Palestinian Territories - Name

Name

There are disagreements over what the Palestinian territories should be called.

The United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the European Union, International Committee of the Red Cross and the government of the United Kingdom all refer to the "Occupied Palestinian Territories". Journalists also use the description to indicate lands outside the Green Line. The term is often used interchangeably with the term occupied territories, although this term is also applied to the Golan Heights, which is internationally recognized as part of Syria and not claimed by the Palestinians. The confusion stems from the fact that all these territories were captured by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War and are treated by the UN as territory occupied by Israel.

Other terms used to describe these areas collectively include "the disputed territories", "Israeli-occupied territories", and "the occupied territories". Further terms include "Yesha" (Judea-Samaria-Gaza), Yosh (Judea and Samaria), the Katif Strip (Gaza Strip), "administered territories", "territories of undetermined permanent status", "1967 territories", and simply "the territories".

Many Arab and Islamic leaders, including some Palestinians, use the designation 'Palestine' and 'occupied Palestine' to imply a Palestinian political or religious claim to sovereignty over the whole former territory of the British Mandate west of the Jordan River, including all of Israel. Many of them view the land of Palestine as an Islamic Waqf (trust) for future Muslim generations. A parallel exists in the aspirations of David Ben-Gurion, Menachem Begin, and other Zionists and Jewish religious leaders to establish Jewish sovereignty over all of Greater Israel in trust for the Jewish people. However, this dispute is not related to religion for many Arabs, but simply an issue of rights, as the land was inhabited by Arabs (as well as a minority of Jews) before the Zionist movement began.

Many Israelis object to the term "Occupied Palestinian Territories", and similar descriptions, because they maintain such designations disregard Israeli claims to the West Bank and Gaza, or prejudice negotiations involving possible border changes, arguing that the armistice line agreed to after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War was not intended as a permanent border. Dore Gold wrote, "It would be far more accurate to describe the West Bank and Gaza Strip as "disputed territories" to which both Israelis and Palestinians have claims."