Israel’s territorial sovereignty

I. PRELIMINARY STATEMENT

The discourse surrounding the borders of the State of Israel is too often mired in ahistorical sentiment and a selective application of international law. This legal brief seeks to correct that narrative by presenting the legal foundations of Israel’s territorial claims, which are rooted not in conquest but in law, treaty, and the explicit recognition of the organized international community of the early 20th century. The current borders with Egypt and Jordan are not arbitrary; they are the direct result of solemn peace treaties that enjoy universal recognition. The unresolved borders with Syria and Lebanon await a similar maturity and courage from those nations. Finally, the status of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) is not one of illegal occupation but of disputed territory, a direct consequence of the United Nations’ abrogation of the sacred trust bestowed upon it by its predecessor, the League of Nations.

II. THE PRIMACY OF THE MANDATE FOR PALESTINE

The foundational legal instrument for the entirety of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is the Mandate for Palestine, conferred upon His Britannic Majesty by the League of Nations in July 1922.

The Mandate’s preamble is unequivocal, recognizing “the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine” and establishing “grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.” Crucially, Article 6 of the Mandate explicitly charges the Mandatory Power with the duty to “facilitate Jewish immigration” and to “encourage… close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.”

This was not a suggestion; it was a binding international legal obligation. The territory designated for this Jewish National Home included what is today the State of Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the areas of Judea and Samaria. The Mandate’s borders were clear, recognized, and intended to be permanent.

The principle of uti possidetis juris (as you possess under law), a cornerstone of international law applied from the decolonization of the Americas to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, holds that emerging states inherit the administrative boundaries of the preceding entity. Upon its declaration of independence in 1948, the State of Israel legally inherited the territorial rights and boundaries of the Mandate for Palestine.

III. CODIFIED AND RECOGNIZED BORDERS: EGYPT AND JORDAN

The modern borders of Israel are not, as some claim, based on armistice lines but on mutually recognized peace treaties that enjoy the full backing of the international community.

A. The Border with Egypt: A Treaty of Exemplary Clarity

The 1979 Treaty of Peace between the Arab Republic of Egypt and the State of Israel is a model of diplomatic precision. Article II of the treaty states explicitly:

“The permanent boundary between Egypt and Israel is the recognized international boundary between Egypt and the former mandated territory of Palestine, as shown on the map at Annex II…”

This language is critical. It does not reference the 1949 armistice lines or the post-1967 status quo. It reaches back to the 1906 Anglo-Ottoman Agreement, which established the international boundary between the Ottoman Empire and Egypt, a line which subsequently became the border between the Mandate of Palestine and the Kingdom of Egypt. The treaty thus formally restored the original Mandate-era border. Israel’s complete withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula was a fulfillment of this agreement, returning to a border that predates the conflict itself.

The international community, far from opposing this, welcomed it unreservedly. The United Nations Secretary-General hailed it as a “major step forward.” The world recognized that a stable, treaty-based border between these two nations was a cornerstone of regional peace and security. The Egypt-Israel border stands today as one of the most peaceful and internationally accepted frontiers in the Middle East, precisely because it is rooted in a bilateral treaty that affirmed a historical, mandated boundary.

B. The Border with Jordan: An Adjustment of the Mandate Line

The 1994 Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty similarly established a final, internationally recognized international boundary. While the original 1922 Mandate border was the Jordan River, the political reality evolved with the British decision to establish the Emirate of Transjordan on the East Bank. The 1994 treaty did not reinstate the River Jordan as the border but instead confirmed and demarcated the boundary based on the 1949 Armistice Line, with minor, mutually agreed-upon adjustments.

This was a sovereign decision by two nations to formalize their border based on the de facto line that had existed between the Mandate’s territory of Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan. The treaty’s language is particularly instructive regarding Judea and Samaria. It states that the demarcation is “without prejudice to the status of any territories that came under Israeli military government control in 1967.” This critical clause leaves the issue of sovereignty over the West Bank intentionally open, consistent with Israel’s position that it is disputed territory to which it holds a legitimate claim, and not the sovereign territory of another state.

As with the Egyptian treaty, the international community, including the United Nations, praised this agreement as a “vital breakthrough.” The UN provided practical support for its implementation, lending its full political legitimacy to the new border. The Jordan-Israel border is therefore not an “occupation” line but a legally sanctified international frontier.

IV. CONTESTED FRONTIERS: THE CASE FOR TREATY-BASED SECURITY

A. The Golan Heights: The Imperative of Defensible Borders

The situation with Syria is distinct but no less legally defensible. The 1923 boundary between the Mandates of Palestine and Syria, established by Franco-British agreement, placed the Golan Heights within Syria. However, for 19 years, the Syrian army used this strategic plateau to shell Israeli farms and villages in the valley below. In the defensive Six-Day War of 1967, Israel captured the Golan Heights. In 1981, Israel extended its law, jurisdiction, and administration to the area—a move rightly recognized as an act of annexation.

This action was not one of aggression but of necessity. The principle that a nation cannot be forced to return to borders that invite aggression is a fundamental tenet of self-defense. The United States, under both the Trump and Biden administrations, has correctly recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, understanding that its return to a hostile Syrian regime would be an unconscionable threat to Israeli security. The current de facto border must be codified in a future peace treaty, granting Syria the normalization it claims to seek in exchange for formally ceding a territory it used for decades as a launching pad for attacks.

B. The Lebanon Border: The “Blue Line” as a Foundation

Similarly, the border with Lebanon is based on the same 1923 international boundary between the Mandates of Palestine and Lebanon, known today as the “Blue Line” and confirmed by the United Nations in 2000. While minor disputes persist over specific points like the Shebaa Farms—which historical maps show were part of the French Mandate of Syria, not Lebanon—the fundamental border is clear and recognized. A formal peace treaty between Israel and Lebanon would simply require the courage of the Lebanese government to demarcate this existing international line, freeing southern Lebanon from the grip of the Iranian proxy, Hezbollah, and establishing a permanent peace based on mutual recognition.

V. JUDEA AND SAMARIA: THE UN’S DERELICTION AND THE PRESERVATION OF RIGHTS

The status of Judea and Samaria is the most willfully misrepresented issue in international law. It is not an “occupation” of foreign sovereign territory. It is a disputed territory, and the dispute exists precisely because the United Nations failed in its duty.

The League of Nations Mandate granted the Jewish people the right to settle in all of Palestine, including Judea and Samaria. When the League was dissolved, its responsibilities were transferred to the United Nations under Article 80 of the UN Charter, the so-called “Palestine Article.” Article 80 was specifically designed to prevent a legal vacuum and to “safeguard” the rights granted under the Mandate system until formal Trusteeship Agreements could be enacted.

The United Nations committed a gross dereliction of duty. It never established a Trusteeship for Palestine. Instead, it sought to unilaterally alter the terms of the Mandate through the non-binding 1947 Partition Plan (General Assembly Resolution 181). When the Arab world rejected this plan and launched a war of annihilation against the nascent Jewish state, Jordan illegally invaded and occupied Judea and Samaria from 1948-1967. Its annexation was recognized by only two countries and was itself a blatant act of illegal conquest.

Therefore, when Israel gained control of these territories in the defensive war of 1967, it did not take them from a “legitimate sovereign.” It took control of territory from an illegal occupier (Jordan) to which it itself held a pre-existing, legally protected claim under the Mandate, preserved by UN Charter Article 80.

The Fourth Geneva Convention, often cited to condemn Israeli settlements, was designed to prevent the transfer of a population into the territory of a legitimate, sovereign state. It was never intended to apply to a situation where the claiming nation has a superior, pre-existing legal title to the territory itself. The right of Jewish settlement, as articulated in the Mandate’s Article 6, was never extinguished.

The United States, under the Trump administration, correctly recognized this legal reality. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s 2019 declaration that “the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not, per se, inconsistent with international law” was not a political gift. It was a sober legal conclusion that overturned a four-decade-old error in the 1978 Hansell Memorandum. It acknowledged that the blanket condemnation of settlements was ahistorical and ignored the complex legal reality of Israel’s vested rights under the Mandate.

VI. CONCLUSION

The borders of Israel are not a matter of happenstance or military fiat. They are, where resolved, the product of binding peace treaties that affirm boundaries derived from the Mandate for Palestine. These treaties have been welcomed and supported by the entire world community. Where borders remain unresolved—with Syria and Lebanon—the path forward is clear: bilateral peace treaties that codify secure and recognized boundaries.

As for Judea and Samaria, the land is disputed, not occupied. The Jewish people’s right to settle there is not a violation of international law but is, in fact, a right protected by it—a right granted by the League of Nations and safeguarded by Article 80 of the very UN Charter that critics so facilely invoke. The United Nations evaded its responsibility, but it cannot erase the legal rights it was chartered to protect. The current state of affairs is a direct result of that failure. Peace will only be achieved when this legal truth is acknowledged and negotiations proceed from the basis of Israel’s irrevocable historical and legal connection to the heartland of its ancient homeland.