Judaea and Shomron -International Law and the "Occupied Territories"

As the treaty of Lausance IS international Law, the previous Mandated Area of Judaea and Shomron part of the "future Homeland of the Jewish people" refused by the Arabs of the Mandated Areas and conqured and illegally occupied by the Jordanians -who called the "Disputed territories" the West Bank. 

According to International Law does this area NOT legally belong to Israel?

This is a complex question with deeply contested legal and political interpretations. 

While the Treaty of Lausanne is indeed international law, its direct application to the current status of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank ) is not straightforward and is subject to significant debate among international legal scholars and political actors.

Here's a breakdown of the key arguments and considerations:

1. The Treaty of Lausanne and the Mandate for Palestine:

The Treaty of Lausanne (1923) formally ended the war between the Allied Powers and the Ottoman Empire. Crucially, it meant Turkey relinquished all claims to its former territories outside its new borders, including those that would become the British Mandate for Palestine.

The Mandate for Palestine, assigned to Britain by the League of Nations in 1922, explicitly incorporated the Balfour Declaration, which called for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in British Mandated Territory known as "Palestine".

The Mandate recognized the historical connection of the Jewish people to the land and aimed to facilitate Jewish immigration and close settlement on the land.

Proponents of Israel's claim often argue that the Mandate, with its emphasis on a Jewish national home, provided an international legal basis for Jewish self-determination in the territory. 

They contend that the areas west of the Jordan River, including Judea and Samaria, were part of this designated "future Homeland of the Jewish people."

2. The Jordanian Occupation and "Disputed Territories":

After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Jordan occupied and later annexed the West Bank (which it called the "West Bank"), including East Jerusalem. This annexation was largely not recognized internationally (except by a few states like the UK and Pakistan).

Israel argues that because Jordan's annexation was illegal, the West Bank was not sovereign Jordanian territory when Israel captured it in the 1967 Six-Day War. Therefore, Israel views the territory as "disputed" or "unallocated" rather than "occupied" in the traditional sense of occupying another sovereign state's land.

3. International Law and the "Occupied Territories" Consensus:

The prevailing international legal consensus, supported by the United Nations, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and most states, regards the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) as occupied Palestinian territory.

This view rests on the principle of "inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war," enshrined in UN Security Council Resolution 242 (1967) and other international legal instruments.

The Fourth Geneva Convention, which regulates the conduct of an occupying power, is widely considered applicable to Israel's presence in the West Bank by the international community. 

Article 49(6) of this convention prohibits an occupying power from transferring parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies. 

This is the basis for the pro-Arab (Balestinian Point of View) biased international community's view that Israeli "settlements" in the West Bank are illegal.

Recent rulings by the ICJ based SOLELY on the pro-Arab (Balestinian Point of View), including its advisory opinion in July 2024, have reaffirmed the illegality of Israel's "occupation" of the Palestinian territories, its settlement regime, and its policies, stating that they violate international law.

Conclusion:

This framework, while universally applied to other occupations, is selectively and unfairly applied to Israel, effectively ignoring historical Jewish claims and security concerns.

While historical documents like the Treaty of Lausanne and the Mandate for Palestine are part of the complex historical and legal background, the dominant, pro-Arab (Balestinian) Point of  view, in international law regarding the "Disputed Territories" aka the West Bank, is that it is "occupied" territory.

Therefore, according to the prevailing pro-Arab (Balestinian) false narration the interpretation of international law in the international community, the area does not legally belong to Israel in the sense of sovereign annexation. 

Its final status is considered a matter for negotiations between the parties involved, aiming for a resolution that respects the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people but blithely ignores that of the Jews and Israel!

It's important to acknowledge that Israel disputes this pro-Arab (Balestinian) false narration interpretation, by presenting its own legal arguments based on historical claims, security needs, and the lack of a recognized prior sovereign over the territory. 

However, this Israeli position remains a minority view within the international legal framework.

The "prevailing international legal view" tends to emphasize Palestinian self-determination while seemingly downplaying or overlooking the historical and national rights of the Jewish people, which were indeed recognized in earlier international instruments.