Is this map of Israel-occupied territory accurate?

Question

There's an image going around Facebook, showing Israel's occupied territory over the last few decades:

I have seen at least two people (both Christian Zionists) criticize this map as "very biased" because it was created by an anti-semite. My follow-up questions to these critics have gone completely unanswered. Personally, I don't care if it was created by Adolf Hitler himself, if the map is accurate.

Is this map accurate? If not, or if there is some sort of room for interpretation, what are its chief failures?

Answer 1

TL;DR: There are inaccuracies and biases in the map, however it seems to be based on facts.

There is a well sourced infographic, which is very similar.

Cartographic Regression: Good.Is

• Prior to 1917, the region was part of the Ottoman Empire. The area shown as "1917 Palestine" was then the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem, the western part of the Vilayet of Syria and the southern part of the Vilayet of Beirut.
• In 1917, during the first world war, in response to an attack on a British Protectorate by the Ottoman army, Ottoman Syria was invaded and occupied by British and French forces, this became the Occupied Enemy Territories. The OETA south region corresponds with the area identified as "1917 Palestine".
• In 1920 the borders of "mandatory Palestine" were defined by the League of Nations. This area is what is shown in the infographic as "1917 Palestine"
• 1920-1948, Palestine under British Mandate
• Your infographic for Palestine in 1946 shows some parts under Israeli control. That doesn't make sense.
• The Population of Palestine Prior to 1948

• Palestine 1878 - 1927

  • In 1946, as far as I can tell, the boundaries were exactly the same.

  • In 1947 a plan was proposed. Your infographic correctly mentions it is the "UN plan".

• UN GA 181 - Annex A

  • In 1949, after the first Arab-Israeli War (which Israel won) Palestine was reduced to two territories, Gaza and West Bank which were under control by Egypt and Jordan, respectively. Your infographic does not show this map.
• Detailed Map of Palestine Showing Armistice Lines of Israel and Jordan (1949)

• 1949 Israel/Palestine Map

  • In 1967, after the Six-Day War, Israel militarily occupied these territories. Your map shows them as "Palestine", but doesn't mention they were occupied by Israel.

• Israel and the Occupied Territories

  • At present, Israel has given back control of part of the territories to Palestinians. The map shows areas "A" and "B" (according to UN terminology), which means zones under at least civil control by the Palestinian Authority.
• UN Map of West bank (2008)
• B'TSELEM Map of West bank (2008)
• CIA map of the Palestinian Authority controlled areas

As a personal note, it is a very well known fact that Israel has annexed more and more lands as a result of political pressure and winning wars. It would be wildly misleading, though, not to mention that Israel was involved in many of these wars as a defending party and that they have been giving back control to the Palestinian National Authority of some of the land.

Answer 2

There are several issues with these maps.

• Map of 1946. There was no country of Palestine. The entire area was under British control. Source. It might be a better idea to have a map of land owned by Jewish vs Arab hands. I doubt that an accurate map like that exists.. (Per @Evargalo, map like that exists, it provides more proof of the inadequacy of the 1946 map - see comments for further detail). Furthermore, 10 miles south of Jerusalem, it's pretty much all desert which is very sparsely populated to this day. So, no, not accurate at all. Source.
• Map of 1947. This map of the UN partition plan is accurate. Source. However, it never ever came to be, as the nearby Arab states invaded Israel shortly after UN approved the partition (in 1948, iirc). Source.
• Map of 1967. This map is not accurate at all. It's actually the situation as it was after the war for independence (mentioned above) concluded. Source. Following the six-day war in 1967, Israel actually conquered everything you see on the map (either marked Israel or Palestine), plus the Gaza strip and Sinai peninsula from Egypt (area much larger than Israel). Source. Israel subsequently gave back all land conquered from Egypt. Source 1, Source 2.
• Map of 2010. The last map is simply absurd as well. First off Gaza is completely in Arab hands, so it should be properly colored. The map of West Bank is simply wrong. Here is the map, according to Wikipedia.

Answer 3

The maps from the original question are incorrect on the points that Sklivvz points out in his excellent answer, but correct on many important parts. The greatest fault of the original map is the lack of information about the cause, and that it does not show any disengagement by Israel - which did happen. The borders did not grow uniformly through time, sometimes the borders contracted, and the increase of land area happened in bursts: twice the result of (unsolicited) war, once the result of mutually signed agreements.

As Sklivvz points out in the end of his answer: "It would be wildly misleading, though, not to mention that Israel was involved in many of these wars as a defending party and that they have been giving back control to the Palestinian National Authority of some of the land".

I want to explain the shortcomings of the map from the original answer with different maps, but I'd like to start off with the perception that land was stolen unilaterally by Israel as depicted here: (source: http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/mapstellstory.html)

The reason this is actually not 'what really happened' is that the Israeli government did not go out and claim this land, they actually conquered as a result of several wars for which they were the defending party, not the aggressor, from 1948 through to 1980. Explained for the 1948 Arab-Israeli war by this map:

(source: http://www.vox.com/2014/7/17/5902177/9-questions-about-the-israel-palestine-conflict-you-were-too)

The borders changed again in 1948 after Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria emerged from the six-day war, instigated by Nasser with great support of Arabs in several countries. The events leading up to this war included the following:

• Egyptian Troop Build-up in Sinai
• Removal of U.N. peacekeepers from Egypt by the Egyptian government
• The Straits of Tiran closure closing off supply routes to Israel
• Jordan support for Egypt
• Arab States' armed forces mobilizing.

An informative documentary about this war is Six Days in June. After these six days, the map looked like this:

Following the Camp David accords in 1979, the Sinai was handed back to Egypt in the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty, shrinking the borders of Israel down (one of the things that never happens in the original series of maps offered in this question).

The 2000 map resulted from the Oslo agreement, but is grossly understating the amount of Palestinian land resulting from those accords. The reason it looks so patchy is because of the sub-division of the west bank into areas A, B, and C. The following map illustrates the sub-division of land on the West Bank as agreed upon in 2000:

Finally, one important part left out in the original map of occupied territory is the unilateral disengagement from Gaza that Israel effectuated in 2005 as part of a road to peace. This disengagement included the destruction of Israeli settlements by the Israeli army, leaving no Israeli occupying force in Gaza. However, ccess between Egypt and Gaza as well as Isreal and Gaza is tightly restricted.