More than semantics

With regard to “End ‘occupation’” (Editorial, April 23), why is there a blind spot in the minds of our politicians and media when it comes to the League of Nations and United Nations Mandate for Palestine?

Once again, you write: “In any event, the status of the West Bank was never properly sorted out.” Indeed it was. The Mandate for Palestine made it clear that all of the West Bank was part of the land set aside for the Jewish people, and sovereignty belongs to Israel. All attempts to claim the terms of the mandate are no longer applicable because of later UN resolutions must be ignored, as none of these resolutions were binding.

Let us get this clear: The land from the river to the sea is Jewish land. It’s about time our government and our judiciary made the Mandate for Palestine the core of our right to the land and incorporate teaching it into our educational system. EDMUND JONAH Rishon Lezion

I was pleased to read your editorial on the absurdity of the use of “occupation” in regard to Israeli control of the West Bank.

For many years, I have been advocating that each time this word is used in regard to Israel, it should be forcefully refuted by the facts. It is the use of words like this, dropped innocently into the conversation, that have helped promote the “Palestinian” narrative.

This leads me to question why you chose to describe the events of 1948 as when “the War of Independence broke out .... ” It is essential when referring to 1948 to distinguish between a war simply breaking out and the Palestine Arabs, with other Arab countries, attacking the nascent Israeli state after having refused land offered for a state of their own. Only by doing this can one negate another ridiculous word used so often and so inappropriately: nakba. This is the Arabic term for disaster and the word Arabs use for the creation of Israel.

The disaster was the one suffered by Israel, forced into an existential war and losing 6,000 soldiers and civilians to the enmity and intransigence of the Arabs. BARBARA BROWN Netanya

You must be commended for your editorial. However, you must go one step further and cease using the term “Palestinians” or “Palestinian people,” as there are no such entities.

Your review of history from Churchill’s White Paper of 1922 through Jordan’s relinquishing claims to the West Bank in 1988 mentions “a Jewish national homeland ‘in Palestine...’” and that the UN Partition Plan of 1947 mentions “both an Arab and a Jewish state.” So there was an entity called Palestine that consisted of Palestinian residents, among them Palestinian Jews and Palestinian Arabs.

You also state that Jordan “recognized the Palestine Liberation Organization as the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people” – and therein lies the falsehood that the world, and The Jerusalem Post, have swallowed hook, line and sinker.

The so-called Palestinian people was created in 1988 by Jordan, at least according to your review of history. The term should, at the least, be qualified as “Palestinian Arabs.”

The Bible foresaw such “fake news.” Deuteronomy 32:21 states: “They provoked Me with a non-god, angered Me with their vanities; so shall I provoke them with a non-people, with a vile nation shall I anger them.” Is there any better description of the “Palestinian (non) people?” AVRAHAM FRIEDMAN Ganei Modi’in

Kudos on an excellent editorial, which perfectly sums up the matter of whether or not the term “occupied” applies to the West Bank. Further, as you correctly point out, the “Palestinians” could have had a state in 1947 or 1967 but did not choose this because of “Palestinian and Arab intransigence” rather than any Israeli occupation.

I am very glad that the US State Department will no longer occupy itself with the term “occupation” in connection with West Bank. JOEL BLOCK

Haifa

Your April 22 report “State Department report drops ‘occupied’ reference to Palestinian territories” is good news. But when will the US and its diplomats stop referring to these disputed territories as “Palestinian”? Or is it The Jerusalem Post that persists in using this erroneous term?

Before Israel became an independent state in 1948, the term “Palestinian” could refer to any inhabitant of the area, be he or she an Arab or a Jew. But since the Arabs have appropriated that name for themselves only, it is necessary for us to be clear that these territories are disputed.

The Jewish claim to them is at least as valid as anyone else’s – and, I would argue, more valid, and with more legal basis. MENDL MALKIN Toronto