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Expert: Treating West Bank as Palestinian Is Historically Incorrect
(Sputnik-Russia) Prof. Abraham Sion, former chair of the Center for Law and Mass Media at Ariel University, said critics of plans to extend Israeli law to parts of the West Bank are ignoring the fact that it was the international community that authorized the Jewish state's control over the currently disputed territories. After World War I and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, "the powers decided to give Palestine to the Jews, whereas Arabs would receive the rest of the Middle East." He noted that at the time, the Arabs "considered themselves as Syrians rather than Palestinians." "It is wrong to say that Israel occupied this land [when it conquered it from Jordan in 1967]. We only claimed back what originally belonged to the Jewish people," explained Sion. "Some people...know the facts but choose to ignore them."