Accusing Israel of 70 years of occupation — meaning, from the moment of its birth — is to deny Israel’s right to exist. Israel recently celebrated 70 years since it declared independence on May 14, 1948, on the basis of the November 29, 1947 UN partition resolution (A/RES/181(II)) that called for Jewish and Arab states to succeed the British Mandate in Palestine. Israel was admitted a year later to the United Nations as a member state.
While the Jewish people had accepted the UN partition plan, the Arab side rejected it. Palestinian Arabs launched a war against the Jewish community with the stated aim of destroying the nascent Jewish state. On May 15, 1948, when the British withdrew, the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq joined the war against Israel. The conflict ended in January 1949 with armistice agreements signed between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. When the United Nations admitted Israel as a member state several months later, it was within those internationally recognized armistice lines. Arabs living in Israel were granted Israeli citizenship.
