A great deal of conventional wisdom—inside Israel and outside it—holds that the country’s most serious problems are due to its “occupation” of Palestinian territories. As Stephen Flatow points out, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has itself admitted that this term no longer applies:
The PA recently submitted a request to UNESCO to recognize the city of Jericho as a “Palestinian heritage site.” In its description of the history of the region, the PA’s request refers to “the time of Israeli Occupation (1967–1994).” Thus, the PA has acknowledged, in writing, that Israel’s occupation there ended in 1994.
The same phrase appears in another PA–UN document. . . . The [2008] report surveyed the history of tax collection in the area, so it was forced to acknowledge the changes between the years that Israel occupied Palestinian Arab cities and the years after the occupation ended. Thus, on page 49, we find Section 6.1, which is titled “Taxes in the occupied Palestinian territory–Israeli Occupation (1967–1994).”
Of course, anybody who visits any city in the PA-governed territories can see with his own eyes that there are no Israeli soldiers. No Israeli military governor. No Israeli military administration. Prime Minister Yitzḥak Rabin withdrew them all, three decades ago.
Thanks to Rabin’s solution, it is the Palestinian Authority, not Israel, that occupies 98 percent of the Palestinian Arabs. The streets of their cities are policed by the Palestinian security forces. Palestinian principals and teachers run the schools. The courts have Palestinian judges. . . . Pretty much the only thing the Palestinian Authority can’t do is import tanks, planes, Iranian “volunteers,” or North Korean missiles.
Read more on Jerusalem Post: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-761124