We say: We often hear people argue that the West Bank and Gaza are not technically occupied territories. This argument is frequently articulated by people who support Israel holding on to these areas permanently and who support Israeli settlement in these areas. They support this, despite the fact that Israel itself has never annexed or otherwise extended sovereignty to most of the West Bank or any of the Gaza Strip. And they support this, despite the fact that holding on to these areas permanently undermines Israel's existence as a Jewish, democratic state. The debate over whether the West Bank and Gaza are "occupied" or "disputed" is thus not really one about legalisms or semantics, but about ideology.

The West Bank and Gaza are viewed by virtually all international legal experts as "occupied territory." Since 1967, legal experts, including in Israel, have been virtually unanimous in recognizing that this status applies to the West Bank and Gaza. The fact that their sovereign status was in limbo at the time that Israel took control over them is an artifact of the post-colonial era and, regardless, international law is clear: the acquisition of territory through military force is prohibited.

Indeed, even the Israeli Supreme Court has repeatedly used the term "belligerent occupation" to describe Israel's rule over the West Bank and Gaza. Israel's Supreme Court even ruled that the question of a previous sovereign claim to the West Bank and Gaza is irrelevant to whether the international laws relating to occupied territories should apply there. Rather, the proper question - according to Israel's highest court - is one of effective military control. In the words of the Supreme Court decision, "as long as the military force exercises control over the territory, the laws of war will apply to it." (see: HCJ 785/87, Afo v. Commander of IDF Forces in the West Bank). What matters, from this perspective, is the fact that the West Bank and Gaza were conquered by Israeli armed forces in a war (that the war was forced upon Israel, while true, is irrelevant) and has been controlled and governed by the Israel military since. That defines the fact that there is an Israeli occupation there. Who claimed the territories before they were occupied is immaterial. What is material is that before 1967, Israel did not claim the territories.

Even Ariel Sharon, one of the main architects of Israel's policy of placing settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, recognized this reality. On May 26, 2003, when he was Prime Minister of Israel, he bluntly told fellow Likud members, "You may not like the word, but what's happening is occupation [using the Hebrew word "kibush," which is only used to mean "occupation"]. Holding 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation is a bad thing for Israel, for the Palestinians and for the Israeli economy."

More importantly, the semantic debate regarding the "occupied" nature of the West Bank and Gaza is wholly immaterial when it comes to realpolitik. Whether one believes that these territories are legally occupied or not does not change the basic facts: Israel rules over a population of millions of Palestinians who are hostile to it. Demographic projections indicate that Jews will soon be a minority in the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, if they are not already. Whether you call the territories "occupied," "disputed" or even "liberated," one thing is clear: holding on to these areas is neither viable nor desirable if Israel is to survive as a secure, Jewish and democratic country. Israel's long-term security depends on its ability to negotiate its way out of the occupation toward a two-state solution.