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TERRITORIES AFTER 1967 |
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TERRITORIES AFTER 1967 |
As a result of the Six Day War, Israel gained all of Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, Sinai, the Gaza Strip, and Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). Almost immediately, Jerusalem was reunited and Jews began to return to the regained areas to re-settle territories commonly referred to as areas "outside the Green Line" (the pre-1967 border). The motivations of the inhabitants, or settlers, of these areas ranges from political, ideological or religious goals to financial considerations as they seek cheaper, more spacious living quarters commonly available outside the Green Line. [All settlements in the Sinai were dismantled as part of the Israel-Egypt 1979 peace treaty.]
Jews have lived in the West Bank and Gaza Strip throughout recorded history, until the 1948 War of Independence, when they were forced to flee the invading Arab armies. Indeed, some of the current Jewish settlement communities existed prior to 1948, when they where overrun by invading Arab armies and destroyed. Kfar Etzion and other villages in the Jerusalem-Bethlehem corridor fell to Arab forces in May 1948 and those captured were massacred. Sons and daughters of Jews who lived there until 1948 were the first to return after the 1967 war.
In Hebron, the Jewish community existed throughout the centuries of Ottoman rule and under the British Mandate for Palestine set up by the League of Nations after World War I. Hebron did not lose its Jewish inhabitants until the massacre of Jews there during the Arab Riots of 1929. Such settlements as Neve Ya'acov and the Gush Etsion block were established under the British Mandatory Administration, which allowed Jewish settlement in these areas. Even though British Mandate Authorities, particularly in the latter period of the Mandate, were not sympathetic to the Zionist cause, they nevertheless permitted the establishment of Jewish settlements in all areas west of the Jordan River (now called the West Bank). In fact, the Mandate called for Jewish settlement in all of the areas under British control including the almost 80% of the Mandate land that the British gave to Arabs to create Trans-Jordan. Afterward, Jews were prohibited from settlement or land ownership, under pain of death, in areas east of the Jordan River, nevermind that it was originally supposed to be part of the Jewish Homeland under the League of Nations Mandate.
During this post-1967 period, former IDF commander Yigal Allon developed a blueprint for a peace accord that came to be known as the Allon Plan. The plan envisioned ceding most of the West Bank to a Jordanian-Palestinian state while retaining strategic areas for security purposes. Though never formally presented as a peace plan, successive Labor governments based their policies in the occupied territories on Allon's general tenets. Under the Allon Plan, the Labor government created some 21 settlements along the Jordan Valley and Eastern slopes of Samaria, and avoided construction on the mountain ridge from Nablus to Jerusalem to Hebron.
Israeli policy had been to avoid areas heavily populated by Arabs, especially towns, but Hebron was a special case. Not only was it the oldest Biblical settlement in Eretz Yisrael, through the story of Abraham's purchase of the Cave of Machpelah, but Hebron had important modern memories too. For many centuries, Jews had settled there, seeing it as one of the four "Holy Cities". The old Jewish community had existed up to 1929 when it was destroyed in an Arab attack blood bath. The settlement suburb of Hebron, Kiryat Arba, was officially founded in 1972.
Israel's administration of the territory in 1967 replaced Jordan's control of the West Bank and Egypt's of the Gaza Strip. Egypt and Jordan gained control of these areas during the 1948 War with the newly established Israel, which according to the 1947 UN Partition Plan, were to be part of the independent Arab state to be established alongside an independent Jewish state. Neither Jordan nor Egypt had legal sovereignty over these areas. Israel maintains that these areas can thus not be considered "occupied territories" under international law, since Israel did not "occupy" them from another sovereign nation, but are "disputed territories" over which there are competing claims, and whose future must be determined through negotiations. Since 1967, Israeli governments have maintained a willingness to withdraw from areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a component of a comprehensive peace agreement with the Arabs, but it has proved impossible to negotiate such an agreement despite many attempts.
With the negotiating deadlock, Israel found itself with a million Palestinian Arabs under its control and began administering the territories in what has become known as the Israeli "occupation" of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel hoped that its authority over the Palestinians in these areas would be short-lived. Since Israel did not annex or incorporate the West Bank and Gaza into Israel proper, it could not apply the civil, democratic laws that govern Israeli civilian life to the residents of the territories and those territories continue under military administration.
None of the signed agreements between Israel and the Palestinians restrict the building or expansion of settlements. Indeed, the issue of settlements is specifically noted as an issue that will only be discussed during final status negotiations, the final stage of the peace process. The only prohibition in these agreements is that neither side take steps to change the status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, such as unilateral declarations of statehood or annexation, prior to final status negotiations. The Israeli Government has voluntarily frozen the building of new settlements, but recognizes the needs of existing settlements to meet the changing needs of their residents, such as the expansion of existing homes to accommodate growing families.
Since 1967, Israeli governments have maintained a willingness to withdraw from areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in a peace agreement with the Arabs. In such a case, it was commonly expected that at least some of the settlements would have to be uprooted, just as the Israeli town of Yamit was dismantled following Israel's peace agreement with Egypt. At Camp David in July 2000, Ehud Barak reportedly offered to uproot all Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and the isolated settlements on up to 95 percent of the territory of the West Bank, as part of a final status agreement. The Palestinians rejected this offer.
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