According to the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and Article 80 of the UN Charter, isn't Jewish presence in all areas west of the Jordan River legal
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Executive summary
The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine did recognize a “historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine” and applied to lands on both sides of the Jordan River (Transjordan) [1]. But Britain and later international and local political acts separated Transjordan from the area intended for the Jewish national home, and modern legal-political status of Jewish presence west of the Jordan River remains disputed among states, scholars and human-rights organizations [2] [3] [4].
1. What the Mandate actually said and how Britain treated the east bank
The Mandate’s preamble recognized the Jewish historical connection and applied to territory on both sides of the Jordan River, but British practice and later decisions treated the area east of the Jordan differently: Transjordan was administered separately after the 1921 Cairo conference and a new provision limited the Jewish national home to the west of the river in practice [1] [2]. That administrative separation is explicitly documented in British actions that created the Emirate of Transjordan and later the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan [2] [5].
2. How later international steps changed—or left ambiguous—sovereignty
The 1947 UN partition proposed a division of Mandate Palestine that placed the West Bank in the proposed Arab state, and after 1948–50 Jordan annexed the West Bank until 1967 [3] [5]. These complex successive acts—Mandate language, British administrative practice, the 1947 UN plan, and post‑1948 annexation—produce competing legal arguments about who held what rights at different times; reporting and legal commentary treat the result as ambiguous and politically contested [1] [3].
3. Article 80 of the UN Charter: sources do not state a clear endorsement
Available sources provided do not quote Article 80 directly or show a contemporary, unambiguous invocation of it to validate unilateral Jewish sovereignty or settlement west of the Jordan River. The Hudson Institute piece and related analyses note the Mandate language and historic claims but do not present a clear, binding legal pathway from Article 80 to modern Israeli sovereignty across the West Bank [1]. Therefore, sources do not confirm that Article 80 alone makes Jewish presence throughout the area west of the Jordan legally settled.
4. Competing legal and political arguments used to justify settlement
Proponents argue the Mandate’s recognition of Jewish rights in Palestine and the lack of “previous legitimate sovereign” over parts of the West Bank underlie claims that Jewish presence is lawful; U.S. and Israeli officials have at times relied on Mandate-era language in arguing permissibility [1] [6]. Opposing views treat the West Bank as occupied territory since 1967 and cite international law and successive UN positions that regard settlements as inconsistent with the laws of occupation; U.S. statements across administrations have also criticized settlement expansion as undermining a negotiated two‑state solution [7] [6].
5. How human-rights and advocacy groups frame the issue
Human-rights organizations present a different frame: B’Tselem describes an Israeli regime operating across the area between the Jordan and the Mediterranean that privileges Jewish citizens and treats the Green Line as functionally meaningless, implying that legal claims of historic entitlement do not resolve current realities of rights and control [4]. That viewpoint emphasizes lived governance and practices over archival legal texts.
6. Facts on the ground and politics: settlements, annexation talk, and security rationales
Contemporary settlement numbers and political moves change the factual baseline: encyclopedic reporting notes hundreds of thousands of settlers in West Bank settlements and detailed counts of authorized communities [6]. Political leaders have publicly argued for retaining presence in strategic areas such as the Jordan Valley for security reasons or demographic aims; these are political rationales rather than straightforward legal proofs of sovereignty [8] [9] [10].
7. Bottom line for the legal question you asked
Sources show the Mandate recognized Jewish connections and at times applied to both banks, but British administrative practice and later international and regional acts separated Transjordan and left the legal status of the West Bank contested [1] [2] [3]. Available sources do not establish that Article 80 of the UN Charter—or the Mandate alone—constitutes an uncontested legal authorization for Jewish sovereignty or unrestricted Jewish settlement across all territory west of the Jordan River; modern legal and political authorities disagree and treat the question as unresolved and highly contested [1] [7] [4].
Limitations: I relied only on the supplied documents. They cover Mandate wording, British practice, partition and annexation history, policy arguments and human-rights framing but do not quote Article 80 directly or present an authoritative contemporary legal ruling that settles the issue once and for all [1] [7] [4].