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Palestine and Israel: Mapping an annexation
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2020/06/palestine-israel-mapping-annexation-200604200224100.html
What will the maps of Palestine and Israel look like if Israel illegally annexes the Jordan Valley on July 1?
Mohammed Haddad | 26 Jun 2020
The current map of Palestine is often described as resembling "Swiss cheese". Over the past century it has been carved up, walled-in and filled with hundreds of illegal Israeli settlements and military checkpoints.
Now, in the latest round of Israel's ongoing occupation and policy of land-grabs this map could become even more disjointed. On July 1, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to announce Israel's annexation of the Jordan Valley and northern Dead Sea.
Annexation is a term used when a state unilaterally incorporates another territory within its borders. Annexing the Jordan Valley would mean that Israel would officially consider it part of the state of Israel.
"International law is very clear: annexation and territorial conquest are forbidden by the Charter of the United Nations," said Michael Lynk, the UN independent expert on human rights in the Palestinian territories.
To understand what annexation will look like on the ground and how we got here, Al Jazeera has compiled a collection of historic and present-day maps for you to explore.
Historic maps:
1917-Pre-British Mandate Palestine
1918-1947-Jewish immigration from Europe
Chart: 1920-1946-Jewish immigration to Palestine
1947-Proposed UN Partition Plan (Resolution 181)
1948-Palestinians expelled
1967-Israel occupies Gaza and the West Bank
1993&1995 Oslo Accords
Present-day maps:
How big are Palestine and Israel?
Occupied Palestinian territories
Israeli settlements
Chart: Israeli settler growth
Separation wall
Israeli checkpoints
Palestinian refugee camps
Israel's history of annexations
Jerusalem, the divided city
The Old City of Jerusalem
Al-Aqsa Mosque
Occupied Golan Heights
Jordan Valley
Israel's annexation of the Jordan Valley
Trump's conceptual map
Jordan Valley annexation: Trump vs Netanyahu
Blockade of the Gaza Strip
Where are the Palestinians today?
Where are the Jews today?
International recognition
Historic maps:
1. 1917-Pre-British Mandate Palestine
During World War I, Britain made several conflicting agreements to gain the support of various groups in the Middle East. Most notably was the Balfour Declaration - a public pledge promising the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people".
On October 31, 1917, British forces conquered Palestine from the Ottoman-Turks, ending 1,400 years of Islamic rule over the region. In 1920, it began its 28-year rule over British Mandate Palestine.
Before the British Mandate in Palestine, Jews made up around six percent of the total population.
Palestine British Mandate
2. 1918-1947- Jewish immigration from Europe
The British Mandate facilitated Jewish immigration from Europe to Palestine in the 1920s and 1930s. The Jewish population in Palestine increased from 6 percent (1918) to 33 percent (1947).
Jewish immigration into Palestine
3. 1920-1946- Jewish immigration to Palestine
A total of 376,415 Jewish immigrants, mostly from Europe, arrived in Palestine between 1920 and 1946 according to British records. At its peak in 1935, 61,854 Jews immigrated to Palestine. A detailed breakdown of these records is available here - Stanford BJPA (Page 185) and here - Atlas of Palestine (Page 21).
Jewish immigration into Palestine
This 1935 animated map produced by March of Time shows where many of Germany's Jews fled to following the rise of Hitler's Nazi party / Getty Images.
4. 1947- Proposed UN Partition Plan
Following the end of WWII, the newly formed United Nations proposed a plan that would grant 55 percent of historic Palestine to a Jewish state and 45 percent to a non-contiguous Arab one. Jerusalem would remain under international control.
Palestinians rejected the proposal because it stripped away much of the land that was under their control. At the time, they owned 94 percent of historic Palestine and comprised 67 percent of the population. This plan was never implemented on the ground.
UN partition plan of 1947
5. 1948- Palestinians expelled
On May 14,1948, the British Mandate expired triggering the first Arab-Israeli war. Zionist military forces expelled at least 750,000 Palestinians and captured 78 percent of historic Palestine. The remaining 22 percent was divided into the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The fighting continued until January 1949 when an armistice agreement between Israel and Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria was forged. The 1949 Armistice Line is also known as the Green Line and is the generally recognised boundary between Israel and the West Bank. The Green Line is also referred to as the (pre-) 1967 borders, before Israel occupied the remaining Palestinian territories during the June 1967 war.
