Church Leaders Against the “Occupation”

Apparently, they have it all backwards. It’s the Palestinians who are illegally occupying Israeli land. This from Abdul Jalil Mustafa for Arab News ;

AMMAN, 22 June 2007 - More than 130 Church leaders representing 550 million Christians worldwide yesterday ended a conference in Jordan by calling for an end to Israel’s “illegal occupation” of Palestinian territories.

The three-day meeting, held under the auspices of the World Council of Churches (WCC) endorsed the central committee’s decision to launch the “Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum.”

The forum seeks to “catalyze and coordinate new and existing church advocacy for peace aimed at ending the illegal occupation in accordance with UN resolutions, and demonstrate its commitment to inter-religious action for pace (sic) peace and justice that serves all the people of the region,” a WCC statement said.

“Churches have woken up to the issues in the Middle East like never been before. Another time we woke up is when we fought apartheid in Africa. This is another apartheid,” WCC General Secretary Samuel Kobia told reporters. “The WCC core group will reconvene before late September to begin making appeals for immediate action,” he said.

In their “urgent plea,” which stresses the UN resolutions are the basis for peace, the church clerics and affiliated associations vowed to take action as a united front. The document expressed support for the Palestinian self-determination, described the Jewish settlements in Palestinian territories as “illegal and an obstacle to peace” and dubbed the separation barrier built by Israel as “a grave breach of international law.”

So often, prejudice gets in the way of the facts. It is impossible to refer to Israel as an occupier of Palestinian lands...if there is no such thing as Palestinian territories. Before Israel’s capture of the so called territories in 1967, they belonged to Syria, Egypt and Jordan. There was no Palestine of the Palestinians. It was under the British Mandate until partition in 1948. The Arabs rejected the partition and declared war.

Before the British were the Turks and so many others all the way back to the Kingdom of Judea; destroyed by the Romans nearly 2000 years ago. During this entire period, the said land was never under Palestinian rule. Never. In fact, before 1967, when Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip, they were never considered occupiers of Palestinian land. The Jordanians were never considered occupiers of the West Bank. There was no occupation because it was not under the rule of the Palestinians.

The lands were only considered occupied once the Jews took charge. Now that became just a bit too much for everybody.

Fact: there never was a Palestine ruled by Palestinians. Therefore, no country can ever be accused of occupying Palestinian territory. There simply is no such thing.

And what’s with the comparison to apartheid?

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Crossposted to Dhimmi Watch