Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By simmons on July 9, 2015

West Bank Area Total 5,640km2 (2,180sqmi) Population Total 2,345,107 Demonym Palestinians, Arabs, Samaritans, Israeli Settlers

The West Bank (Arabic: a-affah l-arbiyyah; Hebrew: , HaGadah HaMa'aravit or Cisjordan[2][3] is a landlocked territory near the Mediterranean coast of Western Asia, forming the bulk of the Palestinian territories. The West Bank shares boundaries (demarcated by the Jordanian-Israeli armistice of 1949) to the west, north, and south with the state of Israel, and to the east, across the Jordan River, with Jordan. The West Bank also contains a significant coastline along the western bank of the Dead Sea.[4]

The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has a land area of 5,640km2 and 220km2 water, the northwest quarter of the Dead Sea.[4] It has an estimated population of 2,676,740 (July 2013).[5] More than 80%, about 2,100,000,[4] are Palestinian Arabs, and approximately 500,000 are Jewish Israelis living in the West Bank,[4] including about 192,000 in East Jerusalem,[6] in Israeli settlements. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.[7][8][9][10] The International Court of Justice advisory ruling (2004) concluded that events that came after the 1967 occupation of the West Bank by Israel, including the Jerusalem Law, Israel's peace treaty with Jordan and the Oslo Accords, did not change the status of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) as occupied territory with Israel as the occupying power.[11][12]

The name West Bank is a translation of the Arabic term ad-Daffah I-Garbiyyah, given to the territory west of the Jordan River that fell, in 1948, under occupation and administration by Jordan, which claimed subsequently to have annexed it in 1950. This annexation was recognized only by Britain, Iraq and Pakistan.[13] The term was chosen to differentiate the west bank of the River Jordan from the "East Bank" of this river.

The neo-Latin name Cisjordan or Cis-Jordan (literally "on this side of the River Jordan") is the usual name for the territory in the Romance languages and Hungarian. The name West Bank, however, has become the standard usage for this geopolitical entity in English and some of the other Germanic languages since its creation following the Jordanian army's conquest.

In English, the name Cisjordan is occasionally used to designate the entire region between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, particularly in the historical context of the British Mandate and earlier times.[citation needed] The analogous Transjordan (literally "on the other side of the River Jordan") has historically been used to designate the region now roughly comprising the state of Jordan, which lies to the east of the Jordan River.

From 1517 through 1917, the area now known as the West Bank was under Ottoman rule as part of the provinces of Syria.

At the 1920 San Remo conference, the victorious Allied powers (France, UK, USA, etc.) allocated the area to the British Mandate of Palestine (192047). The San Remo Resolution adopted on 25 April 1920 incorporated the Balfour Declaration of 1917. It and Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations were the basic documents upon which the British Mandate for Palestine was constructed.

In 1947, it was subsequently designated as part of a proposed Arab state by the United Nations (UN) partition plan for Palestine. The resolution recommended partition of the British Mandate into a Jewish State, an Arab State, and an internationally administered enclave of Jerusalem,[14] a more broad region of the modern-day West Bank was assigned to the Arab State. The resolution designated the territory described as "the hill country of Samaria and Judea" (including what is now also known as the "West Bank") as part of the proposed Arab state, but following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War this area was captured by Transjordan (renamed Jordan two years after independence in 1946).

1949 Armistice Agreements defined the interim boundary between Israel and Jordan.[15] In 1950, Transjordan annexed the area west of the Jordan River, naming it "West Bank" or "Cisjordan", as "East Bank" or "Transjordan" designated the area east of the river. Jordan ruled over the West Bank from 1948 until 1967. Jordan's annexation was never formally recognized by the international community, with the exception of the United Kingdom.[16][17]

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West Bank - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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