Borders of Israel: Difference between revisions

{{About|the modern-day borders of Israel|the ancient borders of Israel|Mosaic of Rehob}}

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[[File:Israel and occupied territories map.png|thumb|Borders of Israel]]

 

 

According to the [[Green Line (Israel)|Green Line]] of the [[1949 Armistice Agreements]], Israel borders [[Lebanon]] in the north, the [[Golan Heights]] and [[Syria]] in the northeast, the [[West Bank]] and [[Jordan]] in the east, the [[Gaza Strip]] and [[Egypt]] in the southwest. The border with Egypt is the [[international border]] demarcated in 1906 between the [[United Kingdom]] and the [[Ottoman Empire]], confirmed in the 1979 [[Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty]], and the border with Jordan is based on the border defined in the 1922 [[Trans-Jordan memorandum]], confirmed in the 1994 [[Israel–Jordan peace treaty]].

The [[Sykes–Picot Agreement]] of 1916 secretly divided the Ottoman Empire lands of Middle East between British and French [[sphere of influence|spheres of influence]]. They agreed that "Palestine" was to be designated as an "international enclave".<ref>Pappe, Ilan. ''The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947–1951'', I. B. Tauris; New Ed edition (August 15, 1994), p. 3.</ref>

 

 

==Border with Jordan==

| image2 = British Government memorandum regarding Article 25 of the Palestine Mandate with respect to Transjordan, 25 March 1921.jpg

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| image1 = Cair Conference 12 March memo regarding Transjordan.jpg

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In March 1921, the Colonial Secretary [[Winston Churchill]] visited Jerusalem and following a discussion with [[Emir Abdullah]], it was agreed that Transjordan was to be added to the proposed Palestine Mandate, but that the [[Jewish National Home]] objective for the proposed [[British Mandate for Palestine (legal instrument)|Palestine Mandate]] would not apply to the territory.

 

 

Historian and political scientist [[Adam Garfinkle]] writes that the public clarification and implementation of Article 25, more than a year after it was added to the mandate, misled some "into imagining that Transjordanian territory was covered by the conditions of the Mandate as to the Jewish National Home before August 1921".{{efn|Adam Garfinkle explained, "After the Cairo Conference of March 1921, whereupon the Emirate of Transjordan was created, Article 25 pertaining to Transjordan was added to the draft Mandate – in August 1921. Article 25 notes that Transjordanian territory is not included in the Jewish National Home. This language confuses some readers into imagining that Transjordanian territory was covered by the conditions of the Mandate as to the Jewish National Home before August 1921. Not so; what became Transjordanian territory was not part of the mandate at all. As noted, it was part of the Arabian Chapter problem; it was, in other words, in a state of postwar legal and administrative limbo. And this is also not to speak of the fact that, as of August 1921, the mandates had yet to be approved or take effect."{{sfn|Garfinkle|1998}}}} This would, according to professor of modern Jewish history [[Bernard Wasserstein]], result in "the myth of Palestine's 'first partition' [which became] part of the concept of 'Greater Israel' and of the ideology of Jabotinsky's Revisionist movement".{{efn|name=Wasserstein|Wasserstein writes: "Palestine, therefore, was not partitioned in 1921–1922. Transjordan was not excised but, on the contrary, added to the mandatory area. Zionism was barred from seeking to expand there – but the Balfour Declaration had never previously applied to the area east of the Jordan. Why is this important? Because the myth of Palestine's 'first partition' has become part of the concept of 'Greater Israel' and of the ideology of Jabotinsky's Revisionist movement."{{sfn|Wasserstein|2008|p=105–106}}}}{{efn|Biger wrote, "The results of the Cairo conference were a failure for the Zionist Organization, but Britain had won itself a devoted ally east of the Jordan&nbsp;... Certain Zionist politicians, and especially the circles that surrounded Ze'ev Jabutinski, regarded the British decisions and the quiet Zionist approval as treason. The call 'Two banks for the Jordan river – this one is ours and so is the other' was heard from then onward. Even the other side of the Jewish political map did not lose its faith in achieving a better political solution, and in a famous song – which was composed many years later – one can find the words 'from Metulla to the Negev, from the sea to the desert'. The allusion is clearly to the desert that lies east of the Trans-Jordanian heights and not to the Judean desert."{{sfn|Biger|2004|p=179}}}} Palestinian-American academic [[Ibrahim Abu-Lughod]], then chair of the [[Northwestern University]] political science department, suggested that the "Jordan as a Palestinian State" references made by Israeli spokespeople may reflect "the same [mis]understanding".{{efn|Abu-Lughod, writing in 1988: "... the statement presented by Mr Herbert Samuel, the first British High Commissioner, to the League of Nations on the administration of Palestine and Transjordan between 1920–25&nbsp;... is sufficiently clear on the distinctness of Transjordan and its emergence and leaves no doubt that Palestine did not include Transjordan in prior periods&nbsp;... The Zionist and later on the Israeli discourse stresses the 'fact' that Israel emerged on only a very small part of Palestine – less than a third – by which they mean the entirety of Palestine and Transjordan; hence the term 'the partitioned State'&nbsp;... While Israel officially is more circumspect in its pronouncements, its official spokesmen often refer to Jordan as a Palestinian State and claim that Palestinians already therefore have a state of their own. A series of advertisements that appeared in major American newspapers in the course of 1983 claimed openly that Jordan is Palestine. The series was presumably paid for by 'private' sponsors who support Israel but have been reported to be acting on behalf of certain sectors of Israel's leadership. Though rightly discredited as spurious scholarship, Joan Peters's From Time Immemorial (1984) gave much publicity to the Zionist definition of Palestine as including Transjordan (and, throughout, her work utilizes seriously flawed data that specifically refer to 'Western Palestine'). Perhaps Israel's preference for a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in terms of what has become known as the 'Jordanian' option reflects the same understanding."{{sfn|Abu-Lughod|1988|pp=197–199}}}}{{sfn|Abu-Lughod|1988|pp=197–199}}

Transjordan gained independence from Britain in 1946 within the above borders, prior to the termination of the Palestinian Mandate.<ref>"Mandates." ''The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East''. Ed. Avraham Sela. New York: Continuum, 2002. pp. 583–584.</ref>

 

 

The area to the west of the Jordan River, seized by Jordan during the 1948 War, was [[Jordanian annexation of the West Bank|annexed by Jordan in 1950]],<ref name="In the Act of Union, 1950">In the ''Act of Union'', 1950.</ref> with the border being the 1949 armistice line, though Jordan laid claim to all of Mandate Palestine. Jordan’s annexation was only recognised by three countries. The West Bank remained part of Jordan until Israel captured it in 1967, during the [[Six-Day War]], though Jordan continued to claim the territory as its own after that date. In July 1988, Jordan renounced all claims to the West Bank,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/88_july31.html|title=Address to the Nation|website=www.kinghussein.gov.jo}}</ref><ref name="nytimes1988">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/01/world/hussein-surrenders-claims-west-bank-plo-us-peace-plan-jeopardy-internal-tensions.html|title=U.S. PEACE PLAN IN JEOPARDY; Internal Tensions|date=August 1, 1988|work=The New York Times}}</ref> in favour of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people".<ref name=Kassim/>

 

 

==Border with Syria and Lebanon==

===French Mandate: Paulet–Newcombe Agreement===

 

The [[Paulet–Newcombe Agreement]], a series of agreements between 1920–23, contained the principles for the boundary between the [[League of Nations mandate|Mandates]] of [[British Mandate for Palestine (legal instrument)|Palestine]] and [[British Mandate of Mesopotamia|Mesopotamia]], attributed to Great Britain, and the Mandate of [[French Mandate of Syria|Syria]] and the [[French mandate of Lebanon|Lebanon]], attributed to France.

 

[[File:GolanHistoricalBorders.svg|thumbnail|right|260px|Borders in the region of the [[Sea of Galilee]] and [[Golan Heights]], showing the Ottoman boundaries, the 1920 agreement and the 1923 agreement]]

 

The [[1947 UN Partition Plan]] allocated this territory to the Jewish state. Following the [[1948 Arab–Israeli War]], Syria seized some land that had been allocated to the Jewish state and under the [[1949 Armistice Agreements]] with Israel retained 66 square kilometers of that territory in the Jordan Valley that lay west of the 1923 Palestinian Mandate border (marked green in the map on right).<ref name="autogenerated584">''[[The Missing Peace|The Missing Peace - The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace]]'' (2004), by [[Dennis Ross]]. {{ISBN|0-374-52980-9}}. pp 584-585</ref> These territories were designated [[demilitarized zone]]s (DMZs) and remained under Syrian control (marked as DMZs on second map). It was emphasised that the armistice line was "not to be interpreted as having any relation whatsoever to ultimate territorial arrangements." (Article V)

 

 

 

===Lebanon conflict===

* Israel withdrew its forces from 13 villages in Lebanese territory, which were occupied during the war.

 

 

Between 1950 and 1967, Israeli and Lebanese surveyors managed to complete 25 non-contiguous kilometers and mark (but not sign) another quarter of the international border.{{citation needed|date=February 2020}}

The Shebaa Farms conflict stems from Israel's occupation and annexation of the Golan Heights, with respect to that territory's border with Lebanon. Both Lebanon and Syria were within the French Mandate Territory between 1920 and the end of the French Mandate in 1946. The dispute over the sovereignty over the [[Shebaa Farms]] resulted in part from the failure of French [[League of Nations mandate|Mandate]] administrations, and subsequently from the failure of the Lebanon and Syria to properly demarcate the border between them.

 

 

The region continued to be represented in the 1930s and 1940s as Syrian territory, under the French Mandate. Detailed maps showing the border were produced by the French in 1933, and again in 1945.<ref>"[[Beyrouth]]" 1:200,000 sheet NI36-XII available in the U.S. [[Library of Congress]] and French archives.</ref> They clearly showed the region to be in Syria.

A number of local residents regarded themselves as Lebanese, however. The Lebanese government showed little interest in their views. The Syrian government administered the region, and on the eve of the 1967 war, the region was under effective Syrian control.{{Citation needed|date=October 2012}}

 

 

==Border with Egypt==

[[File:Israel-Egypt-Gaza border region.jpg|thumb|260px|A clearly visible line marks about 80 kilometers (~50 mi) of the international border between Egypt and Israel in this photograph from the [[International Space Station]]. The reason for the color difference is likely a higher level of grazing by the Bedouin-tended animal herds on the Egyptian side of the border.]]

 

 

According to the personal documents of the British colonel Wilfed A. Jennings Bramley, who influenced the negotiations, the border mainly served British military interests—it furthered the Ottomans as much as possible from the [[Suez Canal]], and gave Britain complete control over both [[Red Sea]] gulfs—Suez and Aqaba, including the [[Straits of Tiran]]. At the time, the [[Aqaba]] branch of the [[Hejaz railway]] had not been built, and the Ottomans therefore had no simple access to the Red Sea. The British were also interested in making the border as short and patrollable as possible, and did not take into account the needs of the local residents in the negotiations.<ref name="negev">Gardus and Shmueli (1979), pp. 369–370</ref>

===End of British Mandate===

[[File:Declaration of State of Israel 1948 2.jpg|thumb|right|David Ben-Gurion proclaiming independence beneath a large portrait of [[Theodor Herzl]], founder of modern [[Zionism]]]]

 

 

[[File:Israel green lines.png|right|thumb|upright|Israel's 1949 Green Line (green thin line) and demilitarized zones (green thick line/areas)]]

 

On September 22, 1948, during a truce in the war, the [[Provisional State Council]] of Israel passed a law to annex all land that Israel had captured in the war, and declaring that from then on, any part of Palestine taken by the Israeli army would automatically be annexed to Israel.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.israellawresourcecenter.org/israellaws/fulltext/areajurisdictionpowersord.htm|title=Area of Jurisdiction and Powers Ordinance (1948)|access-date=January 27, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130622033259/http://www.israellawresourcecenter.org/israellaws/fulltext/areajurisdictionpowersord.htm|archive-date=June 22, 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref> This, effectively, annexed to Israel all land within the Green Line, though the armistice agreements were declared to be temporary and not permanent borders.

In 1988, Palestine [[Palestinian Declaration of Independence|declared its independence]] without specifying its borders. Jordan [[International recognition of the State of Palestine|extended recognition]] to Palestine and renounced its claim to the [[West Bank]] to the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, which had been previously designated by the Arab League as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people".<ref name=Kassim>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DWhgIe3Hq98C&pg=PA247&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false |title=The Palestine Yearbook of International Law 1987-1988 |editor=Anis F. Kassim |year=1988 |page=247 |isbn=9041103414}}</ref>

 

 

Israel and the Palestinian territories now lay entirely within the boundaries of former British Mandate Palestine. By the [[Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty]] of 1979, Egypt renounced all claims to the Gaza Strip. In 1988, Jordan renounced all claims to the West Bank;<ref name="nytimes1988"/> this was made official in the [[Israel–Jordan Treaty of Peace]] of 1994. The Green Line is Israel's contested boundary with the Palestinian territories.

The purported annexation of East Jerusalem was criticised by Palestinian, Arab and other leaders, and was declared by the United Nations Security Council "a violation of international law" and "null and void" in [[United Nations Security Council Resolution 478|Resolution 478]], and has not been recognized by the international community, and all countries moved their embassies from Jerusalem.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.science.co.il/Embassies.php|title=Foreign Embassies in Israel|publisher=}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://geography.about.com/od/politicalgeography/a/embassy.htm|title=What's the Difference Between An Embassy and a Consulate?|publisher=}}</ref>

 

 

==See also==

* Biger, Gideon (1995), ''The encyclopedia of international boundaries'', New York: Facts on File.

* Biger, Gideon (2005), ''[https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Boundaries_of_Modern_Palestine_1840.html?id=jC9MbKNh8GUC&redir_esc=y The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840-1947]''. London: Routledge. {{ISBN|0-7146-5654-2}}.

* {{cite journal|ref=harv|authorlink=Adam Garfinkle|first=Adam|last=Garfinkle|title=History and Peace: Revisiting two Zionist myths|journal=Israel Affairs|volume=5|issue=1|date=1998}}

* Gil-Har, Yitzhak (1993), British commitments to the Arabs and their application to the Palestine-Trans-Jordan boundary: The issue of the Semakh triangle, ''Middle Eastern Studies'', Vol.29, No.4, pp.&nbsp;690–701.