Today, an article by David Lynch of PA Media (note: formerly the Press Association, not to be confused with the Palestinian Authority) was picked up by several news aggregators, including Yahoo! News. The main topic of the piece is the British Shadow Foreign Secretary’s wholly defensible assertion that the sanctions against Israel threatened by UK Prime Minister Burnham and Foreign Secretary Miliband could risk national security.
However, there were two points in the article that are 100% factually incorrect and give the reader a complete misunderstanding of the region.
First, “Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband this week said the UK would “reset” its policy on Israel, as his ministers suggested goods coming out of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory, could be subject to sanctions.”
The characterization of the West Bank of the Jordan River as a “Palestinian territory” is categorically false. There has never been a Palestinian State or Palestinian sovereignty in any territory, including in the West Bank. Even attempts to create two states before 1948, such as the Peel Commission and UN partition plan, envisioned a Jewish state and an Arab state, not a specifically “Palestinian” state. No attempt was made to create a Palestinian state, or any form of Palestinian sovereignty at all, when the West Bank was under complete Arab control from 1948 to 1967.
In recent years, some countries have unilaterally recognized a Palestinian state; however, these recognitions are far more political theater than moves with any real legal meaning.
The term “West Bank” itself has only existed since 1950 to distinguish it from the East Bank of the Jordan River by the Jordanians who annexed the territory at that time. They gained control of the territory through military conquest, in a war attempting to exterminate the new Jewish state, in a move that was broadly rejected internationally.
From 1917-1948, the West Bank, also known by its more proper historical name of Judea & Samaria, was controlled by the British and for several hundred years prior by the Turkish Ottoman Empire. In fact, that land has been controlled by many different nations over the millennia: the Romans, the Greeks, the Persians, the Egyptians, the Crusaders, several Muslim caliphates and, of course, the Jewish Hasmonean and Davidic dynasties.
Who is completely missing from the list? The Palestinians, of course. There is no question that there is a dispute over control of the land, but to say it is “Palestinian land” when it has never in history been Palestinian land is incorrect on its face.
Secondly, the article claims that “Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law and Israeli law.” On the first point, there is a dispute under international law. Based on the Levy Report (Report on the Legal Status of Building in Judea and Samaria), a comprehensive 89-page analysis of international law by a three-person panel of legal experts, including an Israeli Supreme Court Justice, Israeli settlement of Judea & Samaria does not contravene international law. While there are others who will dispute those findings, they are, without question, in dispute. Saying, without qualification, that settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law is false. In addition, the article entirely fabricates the notion that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under Israeli law. While there are some settlements built without permits or authorization and thus illegally under Israeli law, there is no dispute that most of the settlements are, in fact, 100% legal under Israeli law.
The West Bank is without question a disputed territory. That dispute is contentious enough without reporters making up their own facts to dramatize and inflame the situation further.
In the end, a journalist whose job was to investigate and confirm the facts before publishing chose not to, and as a result, Yahoo’s readers were left with a fabricated map and invented laws.
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© Divuach Ne’eman R”A, 2025
