pop (2000e) 1 662 000; region of the Middle East W of the R Jordan and the Dead Sea; comprises the Jordanian governorates of Jerusalem, Hebron, and Nablus; part of the former mandate of Palestine, administered by Jordan, 194967; seized by Israel in the 1967 War, and remained under Israeli occupation, administered as the district of Judea-Samaria, where numerous settlements have been built; area includes Old (East) Jerusalem, as well as Bethlehem, Jericho, Hebron, and Nablus; scene of the uprising (Intifada) against the Israelis (198791), during which time schools and many shops were closed; some areas returned to the Palestine National Authority (Jericho and Hebron), with others being the focus of intense negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel. In 2004, work was still in progress on the West Bank Barrier, a 690 km/430 mi construction to prevent the incursion of terrorists into Israel, in spite of it being declared illegal by the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
The West Bank (Hebrew: הגדה המערבית, Hagadah Hamaaravit, Arabic: الضفة الغربية, aḍ-Ḍiffä l-Ġarbīyä), is a landlocked territory on the west bank of the Jordan River in the Middle East. It was captured by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War and is considered by the United Nations Security Council, the United Nations General Assembly, the International Court of Justice, and the International Committee of the Red Cross to be under Israeli occupation.
After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, this territory was part of the British Mandate of Palestine. The West Bank was captured and annexed by Jordan, and the 1949 Armistice Agreements defined its interim boundary. The area was captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War, although, with the exception of East Jerusalem (and unlike the Golan Heights), it was not annexed by Israel. The West Bank is currently considered under international law to be de jure a territory not part of any state.
40% of the area (including most of the population, 98% of the Palestinian population) is under the limited civilian jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, while Israel maintains overall control (including over Israeli settlements, rural areas, and border regions).
Demographics of the West Bank
According to Palestinian evaluations, The West Bank is inhabited by approximately 2.4 million Palestinians.
There are over 400,000 Israeli settlers (260,000 not including those in East Jerusalem), and small ethnic groups such as the Samaritans, living in and around Nablus, numbering in the hundreds or low thousands. The Jews in the West Bank live mostly in Israeli settlements, though populations exist in Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem and Hebron (though in Hebron, the Israelis live separated by fences and barricades). Interactions between the two societies have generally declined due to the recent security problems, though an economic relationship often exists between adjacent Israeli settlements and Palestinian villages.
Approximately 30% of Palestinians living in the West Bank are refugees or their direct descendants, who fled or were expelled from Israel during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War (see Palestinian exodus).
The accuracy of the total population figures are disputed according to a study presented at The Sixth Herzliya Conference on The Balance of Israel’s National Security.
Cities and settlements in the West Bank
The most densely populated part of the region is a mountainous spine, running north-south, where the cities of Jerusalem, Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem, and Hebron are located. Jenin, in the extreme north of the West Bank is on the southern edge of the Jezreel Valley, Qalqilyah and Tulkarm are in the low foothills adjacent to the Israeli coastal plain, and Jericho is situated near the Jordan River, just north of the Dead Sea.
East Jerusalem
East Jerusalem is not recognized by Israel as a separate entity from western Jerusalem as Jerusalem as a whole is currently claimed to be part of the Israeli capital.
Ma'ale Adummim
Ma'ale Adummim (Hebrew: מעלה אדומים) is an Israeli settlement in the Judea region of the West Bank, east of Jerusalem. Ma'ale Adummim is one of the largest Jewish communities in the West Bank. Ma'ale Adummim is seen by Palestinians as a threat to the territorial continuity of any future Palestinian state, given its strategic situation between the northern and southern areas of the West Bank.
Ramallah
Ramallah is generally considered the most affluent and cultural as well as the most liberal, of all Palestinian cities. Ramallah (not to be confused with the Israeli city of Ramla) is a major Palestinian cultural and economic center, and is the location of Yasser Arafat's burial spot.
Tulkarm
Tulkarm or Tulkarem (Arabic: طولكرم Ṭūlkarm; Hebrew: טול כרם) is a Palestinian city in the West Bank.
Nablus
Nablus is a major city of over 100,000 Palestinians and lies between the two mountains of Ebal and Gerizim.
Jenin
Jenin was known in ancient times as the Biblical village of En-gannim (Biblical Hebrew עֵין־גַּנִּים ʻĒn-Gannīm, "gardens spring"), a city of the Levites of the Tribe of Issachar. The State of Israel built a nearby Israeli settlement, Ganim, also named after the ancient village. Israel was widely pilloried in by international journalists and diplomats for what was called the "Jenin massacre" -- a false allegation made by Palestinian officials that the IDF killed hundreds of civilians in the camp.
Ariel
Ariel (Hebrew: אריאל) is an Israeli settlement located north of the Palestinian town of Salfit on the West Bank, in the Biblical region of Samaria near the ancient village of Timnat Serah.
Hebron
Hebron is a city of paramount importance to Jews, Christians, and Muslims.
Kiryat Arba is an urban Israeli settlement adjoining the city of Hebron.
Bethlehem
Bethlehem, which is south of Jerusalem, has great significance for Christianity as it is believed to be the birthplace of Jesus of Nazareth and the Church of the Nativity.
Jericho
Jericho, an oasis town in the Jordan Valley, is one of the oldest cities on Earth.
Gush Etzion
Gush Etzion (Hebrew: גוש עציון, lit. bloc of the tree) is a group of Israeli settlements in the northern Judea region of the West Bank.
Jordan Valley
The Jordan Valley is a low-lying strip which cleaves down the western border of the country. Since 1967, every Israeli government has considered the Jordan Valley to be the "eastern border" of Israel and has sought to strengthen the Israeli presence there. Over the years, most of the area has been declared state land and was attached to the jurisdictional area of the Jordan Valley Regional Council, which includes most of the settlements in the valley.
Origin of the name
West Bank
The region did not have a separate existence until 1948–9, when it was defined by the Armistice Agreement between Israel and Jordan. The name "West Bank" was apparently first used by Jordanians at the time of their annexation of the region, and has become the most common name used in English and related languages.
Judea and Samaria
Prior to this usage of the name "West Bank", the region was commonly referred to as Judea and Samaria, its long-standing name.
Israelis refer to the region either as a unit: "The West Bank" (Hebrew: "ha-Gada ha-Ma'aravit" "הגדה המערבית"), or as two units: Judea (Hebrew: "Yehuda" "יהודה") and Samaria (Hebrew: "Shomron" "שומרון"), after the two biblical kingdoms (the southern Kingdom of Judah and the northern Kingdom of Israel — the capital of which was, for a time, in the town of Samaria).
Cisjordan/Transjordan
The neo-Latin name Cisjordan or Cis-Jordan (literally "on this side of the [River] Jordan") is the usual name in most Romance languages, in part out of the logical argument that the word "[river] bank" should not be applied to a mountainous region. The analogous Transjordan has historically been used to designate modern-day Jordan which lies on the "eastern banks" of the River Jordan. For the low-lying area immediately west of the Jordan, the name Jordan Valley is used instead.
Status
The future status of the West Bank, together with the Gaza Strip on the Mediterranean shore, has been the subject of negotiation between the Palestinians and Israelis, although the current Road Map for Peace, proposed by the "Quartet" comprising the United States, Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations, envisions an independent Palestinian state in these territories living side by side with Israel (see also proposals for a Palestinian state).
The Palestinian people believe that the West Bank ought to be a part of their sovereign nation, and that the presence of Israeli military control is a violation of their right to self-determination. The United Nations calls the West Bank and Gaza Strip Israeli-occupied (see Israeli-occupied territories).
Israel argues that its presence is justified because:
Israel's eastern border has never been defined by anyone; According to the Camp David Accords (1978) with Egypt, the 1994 agreement with Jordan and the Oslo Accords with the PLO, the final status of the territories would be fixed only when there was a permanent agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.Palestinian public opinion is almost unanimous in opposing Israeli military and settler presence on the West Bank as a violation of their right to statehood and sovereignty. Israeli opinion is split into a number of views:
Complete or partial withdrawal from the West Bank in hopes of peaceful coexistence in separate states (sometimes called the "land for peace" position); Maintenance of a military presence in the West Bank to reduce Palestinian terrorism by deterrence or by armed intervention, while relinquishing some degree of political control; Annexation of the West Bank while considering the Palestinian population as (for instance) citizens of Jordan with Israeli residence permit as per the Elon Peace Plan; Annexation of the West Bank and assimilation of the Palestinian population to fully fledged Israeli citizens; Annexation of the West Bank. Transfer of the East Jerusalem Palestinian population (a 2002 poll at the height of the Al Aqsa intifada found 46% of Israelis favoring Palestinian transfer of Jerusalem residents;Annexation
Israel annexed the territory of East Jerusalem, and its Palestinian residents (if they should decline Israeli citizenship) have legal permanent residency status. Although permanent residents are permitted, if they wish, to receive Israeli citizenship if they meet certain conditions including swearing allegiance to the State and renouncing any other citizenship, most Palestinians did not apply for Israeli citizenship for political reasons. There are various possible reasons as to why the West Bank had not been annexed to Israel after its capture in 1967. thus failing to maintain the concept and safety of a democracy and Jewish state (Bard,) To ultimately exchange the land for peace with neighbouring states
Settlements and International Law
Israeli settlements on the West Bank beyond the Green Line border are considered by some legal scholars to be illegal under international law. The Independent reported in March 2006 that immediately after the 1967 war Theodor Meron, legal counsel of Israel's Foreign Ministry advised Israeli ministers in a "top secret" memo that any policy of building settlements across occupied territories violated international law and would "contravene the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention". A contrasting opinion was held by Eugene Rostow, a former Dean of the Yale Law School and undersecretary of state for political affairs in the administration of U.S. President Lyndon Johnson, who wrote in 1991 that Israel has a right to have settlements in the West Bank under 1967's UN Security Council Resolution 242. It is the policy of both Israel and the United States that the settlements do not violate international law, although the United States considers ongoing settlement activity to be "unhelpful" to the peace process.
In 2005 the United States ambassador to Israel, Dan Kurtzer, expressed U.S. support "for the retention by Israel of major Israeli population centres [in the West Bank] as an outcome of negotiations", reflecting President Bush's statement a year earlier that a permanent peace treaty would have to reflect "demographic realities" on the West Bank.
The UN Security Council has issued several non-binding resolutions addressing the issue of the settlements. Typical of these is UN Security Council resolution 446 which states [the] practices of Israel in establishing settlements in the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967 have no legal validity, and it calls on Israel as the occupying Power, to abide scrupulously by the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention.
The Conference of High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention held in Geneva on 5 December, 2001 called upon "the Occupying Power to fully and effectively respect the Fourth Geneva Convention in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and to refrain from perpetrating any violation of the Convention."
See also Israeli settlement
West Bank barrier
The Israeli West Bank barrier is a physical barrier being constructed by Israel consisting of a network of fences with vehicle-barrier trenches surrounded by an on average 60 meters wide exclusion area (95%) and up to 8 meters high concrete walls (5%). The barrier generally runs along or near the 1949 Jordanian-Israeli armistice/Green Line, but diverges in many places to include on the Israeli side several of the highly populated areas of Jewish settlements in the West Bank such as East Jerusalem, Ariel, Gush Etzion, Emmanuel, Karnei Shomron, Givat Ze'ev, Oranit, and Ma'ale Adummim. Because of the complex path it follows, most of the barrier is actually set in the West Bank, with the result that many Israeli settlements in the West Bank remain on the Israeli side of the barrier, and some Palestinian towns are nearly encircled by it.
The West Bank barrier is justified by Israel as being necessary to deter Palestinian attacks against Israeli civilians, but it has been subject to criticism by the international community.
History
The territories now known as the West Bank were part of the Mandate of Palestine granted to Great Britain by the League of Nations after WW1. The current border of the West Bank was not a dividing line of any sort during the Mandate period. When the United Nations General Assembly voted in 1947 to partition Palestine into a Jewish State, an Arab State, and an internationally-administered enclave of Jerusalem, almost all of the West Bank was assigned to the Arab State. (Pakistan is often, but apparently falsely, assumed to have recognized it also.)
The 1948 Armistice Agreements established the "Green Line" separating the territories held by Israel and its neighbors. All parties eventually accepted it and agree to its applicability to the West Bank.
In 1988, Jordan ceded its claims to the West Bank to the Palestine Liberation Organization, as "the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people."
The 1993 Oslo Accords declared the final status of the West Bank to be subject to a forthcoming settlement between Israel and the Palestinian leadership. Following these interim accords, Israel withdrew its military rule from some parts of West Bank, which was then split into:
Palestinian-controlled, Palestinian-administered land (Area A) Israeli-controlled, but Palestinian-administered land (Area B) Israeli-controlled, Israeli-administered land (Area C)Areas B and C constitute the majority of the territory, comprising the rural areas and the Jordan River valley region, while urban areas – where the majority of the Palestinian population resides – are mostly designated Area A.
(See Israeli settlements for a discussion of the legal standing of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.)
Transport and communication
Roads
The West Bank has 4,500 km of roads, of which 2,700 km are paved.
In response to shootings by Palestinians, some highways, especially those leading to Israeli settlements, are completely inaccessible to cars with Palestinian license plates, while many other roads are restricted only to public transportation and to Palestinians who have special permits from Israeli authorities . Due to numerous shooting assaults targeting Israeli vehicles, the IDF bars Israelis from using most of the original roads in the West Bank.
Israel maintains 50+ checkpoints in the West Bank . As such, movement restrictions are also placed on main roads traditionally used by Palestinians to travel between cities, and such restrictions have been blamed for poverty and economic depression in the West Bank . According to recent human rights reports, "Israel has made efforts to improve transport contiguity for Palestinians travelling in the West Bank. It has done this by constructing underpasses and bridges (28 of which have been constructed and 16 of which are planned) that link Palestinian areas separated from each other by Israeli settlements and bypass roads" and by removal of checkpoints and physical obstacles, or by not reacting to Palestinian removal or natural erosion of other obstacles.
However, the obstacles encircling major Palestinian urban hubs, particularly Nablus and Hebron, have remained.
Airports
The West Bank has three paved airports which are currently for military use only.
Telecom
The Israeli Bezeq and Palestinian PalTel telecommunication companies provide communication services in the West Bank.
Radio and television
The Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation broadcasts from an AM station in Ramallah on 675 kHz;
Israel's cable television company 'HOT', satellite television provider (DBS) 'Yes', AM &
Higher education
Before 1967 there were no universities in the West Bank (except for the Hebrew University in Jerusalem - see below). As the Jordanian government did not allow the establishment of such universities in the West Bank, Palestinians could obtain degrees only by travelling abroad to places such as Jordan, Lebanon, or Europe.
After the region was captured by Israel in the Six-Day War, several educational institutions began offering undergraduate courses, while others opened up as entirely new universities. In total, seven Universities have been commissioned in the West Bank since 1967:
Bethlehem University, a Roman Catholic institution partially funded by the Vatican, opened its doors in 1973 . The Hebron University was established in 1980 Al-Quds University, whose founders had yearned to establish a university in Jerusalem since the early days of Jordanian rule, finally realized their goal in 1995 . Also in 1995, after the signing of the Oslo Accords, the Arab American University—the only private university in the West Bank—was founded in Jenin, with the purpose of providing courses according to the American system of education . This move to create a university within an Israeli settlement has angered some Palestinians, although no official response was made by the Palestinian authority. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the leader of the Palestinian forces in Jerusalem, Abdul Kader Husseini, threatened that the Hadassah Hospital and the Hebrew University would be captured or destroyed "if the Jews continued to use them as bases for attacks".Most universities in the West Bank have politically active student bodies, and elections of student council officers are normally along party affiliations.
The founding of Palestinian universities has greatly increased education levels among the population in the West Bank. The literacy rate among Palestinians in the West Bank (and Gaza) (89%) is third highest in the region after Israel (95%) and Jordan (90%) .
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