May 2, 2022

Yes, it is.

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The Arab propaganda machine, aided and abetted by the UN, EU, US, and most of the global media would have you believe otherwise.

They demand that the Palestinians living in Judea and Samaria and Gaza be granted statehood on all lands not controlled by Israel when the cease-fire lines were agreed upon in 1949.  This is referred to as the “Two-State Solution.” This solution is at the heart of the Arab Peace Initiative that was agreed to in 2002 at the Beirut Summit which provided:

“(a) Complete withdrawal from the occupied Arab territories, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the 4 June 1967 line and the territories still occupied in southern Lebanon; (b) Attain a just solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees to be agreed upon in accordance with the UN General Assembly Resolution No 194. (c) Accept the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since 4 June 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

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Like most peace plans since, it was based on a deliberate misreading of 1967.UN Security Council Resolution 242.  This resolution did not require Israel to withdraw from all lands “occupied in the ’67 War and it allowed Israel to remain in possession of said lands until she had “secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force”.

However, this resolution also included a preamble:  “Emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in security.”  

On top of this, the UN Charter provides for the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of land by war”, international law allowed for the retention of land acquired in a defensive war, which the ’67 War undoubtedly was.

But that is not the whole story…

Israel was not acquiring somebody else’s land in this war but her own land. This fact was totally ignored by the Security Council in passing it. 

Professor Eugene Kontorovich is the head of the international law department of the Kohelet Policy Forum. He answers the question, “how can the legal position of Judea and Samaria [West Bank] be defined?” in Israeli rule in the West Bank is legal under International Law.