Allegation: If only Israel would not occupy the West Bank and Gaza There would be Peace
Counterargument: The Arabs went to war in 1948 before Israel gained control of Judea and Samaria (the occupied territories) with the goal of destroying her. If the conflict was all about the “occupied territories” then why did they go to war in 1948 when there were no occupied territories? The reason for the Arab Israel conflict is Muslim intolerance of Jews.
Verification: The argument that the goal of the Arabs in 1948 was the annihilation of Israel is verified by the statements of Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League, When the full-scale invasion of Israel's territory by the armies of the Arab States begain on 15 May, 1948, he declared: "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre, which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades." Palestinian TV and radio broadcasts demonstrate that hatred of Jews place a major role in the conflict in the Middle East (To see movie clips see Inciting to Genocide: PA Racism and Anti-Semitism)
Counterargument: Ephraim
Karsh in an article titled What
Occupation?[i] wrote:
“For most Western observers, the term "occupation" describes Israel's control of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, areas that it conquered during the Six-Day war of June 1967. But for many Palestinians and Arabs, the Israeli presence in these territories represents only the latest chapter in an uninterrupted story of "occupations" dating back to the very creation of Israel on "stolen" land. If you go looking for a book about Israel in the foremost Arab bookstore on London's Charing Cross Road, you will find it in the section labeled "Occupied Palestine."…
Verification:
Ephraim Karsh’s counterargument
that the Arabs consider all of Israel occupied is bourne out by their maps[ii]
(Figure 1).
Figure 1:
