The 1967 Transformation: A Geopolitical and Legal History of the Occupied Palestinian Territories
Part I: The Antecedents (1948–1967)
The Bifurcated Status Quo: A Tale of Two Occupations
To comprehend the seismic geopolitical shift that occurred in June 1967, one must first dissect the intricate legal, political, and social reality that governed the Palestinian territories between the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the Six-Day War. The territories that would subsequently be designated by the international community as the "Occupied Palestinian Territories"—the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip—were not sovereign entities during this nineteen-year interregnum. Instead, they were held under the administration of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the Egyptian military, respectively. This period cemented a bifurcation in the Palestinian legal and social fabric that the Israeli occupation would later inherit, complicate, and eventually exploit.
The Hashemite Annexation of the West Bank
Following the armistice agreements of 1949, the West Bank—an area of roughly 2,270 square miles (5,880 square kilometers) containing the central hill country of Judea and Samaria—remained under the control of the Jordanian Arab Legion.1 Unlike other Arab states that maintained a purely temporary military administration over Palestinian lands, King Abdullah I of Jordan moved swiftly and decisively to integrate the West Bank into the Hashemite Kingdom, fundamentally altering its legal status.
In December 1948, the Jericho Conference was convened, attended by Palestinian notables, mayors from West Bank towns, and tribal leaders. This conference formally requested the annexation of the territory to Jordan, a political maneuver that provided the Hashemite throne with a veneer of local legitimacy.2 This process culminated on April 24, 1950, when the Jordanian National Assembly formally approved the "Union of the Two Banks," unifying the East Bank (Transjordan) and the West Bank into a single sovereign entity.3 It is crucial to note the international singularity of this act; with the exception of the United Kingdom and Pakistan, no other member of the international community formally recognized Jordanian sovereignty over the West Bank.4 The Arab League itself vehemently opposed the annexation, viewing it as a fragmentation of the Palestinian cause, and threatened Jordan with expulsion from the League.
Under Jordanian rule, the West Bank was not treated merely as occupied territory but as an integral, if occasionally restive, part of the kingdom. The 1954 Nationality Law was a watershed moment in this integrationist policy. It stipulated that Jordanian citizenship would be granted to "any person who, not being Jewish, possessed Palestinian nationality before 15 May 1948 and resides ordinarily in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan".2 This legal maneuver effectively erased the stateless status of the West Bank's inhabitants, integrating them into the Jordanian body politic. Palestinians were allotted half the seats in the Jordanian parliament, and the Jordanian legal code—a complex amalgam of Ottoman land law, British Mandate emergency regulations, and new Jordanian statutes—became the law of the land.4
However, this integration was fraught with internal tension. The "Jordanianization" of the West Bank involved the suppression of distinct Palestinian nationalist expressions, which were viewed as a threat to Hashemite stability. The administrative and political center of gravity was shifted firmly to Amman, leaving Jerusalem—historically the metropolitan, religious, and economic hub of Palestine—as a neglected provincial city.1 Economically, the West Bank remained largely agrarian, with state investment often diverted to the East Bank. Yet, the legal framework established during this period—specifically regarding land registration, municipal governance, and the role of the "Guardian of Enemy Property"—would later provide the precise legal mechanisms through which the Israeli military government would manipulate land control after 1967.1 The Jordanian administration also appointed "military governors" for districts such as Ramallah, Hebron, and Nablus, establishing a precedent of military-led civil administration that Israel would later replicate and expand.4
The Egyptian Military Administration of the Gaza Strip
In stark contrast to the West Bank, the Gaza Strip—a narrow coastal enclave of roughly 140 square miles (365 square kilometers)—was never annexed by Egypt. Following the 1949 Armistice Agreement, Egypt retained control of the strip but governed it strictly as occupied territory under a military administration.7 Egypt adhered more closely to the formalities of the laws of war, viewing its presence as temporary pending the "liberation" of the rest of Palestine.
The political structure in Gaza was defined by the "All-Palestine Government" (APG), established in Gaza City in September 1948. Ostensibly the nucleus of an independent Palestinian state, the APG issued "All-Palestine" passports and claimed jurisdiction over the entirety of Mandate Palestine. In reality, it was a client entity of Cairo, with little independent authority and no ability to collect taxes or raise an army independent of Egyptian command. By 1959, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, championing the ideology of Pan-Arabism, dissolved the APG by decree. From that point until 1967, Gaza was ruled directly by a Governor-General appointed by Cairo.8
Crucially, Egypt did not offer citizenship to the Palestinians in Gaza. They remained stateless, carrying travel documents that offered limited rights and were frequently rejected by other states.9 The demographic situation in Gaza was catastrophic even before 1967; the strip had absorbed roughly 200,000 refugees from the 1948 war, overwhelming the indigenous population of 80,000.7 This influx created a territory that was essentially one massive refugee camp, heavily dependent on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for basic services such as education, healthcare, and food rations. The Egyptian administration governed through a chaotic layering of British Mandate law—which remained the primary corpus juris—overlaid with Egyptian military orders aimed largely at security and the suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood.10 Unlike the West Bank, where Jordanian law had modernized or replaced Ottoman codes, Gaza remained frozen in the legal structures of 1948. This distinction would become critical after 1967, as Israel would have to construct two separate military legal systems to govern the two territories, navigating the distinct "local law" of each.
The "Green Line" and the Fragile Armistice
The boundary separating these Arab-held territories from the State of Israel was the 1949 Armistice Demarcation Line, universally known as the "Green Line" due to the color of the ink used on the original maps signed in Rhodes.3 This line was not a recognized international border in the de jure sense but a line of military separation. However, over the nineteen years of partition, it hardened into a de facto border. In Jerusalem, the city was physically divided by barbed wire, minefields, and concrete walls, with the Mandelbaum Gate serving as the only crossing point for diplomats and UN personnel.3 The "status quo" was characterized by periodic border skirmishes, infiltration by Palestinian fedayeen, and retaliatory raids by the Israeli military, but the territorial division remained static until the morning of June 5, 1967.
Part II: The Six Days that Redrew the Map (June 5–10, 1967)
The war of June 1967 was not merely a military engagement; it was the mechanism that brought the entirety of Mandate Palestine under a single controlling power for the first time since the British withdrawal in 1948. The speed and totality of the conquest meant that the occupation was established before a coherent political or legal strategy for the territories had been formulated by the Israeli cabinet.
Prelude to Conflict
The immediate crisis began in May 1967 with Egypt's expulsion of the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) from the Sinai Peninsula and the subsequent closure of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping—an act Israel had previously declared would be considered a casus belli.11 Tensions escalated rapidly. On May 30, King Hussein of Jordan signed a defense pact with Egypt, placing the Jordanian armed forces under the command of an Egyptian general.12 This alignment effectively encircled Israel and made conflict on the eastern front inevitable.
The Collapse of the Jordanian Front
Hostilities on the eastern front commenced on the morning of June 5, 1967. Despite messages passed from Israel to King Hussein via the UN urging Jordan to stay out of the war, Jordanian artillery began shelling Israeli positions in West Jerusalem and the coastal plain, bound by the defense pact with Egypt.5
The Israeli counter-offensive was swift, devastating, and fundamentally transformative.
June 5-6: Israeli forces, including the Harel Brigade and Paratroopers, launched a pincer movement to encircle Jerusalem. Key strategic positions such as Ammunition Hill and the Latrun Salient were captured after fierce combat.
June 7: A pivotal moment in the history of the Middle East occurred when Israeli paratroopers breached the Lions' Gate and entered the Old City of Jerusalem. By mid-morning, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan and Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin were photographed entering the city, securing the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.13 This event carried immense symbolic and religious weight, instantly transforming the conflict from a strategic war into one laden with messianic and historical significance.
June 8: Simultaneously, Israeli armored divisions pushed the Jordanian Arab Legion out of the entire West Bank. The cities of Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem, and Hebron fell in rapid succession. The bridges across the Jordan River (Allenby and Damia) were blown up, physically severing the West Bank from the East Bank and trapping the population under Israeli control.4
The collapse of Jordanian rule left a profound vacuum. The administrative apparatus—mayors, sharia courts, civil police, and land registries—remained in place, but the sovereign authority had vanished overnight. Israel found itself in control of a population of approximately 660,000 to 800,000 Palestinians in the West Bank (statistics vary due to the immediate postwar exodus).14
The Capture of Gaza and the Sinai
On the southern front, the Israeli conquest of Gaza was completed effectively within the first two days of the war. The Gaza Strip, defended by the Palestine Liberation Army (PLA) and Egyptian units, was cut off and overrun by the Israeli advance into Sinai.9
The occupation of Gaza brought an additional 350,000 to 400,000 Palestinians under Israeli rule.14 Unlike the West Bank, where the population had some agricultural resilience and distinct town identities, the Gaza population was largely composed of destitute refugees living in sprawling camps like Jabalia and Shati. The immediate Israeli military concern in Gaza was not just territorial administration but the suppression of fedayeen groups that had long operated from the strip. The "Gaza" that Israel occupied was a territory of intense poverty, high density, and deep-seated hostility, presenting a very different challenge than the rural and semi-urban West Bank.
The "Decision Not to Decide" and the Strategic Vacuum
In the immediate aftermath of the war (June 19, 1967), the Israeli cabinet, led by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, held secret deliberations regarding the future of the newly captured territories. The government reached a relatively quick consensus to offer the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights to Egypt and Syria, respectively, in exchange for full peace treaties. However, regarding the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza, the cabinet deadlocked.15
The government faced a "trilemma" with no easy solution:
Annexation: Annexing the West Bank would incorporate nearly a million Arabs into the Jewish state, posing a "demographic threat" that could undermine Israel's Jewish majority or force it to become a binational state.
Withdrawal: Returning the West Bank to Jordan without strict security guarantees was viewed as returning to the vulnerable "Auschwitz lines" (as Abba Eban termed them) of 1949, leaving Israel's narrow waist exposed to artillery fire.
Palestinian Statehood: Creating a semi-autonomous Palestinian entity was discussed, but most Israeli leaders at the time, including Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan, did not recognize a distinct Palestinian national entity separate from Jordan.
This paralysis led to the infamous "decision not to decide"—a policy of maintaining the military occupation indefinitely as a "bargaining chip" while awaiting a negotiated settlement that might never come. This interim status, however, required a robust legal framework to function on a day-to-day basis, leading to the creation of one of the most complex military-legal regimes in modern history.
Part III: The Architecture of Occupation (Legal & Administrative)
Upon the cessation of hostilities, Israel faced the immediate and immense task of administering a hostile population of over one million civilians. The solution was the establishment of a Military Government (Mimshal Tzvai), a system that effectively suspended the question of sovereignty while asserting absolute control through military decree.
Proclamation No. 2: The Magna Carta of Occupation
On June 7, 1967, General Chaim Herzog, appointed as the first Military Governor of the West Bank, issued "Proclamation No. 2 Regarding Regulation of Administration and Law".16 This document serves as the foundational legal instrument—the "Magna Carta"—of the Israeli occupation.
Proclamation No. 2 established two fundamental legal realities that continue to define the occupation:
Assumption of Power: Section 3 of the Proclamation stated that "all powers of government, legislation, appointment, and administration" previously held by the Jordanian government (or Egyptian in Gaza) were transferred to the Israeli Area Commander.16 This effectively concentrated executive, legislative, and judicial power in the hands of a single military officer.
Continuity of Law: Section 2 established that the existing laws in the region (Jordanian law in the West Bank, British/Egyptian law in Gaza) would remain in force, except where they conflicted with the Proclamation or subsequent Military Orders issued by the Israeli commander.1
This created a dual legal system. The civil law—regulating marriage, commerce, and daily disputes—remained Jordanian or Mandate-based. However, the "security legislation"—which would eventually expand to cover land use, water rights, zoning, taxation, and travel—was enacted through Israeli Military Orders. Over the subsequent decades, over 1,800 such orders would be issued in the West Bank alone, effectively rewriting the local legal code without formally annexing the territory.1
The Mechanism of Control: The Military Orders
The Military Orders provided the flexible toolset for Israel to reshape the physical and demographic reality of the territories while adhering to the letter (if not the spirit) of international law regarding occupation. Several key orders issued in 1967 laid the groundwork for the settlement enterprise and land seizure:
Order No. 58 (Absentee Property): Issued in July 1967, this order allowed the military to seize the property of anyone who had left the West Bank "prior to 7 June 1967 or subsequently." Since roughly 250,000 Palestinians fled during and immediately after the war, this order transferred vast swathes of private land and housing into the custody of the Israeli "Custodian of Absentee Property".19 This property was often later leased to Jewish settlements.
Order No. 59 (State Property): This order defined "State Property" as any land belonging to a "hostile state" (Jordan). By strictly interpreting the Ottoman Land Code of 1858, Israel would later use this mechanism to classify uncultivated or unregistered land (Mewat) as state land. Since much of the West Bank land was unregistered but customarily owned, this allowed for the mass transfer of public lands to settlement use.19
Order No. 378 (Closed Military Zones): This allowed area commanders to declare any land a "closed zone" for security reasons, prohibiting entry to Palestinians. This was frequently the first step in the requisition of land for settlements or firing zones, which would later be formalized as state land.19
Order No. 92 (Water Rights): Issued in August 1967, this order transferred all powers regarding water resources to a military officer, stripping Palestinians of control over their wells and aquifers and laying the groundwork for the disparate water allocation that exists today.18
In Gaza, the legal situation was slightly different. Since Egypt had never claimed sovereignty, Israel did not have to contend with a sovereign "enemy state" titleholder. However, similar orders (e.g., Order No. 498 and 558) transferred all powers to the IDF. The lack of a comprehensive land registry in Gaza made the seizure of "state land" even more opaque and easier to manipulate.18
The "Disputed Territories" Argument
A critical legal innovation developed in 1967 was the argument that the Fourth Geneva Convention did not fully apply to the West Bank and Gaza. Spearheaded by legal minds like Meir Shamgar (then Military Advocate General) and Yehuda Zvi Blum, Israel argued that since Jordan's annexation of the West Bank was not internationally recognized, and Egypt never annexed Gaza, there was no legitimate "reversionary sovereign" to whom the territory belonged.1 Therefore, Israel was not an "occupier" in the strict sense of displacing a legitimate sovereign, but rather an administrator of "disputed territory."
While the Israeli government agreed to abide by the "humanitarian provisions" of the Geneva Convention de facto, it refused to accept its de jure applicability.1 This distinction was crucial: it allowed Israel to argue that Article 49 of the Convention—which prohibits the transfer of the occupier's population into the occupied territory—did not apply, thus providing a legal shield for the settlement enterprise. The international community, including the UN Security Council and the International Court of Justice, has consistently rejected this interpretation, affirming that the territories are indeed occupied and the Convention applies.3
Part IV: Jerusalem — A Separate Fate
While the West Bank and Gaza were placed under military administration, East Jerusalem was treated as a distinct entity from the very first weeks of the occupation. The Israeli government moved swiftly to physically and legally fuse East Jerusalem with West Jerusalem, creating a "united" capital under Israeli sovereignty.
The Legal Annexation: June 27, 1967
On June 27, 1967, less than three weeks after the war ended, the Knesset passed three bills that fundamentally altered the status of Jerusalem:
Amendment to the Law and Administration Ordinance (No. 11): This law allowed the government to extend Israeli "law, jurisdiction, and administration" to any area of Eretz Israel designated by order.3 This was the enabling legislation for annexation.
Amendment to the Municipalities Ordinance (No. 6): This allowed the Interior Minister to expand the boundaries of the Jerusalem Municipality to include the newly annexed areas.20
Protection of Holy Places Law: This law guaranteed freedom of access to holy sites, a direct response to the Jordanian period when Jews were barred from the Western Wall and Mount of Olives.3
The following day, June 28, the government issued a decree officially expanding the Jerusalem municipal boundaries to include 70 square kilometers of the West Bank. This new boundary was not merely the Old City (which is less than 1 sq km) but a massive swathe of territory encompassing 28 Palestinian villages (e.g., Sur Baher, Sheikh Jarrah, Shuafat, Beit Hanina).6
Crucially, Israel avoided using the term "annexation" in its diplomatic correspondence to mitigate international backlash, referring to it instead as "municipal integration" or "administrative unification." However, the Israeli Supreme Court later ruled in the Kahan case that East Jerusalem had indeed been annexed and was part of sovereign Israel.3 The international community, through UN General Assembly Resolutions 2253 and 2254, declared these measures invalid.6
The Physical Transformation: The Erasure of the Mughrabi Quarter
The most visceral and immediate act of asserting control over Jerusalem occurred on the night of June 10, 1967, even before the legal annexation. To create a plaza for Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall, the Israeli authorities ordered the immediate demolition of the Mughrabi Quarter (Harat al-Maghariba), a 700-year-old neighborhood adjacent to the wall.21
Under the direction of Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek and the military governor, contractors arrived with bulldozers. The residents were given as little as three hours to evacuate their homes in the middle of the night. By the morning of June 12, 135 homes had been destroyed, two mosques leveled, and over 650 Palestinians left homeless.22 The rubble was cleared to create the vast Western Wall Plaza that exists today. This act established the physical reality of Israeli dominance in the Old City and signaled that the status quo of the holy sites would be unilaterally redrawn to favor Jewish access.24
Urban Planning as Demographic Warfare
The 1967 municipal boundaries were drawn with a specific demographic strategy, often summarized as "Maximum Land, Minimum Arabs." The lines were gerrymandered to include strategic high ground and open spaces for future Jewish neighborhoods (which the world would call settlements, but Israel calls neighborhoods of Jerusalem) while excluding heavily populated Palestinian suburbs like Abu Dis and Bethlehem.3
In 1968, Israel developed the first "Master Plan for Jerusalem." This plan envisioned a "Metropolitan Jerusalem" extending far beyond the municipal boundaries, aiming to encircle the city with a ring of Jewish settlements (such as French Hill, Ramat Eshkol, and Gilo) to prevent the re-division of the city and sever the north-south contiguity of the Palestinian West Bank.25 This planning philosophy—using urban development to secure political control—remains the guiding principle of Jerusalem's administration.
Part V: The Settlement Enterprise (1967–1977)
A common misconception is that the settlement movement began in earnest only after the 1973 war or the rise of the right-wing Likud party in 1977. In reality, the physical colonization of the occupied territories began within months of the 1967 war, under the Labor government, driven by a mix of security strategy and religious-nationalist fervor.
The First Settlements: Merom Golan and Kfar Etzion
The first Israeli settlement in the occupied territories was established in the Golan Heights. On July 16, 1967—just over a month after the war—Kibbutz Merom Golan was founded at the abandoned Syrian base of Alleiqa.26 This signaled Israel's intention to retain the strategic plateau.
In the West Bank, the settlement drive began with the re-establishment of Kfar Etzion. The Etzion Bloc (Gush Etzion) south of Jerusalem had been a group of Jewish settlements destroyed by the Arab Legion in 1948. In September 1967, a group of young religious Zionists, led by Hanan Porat, petitioned Prime Minister Eshkol for permission to return to the site to pray for the High Holidays. Eshkol granted permission, understanding they intended to stay. On September 27, 1967, the settlement was officially re-established.27 Although initially framed as a "Nahal" (military-agricultural) outpost to skirt international law prohibitions on civilian transfer, it became the first officially sanctioned civilian settlement in the West Bank.27 This set a powerful precedent: settlements could be justified as "returning home" to lands lost in 1948, creating a moral narrative that complemented the security arguments.
The Allon Plan: Strategic Settlement
While the government was officially "undecided" on the future of the territories, Minister of Labor Yigal Allon drafted a strategic map that would dictate settlement activity for the next decade. The "Allon Plan" (presented in July 1967) proposed a territorial compromise based on security needs:
Annexation of the Jordan Valley: A 10-15 mile wide strip along the Jordan River to serve as a security buffer against invasion from the east.
Annexation of Gush Etzion and Greater Jerusalem: To protect the capital and the southern approach.
Palestinian Autonomy: The remaining densely populated areas of the West Bank (the Nablus-Jenin-Ramallah corridor and the Hebron hills) would either be returned to Jordan or form an autonomous entity, connected to Jordan via a narrow corridor at Jericho.29
Although never officially adopted by the cabinet, the Allon Plan became the de facto blueprint for Labor-led settlement. Settlements established between 1967 and 1977 were almost exclusively located in the areas Allon designated for annexation (Jordan Valley, Gush Etzion, Jerusalem environs), avoiding the Palestinian population centers.30 This "security settlement" strategy aimed to define Israel's future borders through facts on the ground.
The Erasure of the Latrun Villages
To secure the road to Jerusalem and eliminate the "Latrun Salient" (a bulge of West Bank territory that commanded the main Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway), the Israeli military undertook a massive engineering operation immediately after the war. In June 1967, the Palestinian villages of Imwas, Yalo, and Bayt Nuba were completely razed. Their inhabitants—numbering over 6,000—were expelled and prevented from returning.32 The area was later transformed into "Canada Park" by the Jewish National Fund. This was distinct from the general damage of war; it was a calculated demographic and geographic erasure to widen the Jerusalem corridor and remove a strategic vulnerability.
Part VI: Demography and Displacement (The Naksa)
The 1967 war triggered a second wave of Palestinian displacement, known in Arabic as al-Naksa (The Setback). While smaller in scale than the 1948 Nakba, its demographic impact was profound and reshaped the population of the region.
The Exodus: Mechanics of Displacement
Estimates of the number of Palestinians displaced in 1967 vary, but most sources place the figure between 250,000 and 400,000 people fleeing the West Bank and Gaza.1
West Bank: Approximately 200,000-250,000 people fled to the East Bank of Jordan. Many of these were "1948 refugees" living in camps like Aqbat Jabr near Jericho, who were displaced for a second time.35 The Jericho camps, located near the Allenby Bridge, were almost entirely emptied.
Gaza: Roughly 70,000 people fled the Gaza Strip, mostly to Egypt or Jordan.33
Golan Heights: In the most complete ethnic cleansing of the war, nearly the entire Syrian population of the Golan Heights—about 100,000 to 130,000 people—fled or were driven out, leaving only four Druze villages remaining.14
This displacement was driven by a combination of direct expulsion (as in the Latrun villages and Qalqilya, though Qalqilya residents were later allowed to return), psychological fear of massacres, and the breakdown of essential services.
The Census and the "Present Absentees"
In September 1967, Israel conducted a census in the occupied territories. This was not merely a statistical exercise; it was a tool for defining residency rights. Only those physically present during the census were registered as legal residents of the territories.
The Outcome: The census registered 661,700 people in the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem) and 354,700 in Gaza.14
The Consequence: Any Palestinian who had fled during the war, or who happened to be studying or working abroad (a common practice in the West Bank), was excluded from the registry. These individuals lost their right to return to their homes, effectively stripping roughly 270,000 people of their residency rights overnight. This created a new class of refugees who were "present absentees" in the eyes of the law—owners of property but denied the right to access it.14
"Open Bridges": Economic Integration as Soft Transfer
Defense Minister Moshe Dayan instituted the "Open Bridges" policy, allowing commercial and civilian traffic to continue across the Jordan River bridges.36 While ostensibly aimed at economic normalization and preventing civil unrest by allowing the export of Palestinian agricultural produce, this policy also acted as a demographic valve.
Palestinians were allowed to leave the West Bank for Jordan to work or study, but their right to return was often conditional. If they stayed away too long, their residency permits would expire. This facilitated a "soft transfer" of the population—encouraging emigration through economic pressure and bureaucratic hurdles rather than force.15
Part VII: International Reaction and the Diplomatic Aftermath
The 1967 war fundamentally altered the international diplomatic landscape. The occupation became the central focus of UN efforts, leading to the adoption of the framework that still governs peace efforts today.
Resolution 242: The Constructive Ambiguity
On November 22, 1967, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 242. This document remains the primary reference point for all subsequent peace diplomacy, primarily due to its "constructive ambiguity" which allowed all sides to accept it while interpreting it differently.
The resolution emphasizes "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war" and calls for:
Withdrawal: "Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict."
Peace: "Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for... sovereignty... and the right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries".37
The Semantic Battle: The drafting process was a diplomatic battlefield. The Arab states and the Soviet Union pushed for the phrase "all the territories" or "the territories," which would imply a full return to the June 4, 1967 lines. However, the final English text, drafted largely by Lord Caradon of the UK and supported by the US, omitted the definite article "the."
Israel's Interpretation: Israel argues that the omission of "the" implies that withdrawal is only required from some territories, consistent with the creation of "secure boundaries" (which implies borders different from the vulnerable 1967 lines).38
The Arab/International Interpretation: The French version of the resolution (des territoires vs. les territoires) is often cited as being more ambiguous, but the preamble's principle of "inadmissibility of acquisition of territory by war" is argued to rule out any territorial annexation.
The Khartoum Resolution: The "Three No's"
In response to the crushing defeat, the Arab League met in Khartoum in September 1967. They issued the famous Khartoum Resolution, which contained the "Three No's":
No peace with Israel.
No recognition of Israel.
No negotiations with it.40
While often cited by Israel as proof of Arab intransigence, historians note that the resolution was actually a compromise between the radical states (Syria, Iraq) and the moderates (Egypt, Jordan). It quietly authorized Arab states to use "political" (diplomatic) means to recover territories, signaling a shift away from a purely military solution, even if direct public negotiation was rejected to save face.11
Part VIII: The Economic Dimension — "Invisible Occupation"
Beyond the military orders and settlements, the 1967 occupation initiated a profound economic structural change. Under Moshe Dayan's administration, the economies of the West Bank and Gaza were integrated into Israel's, creating a relationship of dependency that persists to this day.
Integration of Labor and Markets
Dayan's "functional integration" policy aimed to raise the standard of living in the territories to prevent unrest, while binding them to Israel. Barriers to trade were removed, and the Palestinian territories became a captive market for Israeli goods (which entered tariff-free). Conversely, Palestinian labor began to flow into Israel. By the early 1970s, tens of thousands of Palestinians were working in Israeli construction, agriculture, and services.15
This created a "dependency relationship":
Labor: The Palestinian economy shifted from agriculture to exporting labor. The local industrial base was stifled, as it could not compete with advanced Israeli industry and was restricted by military orders limiting investment.1
Infrastructure: The electricity and water grids of the West Bank and Gaza were gradually connected to Israel's, making the territories reliant on Israel for basic utilities.
This economic integration was a "second-order" form of annexation. It made the physical separation of the territories from Israel increasingly difficult and costly, creating a de facto one-state economic reality long before the political debate caught up.15
Conclusion: The Enduring Legacy of 1967
The events of 1967 did not merely change the borders of the Middle East; they fundamentally altered the nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
From Interstate to Intercommunal: The conflict shifted from a conventional war between Israel and Arab States (Egypt, Jordan) to a direct, intimate struggle between Israel and the Palestinian population under its control.
The Trap of "Temporary" Occupation: The legal structures created in 1967—Military Orders, "State Land" seizures, and the "decision not to decide"—were designed as temporary measures to hold ground for negotiation. However, they created a resilient bureaucratic architecture that entrenched the occupation, making it robust enough to last for over half a century.
Jerusalem's Fate: The immediate annexation of East Jerusalem and the destruction of the Mughrabi Quarter created "facts on the ground" that remain the most intractable issues in peace negotiations today.
The occupation of 1967 was not a static event but a dynamic process of legal, physical, and demographic engineering that began the moment the guns fell silent. The systems established in those first few months—Proclamation No. 2, the settlement bridgeheads, the "Open Bridges" policy, and the annexation of Jerusalem—laid the foundation for the reality that defines the region today. The "temporary" occupation became a permanent feature of the geopolitical landscape, trapping both occupier and occupied in a status quo that has proven nearly impossible to break.
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