The attempted war of extermination against Israelis is more than a land dispute up for negotiation - by Melanie Phillips

The only way to end what is essentially an Arab war of extermination against Israel is to call out the Palestinians on their fundamental lies and to treat them not as statesmen-in-waiting, but as international pariahs.

Melanie Phillips..
JNS.org..
21 November '19..

The statement by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that Israel’s settlements “are not inconsistent with international law” has been predictably greeted with adulation by Israel’s defenders and denunciation by its enemies.

Both sides, however, are once again missing the elephant in the room—as the Trump administration itself is also doing.

In its own terms, the statement certainly should be warmly welcomed. It is a remarkable stand for the truth against the unanimous endorsement by the Western world of the big lie about Israel that has done so much to demonize and delegitimize it: the claim that its occupation of Palestinian territories and Israeli settlements there are illegal.

Every part of that claim—that Israel is in “occupation,” that the land it is “occupying” is “Palestinian territory,” and that Israel is acting illegally—is false.

Israel isn’t occupying the disputed territories because, under international law, only land that belongs to a sovereign state can ever be “occupied,” and the territory in question has never belonged to any sovereign country.

It has never been “Palestinian” territory because it has never belonged to the Palestinians—for the very good reason that there never was a Palestinian nation to which it could have belonged. Palestine was merely the name contemptuously given by the Romans to Judea when they conquered it and tried to erase its Jewish identity.

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