Israel Being Called Occupiers: What's With this Occupier Business?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                       

 Hebron, the city 18 miles south of Jerusalem that Abraham bought from the Hittites where he and Sarah are buried, becoming a city of refuge for the Jews, now in the hands of Muslims.  In 1929, the Arabs massacred many Jews of the town of 700 and survivors fled.  30 Jewish families returned in 1931, but after Arab riots of 1936, Jews stayed away.  After 1967, some Jews again started and settled in Kiryat Arba quarter east of the city with population of 3,700 by 1988.  
           

Israel is constantly being called "Occupiers" by the Palestinians and I suppose everyone else against Jews and Israel.  I just watched a newscast interviewing a Palestinian lady who was an aid worker leaving through the Rafa gate, and that's what she called Israelis. 

                       Saul, first king of Israel and from the tribe of Benjamin,  selected by prophet Samuel at a time nations had kings and the Israelites wanted one, too.   

Israel was once an empire, started by King Saul in about 1030 BCE, then King David and his son, King Solomon to 920 BCE;   and Gaza was part of their empire.  As many empires do, they were overtaken by others;  the Romans in 70 CE. The last empire to hold the land was the Ottoman Empire who held land for 400 years up to World War I when they lost the land by 1917  because they were on the Axis side along with Germany.  

                    Palestine was full of British soldiers from 1918 on when they held the 30 year mandate.  You could say that they occupied the land for 30 years.  They even arrested my cousin, Stanley Goldfoot, reporter.  

From there the land was in the hands of the Allies which meant that Great Britain held a 30 year mandate on the land.  During that time, the League of Nations decided through a lot of mediating that it was time to create the Jewish Homeland, and the Brits were in charge and the United Nations also agreed to it,  for the 30 years that were up by May 14, 1948 when Israel was created once again.

The date was met 5 minutes after announcement with attacks from the Arabs led by  Haj Amin al- Husseini, who was not the leader at the time.  Arabs were led by Emir Feisal who had agreed with Chaim Weizmann in Paris at the meetings about an Israel being created.  Feisal went on to become the President of Iraq and the President of Syria, so he did well.                

Abdullah I, in full ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥusayn, (born 1882, Mecca—died July 20, 1951, Jerusalem), statesman who became the first ruler (1946–51) of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.  Born in Saudi Arabia, Abdullah, the second son of Hussein ibn Ali, the ruler of the Hejaz, was educated in Istanbul in what was then the Ottoman Empire.

IDF paratroopers seeing the Wall in Jerusalem for first time in their life 1967; kept away by Jordan.    

In this period, Transjordan became Jordan and was given most of the Jewish Homeland.  The Jews lost 80% of their land in that give-away, but it met that Jordan held the land up until 1967 when they lost it to Israel in the battle.  Yes, it is like a ping pong game of sorts. What used to be Jewish land in the first place was again in their hands.                                  

Then in 2004, things being as they were, the Israeli government moved Jews out of Gaza, which was part of this Jordan-held land gained back again, and allowed Palestinian Arabs to move in.  They left their businesses for the Arabs;  everything.  They only kept the right of being able to guard Gaza against the possibility of attacking the Jewish country of Israel whose border was now shared.

So this is called "the Occupiers"  Those occupying Gaza are the Palestinian Arabs, who immediately voted in, with Obama's urging of having to vote for the first time in their lives, their own political system, and they voted in Hamas, the army-side of Fatah who had sprouted political leanings.  Fatah out--Hamas in and it has been this way ever since.                          

All their money that they have received from their Arab friends has been spent for tunnels;  not all the necessities for their people. That isn't Israel's fault.  It's Hamas.  Hamas is their leader.  

Who has paid for their electricity and water?  Mostly Israel, and Palestinians are always in default.  They never pay up their bill.  At least that's the way it was back in the early 2000's. 

Even having the right to protect themselves from Gaza hadn't helped by October 7th, 2023, three weeks ago.  Israel thought their security was in order.  The government was watching for Hezbollah to attack out of Lebanon, instead.  Now they know, Gaza and Hamas are the worst;  the very worst,  even though Palestinians entered every day to work in Israel and there had been no problem.  Of course there have always been problems as close to Sderot and the Jewish hospital in Ashkelon, receiving rocket attacks almost every day, but Israelis were acclimating to it, unfortunately and so was the government, I'm afraid. oc·cu·pi·er

/ˈäkyəˌpīər/

noun

plural noun: occupiers

1. 1.

   BRITISH

   a person or company residing in or using a property as its owner or tenant, or (illegally) as a squatter.
2. 2.

   a member of a group that takes possession of a country by force.

   "the occupiers were reported to have rounded up civilians and carried them off to unknown fates"

The last word in the dictionary that defines Israel's position with Gaza is an Occupier.  Were there the IDF stationed in Gaza watching every person make every movement every day?  No, but that's what happened to Judah (southern part of ancient Israel) when the Romans actually did occupy Jerusalem for almost 100 years before the burned it all down, starving the inhabitants before torching the Temple. This was all recorded by Josephus for the Romans, by the way.   Jews have been through that experience, and it isn't something they'd wish on their worst enemy....  

       This was Gaza, before they started attacking Israel.  

I daresay that the worst mistake Israel has made in their 75 years of existence so far is to have given up Gaza to Arafat's people, Fatah who lost it to Hamas.  Nobody wants peace more than the Israelis do, but they're not willing to give any more of the 10% of their original promise of land that they ended up with to people who won't become peaceful in the first place.  

Resource:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_disengagement_from_Gaza

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia 

  Sarit Zehavi  agreed with me.  There has been no occupation.  Since 2005 Israelis moved out and Palestinians moved in, then voted in Hamas.