...regardless of one's views on which people have greater title to Judea and Samaria, or the West Bank, it is a historically inaccurate distortion to claim that the occupation that breeds this type of violence. If this mantra were true, then it must be the case that before the occupation there was no violence. This defies the historical record.
In 1929, the Jewish community of Hebron—which stretches back millennia, long before the creation of Islam and the Arab conquest and subsequent occupation of the area—was brutally attacked...This and other similar pogroms happened, not only before the "occupation" of Judea and Samaria, but even two decades before the state of Israel was reestablished. From 1948 to 1967, Judea and Samaria were illegally occupied by Jordan, which renamed the area the West Bank, in reference to the East Bank of the Kingdom of Jordan that fell beyond the Jordan River. Not one Israeli was allowed into this area, yet nor did Israel know one day of peace in that time, during which it saw brutal attacks launched from the West Bank against Israeli civilians.
Further evidence against the mantra that the occupation breeds violence can be culled from Palestinian sources. Take Hamas's founding charter, for instance, which does not mention occupation or settlements. What is does contain are calls for the complete destruction of Israel, down to its last inch, such as: "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." The charter goes even further, aspiring to a point in time when there will be no Jews left anywhere in the world.
Meanwhile, the Palestine Liberation Organization, currently headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, notes in its founding charter that "this organization does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the West Bank," while still calling for a "liberation of its homeland." This was written in 1964, fully three years before Israel conquered the West Bank during the Six Day War.
It's safe to say that the violence and terror visited upon Israelis has little connection to "occupation" or settlements. This myth has no historical foundation, but is easy to proclaim for those who have little understanding of the conflict. Yet these fatuous canards only make our conflict harder to solve.
It really is quite easy once you know the historical truth and apply logic.
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Unfortunately the piece isn't up-to-date regarding the latest developments in anti-Zionism. Today, the anti-Zionist Left is warming up to the view that everything, including what happened in 1929, is comeuppance for an "injustice" that started in... 1882. Yup, "Since 1882," just like it says on the Carmel Mizrahi wine bottles.
Islamic anti-Zionism is indeed rooted in the events of 1882--specifically, the affront of Jews coming to an Islam-ruled land but refusing to live as second-class citizens under the apartheid system of dhimmitude. It was reworked into a nationalistic dispute (Arab, and yet later the Phakestinian nation narrative) only after World War One. However, Islamic intolerance has always been at the root of the conflict; it is not true, what people say, that the Mufti "recruited religion in the service of the conflict." The opposite.
But I digress. The view that the "Zionist injustice" starts in 1882 may yet be prominent only in extreme sites like Mound o' Scheiss, but remember that what is once extreme moves to the center of the Left after a few years. I still remember when the Phakestinian "Right of Return" was frowned on at DailyKKKos, years ago--today it's perfectly acceptable there.
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