"When Did Settlement Land in the West Bank and Gaza Become 'Palestinian Land' "?


Fact Sheet by Judge Herbert Grossman
Author, "J'Accuse the NY Times and Washington Post: Biased Reporting from the Middle East" (1st Books, 2003).
http://www.jaccusebook.com
May 16, 2004
Beth El Congregation
Pittsburgh, PA

When did settlement land in the West Bank and Gaza become 'Palestinian land,' as it is so often called in the press?

• It did not in ancient times, when the land was part of the Israelite kingdoms.

• It did not from 1519 to 1918, when the land was part of the Ottoman Empire, ruled by non-Arab, Turkic people.

• It did not from 1919 to 1947, when the land was held by Britain in Trust as a homeland for Jews under the Balfour Declaration and a Mandate from the League of Nations (adopted informally in 1919 and formalized in 1922).

• It did not in 1947, when the Arabs rejected the recommendation for Partition by the UN General Assembly and made war instead.

• It did not in 1948, when the land was illegally seized and occupied by Egypt and Transjordan (which renamed itself Jordan to formalize its conquest of land west of the Jordan River), neither of which had any claim of right to it.  In the West Bank, the Arabs overran long-established Jewish communities in the Etzion bloc, mutilating and torturing to death all captured Jews, and rendering the entire West Bank Judenrein (cleansed of Jews). This was in stark contrast to Israels granting full rights, freedoms and citizenship to Arabs absorbed into the State of Israel.

• It did not in 1949 under the Armistice Agreements which, at the insistence of Egypt and Jordan, specifically limited the truce lines to a separation of military forces and prohibited their use for political boundaries.

• It did not from 1949 to 1967, when the Arabs repeatedly rejected Israels continuous offer to make the armistice lines permanent and refused even to recognize the "Zionist entity."

• It did not in 1967, when Israel expelled the Egyptian and Jordanian occupiers in a war begun by Arab acts of war that erased the 1949 Armistice lines separating the military forces.

• It did not by Arab settlement, because all of the Jewish settlements were built on vacant land that had not been lived on or worked by Arabs.

It became "Palestinian land"and "occupied land" only recently, in the biased press.  Israel may choose to withdraw from settlements, unilaterally or by agreement.  But historically, legally and morally, Israel has at least as much right to the land settled by Jews in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza and held by Israel since 1967, as the Palestinians have to land settled there by Arabs.  And the Jewish settlers have every right not to be driven from their homes!

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