The “Occupation Lie” is based upon an incorrect interpretation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention that prohibits “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.” The use of Article 49 is entirely wrong because the Jewish people are not occupying their indigenous land and nation state.
The notion of “Occupation” spread by the Palestinian Arab narrative is the foundation upon which all other lies about Israel are based.
In fact, the name ‘Palestina’ and its modern version “Palestine”, was created not by Arabs, but by the Roman Emperor Hadrian who, following a failed Jewish revolt in AD 135, expelled the Jews from Jerusalem and changed the name of the region from Judea (origins of the term ‘Jew’) to ‘Palestina’, after the enemies of the Israelites, the ancient Philistines. “Palestine” became another name for Eretz Yisroel (Israel), and not a name for the future Arab settlers of the land.
Today, the Arab population that settled in Israel thousands of years later and from the surrounding areas of modern day Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan and Yemen, has usurped the name ‘Palestine’. The Arab narrative uses the term ‘settlement’ to refer strictly to the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria (also referred to as West Bank).
For example, Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and first head of the Palestinian Authority was born in Egypt, and the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs originate from surrounding Arab states as attested to by their surnames.
The surname ‘El Masry’ is ranked as the 3rd most popular among “Palestinians” and is, in fact, Egyptian. Similarly, ‘Al Majar’ is a surname ranked 2nd in “Palestine”, yet is from Saudi Arabia. Lastly, the number one ranked surname in “Palestine” is ‘Awad’, a surname originating from, and still popular in Sudan.
Of course, this factual information is never shared and remains unknown by the vast majority of the public. And yet this information directly contradicts the claim that Palestinian Arabs are indigenous to the land, claiming that the Jews are the occupiers. The very underpinning of the argument against Israel’s right to exist rests upon that the Jews are not the rightful owners of the Land of Israel, a people who have simply returned home.