What to call the disputed territories

Sar Shalom

As is well known, most supporters of Israel have a term for the disputed territories that is at odds with what almost all of the rest of the world calls it. For supporters of Israel, that territory is Judea and Samaria, the name by which those territories were known from biblical times until the 19th century. For the rest of the world, it is the West Bank, after the name Jordan gave it in 1949 and which had become standard during Jordan's occupation.

Both of those terms have their problems. The problem "Judea and Samaria" is that it conveys a sense of irredentism without conveying why it is rightfully Jewish (or Judean). Furthermore, using "Judea and Samaria" to refer to the disputed territory implies that the territory from Beersheba to Ein Gedi is not part of Judea. On the other hand, "West Bank" accepts the narrative of the party, Jordan, that acquired the territory in an aggressive war.

The term I would suggest is "Jordanian Conquest." This term conveys what distinguishes the disputed territory from what is not disputed in that the territory that Jordan succeeded in conquering is now disputed between Israel and the international community and there is no dispute between Israel and the international community over any territory that Jordan failed to conquer. The following approaches as to how to allocate any given Parcel X should illustrate the consequences of the terminology.

Approach 1: Was Parcel X under Arab control prior to the 1967 war? If so, no further information is needed, it should become part of Palestine.

Approach 2: Was Parcel X conquered by Jordan during the 1948-49 Independence War? If so, no further information is needed, it should become part of Palestine.

Both lines of inquiry are affected by the preamble to UN Security Council Resolution 242, which states, "Emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war ...." If you accept the framing of the first question, then the preamble to 242 almost necessarily leads to the conclusion that everything Israel conquered in 1967 belongs to the Palestinians as of right and that that can only be amended with the Palestinians' assent. However, if you accept the framing of the second question, then embracing the conclusion is outright thumbing your nose as the preamble of 242.

Calling the disputed territory the "West Bank" implicitly accepts the first frame. Calling it Judea and Samaria says nothing about which frame to accept. Since it says nothing, it accepts that anyone who previously accepted the first frame would continue to accept that frame. Calling it the Jordanian Conquest places the second frame front and center. Getting the designation Jordanian Conquest accepted would promote that second frame.