There is NO ILLEGAL OCCUPATION. This lie has gone on long enough. Admit the government made a mistake and move forward. Start by translating the full Levy Report into English and destribute it to the world.

Israel has long had incontrovertible legal proof, from many world leading international law experts, that Judea and Samaria belong to Israel. Why does Israel hide the proof? IT would be so simple to serve it on the U.N. Send copies to all world governments, media, religious institutions etc. This would not win over our enemies. However, it would strengthen our position greatly and encourage our friends. It would cost practically nothing.

It won't work. You can't fool the world. What is your plan B???

If the government decides to waste my tax dollars on a propaganda campaign for the settlements, in addition to the taxes that are already going to the settlements rather than the poor neighborhoods in Israel, then I'll start a blog counteracting the message. I'll use all the tricks to be a top hit-getting blog about the illegitimacy of the settlements and the government and their losing cause will be exposed again...

Now that we have a Ministry of Public Diplomacy, the official language of which is undoubtedly "doublespeak", we can replace Theodor Herzl with George Orwell.

is country to keep territory it occupied in defensive war? No. Article 2 of the UN Charter makes this very clear: “All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.” The next paragraph reads: “All [UN] Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.” In its ruling on Israel’s Wall in 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) repeatedly affirmed the inadmissibility of territorial conquest, emphasizing, “No territorial acquisition resulting from the threat or use of force shall be recognized as legal.” The Court also averred that this principle reflected customary international law, as previously asserted in a 1986 ICJ case between Nicaragua and the United States. Thus, even were there consensus that the war in 1967 had been a “defensive war” from Israel’s standpoint, UN Charter principles and customary international law prohibit Israel from continuing to hold territory occupied during that war. Being indefensible doesn't breach the UN charter or the international law, but holding land acquired in self-defensive war DOES.

Peace Now Director Yariv Oppenheimer is just passing the wind.

To make this simple for the people who just dont get it. Arabs are from Arabia Jews are from Judea and will always live there!!!

will hide the fact that, that settlers attacked Christian Holy Places in Israel, and have still not been arrested charged or convicted

Some people starve in Israel. Some people are jobless in Israel. Students struggle to live in Israel. Israel more expensive than Europe or USA And Israel only think to support its illegal ugly violent Jewish settlers

The government by refusing to clamp down on the worse exceses of the settlers and the hilltop youth in particular has given legitimacy to the anti settler movement. And by allowing this legitimacy it has made it a vote winner to call for boycotts of settler products rather than a vote loser. Hopefully this will be the wakeup call for normal decent Israelis who will, at election time put pressure on our politicians to clamp down on the entire settler enterprise. When we have Holocaust survivors searching through bins for food, in Israel proper, questions must be asked about how money is being spent by the government. The Haredi and the Settlers are an existential threat to Israel, if you don't see that that is probably because you benefit economically as a Haredi or a settler to the current policies of this government

what we REALLY need is for Israel's Ambassador to the UN to get up on the podium and read to the representatives of the entire world the first Rashi on the Torah: "Rav Yitzchak states that the Torah should have begun with "This month is for you..." [Shmos Chapter 12] (the first commandment, which involves the establishment of the holiday cycles on a lunar basis). Why did the Torah begin with the narration of creation? Because "The power of His works He declared to His people in giving them the inheritance of the nations" (Tehilim 111:6). For if the nations of the world should say to Israel: "You are robbers, because you have seized by force the lands of the seven nations of Canaan, they could say to them "The entire world belongs to the Holy One Blessed be He, He created it and gave it to whomever it was right in His eyes. Of His own will He gave it to them and of His own will He took it from them and gave it to us." This is our proof!

You are not 'observing " too well.Article 2 mandates,i.e. "shall," for the peaceful means of settling disputes.BUT the Arab world,including the people, news media and government reps are constantly threatening the Jewish State and issuing anti-Semitic garbage.Note, the aggressive wars against Israel in 1948,1956,1967,1970, 1973 and the "cold" war from the moment the peace treaty was signed between the Jewish State and Egypt. The principle of keeping land acquired in a defensive war is well established in international law. Whether or not such land may be kept is another issue.The Sinai was returned to Egypt; the anti-terrorist forces of Egypt were permitted by Israel to enter the Sinai,despite the peace treaties limitations of such military forces, and tourism,although down in view of the presence of terror groups in the Sinai, have introduced the confidence needed to sustain peace between neighbors.

so can you tell me why 50% of palestinians were till 19th century still christian? can you tell me why those "arabs" gave their villages judeo-aramaic names? can you tell me why palestinian folclore, clothes etc. are totaly different than arabian? can you tell me why morrocan jews look morrocan? why ashkenazi look eastern/south european? why indian jews look indian? chinese jews look chinese? ethiopian jews look ethiopian? why yemeni jews look yemeni? israel was never an empty land, it was always populated by the local people, faiths changed, but the people stayed. get over it

the only people that see settlement legal are jews. No matter how much perfume israel put on the occupation the world will still smell the shit.

You seemed to have missed a couple of points in your summary of the groups that lived in what the Romans called Palestine during the two major Jewish revolts against them: the Jews always had the land of Israel uppermost in their minds,particularly during their prayers, and the land was never without its Jews,despite invasions by Assyrians,Babylonians, Persians,Greeks, Romans,Byzantines, Crusaders,Ottomans and British.

#1 There were plenty of Christians across the Middle-East back in the day, including in nearby provinces of the Ottoman Empire - Egypt, Syria, and current-day Lebanon. This large Christian population can be easily attributed to regional rulers (Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, and so on). Some of this religious spread was due to conversion, other aspects of it were due to conquests and population shifts due to imperial interests. What *is* historically reasonable is that the Roman Empire and many subsequent rulers saw fit to forcibly expel large swathes of the Jewish populace of the time, and in the case of the Greek and Roman eras - they also saw fit to bring in settlers more suitable to their tastes. #2 Most of those villages and sites were historic biblical places, with historical biblical names. And the Christian rulers and populace (which, as I have noted, need not have been of the original inhabitants) often saw fit to emulate Hebrew names. When current-day Palestinians say that Jews have nothing to do with Israel and yet live in villages whose names go back 2600 years, it is amusing at best, and mostly propaganda. #3 There is no "Arabic" people, as such, other than in the Arabian Peninsula. And even among actual Arabs, customs vary per tribal chain. What *can* be noted is consistency of Palestinian customs with people in current-day Syria and Jordan. Who aren't really Arabs either, not in the cultural sense of the word, beyond the local definition of modern "Arabism" as a language/Islam regional nationalist identity. There may very will exist an overlap of origins between some Palestinians and current-day Jews (some Palestinian extended families have very Jewish-sounding names, others quite clearly indicate that they used to be Jews once, and some older customs still remain in effect), but there is also a large population that came here throughout modern (AKA last 2000 years) history. #4 These Jews you mention decidedly do *not* look exactly like the people they lived among, and there were some basic identifying aspects (the big-nosed Jew is one infamous example), and should also account for intermarriage (Jews accepted converts, even though locals often objected to such "treason"), and rape (Jews were second or even third-rate citizens in many places, with all that entailed), and in terms of basic natural selection, the ones who could hide their appearance of otherness at the worst of pogroms and persecutions were the ones who lived longer. In short, maybe the land wasn't empty. But much of it decidedly *was* ethnically cleansed and resettled over several centuries, be it by Greek empires, the Roman Empire, the Christian Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Muslim empires, the Crusaders... Jews in disparate locations, in contrast, maintained a coherent core of tradition, language, and beliefs. Genetic studies affirm these ties to be beyond mere religion. And that's that.

they deserve our highest respect and our FULL SUPPORT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stop the lies! Stop the DECEPTION! There NEVER was an Arab country of Palestine! Jerusalem was NEVER the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity! Am Yisrael Chai!

nope - no proof at all . And a new genetic study out of Johns Hopkins... no slouches.... basically proves the Ashkenazi are Khazars. You have no claim of right, or right of title, outside an apart from your self-serving myths and racialism.

1. the land was never empty 2. there is a clear continuity of population in the land. and your atempt of finding some reasons to lable those people as egyptians, and whatever makes no sense. i suggest you to read more history books on arab language christians. there were few migrations of christians in the levant: from orontes river to lebanon in 18th century. migration of christians from northern mesopotamia to central mesopotamia in 16th century. migration of palestinian christians to latin america in 19th century. there was nearly zero migration to "palestine/israel" due its lack of agriculturaly usable lands, lack of big cities for a stable administration. real arabs are bedouin tribes of yemen, northern arabia, hejaz and so on. egyptians adopted arabic as language in the 10th century when number of conversions rised. aramaic lost its role in palestine, syria first among muslim converts, later also among christians, samaritians. judaism accepted conversion of whole tribes, cities, states under the pretext of creating a new genealogy. kingdom of yemen converted to judaism for a while, later to christianity, same happend to berber/amazigh tribes, khazars. ashkenazi jews are more related to levantine semites due their origins of jewish merchant males who married local women. while sephardic, mizrahi jews have less conection to levante. get over it dude. the "ethnicaly" orginal jews are those guys you kicked out of their land. those people you beat up in the streets and who dont accept their destiny, despite ressisting a nuclear power with total support of the western world

Why is the Press always calling them Israeli SETTLERS when the real name should be LAND THIEVES or LAND ROBBERS?

The International Court of Justice has ruled that the settlements/colonies are illegal - they are a war crime. Stop the ethnic cleansing and apartheid in Palestine and learn how to live with your neighbours

A PR campaign is a PR campaign: no one will be fooled. There is only one way to reverse the delegitimization of Israel: abandon the illegitimate settlements and regain legitimacy.