Sunday, August 17, 2014

No, It's Not The "Occupation"

In an article that contains some very good anti-Pal. positions, the writer makes this point:

The late Christopher Hitchens was right when he said this about Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories:

"In order for Israel to become part of the alliance against whatever we want to call it, religious barbarism, theocratic, possibly thermonuclear theocratic or nuclear theocratic aggression, it can't, it'll have to dispense with the occupation. It's as simple as that.  It can be, you can think of it as a kind of European style, Western style country if you want, but it can't govern other people against their will. It can't continue to steal their land in the way that it does every day.

"Occupation"?  That's all?

But his point 5 is 

Why are people asking for Israel to end the "occupation" in Gaza?

to which is responds:

Because they have short memories.
In 2005, Israel ended the occupation in Gaza. It pulled out every last Israeli soldier. It dismantled every last settlement. Many Israeli settlers who refused to leave were forcefully evicted from their homes, kicking and screaming.

So, maybe "occupation" is not connected with peace, or, to be more directed: Arab hostility to Israel and Zionism has nothing to do with "occupation".  Or, even better, for too many Arabs anything a Jew does anywhere in the Land of Israel in the process of returning Jews to their historic homeland, redeeming land, facilitating immigration, etc. is per se defined an "occupational activity" and is illegal, in their definition, which leads to terror.

He adds this historical observation:

Let's face it, the land belongs to both of them now. Israel was carved out of Palestine for Jews with help from the British in the late 1940s just like my own birthplace of Pakistan...

"Palestine" never really existed except as a concept.  The first time in history it had its own borders, in a sense, was in 1922, done so by the League of Nations. and at that time, Judea, Samaria and Gaza were part of the area to become an independent Jewish state and that, after Transjordan was separated from the territory and Jewish settlement was probinited therein.

Britain, actually, didn't "help" but mostly hindered.  The Mandatory officialdom withered down the borders (the 1937 Partition) and the administrative framework (the 1924 Legislative Council) and after the first Arab pogroms in 1920 and 1921, began restricting Jewish immigration.

The land belongs to those who live on it but the political sovereignty belongs only to one and since the Arabs never accepted compromise, and sought always to deny Jews any rights in the country, and they lost every campaign, violent or less so, including a war of aggression in 1967, Israel, by right, administers the territories, not through any illegal occupation.

No, it's not the "occupation"

^

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