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Refute Palestinian Lies to Promote Mideast Peace
(Wall Street Journal) Max Singer - Despite widespread use of the term, there is no such thing as "occupied Palestinian territory" because there has never been a Palestinian territory to occupy. As some Palestinians point out, they have never had a state of their own. This is far more than a game of semantics. If the land was Palestinian, then Israel could have stolen it. If the land isn't Palestinian, then Israel couldn't have stolen it. It's critical that the U.S. actively combat the falsehood that Israel exists on stolen Palestinian land. The Palestinians not only claim that all the land is theirs, they also deny any Jewish connection to it. During the failed Camp David talks in 2000, PA President Yasser Arafat stunned President Clinton by asserting the Jews had no connection to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the place where the first and second Jewish temples stood. Ancient Israel is a historical fact, founded by King David in the 10th century BCE. Even during the exile there was a continuous small Jewish presence in the Land of Israel. The U.S. should demand that Palestinian leaders recognize the Jewish connection to the land, no less than Israelis recognize the Palestinian presence and demand for statehood. The denial of Jewish history leads to the denial of Israel's right to exist. So long as this continues, it is the Palestinians, not the Israelis, who are refusing to accept a two-state solution - and the U.S. should say so. The writer, a founder and former president of the Hudson Institute, is a senior fellow of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University.