Argument · heard from pro-Israel voices
“The West Bank isn't occupied — it's disputed territory, and Jews have every right to live there.”
You can only occupy another sovereign's land, and in 1967 there was no legitimate sovereign: Jordan had annexed the West Bank illegally, and no Palestinian state ever existed. The Mandate recognised the Jewish right to settle the whole land. So 'Judea and Samaria' are disputed, not occupied, and settlements are not illegal.
Common pro-Israel argument — made by Levy Committee (Edmond Levy, Alan Baker, Tchia Shapira), Natasha Hausdorff
Where it's been said
“The classical laws of 'occupation' as set out in the relevant international conventions cannot be considered applicable to the unique and sui generis historic and legal circumstances of Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria spanning over decades.”
“When Israel liberated those areas in 1967, it cannot be considered an 'occupation,' as it was legally already part of Israel.”
Traps in play:◆ Which territory?◆ Motte and bailey
Why people find it convincing
- Jordan's 1950 annexation of the West Bank was recognised by almost no one, so in 1967 Israel took the territory from a state that had no recognised title to it. Legal scholar Yehuda Blum called this the 'missing reversioner' (1968).
- Under the customary rule of uti possidetis juris, new states inherit the administrative borders of the territory they emerge from. Legal scholars Abraham Bell and Eugene Kontorovich argue this gives Israel the Mandate's borders as of May 1948, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem and possibly Gaza (Arizona Law Review, 2016). Barrister Natasha Hausdorff (UK Lawyers for Israel) has made this argument widely, concluding that land already legally Israel's cannot be 'occupied'.
- The Mandate (1922) called for 'close settlement by Jews on the land', and its Article 80 successor clause in the UN Charter preserved existing rights.
- The land was never sovereign Palestinian territory; the 1949 armistice lines were explicitly not borders.
- An Israeli government committee headed by a former Supreme Court justice concluded in 2012 that 'the classical laws of occupation … cannot be considered applicable' to Judea and Samaria (the Levy Report).
What's true
The West Bank's pre-1967 status really was unusual, and 'disputed' has a legal pedigree.
Jordan's 1950 annexation was recognised by very few states, and there was no Palestinian state in 1967. Israeli legal scholars (Blum, later the Levy Committee) built a serious argument on that: the Fourth Geneva Convention speaks of the territory of a 'High Contracting Party', and the West Bank arguably wasn't one's. The armistice lines were not borders, and the land's final status was always left to negotiation, including in the Oslo Accords, which Israel and the PLO both signed. The uti possidetis argument is a serious one, published in a peer-reviewed law review and applied by its authors to other mandates and colonies (Iraq, Syria, Togoland, Cameroon).
primary documentReport of the Committee to Examine the Status of Building in Judea and Samaria (Levy Committee) (2012) ⚠
July 2012; conclusions on the non-applicability of the laws of occupation — verify wording against the report's English translation; note it was not adopted by the government.
law / courtYehuda Z. Blum, 'The Missing Reversioner: Reflections on the Status of Judea and Samaria', Israel Law Review 3 (1968) (1968) ⚠
law / courtAbraham Bell & Eugene Kontorovich, 'Palestine, Uti Possidetis Juris, and the Borders of Israel', Arizona Law Review 58 (2016) 633 (2016) ✓
Abstract checked against the PDF: uti possidetis juris 'would dictate that Israel inherit the boundaries of the Mandate of Palestine as they existed in May, 1948', supporting claims to East Jerusalem, the West Bank and potentially Gaza (not the Golan).
What's left out
Israel's own Supreme Court has treated the West Bank as held under belligerent occupation since 1967, and so has almost everyone else.
In Beit Sourik (2004), Israel's Supreme Court wrote: 'Since 1967, Israel has been holding the areas of Judea and Samaria … in belligerent occupation', and called this 'the general point of departure of all parties', meaning the state too. The military commander's authority, it said, 'flows from the provisions of public international law regarding belligerent occupation'. Israel has governed the West Bank through a military commander, not civilian annexation, precisely because it is occupied territory. The International Court of Justice (2004, and again in 2024), the ICRC, the UN, and Israel's closest allies all treat it as occupied, and the Levy Report's conclusions were never adopted by the Israeli government. 'Disputed' is also true — but that describes the final status, not the legal regime in the meantime; a territory can be both disputed and occupied. Against uti possidetis: the Mandate's administrative lines were meant to become a state for all its inhabitants, and in 1947 the UN partitioned them; Israel's own Declaration of Independence invoked that partition resolution. Israel never extended its law to the West Bank as sovereign territory (unlike East Jerusalem and the Golan), and its courts and governments have administered it as occupied. The ICJ rejected the Israeli-sovereignty reading in 2024, and most international lawyers, including many Israeli ones, reject the doctrine's application here. Note also the citation independence: the barristers and advocacy groups who argue it publicly mostly rely on the Bell and Kontorovich article, so it counts as one line of argument, not several confirmations.
Traps here:◆ Which territory?◆ Motte and bailey◆ Citation loop
law / courtHCJ 2056/04 Beit Sourik Village Council v. Government of Israel (Supreme Court of Israel) (2004) ✓
Judgment of 30 June 2004 (English translation, Cardozo project), paras. 1 and 23; checked against the text.
law / courtICJ Advisory Opinion, Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (2004) ⚠
9 July 2004, para. 78 on the territories' status as occupied — verify paragraph.
law / courtICJ Advisory Opinion on the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (2024) ⚠
19 July 2024.
Where it leads if pressed
If it isn't occupied, what are the Palestinians who live there?
The occupation framework is, among other things, what gives West Bank Palestinians their legal protections under the law of war — protections Israel's own court enforces against its army (Beit Sourik rerouted the separation barrier for exactly that reason). Remove the framework and nothing replaces it: the territory isn't annexed, so its Palestinians aren't citizens; if it isn't occupied, they're not protected persons either. The argument quietly leads to the 'one state without equal rights' model. Its honest core — that the final status is open and the Jewish historical connection is real — survives without it, in negotiation. The uti possidetis version makes this sharper: if the West Bank is sovereign Israeli territory, its Palestinian residents are residents of Israel. A state can't claim the land as its own and the people on it as nobody's responsibility, which leaves either citizenship (the one-state models) or the rule of a population without rights.
law / courtHCJ 2056/04 Beit Sourik Village Council v. Government of Israel (Supreme Court of Israel) (2004) ✓
Judgment of 30 June 2004 (English translation, Cardozo project), paras. 1 and 23; checked against the text.
The usual reply — and its own traps
Arguments travel in pairs. Here is what the other side typically answers. Check whether both lean on the same trick.
heard from pro-Palestinian voices“Israel is an apartheid state.”