1/ The predominant view in the West is that the Israeli capture of the West Bank from Jordanian occupation and the capture of the Gaza Strip from Egyptian occupation in the 6-Day War of 1967 marked the beginning of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.
2/ Prior to the 6-Day War, the territory of Israel as recommended by the UN General Assembly in Partition Resolution 181 of 1947 did not include either the West Bank or the Gaza Strip. During the war following the invasion of five Arab armies in 1948, Israel captured territories beyond those proposed in GA Resolution 181. These were considered legitimate – but not the capture of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
3/ Yet in principle, there was no difference between the territories captured in 1949 and 1967 in the sense that in both cases Israel took control of them due to wars forced onto it – the first by the invasion of Israel by five Arab armies in 1948 and the second by the invasion of Israel by Jordan, Syria and Egypt in 1967. An additional similarity is that both territories had been allocated to Jews by the Mandate for Palestine in the post WW1 Peace Settlement.
4/ The post-WW1 Peace Settlement created new borders and new states in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere. It also re-established a state that had been conquered by more powerful neighbors and wiped-off the map for over a hundred years: Poland. Likewise, the Mandate for Palestine established by the post-war Settlement was the initial stage in the reconstitution of a Jewish state.
5/ Therefore, although it is commonly considered that Israel was created by UNGAR 181 in 1947, this is not the case. Nor did the UN proposal for the partition of Mandatory Palestine allocate territory to form a Jewish and an Arab state – the 2-state solution. This is because the UN possesses no legal powers to allocate territory. Nor does it have any territory to allocate.
6/ Instead, it was the opinion of the GA that the parties should accept partition of Mandatory Palestine into two states as a way to end the conflict through a peaceful territorial compromise. This was a recommendation and not a legal ruling or a binding instruction.
7/ Likewise, the UN has no powers to grant statehood. The UN Security Council may recognize states for UN membership – or not. In reality, the GA has very limited powers to do anything – except express an opinion, give advice, organise fact-finding missions, various forms of aid, and so on. It has no legal power to make laws nor any authority to enforce its opinions.
8/ Currently maintained as UN policy, the proposal to partition the territory remains a political opinion. Yet this is the basis for the view that Israel’s presence on the West Bank is an illegal occupation of Palestinian territory. The ICJ Advisory Opinions of 2004 and 2024 merely repeat UN opinion as if it were law rather than a political opinion which continues to favor a Palestinian state on the West Bank.
9/ Unfortunately for this view, article 24 of the Palestinian National Charter of 1964 explicitly rejected sovereignty over the West Bank (and the Gaza strip). No-one has been able to show that at the same time as the Palestinians rejected sovereignty over the territory it was nevertheless Palestinian!
10/ Yet the UN, the EU, the ICJ and many others ignore this and continue to classify the West Bank as Occupied Palestinian Territory. As before, these claims remain expressions of political opinion only. They continue to have no legal basis – after almost 60 years of attempting to find one. In reality, the territory is neither Palestinian nor occupied – see my article in the Times of Israel Questioning the Occupation.