An occupation is defined as taking of land from a recognized nation state that is its rightful owner.

In 1948 the Arabs already controlled 70% of Palestine. Why? In 1918, the Brits paritioned Palestine the first time giving the Palestinian Arabs control over everything east of Jordan river, this became TRANS-JORDAN and later renamed Jordan.

The remaining 30% was promised ot the Jews in the Balfour Declaration. However in 1948, the world went back on its promise and offered the Jews HALF of what they were promised (15% of Palestine). The rest were to become yet another Arab state (remember, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan were all given to the Arabs after the Brits ousted the Ottoman Empire). The Jews happily ACCEPTED (this point is not in controversy).

The lands of Judea/Samaria and Gaza were offered to the Arabs in 1948 – but they refused them.

Israel declared independance on the sliver of land given to them in a UN vote in 1948, the next day they were attacked by all of their Arab neighbours. In this war, the Jordanians & Egyptians occupied the lands REJECTED BY THE ARABS (thus no-mans-land or land owned by the World Body, not the land of an established state). Jordan ocupied Judea and Samaria (became “the West Bank”) + Jerusalem. Egypt occupied Gaza.

In the 1967 war, after the Arabs attacked again, Israel liberated these lands from Egypt and Jordan. These nations were not the rightful owners of this land, furthermore no other Arab state had been declared on said lands and thus the legal definition of occupation does NOT fit.

Egypt and Jordan have since (a) made peace with Israel (b) dropped their claims to these lands. In so much, the issue of ownership should not be at issue.

Still, Israel has no want, nor no need to preside over an overpopulated nest of hatred (that is what it is, see Palestinian Media Watch) – it gets no benefit from these areas. The areas have been offered to Arafat several times, and were part of the “ULTIMATE” Barak/Clinton plan of 2000 (see previous post) yet the Arabs refused.

Don’t be fooled by the rheotric. Neither Israel nor the settlers are the issue here.
Israel is a democratic nation that gives full rights to its 1,000,000 Arab inhabitants in Israel-proper (20-25% of the population of the country!). They hold full citizenship, passports, healthcare and voting rights. There are Arabs in Parliament and Cabinet posts. They are the healthiest, wealthiest most literate Arabs in the MidEast today and are the only Arabs that can vote and/or run for office.

If Israel, a DEMOCRACY, can maintain 20-25% population of Arabs then why is such a stink made of the so-called “Israeli Settlers” who make up not even ONE PERCENT OF ONE PERCENT OF ONE PERCENT of Judea/Samaria and ZERO PERCENT of Gaza (Gaza was forcfily annexed of Jews by the IDF, they even went againt Jewish laws and moved Jewish graves to prevent their desecration)…

It’s not land! It’s hatred, it’s martyr trading cards (yep, they exist), it’s the Kassam Rockets, Grad Rockets and Katyushas. It is a people whose manufactured national identity requires them to keep living like ‘victims’ and perpetual ‘refugees’. A people whose celebrities are homicidal bombers whose pictures line every classroom and every street, soccer fields are named after Waffa Sultan, streets after Yehaye Ayash. The greatest enemy of the Arabs are not the “evil hook nosed Jews”, rather the greatest enemy of Arabia is the inability to introspect. Alittle introspection would go a long way. The greatest persecuter, killer, and oppresser of Arabs are other Arabs. Jews simply take their oft-too-common historic role as convenient scapegoats.