Occupation

Dear Drs. West and Zogby,

Thank you for your magnificent job in trying to convince your fellow platform writers to embrace a more balanced approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unfortunately, your arguments did not persuade your fellow committee members and the national security of both Israel and the U.S. are endangered by their failure to heed your advice.  While your questions were powerful and accurate, there were a number of points that you did not raise that should be considered when deciding whether to acknowledge that Palestinians live under occupation. I therefore provide the following analysis in the hopes that it will help you convince your fellow platform committee members to modify the current draft recommendations on Israel and Palestine and to take a more balanced approach.  

Israel and the U.S. are at odds over two issues--how to deal with Iran's nuclear program and Israel's occupation of the West Bank.  Below are key events that every American should know in order to understand how we got here.  Of course, this list is incomplete--one could write a several hundred page book on these topics.  And Israel's defenders will no doubt come up with a list just as long defending Israel's actions and highlighting the evil deeds of Iranians and Palestinians.

Write something critical about Israel and you are almost guaranteed that an Israeli apologist will say, "Why are you attacking Israel when all the Arab/Muslim countries surrounding it are so much worse?" They are likely to follow up that since you are focusing your criticism on Israel--the only Jewish nation in the world instead of focusing on countries like Saudi Arabia or Iran or terrorist groups like Hamas or ISIS, you must be an anti-Semite. This attack is used so often because it is one of the most effective tools a hasbarist has to discredit Israel's critics.

Those who want to build, build, build settlements in the West Bank and jeopardize any chance of Palestinians having a reasonably contiguous viable state--those who are just fine with forcing Palestinians to live under martial law in the West Bank--those who see nothing immoral with throwing Palestinians out of their homes and off their land, are desperate to deny that Palestinians have any claim to the land.  I want to address two of their biggest talking points in this post.  Before I discuss these issues I want you to watch the following video exchang