Before Israel occupied parts of Gaza or the West Bank, Egypt and Transjordan respectively captured Gaza and the West Bank. In 1948, when Egypt led the invasion into Israel, and once a cease fire was called, every group had land but the Palestinians, and the land the UN had proposed to the Palestinians was now full of Egyptians and Jordanians.

And this was not a year or two international management of territory.

Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip for eleven years from the end of the war in 1948 until it withdrew in 1959. A full occupation.

Transjordan held on even longer. After they annexed the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1948, they held it as part of Transjordan for nineteen years. Jerusalem was supposed to be an international city for all faiths to visit. Instead, during this time, Jordan barred Jews from visiting the Western Wall, arguably the holiest site in Judaism. Who knows how much longer they would have kept it? They lost it in the 1967 War to Israel.

Every Arab country from Egypt to Iraq to Iran wanted to lead a Pan-Arabic Bloc. They are using the conflict for their own interests and don’t care about Palestinian statehood.

A reminder: Deligitimizing Jewish or Palestinian connections to the homeland is a bad look. Peace is the right look. Let’s focus on that.