International Law or International Lie?

The legal Status of the Green Line According to International Law

The Green Line is a meandering boundary that stretches across approximately 500 kilometers, and it lies at the heart of many of the political and legal disputes in the Middle East.

According to numerous resolutions passed by the United Nations General Assembly, along with some Security Council resolutions, the Green Line demarcates what is often referred to in UN terminology as the “Palestinian occupied territories since 1967, including East Jerusalem.” Under these resolutions, Israel is considered to have legitimate sovereignty over the territories to the west of this line. In contrast, the mountainous and desert regions to the east are deemed, by full right and in accordance with international law, to belong to a future newly established state of Palestine. These resolutions frequently use terms like “1967 borders,” “returning to the 1967 borders,” “illegal occupation,” and “illegal colonization” by Israel, implying that such actions definitely violate international law.

If you were to ask most readers, journalists, or politicians about the origins of the Green Line—its history, why it’s named as such, or its legal implications—many would likely respond with a blank stare, unaware of its deeper context.

With the tectonic shifts brought by the newly arrived Trump administration, which is poised to redraw the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East, there is a timely opportunity to revisit and clarify the legal history of the Green Line.

1517-1923, An Ottoman Possession

For centuries, from the time it was conquered from the Mamluks, the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea was part of the Ottoman Empire. This region, and its population, were governed by Ottoman sovereignty for 400 years, organized into administrative divisions known as Willayets. The area was divided into three primary regions: the Willayet of Jerusalem in the south, the Willayet of Nablus (Shechem) in the center, and the Willayet of Acre (Akka) in the north. Together, these formed the southern part of the province of Syria.

During World War I (1914–1918), the German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman Empires fought against the Entente Powers, which included France, England, and Russia. The defeat of the Empires led to the dismantling of their overseas territories through treaties signed between the victors and the vanquished. A treaty, as defined in international law, is a legally binding agreement that formalizes the renouncement of territorial possession by the defeated party; military conquest alone does not transfer legal title to land. Thus, it was through the Treaties of Sèvres (1920) and Lausanne (1923) that the transfer of Ottoman territories to new sovereignties entered officially in force.

At this time, the League of Nations (LoN) served as the international body overseeing such matters. As a source of international law, the League’s decisions were legally binding. The League’s Covenant, signed on June 28, 1919, introduced a new form of temporary governance known as the Mandate. These mandates applied to territories that had been part of the German colonies or Ottoman possessions before World War I. Mandates were established across Africa, the Middle East, and the Pacific, with various victorious powers assigned to administer them, including the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Africa.

 1920-1948, The Mandate of Palestine

On April 25, 1920, the San Remo Conference, composed of the victorious powers of World War I, determined that the Arab-speaking territories of the Ottoman Empire would be detached from Turkey. The conference passed a resolution granting the United Kingdom the mandate over Palestine. This resolution was later unanimously approved by the League of Nations on July 24, 1922. This legal decision allocated the territory of Palestine to the Jewish people. It included 1) the lands controlled by Israel between 1949 and 1967, 2) Judea and Samaria, including East Jerusalem, 3) the Gaza Strip, and 4) the entire territory of Jordan. However, the United Kingdom asked to add Article 25 to the mandate text, giving it the discretion to decide whether to apply the Balfour Declaration to the area east of the Jordan River—essentially allowing or prohibiting Jewish settlement there. On September 16, 1922, the League of Nations Council passed a resolution confirming Article 25, separating the original territory of the mandate for Palestine into an East Palestine and West Palestine. In East Palestine Jews were not supposed to settle as previously decided. The final Mandate for Palestine came into effect on September 29, 1923, excluding what would later become Transjordan and then the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Since 1923, the Balfour Declaration—which held no legal value when signed in 1917—became an integral part of international law. Its purpose was to establish a “national home for the Jewish people in Palestine,” based on their historical connection to the land, with the objective of re-establishing their national home there. Importantly, the declaration also emphasized that no action should harm the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish communities in Palestine. The terms of the mandate explicitly authorized Jewish settlement across the entire territory of the Mandate of Palestine, while ensuring the protection of the private property of the local inhabitants. Political rights for Jews and civil and religious rights for non-Jewish populations were to be respected, though Muslims and Arabs were never explicitly mentioned. The United Kingdom was legally bound to implement these terms and was prohibited from deviating from them.

However, since the early 1920s, local Arabs have voiced strong opposition to this provision of international law. Violent clashes between Jews and Arabs, as well as confrontations between Arabs and British forces, led the British to severely limit—and, according to international law, unlawfully restrict—Jewish immigration. These restrictions continued into 1939, as the threat of the Holocaust made it clear that European Jewry was at risk (as outlined in the MacDonald White Paper).

In 1945, after World War II, the League of Nations dissolved, and the United Nations (UN) was established, creating several bodies, including a General Assembly (GA), a Security Council (SC), and an International Court of Justice (ICJ). Each country in the GA, regardless of size, has an equal vote. However, resolutions passed by the GA are non-binding recommendations under international law (Articles 10–15). The SC, with 15 members—five permanent (U.S., China, USSR then Russia, France, UK) holding veto power and ten temporary members elected every two years—issues recommendations under Chapter VI of the UN Charter. These resolutions are not legally binding, except those made under Chapter VII, which pertain to situations that threaten international peace. Only violations of Chapter VII resolutions constitute illegal acts under international law. The ICJ may provide advisory opinions, but these are non-binding as well.

Article 80 of the UN Charter, regarding the Mandate for Palestine, specifies that the new UN body inherits the decisions of the League of Nations and cannot reverse them. Thus, the Mandate for Palestine, which was established in 1920, remains unchanged in its original objectives.

The United Kingdom Renounces Its Mandate Over Palestine Amid Violent Clashes Between Jews, Arabs, and British Armed Forces

In 1947, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 181, proposing a new partition of the Mandate of (West) Palestine. This resolution suggested a Jewish state and an Arab state, designed to collaborate within an economic community (sic). A special international status was proposed for Jerusalem and its large suburbs, including Bethlehem, which would be reassessed after 10 years. The Jewish Agency accepted the partition, while the Arab League rejected it and threatened to wage war against the Jews. Because neither side accepted it, Resolution 181 of 1947 holds no legal value and cannot alter the previously existing legal situation. The objectives of the original Mandate remain intact, meaning that within the Mandate’s borders, the land is legally intended for the active and unrestricted settlement of Jews.

 1948, Creation of the State of Israel

On May 15, 1948, the independent State of Israel was declared, but without specifying borders. According to international law, particularly the principle of uti possidetis juris, when a colony or mandate territory gains independence, the new state inherits the sovereignty within the previous administrative borders. This principle has been applied in numerous cases, such as Algeria and many sub-Saharan African countries. The principle of equality among states under the law dictates that this should also apply to the territory of the Mandate of Palestine, which would then fall under Israeli sovereignty as the successor to the Jewish Agency, the entity responsible for asserting Jewish rights to the land according to the terms of the Mandate for Palestine.

After Israel declared independence, five Arab nations—Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq—attacked, aiming to eliminate the new state and eradicate its Jewish population. Following 11 months of intense fighting, the great powers intervened, ordering both sides to cease hostilities and freeze the military positions they held. A ceasefire was accepted by both parties, and on April 3, 1949, an armistice agreement was signed in Rhodes between Israel and Jordan. On the maps, the line separating the Israeli and Jordanian forces was marked in green, which is why it came to be known as the “Green Line.” In the agreement, the Jordanians explicitly requested that the Green Line should be viewed only as a ceasefire line and should not be considered a border or imply a solution to the Palestinian issue.

By the end of the War of Independence, the legal situation was as follows: Jordanian forces crossed the Jordan River beyond their international border and occupied part of the territory of the previous Mandate for Palestine. They captured the Old City of Jerusalem and expelled the Jewish population (an act of ethnic cleansing). Egypt, on the other hand, occupied a strip of land around the Gaza City area, beyond its own international border. Israel, by contrast, controlled only part of the Mandate territory that legally belonged to it, based on the uti possidetis juris principle of international law. This area was somewhat larger than the territory allocated to the Jewish state in the 1947 General Assembly’s Partition Resolution 181, which had no legal validity.

On April 24, 1950, Jordan formally annexed the territory it had seized illegally with its Arab Legion. According to the principle of the inadmissibility of conquest by war, Jordan’s occupation of this territory, west of the Jordan River, was illegal and deprived Israel of its rightful sovereignty over the land. In defiance of international law, the Arab League and the broader international community, only the United Kingdom, Iraq, and Pakistan recognized Jordan’s annexation of what will become the West Bank of Jordan.

From 1950 to 1967, the Arab population of the illegally annexed West Bank was granted Jordanian citizenship while Jordan continued its illegal occupation of territory that belonged by law to Israel. In 1967, Israel regained control of this territory following a defensive war.

Legally speaking, did the Israeli army occupy or liberate the territories of Judea, Samaria, and East Jerusalem, which had been illegally occupied by Jordan from 1949 to 1967 and that had never acquired sovereignty by force, as per the international law principle of the inadmissibility of conquest by war?

Some might argue that UN General Assembly Resolution 181 of 1947, which proposed partitioning the Mandate territory into a Jewish state and an Arab state, intended the West Bank to belong to an Arab state and consequently, Israel occupies the West Bank, which has since been labeled “the Palestinian Occupied Territories since 1967” by the international community.

However, since the terms of the Mandate for Palestine, as voted on July 24, 1922, and modified on September 22, 1922, and implemented on September 16, 1923, no legal event has altered the original status of the Mandate. Neither General Assembly Resolution 181 (1947), nor the 1949 Armistice Agreements, carry any legal weight. Therefore, the Green Line lacks any legal significance and cannot be considered an international border.

It is entirely legally that the Jewish people was stripped of  East Palestine (Transjordan) by the United Kingdom, with the approval of the League of Nations, and it remains entirely legal for Israel to claim sovereignty over the entire Mandate territory of (West) Palestine, as defined by the legal borders established in 1923. Granting legal value to the “Green Line” and treating it as the “1967 border” is a patent distortion of international law. This misinterpretation disregards:

1. The resolutions of the League of Nations.
2. Article 80 of the UN Charter, which upholds the legal commitments of the League of Nations.
3. Articles 10-15 of the UN Charter, which do not grant binding legal power to General Assembly resolutions.
4. The uti possidetis juris principle, typically applied to similar cases.
5. The principle of the inadmissibility of conquest by war.
6. The rule of equality of states before the law, which demands equal application of these principles to all states, including Israel.

In conclusion, granting a legal value to the Green Line and calling it the “1967 border” is a corrupt and false interpretation of international law. Such actions reflect a dishonest and politically motivated agenda. Those whoq seek to lend legal weight to the Green Line should be transparent about their purely political position and cease manipulating international law for their benefit, thus undermining its integrity.

It should be repeated: the minds who engage in this exercise are many and twisted, they persist in granting a legal value to the Green Line while hiding behind an argument of legality to promote a purely political position, with absolute no legal value.