2017
It’s the Occupation, Stupid! (If that is the answer, what is the question?)
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Hint: what do the alarming rise in anti-Jewish sentiment, the growing isolation and de-legitimization of Israel, the deepening despair of the Palestinians, and the threatening perversion of the Jewish future all have in common? THE CONTINUING RISE in anti-Jewish sentiment in countries around the world is of course shocking and disturbing. But is it altogether surprising? I first addressed this issue some forty years ago when undertaking my doctoral research on Israel’s rule over the West Bank during the early years of the Occupation. Here is a compressed version of what I observed in a pamphlet that was published in January 1977:While Israel continues to rule over the West Bank, there are bound to be ever more frequent and more intensive acts of resistance by a population that is feeling encroached upon by a spreading pattern of Jewish colonization and whose yearning for independence is no less than was that of the Palestinian Jews in the early months of 1948.