The New York Times strange policies on datelining Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria

The New York Times policy on referring to Jerusalem and the rest of Judea and Samaria over the years is a good indicator of the subtle anti-Israel bias that US leaders and pundits would be reading every day.

Before 1967, the New York Times recognized Jerusalem and the entire West Bank as being part of Jordan, and the Israeli side of Jerusalem was merely an "Israeli sector" but not part of Israel. This is even though the international community did not recognize Jordan's annexation of the territory.

1966:

Then after 1967, its policy evolved.

For the first few years, it still considered the West Bank to be Jordan, but occupied by Israel.

1972:

The idea that it was "Palestinian land" was not considered. Israel occupied Jordanian territory. not Palestinian territory.

Slowly, the Times started to realize that calling it "Jordanian" didn't make sense as Jordan wanted less and less to do with it. Suddenly, Israel wasn't occupying Jordanian land, but merely an area whose legal status that had yet to be defined - the West Bank.

1976:

What about Jerusalem? That was too complicated. Almost immediately, it went from being part of Jordan to being not part of any state. Best just to refer to it as Jerusalem without mentioning any country - perhaps it can still become an international city now that Israel controlled all of it?

1968:

That policy remained in place for decades. 1986, for example:

Back in Judea and Samaria, the Times apparently decided during Oslo that referring to cities that were controlled by the PA as being "Israeli-occupied" made no sense, so that area just became the "West Bank" - still a Jordanian term.

1995:

That is still the policy today.

There is a similar policy for the Golan Heights - no state is mentioned. 

The question is - when did the "West Bank" become "Palestinian territories" as a given? When did it magically leave the Jordanian orbit, and when did Israel start occupying a completely different area without moving a single soldier? 

Even Jordan's 1988 declaration that it was giving the territory to the Palestinians had no legal weight, since it was never Jordan's to begin with and it had no authority to do so.

This is only one small piece of the puzzle on how the world moved from Israel occupying another sovereign state - which is a requirement for territory to be considered legally occupied - to occupying an area called the West Bank that has no legal owner? 

If the "occupation" is the major issue to be resolved, the question of what exactly Israel is supposedly occupying, and when, is surprisingly never asked.

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