Maps that show Palestine losing land to Israel over time are complete bunk!
By: Jordan Maxwell
Tags: Israel, Palestine, Arab, Jews, Arab Israeli Conflict

If you ever delved into the Israeli Palestinian conflict, you have inevitably seen this map of how the Palestinians lost land to Israel over time. And maybe it has thrown you into an outrage. The only problem? These maps are complete bunk.

It is said that information provided without context is meaningless. So let’s break it down and provide context. Will start with the first map and go from there.

Map of 1946

This map of 1946 shows Palestinians as owning pretty much the entire area. Right off the bat, the maps start with a falsehood. Palestine as a country has never existed. In 1946, this entire area belonged to Great Britain, who were given the mandate to rule this area by the now defunct League of Nations (precursor to the United Nations). Furthermore, starting with about 60% down map (or 10–15 miles south of Jerusalem), the entire area is a desert and it’s very sparsely populated to this day (have a look at Google Maps if you don’t believe me). So no one owned that land and thus it’s dishonest to even color it.

Finally, year 1946 is depicted to show how things stood prior to establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Given that the area was ruled by Great Britain, this map is completely inaccurate, disingenuous and lacking context.

However, the truth of the matter is that a quiet on and off war between Jews and Arabs has been raging since the late 1920s, punctuated by occasional large-scale attacks against Jewish communities and associated reprisals. By 1946, an insurgent war was in full effect. Everyone was fighting everyone. The Jewish groups were fighting the Arab militias and the British troops trying to keep control of the area. The local Arabs were likewise fighting the Jews and the British. And that leaves the British, who were, of course, fighting both.

Map of 1947

What is wrong with this map? Nothing really, except at no time did it reflect any reality on the ground in any way, shape or form.

On November 29 1947, the newly minted United Nations, in an attempt to bring peace to the area, came up with a plan to partition the land into two portions: one with the Jews called Israel and other for the Arabs called Palestine. That is the map you are seeing. However, it never came to fruition. The Jewish leaders accepted the plan, while the Arab leaders did not. Just to think how much ink would have been saved if the plan was accepted by both parties!!!

Next day, on November 30 1947, a full scale civil war erupted between the Jews and the Arabs. That day, 2 buses carrying Jews had been ambushed and, as one would imagine, resulted in reprisals, except this time around it was an ongoing tit-for-tat that just didn’t stop. However, it was a limited conflict mostly just involving local fighters.

On May 14 1948, Israel declared independence. Can you guess why it was that day? The British Mandate to rule the area was expiring at midnight and they were departing. The day after that, May 15th , the neighboring Arab states invaded the area with the aim of destroying Israel. Forces from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq (which doesn’t even border Israel) and others engaged Israeli militias. UN plan was dead in the water.

Despite numeric superiority, Israel soundly defeated Arab armies and militias and captured about 60% of the area that was given to the Arabs in the map of the UN plan. The Jews called this War for Independence, while the Arabs refer to it as The Catastrophe. It ended in 1949 when the sides signed an Armistice agreement (aka ceasefire). Egypt ended up owning Gaza and Jordan got West Bank including East Jerusalem where the Old City is. The UN partition plan never came to be and the “Map of 1947” never amounted to be more than a piece of paper. However, the map you will see next is what the reality looked like after the Armistice agreement.

Map of 1967

The map you see was the result of the War for Independence, described above. It lasted from around March 1949 until the Six Day War in June of 1967. It really should be labeled March 1949 — June 1967.

So while the colors on the map are accurate, the labels are anything but. The area in green labeled Palestine is not really Palestine. The West Bank portion of the green was ruled by Jordan. And Gaza was governed by Egypt. So, it was in Arab hands, but not Palestinian hands. Odd that the fellow Arabs would not let Palestine be created, isn’t it.

I mentioned that a war occurred in June of 1967. As a result, both West Bank and Gaza (and more) ended up in Israeli hands. That year, things were definitely brewing. Egypt banned Israeli ships from the sea passage that connected it to the Red sea and Indian Ocean — something Israel said they would consider an act of war. Shortly thereafter, Egypt removed UN peacekeeping force that was separating the two sides. And finally, the Egyptian troops and tanks deployed along the border with Israel, on top of the rhetoric from President Nasser stating openly that their goal was eradication of Israel. Given that Egyptian side had massive superiority in numbers, Israel decided not to wait to be eradicated and launched a preemptive attack. The result was a crushing victory. Not only did Israel end up with Gaza, but also the entire Sinai peninsula (see map below) — an area nearly 3 times the size of Israel itself. In the map below, that’s everything in blue and various shades of green.

Jordan also entered the war, later on the first day, by attacking Israel from West Bank. Earlier in the morning, Israelis relayed a message to King Hussein to stay out of it. However, the die had been cast. For one, Hussein believed that he would lose his throne (and maybe head) if he did not come to the aid of a fellow Arab. Secondly, Egypt was telling him that it was handily defeating Israel. As far as King Hussein was concerned, he had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Therefore he placed his military under the command of a Egyptian general and ordered an attack. It backfired badly. Israel Defense Forces routed the attackers, captured the West Bank, and Jerusalem. And that is how West Bank ended up in the hands of Israel. This was an important inflection point in history where a bad decision reverberated across the time. So getting back to the map — again, Palestine didn’t lose West Bank. Jordan did. And they lost it because they chose to attack Israel.

Map of 2010.

Which brings us to the last map. This map is simply absurd as well. First of all, Gaza is completely in Arab hands. Israel left the area in 2005 as a result of the disengagement policy. It has been ruled by Palestinians (Hamas faction specifically) since 2007.

And West Bank lands that are in Palestinian control look quite incorrect as well. Have a look at the current reality in the map below. The green areas, ruled by Palestinians, are a consequence of Oslo Accords — 1994 agreement between then Prime Minister of Israel Yitzhak Rabin and then leader of the Palestinians Yasser Arafat (both since deceased). These represent the first ever areas that are governed by Palestinians. That is how things stand to this day.

So as can see, the maps of the territory loss are a complete bunk and nonsense.

P.S. What happened to the Sinai Peninsula that Israel captured from Egypt in the Six Day War in 1967? In 1973, Egypt and its allies attempted a redo of the Six Day War by launching a surprise attack on Israel. It failed. Eventually, in 1978, Israel and Egypt agreed to a peace deal — Egypt got its territory back (except Gaza) and Israel got diplomatic relations with its neighbor. Gaza got lumped in with the West Bank and its resolution got punted to future times.