In today’s academic and activist circles, the Israel-Palestinian conflict is increasingly presented through the lens of oppressor versus oppressed. Israel is cast as the “occupier,” the alleged oppressor, while Palestinians are portrayed as the oppressed victims.
This framing is not only misleading but dangerous: it excuses Palestinian violence as if it were a natural response to oppression. Most disturbingly, it sanitizes Hamas — the jihadist terrorist organization whose charter calls for the eradication of the Jewish people and the annihilation of Israel — by portraying it as a resistance movement. That distorted lens is what allowed many in the West to downplay or even rationalize Hamas’s barbaric slaughter of Israelis on October 7, 2023.
At the heart of this narrative lies a critical question: Is Israel actually “occupying” the West Bank and Gaza Strip illegally, as Palestinians claim? The answer, when grounded in history rather than ideology, is no.
The 1947 UN partition plan
For centuries, the land known as Palestine was a sparsely populated province under Islamic empires. In the 1800s, Jewish immigrants fleeing persecution in Europe began returning to their ancestral homeland, establishing farming communities and revitalizing the land. Arabs from neighboring regions moved in as well, drawn by new economic opportunities.
Following World War I and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Britain received the mandate to prepare Palestine for self-rule. Although the 1917 Balfour Declaration affirmed Britain’s intent to establish a Jewish homeland, most of the land — nearly 78% — was given to Arabs, creating the modern Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The remaining 22%, stretching between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, was reserved for Jewish sovereignty.
After over 20 years of what became an impossible situation, the British turned it over to the United Nations, which in 1947 approved a plan to partition the land into two states — one Jewish and one Arab. The Jews declared the State of Israel, but the Arabs rejected the plan, and five Arab armies attacked the newly founded country. At the end of the War of Independence, Egypt had occupied Gaza, Syria occupied the Golan Heights, and Jordan had taken the central part of the country, expelling 17,000 Jews and naming it the West Bank of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, with no international authorization.
The Six-Day War of 1967
Faced with an imminent invasion by Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, Israel launched a series of preemptive strikes in June 1967. After the short but victorious six-day battle, the Jewish State captured land from all three — the Golan Heights in the north from Syria, Gaza and the Sinai from Egypt, and the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan — and absorbed over 1 million Palestinian Arabs.
The West Bank
The territory Jordan had seized in 1948 included some of Judaism’s holiest sites: the Temple Mount, Hebron, Rachel’s Tomb, the Cave of the Patriarchs, and Joseph’s Tomb. Jews had lived in these areas for centuries until Jordan expelled them.
International law considers the West Bank “disputed,” not “occupied,” because Jordan’s prior control was never legally recognized. Thus, Israeli communities there are not illegal outposts but a restoration of Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria — the biblical heartland of the Jewish people.
Gaza
Also, as a result of the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel controlled Gaza. The 1978 Camp David Accords attempted to provide some sort of self-rule for the Palestinians living there, but to no avail. The Oslo Accords in 1993 also fell short, though Israel surrendered governmental control of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority (PA) as part of the agreement, and in 2005, the Israeli government decided to move out of Gaza, mandating all Israeli settlers evacuate the area. Gaza soon voted Hamas in, and by mid-2007, Hamas had complete control over Gaza. On October 7, 2023, when Hamas brutally attacked Israel, Gaza was under the control of the Hamas government, not under Israeli control. Israel had moved out 18 years earlier.
“From the river to the sea”
Even if the case could be made for Israel as an illegal occupier of either the “West Bank” or of Gaza, this does not explain why the Palestinians are calling for the eradication of all of Israel. The motto “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free” is a call for the genocide of the people of Israel and for the Jewish State to be replaced by a “Jew-free” Palestinian state. Accusing Israel of being an occupier is not based on fact but is a ploy to call for her end.
Conclusion
Despite this well-documented history, Israel is being branded an occupying power in not just the West Bank and Gaza Strip but all of Israel, even though Jewish history there goes back 3,500 years. Today’s Judea and Samaria are the birthplace of the Jewish people, who were ruled for millennia by a Jewish kingdom. Even Judea was named after Judah, one of the 12 tribes in the Bible, from which the word “Jew” is derived.
We must fight the rewriting of this history and vilification of the Jewish people because the enemies of truth will not stop with the West Bank and Gaza Strip but will continue demonizing Israel until they control it all — from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
Dr. Susan Michael, President, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem – USA
