Judea and Samaria, known widely to contemporary readers as West Bank are often named by media as "occupied territories". So let's see how it was with this occupation...
After collapse of the Ottoman Empire as an aftermath of the I World War the territories of today's Israel as well as Syria, Lebanon or Jordan were under British rule legalized by the League of Nations (know as mandate or Palestine, BTW check my story where does the name Palestine come from). The idea was to gradually let the new countries be created and the first major step towards this goal was in 1921 when 80% of mandate's territory was turned into emirate of Transjordan (from 1946-1949 independent Transjordan later transformed into Jordan). Arabs who took over Transjordan demanded (and this was granted to them) that no Jewish people may stay in Transjordan. So effectively the division into Jewish and Arab countries on this territory has been started by British but in these 20% remaining territory nobody thought about getting rid of Arabs (and that's fine, it would have been unjust, but let's not forget about Jews forcibly moved from Transjordan). Today Palestinians demand Palestine free from Jews and Israel never have or would propose to get rid of her citizens who are Arabs, yet demanding "Judenrein" (yes, just like Nazis did) Palestine PA authorities are not accused of racism, Israel is.....
As a consequence of further demands of Arabs in mandate (in 30s and during the II WW openly collaborating with Nazis) British radically diminished the number of Jews allowed to come which - in many cases - caused their death in Holocaust.
When in 1948 Israel was created she was attacked the very next day by 7 Arab armies with clear and declared intention of destroying her. After a year's war of independence Israel was slightly bigger than in UN resolution of 1947. But Jerusalem (originally intended to be international zone) was under Jordanian occupation. Jews were expelled, synagogues destroyed, burial grounds desecrated. And Jordanian authorities were checking baptismal certificates of foreigners coming to Jerusalem to make sure no Jews will be admitted. Nobody protested (or very few indeed).
Came 1967. Jordan attacked Israel (being talked into it by Egypt, but that doesn't change the fact, 55.000 Jordanian soldiers entered into battles and military operations despite Israel's appeals to stay away from the conflict). Jordan lost, we all know about it and as a consequence some of its territories were taken by Israel (no Palestinian lands, there has never been Palestine).
Wars have it in themselves - they change borders.
Saying that Israel occupies Palestinian (hey, not JORDANIAN? and with Jordan there is a peace treaty) territory equals for me with saying that Ukraine occupies Lvov (always Polish city, and yet there was not even independent Ukraine by the end of II WW), Poland occupies Wroclaw, Szczecin, Zielona Gora and many other cities (for centuries before WW II German ones), Russia occupies Kurylski Islands (hey, Japan lost the war, maybe you have heard) or Slovakia occupies part of Hungary. And many, many others.
Yet, under occupation is e.g. West Sahara and EU corroborates it to have access to fishing waters, same goes for part of Cyprus military taken without provocation by Turkey in 1970, over 10,000 British citizens have their second homes there, nobody cares.
When I hear that the main obstacle to peace process is building in C zone by Israel (which is perfectly in accordance with Oslo treaty, same treaty establishing autonomy in the West Bank and constantly broken by Palestinians) I think that:
- those claiming it agree for PA authorities of future Palestine without Jews (after all theoretically if and when Palestine is created Jewish settlers should have an option of either moving away or staying with Palestinian citizenship, isn't it so?) so they actively corroborate with racist and apartheid policy but NOT of Israel but of PA authorities,
- they believe Palestinians are free to break Oslo accords without consequences, but Israelis should give more than treaties require,
- their stance - in Polish reality if you remember Europe after II WW - could be written as: Poland had no right to build in Wroclaw, Szczecin. Walbrzych, Zielona Gora and all former German territories as there was no peace treaty and Germany could claim the territory back (so what that it has started the war? So did Jordan!). The Polish-German treaty about integrity of borders was signed in 1970. Does it mean everything Poland built between 1945 and 1970 was illegal? I don't think so.
So, here it goes for "occupied territories". And I believe I will be going back to this topic sometime....
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