What Occupation?

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Commentary Magazine Efraim Karsh 2002 http://www.palestinefacts.org/what_occupation.html Abstract: Few subjects have been falsified so thoroughly as the recent history of the West Bank and Gaza. The history of Israel's So-called "Occupation" of Palestinian lands and the ways in which Palestinians and Arabs have distorted Israeli actions in the West Bank and Gaza are discussed. [.....] THE BRITISH proved to be prescient. Neither Egypt nor Jordan ever allowed Palestinian self-determination in Gaza and the West Bank-- which were, respectively, the parts of Palestine conquered by them during the 1948-49 war. Indeed, even UN Security Council Resolution 242, which after the Six-Day war of 1967 established the principle of "land for peace" as the cornerstone of future Arab-Israeli peace negotiations, did not envisage the creation of a Palestinian state. To the contrary since the Palestinians were still Not viewed as a distinct nation, it was assumed that any territories evacuated by Israel, would be returned to their pre-1967 Arab occupiers-Gaza to Egypt, and the West Bank to Jordan. The resolution did NOT even mention the Palestinians by name, affirming instead the necessity "for achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem"-a clause that applied not just to the Palestinians but to the hundreds of Thousands of Jews expelled from the Arab states following the 1948 war. At this time-we are speaking of the late 1960's-- Palestinian nationhood was rejected by the entire international community, including the Western democracies, the Soviet Union (the foremost supporter of radical Arabism), & the Arab world itself. "Moderate" Arab rulers like the Hashemites in Jordan viewed an independent Palestinian state as a mortal threat to their own kingdom, while the Saudis saw it as a potential source of extremism & instability. Pan-Arab nationalists were no less adamantly opposed, having their own purposes in mind for the region. As late as 1974, Syrian President Hafez alAssad openly referred to Palestine as "not only a part of the Arab homeland but a basic part of southern Syria"; there is no reason to think he had changed his mind by the time of his death in 2000. NOR, for that matter, did the populace of the West Bank and Gaza regard Itself as a distinct nation.." [...] Thus it happened that, at the end of the conflict, Israel unexpectedly found itself in control of some one million Palestinians, with no definite idea about their future status & lacking any concrete policy for their administration. [...] Israel's Restraint in this sphere-which turned out to be desperately misguided-is only part of the story. The larger part, still untold in all its detail, is of the Astounding social & economic progress made by the Palestinian Arabs under Israeli "Oppression." At the inception of the occupation, conditions in the territories were quite dire. Life expectancy was low; malnutrition, infectious diseases, and child mortality were rife; and the level of education was very poor. Prior to the 1967 war, fewer than 60% of all male adults had been employed, with unemployment among refugees running as high as 83%. Within a brief period after the war, Israeli Occupation had led to Dramatic improvements in general well-being, placing the population of the territories ahead of most of their Arab neighbors..." cont'd