A nation can only be an “occupier” of another state’s sovereign land. There never was a “Palestinian state.” Ever. Hence, it is impossible for Israel to be an “occupier” of “Palestinian” Arab land. The land in question was designated for the Jewish homeland under the 1922 Mandate, confirmed by the 1946 UN Charter, and under the Anglo-American Convention and other international treaties. Nonetheless, Jordan illegally seized Judea/Samaria and the eastern portion of Jerusalem in the 1948-1949 Arab war to destroy Israel.

Jordan illegally occupied these areas for the next 19 years. During that time, Jordan killed and expelled the Jews who had lived in eastern Jerusalem for centuries; destroyed 58 synagogues; violated the armistice agreements by refusing to allow Jews any access to holy Jewish religious sites; and used thousands-of-years-old Jewish gravestones to line latrines. Jordanian snipers perched in eastern Jerusalem hills to shoot at Jewish children in the western part of Jerusalem. Israel recaptured Judea/Samaria and the eastern portion of Jerusalem in a defensive war in 1967.

And numerous polls show that the Israeli public overwhelmingly supports the presence of the Jewish communities in Judea/Samaria, and opposes creating a Palestinian-Arab state there, by as much as a 10-to-one margin.

The hateful IfNotNow group usurped its name from a famous maxim by the great Talmudic teacher Hillel. Ironically, Hillel studied and established his school in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago – on the very same land from which today’s IfNotNow seeks to expel the Jewish people. Hillel taught that the Temple Mount in Jerusalem was “the place that my heart loves. There do my feet lead me.” IfNotNow and its “end the occupation” candidates should heed another Hillel maxim: “Go and study.”