Editing West Bank (section)

====Area annexed by Israel====
{{main|East Jerusalem}}
[[File:Greater Jerusalem May 2006 CIA remote-sensing map 3500px.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|right|[[Greater Jerusalem]], May 2006. [[CIA]] [[remote sensing]] map showing areas considered settlements, plus refugee camps, fences, walls, etc.]]

Through the [[Jerusalem Law]], Israel extended its administrative control over [[East Jerusalem]]. This has often been interpreted as tantamount to an official annexation, though [[Ian Lustick]], in reviewing the legal status of Israeli measures, has argued that no such annexation ever took place. The Palestinian residents have legal [[permanent residency]] status.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Quiet Deportation: Revocation of Residency of East Jerusalem Palestinians |author=Yael Stein |publisher=Joint report by [[Hamoked]] and [[B'Tselem]] |date=April 1997 |url=http://www.btselem.org/Download/199704_Quiet_Deportation_Eng.doc |type={{DOClink}} |access-date=27 September 2006 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060928061451/http://www.btselem.org/Download/199704_Quiet_Deportation_Eng.doc |archive-date=28 September 2006}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=The Quiet Deportation: Revocation of Residency of East Jerusalem Palestinians (Summary) |author=Yael Stein |publisher=Joint report by [[Hamoked]] and [[B'Tselem]] |date=April 1997 |url=http://www.btselem.org/English/Publications/Summaries/199704_Quiet_Deportation.asp |access-date=27 September 2006 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060628220355/http://www.btselem.org/English/Publications/Summaries/199704_Quiet_Deportation.asp |archive-date=28 June 2006}}</ref> Rejecting the Jerusalem Law, the UN Security Council passed [[UN Security Council Resolution 478]], declaring that the law was "null and void". Although permanent residents are permitted, if they wish, to receive Israeli citizenship if they meet certain conditions including swearing allegiance to the State and renouncing any other citizenship, most Palestinians did not apply for Israeli citizenship for political reasons.<ref>{{cite web |title=Legal status of East Jerusalem and its residents |publisher=[[B'Tselem]] |url=http://www.btselem.org/english/Jerusalem/Legal_Status.asp |access-date=27 September 2006 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061010085544/http://www.btselem.org/English/Jerusalem/Legal_Status.asp |archive-date=10 October 2006}}</ref> There are various possible reasons as to why the West Bank had not been annexed to Israel after its [[Six-Day War|capture in 1967]].<ref name="MBard">[[Mitchell Bard]]. {{cite web |title=Our Positions: Solving the Palestinian/Israeli Conflict |publisher=[[Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism]] |url=http://www.freemuslims.org/issues/israel-palestine.php |access-date=27 September 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061012015516/http://www.freemuslims.org/issues/israel-palestine.php |archive-date=12 October 2006}}</ref> The government of Israel has not formally confirmed an official reason; however, historians and analysts have established a variety of such, most of them demographic. Among those most commonly cited have been:
*Reluctance to award its citizenship to an overwhelming number of a potentially hostile population whose allies were sworn to the destruction of Israel.<ref name="Bard">[[Mitchell Bard]]{{full citation needed|date=January 2021}}</ref><ref name="Bamberger">{{cite book |author=David Bamberger |title=A Young Person's History of Israel |publisher=Behrman House |orig-year=1985 |year=1994 |location=USA |page=128 |isbn=978-0-87441-393-9}}</ref>
*To ultimately exchange [[land for peace]] with neighbouring states<ref name="Bard"/><ref name="Bamberger"/>
*Fear that the population of ethnic Arabs, including Israeli citizens of Palestinian ethnicity, would outnumber the Jewish Israelis west of the Jordan River.<ref name="MBard"/><ref name="Bard"/>
*The disputed legality of [[annexation]] under the [[Fourth Geneva Convention]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/07/22/2740184/carter-center-calls-for-end-to-east-jerusalem-deportations |title=Carter Center calls for end to Jerusalem deportations &#124; JTA – Jewish & Israel News |publisher=Jewish Telegraphic Agency |date=22 July 2010 |access-date=3 October 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100726081628/http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/07/22/2740184/carter-center-calls-for-end-to-east-jerusalem-deportations |archive-date=26 July 2010}}</ref>
The importance of demographic concerns to some significant figures in Israel's leadership was illustrated when [[Avraham Burg]], a former Knesset Speaker and former chair of the Jewish Agency for Israel, wrote in ''The Guardian'' in September 2003,
:"Between the Jordan and the Mediterranean there is no longer a clear Jewish majority. And so, fellow citizens, it is not possible to keep the whole thing without paying a price. We cannot keep a Palestinian majority under an Israeli boot and at the same time think ourselves the only democracy in the Middle East. There cannot be democracy without equal rights for all who live here, Arab as well as Jew. We cannot keep the territories and preserve a Jewish majority in the world's only Jewish state – not by means that are humane and moral and Jewish."<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/sep/15/comment |title=The end of Zionism |author=Avraham Burg |work=The Guardian |location=London |date=15 September 2003 |access-date=8 September 2009 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130827133259/http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/sep/15/comment |archive-date=27 August 2013}}</ref>