Palestinian Christian
   Druze · Sunni Muslim
   Al-Aqsa Mosque · Dome of the Rock
   Church of the Nativity · Rachel's Tomb
   Church of the Holy Sepulchre
                          Culture

   Music · Dance · Arab cuisine
   Palestinian Arabic
                   Notable Personalities

   Rashid Khalidi · May Ziade · Edward Said
   Emile Habibi · Ghassan Kanafani ·
   Mahmoud Darwish · Samih al-Qasim ·
   Nathalie Handal · Ghada Karmi ·
   Khalil al-Sakakini · Elia Suleiman

   Portal:Palestine

   In 1922 after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire that ruled the region
   of Palestine for four centuries (1517-1917), the Mandate for Palestine
   was established. Large-scale Jewish immigration from abroad, mainly
   from Eastern Europe took place during the British Mandate . The future
   of Palestine was hotly disputed between Arabs and Jews. In 1947, the
   total Jewish ownership of land in Palestine was 1,850,000 dunums or
   1,850 square kilometers, which is 7.04% of the total land of Palestine.
   Public property or "crown lands" belonging to the government of
   Palestine made up as much as 70% of the total land; with the Arabs,
   Christians and others owning the rest. .

   The 1947 United Nations Partition Plan proposed a division of the
   mandated territory between an Arab and a Jewish state, with Jerusalem
   and the surrounding area to be a corpus separatum under a special
   international regime. The regions allotted to the proposed Arab state
   included what would become the Gaza Strip and almost all of what would
   become the West Bank, as well as other areas.

   Jewish groups (notably the Jewish Agency) generally supported the
   partition plan. Arab groups (all Arab countries in the U.N. voted
   against it) generally rejected the partition plan and subsequently
   invaded the newly formed State of Israel, starting the Israeli War of
   Independence.

   After the war, Israel controlled many of the areas designated for the
   Arab state, and the negotiated agreements established Armistice
   Demarcation Lines (ADLs), which did not have the status of recognised
   international borders.

   Thus the areas held by Jordanian and Iraqi forces (with minor
   adjustments) came under Jordanian control, and became known as the West
   Bank (of the Jordan River, by contrast with the East Bank, or Jordan
   proper); the area held by Egyptian forces, along the Mediterranean
   coast in the vicinity of the city of Gaza and south to the
   international border, remained under Egyptian control and became known
   as the Gaza Strip.

   For nineteen years following the 1949 Armistice Agreements until the
   1967 Six Day War, Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip and Jordan occupied the
   West Bank and East Jerusalem, and no Arab state was created. In 1950,
   Jordan annexed the territories it occupied; this annexation was not
   officially recognized by other countries, with the sole exception of
   the United Kingdom (but not, as is often said, Pakistan).

   The Article 24 of the Palestinian National Charter of 1964 stated:
   "This Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over
   the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or
   in the Himmah Area."

   Israel captured both territories in the 1967 Six-Day War; since then
   they have been under Israeli control. After the war, UN Security
   Council Resolution 242 introduced the " Land for Peace" formula for
   normalizing relations between Israel and its neighbors.

   The Oslo Accords of the early 1990's between the Palestine Liberation
   Organization and Israel led to the creation of the Palestinian
   Authority. This was an interim organization created to administer a
   limited form of Palestinian self-governance in the territories for a
   period of five years during which final-status negotiations would take
   place. The Palestinian Authority carried civil responsibility in some
   rural areas, as well as security responsibility in the major cities of
   the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Although the five-year interim period
   expired in 1999, the final status agreement has yet to be concluded
   despite attempts such as the 2000 Camp David Summit, the Taba summit,
   and the unofficial Geneva Accords.

   In 2005, Israeli forces withdrew from the Gaza Strip, ceding full
   effective internal control of the territory to the Palestinian
   Authority.

Legal status

   The final status of the "Palestinian territories" as becoming (wholly
   or largely) an independent state for Arabs is supported by the
   countries that back the Quartet's " Road map for peace". The government
   of Israel also accepted the road map but with 14 reservations .

   Although Israeli settlements were not part of the Oslo Accords
   negotiations, the Arab position is that the creation and the presence
   of Israeli settlements in those areas is a violation of international
   law. This has also been affirmed by a majority of members of the Geneva
   convention: "12. The participating High Contracting Parties call upon
   the Occupying Power to fully and effectively respect the Fourth Geneva
   Convention in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East
   Jerusalem, and to refrain from perpetrating any violation of the
   Convention. They reaffirm the illegality of the settlements in the said
   territories and of the extension thereof. They recall the need to
   safeguard and guarantee the rights and access of all inhabitants to the
   Holy Places."

   East Jerusalem, captured in 1967, was unilaterally annexed by Israel.
   The UN Security Council Resolution 478 condemned the Jerusalem Law as
   "a violation of international law". This annexation has not been
   recognized by other nations, although the United States Congress has
   declared its intention to recognize the annexation (a proposal that has
   been condemned by other states and organizations). Because of the
   question of Jerusalem's status, some states refuse to accept Jerusalem
   as the capital of Israel, and treat Tel Aviv as the capital, basing
   their diplomatic missions there. Israel asserts that these territories
   are not currently claimed by any other state, and that Israel has the
   right to control them.

   Israel's position has not been officially accepted by most countries
   and international bodies. The West Bank, and the Gaza Strip have been
   referred to as occupied territories (with Israel as the occupying
   power) by Palestinian Arabs , the rest of the Arab bloc, the UK , the
   EU, (usually) the USA ( , ), both the General Assembly and the Security
   Council of the United Nations , the International Court of Justice, and
   the Israeli Supreme Court (see Israeli West Bank barrier). The United
   Nations did not declare any change in the status of the territories as
   of the creation of the Palestinian National Authority between 1993 and
   2000. Although a 1999 U.N. document (see the link above) implied that
   the chance for a change in that status was slim at that period, most
   observers agreed that the Palestinian territories' classification as
   occupied was losing substantiality, and would be withdrawn after the
   signing of a permanent peace agreement between Israel and the
   Palestinians (see also Proposals for a Palestinian state).

   During the period between the 1993 Oslo Accords and the Second Intifada
   beginning in 2000, Israeli officials claimed that the term "occupation"
   did not accurately reflect the state of affairs in the territories.
   During this time, the Palestinian population in large parts of the
   territories had a large degree of autonomy and only limited exposure to
   the IDF except when seeking to move between different areas. Following
   the events of the Second Intifada, and in particular, Operation
   Defensive Shield, most territories, including Palestinian cities (Area
   A), are back under effective Israeli military control, so the
   discussion along those lines is largely moot.

   In the summer of 2005, Israel implemented its unilateral disengagement
   plan; about 8500 Israeli citizens living in the Gaza Strip were
   forcibly removed from the territory; some received alternative homes
   and a sum of money. The Israeli Defence Forces vacated Gaza in 2005,
   but invaded it again in 2006 in response to rocket attacks and the
   abduction of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by Hamas.

   The Palestinian territories have been assigned a country code of PS in
   ISO 3166-1 alpha-2, and accordingly, the Palestinian Authority was
   granted control of the corresponding Internet country code top-level
   domain .ps.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 242

   United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 (S/RES/242), one of the
   most commonly referenced UN resolutions in Middle Eastern politics, was
   adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council on November 22, 1967 in
   the aftermath of the Six Day War. It was adopted under Chapter VI of
   the United Nations Charter , and was reaffirmed and made binding by UN
   Security Council Resolution 338, adopted after the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

   The resolution calls for the "withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from
   territories occupied in the recent conflict" (there has been some
   disagreement about whether this means all the territories: see UN
   Security Council Resolution 242: semantic dispute) and the
   "[t]ermination of all claims or states of belligerency". It also calls
   for the mutual recognition by the belligerent parties (Israel, Egypt,
   Syria, Jordan) of each other's established states and calls for the
   establishment of secure and recognized boundaries for all parties.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_territories"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
